Garage Heroes In Training

GHiT 0573:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 3 Pedal Mafia Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We were joined by several members of the National Championship winning racing team, the Three Pedal Mafia.   You all know them, they are the team we always refer to as our sister team and they refer to us as "Who".   Jeff, Jim, and Eric drove with...

DwD 0572:   How to Learn a Track As Quickly As Possible Bill is about to compete in the One Lap of America and will be visiting most of the tracks for the first time.   Ben discusses several ways to learn a track more quickly and may be helpful for you at your next new to you track day.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/LearnATrackFast   We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would l...

GHiT 0571:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 2 Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We were joined by the famous Slippery Slope racing team and shared a garage together.   The drove their 1991 E34 5 series BMW in class A and made a great showing with much progress over their first year of endurance racing.   We talk with Audra, Max, Larry, an...

GHiT 0570:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 1 Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We had a large team and we over did our theming effort this time.   The race was fantastic, until it wasn't, but we made lemonade out of it in the end.   Good racing Saturday was followed by some race ending issues, but we did end up taking home a bit of hardw...

GHiT 0568:   Tom Lomino Was Long Overdue Racing with Tom Lomino has been racing with us since we started and long before we arrived.   He has a predisposition for VW's and has raced a few since he started with great success and sometimes with great struggles.   We review Tom's racing history, his VW successes and struggles, and many of the various escapades Tom has been involved with since he bega...

DwD 0569:   How to Pass a Faster/More Powerful Car On Track An article by Randy Pobst in Grassroots Motorsports magazine stirred up this bit of conversation related to passing fast and more powerful cars on track.   While this may initially seem to be impossible, it usually the only way we are able to pass cars on track, lol A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/PassingFasterCars We hope y...

DwD 0567:   Gripping your Steering Wheel We discuss the best way to grip a steering wheel and hand position with a bit more related topics.   This may be one of the few times where more is not better.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/HulkNoSmash We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing: You can subscribe to ou...

GHiT 0566:   Elizabeth Jolly – Lap 3, Plus a New Plan for Vicki It had been too long since we had Elizabeth Jolly on the podcast.   She was at our first ever All Ladies team endurance race at Thompson and has learned a considerable amount as a driver, a racer, and as a mechanic for her race cars.   She has progressed her driving to securing her SCCA racing license and competes in her Spec E30 BMW....

DwD 0565:   Car Setup Targets What is faster, setting up a car as fast as it can be or setting it up to maximize driver comfort with the car performance.   This gets even more complicated when dealing with a team of drivers for an endurance race.   Ben discusses this and provides a few examples of what to do and what will give the best performance for a given race.   Did we miss something?   Do yo...

  GHiT 0564:   Johan Schwartz – All About Racing and Car Control We loved our car control clinic at CMP a few weeks ago and Johan Schwartz was kind enough to come onto the podcast this week.   During the episode, we talk about a lot of Johan's past and how he has progressed to this point in his racing career.   We also talk about his car control clinic which was very helpful to us and well worth t...

DwD 0563:   Proper Preseason Preparation Performed Perfectly With the season rapidly approaching, we wanted to go over some tips to prepare you and your team for the first event.   The reduction in stress from beign prepared can actually make you perform better and safer.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/ProperPrep   We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would like to help grow our...

GHiT 0562:   Racing Subarus the Best way with Dewey Dewitt Dewey Dewitt, fresh off his 2023 Time Attack Championship with GridLife, joins us to go into the details for properly racing and preparing Subaru's for racing and track use.   We focus on addressing basic upgrades to protect the car during high performance driving.   Then look at potential performance upgrades and the potential implication...

  GHiT 0561:   Recap of our Car Control Clinic at CMP At long last, Vicki's Christmas training gift was here.   We attended a Car Control Clinic at CMP's skid pad with Johan Schwartz.   Vicki and Bill both grew as drivers and improved their car control, car recovery, and even a bit of drifting was had. A great event that we try to summarize for you.   If you can attend one of Johan's events, you d...

DwD 0560:   What Not to Do Before Going on Track for the First Time There are several things that can affect your starting up driving on track or autocrossing.   In this episode, we go over many of the things that you should not wait far.   Its almost a Jeff Foxworthy skit episode but in reverse. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/WhatNotToWaitFor We hope you enjoy this episode! If you...

GHiT 0559:   Trailer and Towing – Part 2 We start off with a quick review of some listener feedback.   Apparently, some of our listeners have created some pretty amazing trailer and towing setups and we would love to see them and share with everyone.   We would love nothing better than to help prevent any accidents, or even close calls, and hopefully improve everyone's trailer and towing game to t...

DwD 0558:   Listener Question:   What is the difference between a "better" driver and a "faster" driver In an earlier podcast, we talked about how Bill is looking to become a faster driver as opposed to becoming a better driver.   A few listeners have written in and asked why he said that and if they are the same.   While we agree with trying to improve as a driver and getting faster, they can oft...

GHiT 0557:   Scott Robertson on Racing Car Setups and Optimized Data Interpretation Scott Robertson is the co-host of the Track Walking podcast and team member of Robertson Racing.   With Scott hosting an upcoming webinar on data interpretation, we couldn't pass up the chance to talk with him ahead of time.   While we hate to impose on fellow podcasters to come on our podcast, every time we talk w...

GHiT 0556:   Rally Master Jeff returns to Review the Virginia is for Clunkers Rally and Preview the upcoming Route 66 Rally Jeff Stobbs, Lemons resident Rally Master, returns to review the recent Virginia is for Clunkers rally and all the goings on for the first rally to occur in a single state.   Several great entries and several teams are still missing in action. Then we shift over to the upcomi...

DwD 0555:   Listener Feedback on Towing and Best Pizza We received a bunch of emails and comments related to our Pizza episode and our Towing episode part 1.   Ben loves nothing more than passing everyone, but number two may be listener feedback.   So, we made a number two episode.   I should probably rephrase that.   Oh no, too late, its posted.   Lol. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.co...

GHiT 0554:   Waka Motorsports with Rich Russo We were instant fans of the Waka Motorsports YouTube channel and first met Rich Russo and teammates at NJMP and then Thompson on their initial scouting trips to Lemons racing.   They race an almost identical car to our Honda Civic and have had quite a few stories in such a short time.   We also talk about the upcoming karting contest between our two te...

DwD 0553:   Brakes:   Rotors, Pads, and Bleeding We have already gone deep into the area of brakes, brake pads, fluid etc. with Wendy from Porterfield's a few years ago but we thought that it may be beneficial to go into the maintenance and replacement of these components and options that you have to replace and service the braking system.     A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/BrakesPa...

GHiT 0552:   Anthony Magagnoli – Record Setting Racing Driver Anthony Magagnoli is a unique combination of racing driver, racing coach, and working for various OEMs on vehicle dynamics and set up.   In addition, he runs and owns a coaching service that focuses on improving driver's performance centered near Michigan.   Having set several track records, including at Mid-Ohio, we couldn't pass up th...

DwD 0551:   Arrive and Drive – The Hardcore Way Taking a note from the Mighty Car Mods YouTube channel, we take a stab at what we would do for a heroic arrive and drive.   On their episode they entered a 24 hour endurance race in another country by building their race car from scratch after they arrived.   We decided that sounded like a challenge, so we begin planning how we would do the same.   D...

GHiT 0550:   Celebration with Ross Bentley Helping Our Team Drivers Improve - Santa Style Ross Bentley returns to help celebrate our 550 th episode.   Ross indulges us in helping refine Vicki's racing improvement plan for the upcoming season and then helps each of our drivers refine their driver goals and plans for 2024.   Since each of our drivers is at a different point in their driving/racing j...

GHiT 0549:   ST-4 with Griffin Gamcsik-Uly Griffin Gamcsik-Uly is the Super Touring Director and races in the ST-4 group with NASA Northeast.   During this episode, we finally start to break down the various run groups in wheel to wheel (ST) and time trials (TT) as well as what the numbers mean in terms of cars and performance.   It turns out that Bill may actually have a car ready to compete in S...