The Avants Podcast

This week we talk to Andrew Norman, Financial Advisor & Managing Director of Colibri Capital, and a great supporter of Avants and keeping the car community moving forward. From his days as a thug at Exotics at Redmond Town Center to racing Ferrari Challenge cars and now sponsoring Indy driver Benjamin Pedersen, Andrew is a guy who truly supports the sport and the community.

We welcome Dominic Dobson back to the show to catch up and talk about his upcoming journey back to race Le Mans again, hopefully with less fire this time. Dominic joined us way back on episode 66, but he's back again and now as the owner of one of best Avants Partners, Dobson Stuttgart. Dominic shares exciting racing stories, upcoming plans with Dobson Stuttgart, and talks a little about electric...

We're starting a new series! In addition to our regularly weekly shows, every other week we're going to do Shop Talk! This series will cover news, events, project updates, tool reviews, and more! We're looking for your ideas and what roads you want us to go down, pun intended. Listen in for a taste of the new series. 

This week on the podcast we interviewed Mark Raffauf, Senior Director of Race Operations for IMSA, about all things racing from IMSA, to Isle of Man TT, to Formula 1, and everything else. Mark is truly an expert on basically everything racing related and as it turns out even more. With over 50 years of experience in the racing world, you’ll find it difficult to find anyone with his level of experi...

As Dan went down the rabbit hole of trying to determine what lift to buy, we quickly found out we don’t know jack about lifts. We reached out to the experts at Hydraulic Solutions, Jarett and Sara Bailey, and asked them to come in and give us all the information on vehicle lifts we would ever need to know before purchasing one. When you decide you need a lift for you shop, reach out to Hydraulic S...

You can’t talk about wild car builds of the 80s without talking about the tuner cars of Koenig. Shant Meshefedjian is an expert on Koenig, especially their polarizing Mercedes builds. Shant gives us the incredible stories of how he acquired one the rarest of them all and his love for the over the top builds that Koenig is famous for.

Here at Avants we have one major complaint with car manufacturers and what they choose to sell in the US…they never give us enough wagons! Give us all the wagons! Megan Zalud joins in the studio again as we discuss all the cars we wish we could import to the US, but those stubborn manufacturers just refuse to give them to us. Did we miss one? Do you agree? Let us know!

You’ve seen her 280Z on the cover the recent Avants Magazine and seen her work in Black Panther and more, but now you can hear the incredible stories of profession stunt driver and drifter, Brionna Lynch. She gives us all the epic stunt driver stories, stories of last minute engine swaps, race prep, and so much more. Brionna is every bit as great of a story teller as she is a driver. Be sure to ch...

This week we have the pleasure of talking to Molly Saleen, CEO of Saleen Performance Parts and of course of the legendary Saleen family. Molly talks with us all about The Molly Project, Molly Pop Pink, the history of Saleen, the excitement around the upcoming Saleen 1, and a lot more.

The fact that we met Megan through Avants is kind of surprising since she’s been friends with basically everyone we know for years. Megan started life at the Kart track, but has worked with Bondurant, Yukon Gear and Axle, DirtFish, Forza, and more pursuing her automotive passions. We caught up with Megan at the DirtFish Women in Motorsports Summit which seemed like the perfect place for this recor...

This week we sit down with Jennifer Klein and she gives us a reminder that being a success in the motorsports world doesn’t always mean being in the car. If you’re looking for yet another inspirational person who’s making a name for themself in the industry without being a driver or co-driver, then look no further. She shares some great stories of working her way up and there is definitely some gr...

We start off Women’s Month strong with Karisa Haydon and Trista Smith, aka Team Baby Bronco, who share their journey of doing the Rebelle Rally! They give us the details of how their adventure started before the rally even began and how they completed the rally to make rookies of the year! Follow along with Karisa and Trista at TeamBabyBronco.com !

We discuss challenges of building a shop and still trying to maintain your sanity all while trying to stay within a budget. We also talk about Dan’s attack dog to defend his shop, some pretty cool tools we don’t need, and the quickly rising costs of buying a new Jeep or Bronco.

Emme Hall describes herself as “Driver, reviewer, rabble rouser”, but we think she left out that she might be the most epic of adventurers. Rebelle Rally? Check. Baja racer? Check. Crossed Mongolia on a knock-off 49cc Monkey motorcycle? Also check. Needless to say, if you know anything about us, we are fans. Between all that fun she is also a great writer, and one we have followed for a long time...

This week we talk with Amir Bentatou, owner of RS Future, and probably the nicest NSX on the road and on the track. Amir obsessively worked his way up through the motorsports ranks to create his company RS Future, which makes functional aerodynamic race components and more! Amir talks with us all about aerodynamics, Time Attack, drifting, NSXs, and his upcoming Discovery channel show, Monster Gara...

Paul Charsley is the Motorsports Manager for Heart of Racing and just won 24 Hours of Daytona, but before going home he gave us a call. We literally had to reschedule Paul because he told us “I need to go win Daytona, but we can do the show afterwards.” True to his word, he gives us the recap of Daytona, tells us about Aston Martin’s comeback, The Heart of Racing all women’s team, and Aston Martin...

We first met Felix at the 2022 Avants Classics on the Green last summer and we’ve been excited to have him on the show ever since. Felix was instrumental in shaping our love of Hot Wheels and then went on to creating incredible art with people like Magnus Walker, all while still being a successful bass player. Felix is another one of those special guests with endless interesting stories from livin...

We catch up with long time friend John Kleven, who is now the President of STEK USA. Long time listeners may remember John from all the way back on Episode 32, but a lot has changed since our first chat! John talks about how STEK started, lessons from owning Metropolitan Detail, and his constantly changing and fun car collection. 

This week we talk with Arun Sharma, General Manager of Ferrari Newport Beach. More than selling cars, Arun has a long history in the motorcycle world when he ran Motorcorsa. Arun has some great insights on the past, present, and future of Ferrari as well as some really fun stories of his time in the business. Explicit, unfiltered content warning

We welcome our long time friends STEK USA as an official sponsor of the Avants Podcast! 2022 was a great year for us and we had some amazing guests, but we think we can do even better in 2023 with their help! Avants has more events, more partners, and we’re growing into even more places. Adam and Krissy join us for this episode and we share our favorite memories of 2022 and share what you should b...

You don’t have to be a photographer to really love this episode with Jamey Price, but if you are, you are in for a real treat! Jamey is one of the most successful, talented, awarded, and well known photographers in motorsports today. We get Jamey’s fun story of moving from Steeplechase Horse Racing all the way to his incredibly successful career as a motorsports photographer. You probably know Jam...

Stefan is one of those people who just never stops amazing us. From racing Formula 1 and Endurance Driving and then going on to become the incredible artist he is today, he seems to have that golden touch. Stefan starts us off with his stories of racing at the most hardcore time in history to his decision to move to full time artist. Stefan will have a section in an upcoming edition of the Avants...

It’s almost Christmas and we hope you are enjoying the holidays! If you’re still looking for some last minute gifts, we’ve got a few ideas for any budget, but on this episode we have a chat about our Christmas lists and hopefully you’ll get a few ideas from us.

Thanks to Avants Chief Editor Karl Knoakes, we had the pleasure of interviewing the exceptionally talented Lyn Hiner. Lyn is a truly incredibly artist; her paintings would be as at home in a luxury garage as they would be in an executive office or your living room. If you’re looking for the perfect addition to top off your collection, this is definitely your stop. Check our the gallery attached to...

Michael Lencioni of Canyon Park Vehicle Licensing answers all of our many questions about the unfortunate mystery of vehicle licensing. You would think it would be pretty easy to register a car or know what you need to sell a car, but if you're buying out of state, buying a car with damage, or buying a car with a lien holder, you may have some questions. Lucky for you, now you have a resource to c...