Garage Heroes (In Training) - Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

GHIT 0101: Rob Krider from the 4X National Champion Double Nickel Nine racing team

Rob Krider - Hands On Racing Driver — **Rob Krider from the Double Nickel Nine Racing Team**

Rob Krider who is a driver and managing partner of the Double Nickel Nine Motorsports racing team joins us on this episode. Rob has a problem in that he and his team won’t let anyone else win, lol. His team is the reigning 4-time national champion in NASA’s Honda Challenge series, while also having both team cars on the podium each year. Our discussion covers not only their team history but what they have learned since starting in the 24 Hours of LeMons series and progressing through other racing series and classes. Within this episode, there is useful information that can be applied to any racing series and any racing team can improve your results with little, if any, expense. To see a lot of Rob’s team in action folks can watch the documentary film “Double Down” about racing in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill where his team took an ex-24 Hours of LeMons car and beat the factory Mazda racing team. Link to the video at www.team559.com.

**Double Down – A Great Documentary on Endurance Racing**

In addition, Rob was kind enough to guide us through the latest in our series covering the Usual Suspects of racing car platforms and went into a deep dive about racing Hondas and Acuras, especially in endurance racing.

Finally, Ben covers both Understeer and Oversteer in the latest Dominating with Dawson series. We just couldn’t cover them separately, so we went for a double shot.

We hope you enjoy this episode. It will make you faster!

PS If you are interested in watching or reading more of Rob and his teams exploits, please go to:

KriderRacing on Instagram
www.RobKrider.com
www.Team559.com
www.DoubleNickelNineMotorsports.com

And don’t forget to get a copy of Rob’s book “Cadet Blues”, a humorous look at one of his most fun driving training events at www.cadetblues.com

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan
Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast
and team members in the GHiT
Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) Some of his team’s best learnings since starting in LeMons several years ago
2) Rob and Bill commiserate about putting together team communication emails and texts that are summarily ignored
3) How Double Nickel Nine Racing team has “added” to the various series rule books through creative race car engineering
4) Jennifer asks the dirtiest of the dirty question that you can ask a race car driver
5) The value of a spare/donor parts car and Vicki tells Bill to go buy another car. He left the podcast to search CraigsList
6) Team structure and organization techniques to maximize performance across all levels of racing, even a two-car team of 60 people for the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill
7) Their scouting trip preparation for national races
8) What is the Double Nickel Nine garage involved in
9) A comparison of large LeMons fields to some smaller or shorter or higher performance fields
10) How they communicate within their team, especially on track with their spotters
11) Storytime of Alan’s stint at Thompson last year where he would not come in for a driver change. Rob fully approves.
12) Rob gives the advantages “keys to success” in Honda and Acura racing
13) Diapers win races, well they used to anyway
14) Rob shared some endurance racing wisdom, like pit stops practice and it’s not about top lap times but it is about endurance
15) What is a Honda Taco and how it is to drive one
16) We finally find a way to compare ourselves to Roger Penske
17) We go over several tips and tricks from several of Rob’s helpful articles, many are linked below
18) Be a Racing team or Beer racing team? Correct answer is: Yes
19) You can hear an alert for every time Bill’s computer went blue screen of death if you listen closely. It happened often
20) Bleed brakes after every endurance session
21) Rob and Alan bond over tire balancing. In the end, it comes down to the preparation done before coming to the track
22) Get things done as soon as possible. Don’t start when you have just enough time left to get it done.
23) Internal competition for fastest lap is detrimental to team performance and overall team success.
24) Rob’s team has learned that for endurance races, lap timers are not allowed within the car.
25) EJ2 Track Rat has a fashion suggestion for next year’s nationals
26) How to choose an engine machine shop to work with
27) Rob’s documentary film about endurance racing, titled “Double Down” is available free on YouTube, 1 hour 15 minute run time on the Krider Racing YouTube channel.
28) Tactical Ops Brewing’s Double Nickel Nine IPA named after the race team with an image of their Honda Challenge car on the bottle. This stuff is high test at 10.9% ABV!

And here are some of our favorite articles that we discussed on this episode:

GHIT 0101: Rob Krider from the 4X National Champion Double Nickel Nine racing team

GHIT 0100: Ross Bentley – The Ultimate “In Training” Guest

Ross Bentley - Teacher — **Ross Bentley – Teacher**

Ross Bentley was kind enough to come on as our guest and help celebrate our 100^th episode. Ross is known throughout the racing world as a great driver, author, and coach about high performance driving and racing, where his racing experience at the highest levels is augmented by his passion for learning and sharing to help raise the knowledge base as a whole for the good of our sport. This discussion was aimed at learning more about Ross and his history, but when you have a chance to ask him a question about racing, you take advantage. We are hoping we can get him on again in the future. Maybe every 100 episodes, but we would hate to have to wait that long.

Ross Bentley - Racer — **Ross Bentley – Racer, Driver, and Author**

Ross Bentley - Driver — **Ross Bentley – Racer, Driver, and Author**

PS We rarely request anything, but during our discussion, Ross seemed to be unaware of the impact his books have had. If you have a moment, please post a picture of you with his book/books on Instagram with the hashtag #ThankYouRoss to show him the impact he has had. Thank you.

On this week’s Dominating With Dawson, we go into the first of an ongoing series where ewe get into some of the jargon involved with racing. This week we review Rotation, what it means, and how to use and control it.

This episode’s highlights include:

* How Ross fascination in cars and racing started and his history in racing

* His thoughts on the impacts of current amateur and amateur endurance racing on our sport

* With racing, what is not enough. Go for the Why!

* Skid pad use and discussion

* Alan admits to an issue with Turn 1, all of them

* Tire grip and how to control/manage the grip on individual tires while on track

* Why and how at the limit driving can be different for different drivers, even in the same car

* The equal, if not even more, importance of knowing what you do “right” as well as what you did “wrong” and by how filling your lap with doing things right will remove the time to do something wrong, leading to improvement.

* Areas where drivers typically could improve at various levels in their learning career processes and various habits and processes to build upon

* How to improve you driving through cross training

* His prescription for moving from a novice driver to a very successfully, advanced amateur racing driver

* He clarifies the difference between driver training, driver education, and driver training.

* Vicki picks Ross’s brain on front wheel drive vs rear wheel drive to absolutely no one’s surprise

* The best description of the importance of how you release the brake we have ever heard and BOB vs EOB based drivers

* It looks like Ross’s podcast is coming back and we cannot wait!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan
Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast
and team members in the GHiT
Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0100: Ross Bentley – The Ultimate “In Training” Guest

Speed Secrets by Ross Bentley

GHIT 0099: Chrissy Mittura, Racing Driver and Host of the Everyone Racers podcast

Chrissy Mittura Up Close — **Chrissy Mittura is our guest this week**

Chrissy Mittura Winning — **Chrissy Mittura is our guest this week**

For our 99^th Episode, Chrissy Mittura from the Three Pedal Mafia and the co-host of the Everyone Racers podcast was our guest for this week. Chrissy was one of the key influences that helped us to start our team, so we thank her all the time and blame her some of the time, lol. Chrissy is not only and excellent driver that we are passed by routinely but has also helped our team immeasurably not only at the track but preparing for the track and our various HPDE events. With Chrissy finally being able to come on our podcast, we now have a complete set (four of a kind?) of the Everyone Racers podcast hosts. Now we have to work our way through the remaining Three Pedal Mafia team. You, our listeners, have been warned, lol. Chris may even learn something during this episode.

**Please Listen to the Everyone Racers Podcast**

On this week’s Dominating with Dawson segment we go over racing a “new to you” car, what to look for, what to look out for, and how to begin to get comfortable safely to reduce your lap times.

Highlights from this episode include:

* Chrissy is in a new position with being able to talk and not being interrupted
* Kate’s recent dream about Chrissy
* Vicki reviews a video of her driving at her first ever race at NJMP
* Alan claims the title of “Cone Clearer” while driving the El Jeffe race truck, unfortunately, not a joke
* Vicki gets all philosophical with Chrissy over here approach to racing in Lemons and racing in general
* A full review of the Trucklet
* We are the second to break some new car news and pick at the gaping wound of the Citroen paperwork one last time
* We come up with a potential solution to the current podcast curse in the Lucky Dog racing series and racing on a Sunday (3 strikes and counting)
* Kate is looking for Chris to help with getting Alan towards any form of clean
* Kate picks Chrissy’s brain for her upcoming season (we hope) where Kate is taking over as Crew Chief at our races
* The Grill Guys of 3PM get a shout out
* Great tips on pit stop coordination and paddock optimization
* A discussion on passing in high traffic Lemons fields and potential sad face aspects of racing
* Many tips and tricks from Chrissy’s many years of racing in Lemons
* Potential herding strategies and a reluctant admission of the impossibility of herding shiny squirrels and the upcoming potential sainthood for Kate
* Pitt Race HPDE with NASA Great Lakes gets a full endorsement from Chrissy, as well as Bill
* Chrissy calls her shot for our upcoming Thompson race in August
* CMP vs Lemans, two things you never thought would be in the same sentence
* What it’s like to race with and learn from your significant other, we may or may not have asked for ourselves, but it is sure to help you as well
* What to do when the cars are running well and there is down time available. We almost never have that as an issue.
* We discuss the merits of singing while driving with a new demo tape
* Alan breaks news about our upcoming Pitt Race event during our Good, Bad and the Ugly. Everyone takes it well, well sort of. Kate takes a very, very glass half full reaction.
* Alan: Domination? Chrissy: Have you seen me? Best retort ever
* The Save The Tatas team and car gets several shout outs during the episode

We hope you enjoyed the episode as much as we did.

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast
and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0099: Chrissy Mittura, Racing Driver and Host of the Everyone Racers podcast

Chrissy Mittura and Chris Abbott — **Chrissy and Chris, Special Car, Special Day**

GHIT 0098: Ben Liaw from Rogue Engineering on racing BMW’s

Ben Liaw from Rogue Engineering was kind enough to come on this week’s podcast. Ben races and also supports his racing clients at Rogue Engineering in Upper Saddle River, NJ, where they not only assist with race car prep and on track support but design and manufacture many parts improvements for many BMW models.

Also, on this week’s Dominating with Dawson, we went over driving a new to you race car and what you should do prior to driving and how best to acclimate to the new vehicle.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

1) Stories of how his business grew from designing and manufacturing to mechanical and racing assistance
2) Some thoughts on car prep for racing
3) A great discussion of various BMW models that are used in racing, including strengths and areas where you may want to augment the stock parts and systems. Most 3 series models were discussed including the E30, E36, E46, E92 as well as the more modern F series models, as well as a few 1 and 2 series models and Mini’s, including relative strengths and weaknesses between them.
4) Our first real discussion about the AER endurance racing series
5) Potential upgrades for racing our M240i
6) Spec E46 race cars and priority the addition of upgrades, including the subframe issue
7) Bill gets into a discussion while Vicki has computer issues
8) Alan picks Ben’s brain throughout while he also goes shopping while we are recording “for Vicki” lol
9) Bill put Ben in an unfair spot to compare BMW’s to other typical cars, like Boxsters/Caymans and Miata/MX-5’s etc. Ben, you have our apologies.
10) Vicki wanted to appeal to Ben for any assistance with her latest E36 rear wheel hub and bearing replacement project/debacle. Ben offered his typical preventive maintenance program for hubs and bearings for his AER endurance racing.
11) We even go into critical spares and critical spare philosophy and the potential tradeoff vs pre-race prep
12) Several Dante references and a new level called “Wheel Bearing Hell”. Vicki views this as the hidden 8th level.
13) Rogue Engineering’s incredibly smart wheel studs with a hex end on both ends in case of a sheared stud
14) Bill finds a brand of power tools where he is fully qualified, and even Alan agrees

To contact Ben and his team or follow along with their various exploits, you can go to their website at https://www.rogueengineering.com/ or follow them on Instagram at Rogue Engineering.

Thank you for listening to our podcast. Please subscribe to our podcast your favorite podcast source. If you have any questions or topics you would like for us to cover, please feel free to let us know at:

www.GarageHeroesInTraining.com
or via email at: [email protected]

and you can follow us on Instagram at Garage Heroes In Training
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We hope to see you out there racing with us.

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0098: Ben Liaw from Rogue Engineering on racing BMW’s

GHIT 0097: Nathan and Mike Howe from the Lemons New Zealand racing team Hooncorp

Nathan Howe and Mike Howe, who talked with us all the way from New Zealand, are part of the Hooncorp racing team and our guests for this week’s episode. We had to learn about the racing, the tracks, and the amazing roads in New Zealand from some locals. New Zealand has been on our bucket list and has moved up several spots after this discussion. The team has been racing longer than many of our team has been alive, so there a several pearls of wisdom in here along with our usual off tangent banter. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Hooncorp paddock — **Staged and Ready for Racing**

Hooncorp at the Start — Racing to the Line

Highlights from this episode include:

An introduction to Nathan, Mike, their team and racing in New Zealand
Tracks and notable roads in the area and quick track impressions and reviews
Thoughts on how their team has done so far, including our traditional Good, Bad, and the Ugly
1. Holden Commodore VN
2. Nissan Pulsar
3. Nissan Lucino
4. The Muttstang
5. Holden Commodore VK
6. Suzuki Ignus
Their cars and several we don’t usually find here in the US including:
Jen has geographical issues between New Zealand and Australia, luckily she doesn’t follow rugby
Their team history of over 30 years and counting
A great quote “There is no point being the fastest car in the pits”
We had several other “people” chime in during the episode
Several of the teams and themes in there New Zealand racing series
SpeedyCop’s great impression on the New Zealand racers
Several local Lemons penalties
A rather embarrassing story about Liam’s friend driving a “stick”
Nathan has a Nissan issue; it appears to have centered on the GT-R area of his brain
We make a trade for seats in their Commodore for seats in our Capri. I guess we have to finish the Capri now.

On this week’s Dominating with Dawson segment, Ben covers the optimal seating position and driver positioning in high performance driving and racing to improve your comfort, performance and safety.

If you want to follow the Hooncorp Team, please follow them on:
Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Hooncorp/
or on Instagram at HooncorpNZ
or on GT Planet
or on a great video at https://youtu.be/H-WJqni76rY