• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Garage Heroes (In Training)

Garage Heroes (In Training)

Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

  • About Us
  • Our Cars
  • Our Drivers
  • Handy Links
  • Tips/Tricks
  • Contact Us
  • Questions or Comments
  • Sponsorship

Bill Fischer

GHIT 0124: GHIT Flashback to Thompson 2018 with the 24 Hours of Lemons

Award Winning GHiT Team
We Won (well, at least we got an award)

On this flashback episode, we cover our team’s second ever race at Thompson with the 24 Hours of Lemons series in 2018.  How did the race go?  Well, it was our first ever two car race.  It was the first ever race for half of our team (Alan, Jennifer, Casey, and Pete).  It was our first time on track with the SpiderStang and our friends at Prompt Critical showed Liam and Cassian how to “adjust” the boost on the SpiderStang.  The Capri died and is still dead to this day.  We won the “I Got Screwed” award.  Details of our weekend and what we learned shall be provided.  PS Never show your new to racing teen age team mates how to adjust the boost.  Also, on this episodes Dominating with Dawson, we go over car control and what it means when someone refers to a car “rotating”.

  • SpiderStang Makes its Debut
Capri’s dies while the SpiderStang makes its debit

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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)  We quickly gloss over the new raspberry additions that Alan and Bill added to Vicki’s garden area.

2)  We cover from post-race of our first race at NJMP to the conclusion of our second race at Thompson

3)  How our team grew from our first race with 4 drivers to where we had a two-car team with 8 drivers.  Our preparation was not quite up to what it should have been. Especially with 4 additional drivers, two of which that had never driven a manual transmission before.

4)  The advantages and disadvantages of a teen drivers on a racing team

5)  How a perfectly performing a running car from our last race did not stay that way during the trip back from the track, to the great surprise of all involved. Carburetors are not our center of expertise and decided to let us know.

6)  How the SpiderStang theme came to be and what we learned in doing it.  It ended up looking great, but the process was not one we would recommend.  Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do.  We also mention how we built “Bondo”, a PVC and spray foam version of a mannequin to be used as Spiderman on our car.

RV Plumbing Fitting
RV Plumbing Fitting, not Automotive Grade, lol.

7)  Vicki’s trials and tribulations for her first time driving to a race with a race car trailer.  It did not go very well.

8)  How our first time trying to stay at the track went.  In a word:  poorly.  We have come up with much better sources for renting RV’s to stay at the track since then.

9)  How our new drivers first time driving went.  Quick checklist, panic attack at being strapped in, panic attack about going on a racetrack in the pit lane, first ever racing in the rain and heavy fog, and how to be a rolling chicane on the track.

10)  Prompt Critical helped us with our cars but gave away a bit too much information to Liam and Cassian.  They now knew how to adjust (read as increase to maximum) the boost of the turbocharger.  After all, more is better, lol.

11)  How to dial in a brake proportioning valve during testing.

12)  Alan’s chipmunk powered internet popped up again, a few times.  Bill had no idea on how to edit this, but it seems pretty funny.

13)  How we became an award-winning racing team at this event.  It all started with Jennifer and her license in driver tech inspection.  Well on our way to minor internet celebrity status.  Still on the way to this day.

14)  Things we learned at our first ever rain race and our first ever fog race, all at the same race.

15)  The story of the death of the Capri and the birth of El Jeffe, The Bad Hombre.

16)  We share the secret concoction to keep fog off your windshield that was shared with us by the Three Pedal Mafia.

17)  Alan treats his body like a temple?  And we finally found the root cause for why Alan doesn’t want to work on the Capri.

18)  Bill tries to avoid sleeping in the bathtub even though we won the coveted “I Got Screwed” award.

19)  Finally, we go over the post-race awards and the trials and tribulations we went through to get home afterwards.

SpiderStang Glows
SpiderStang Glows, Who Knew?

GHIT 0124: GHIT Flashback to Thompson 2018 with the 24 Hours of Lemons

GHIT 0123: Bill Griffin NASA Racing Driver and Jennifer’s HPDE Instructor from GingerMan

Bill Griffin

Bill Griffin has worked his way up to through the HPDE ranks to where he is a racing driver as well as an instructor, actually Jennifer’s instructor from GingerMan a few weeks back.  We talk with him about his history and progression from having zero experience in performance driving to where he competes regularly with NASA and Grid Life as well as instructing when he can.  Bill grew up liking racing as many people who grew up near Indianapolis did and eventually began driving himself when his work and family life allowed, proving again that it is never too late to start to enjoy performance driving and even racing.  He is a very relaxed and knowledgeable driver and Jennifer loved having him as an instructor.  We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instruction and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19.  The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything.  You can follow him on Instagram at Bill Griffin.

Bill Griffin on Track
Bill Griffin on Track

On one of our simplest episodes of Dominating with Dawson we review crabbing or cheating into a corner.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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)  We cover Bill’s progressions from newbie track driver and not terribly mechanical to a regular racing driver and instructor (who has been to the track 5 weeks straight and counting) (Very jealous)

2)  What is a competition (or race) license, as well as several methods and paths towards getting one.

3)  Bill seeks guidance to how to schedule a season of racing with the rest of our team.  Perhaps an appointment for hearing testing is in order.

4)  Bill also goes into a quick review of some of the exotic sports cars he gets to drive with Extreme Experience and their clients.  This is especially useful if you are taller, like Bill who is 6′ 4″.

5)  Bill (the other) also goes over the potential limits in size for a driver in a Mazda Miata MX-5.  We have seen one with a cage that fits the owner that was 6′ 8″ and swallowed Bill up quite easily.

6)  Bill even goes over why he chooses to remain instructing the HPDE 1 group of students.

7)  We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instructional and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19.  The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything.

Bill Griffin with his pupils
Post HPDE Team Photo

8)  Suggestions included 1) potentially using in car radios to communicate to the students, 2) lead follow groups of only two students, 3) only using partial lead follow (allowing students to assume lead position and instructor to follow), 4) perhaps grouping the instructors and cars to match performance, 5) using better/more universally defined hand signals, 6) more use of different cones for initial track learning, 7)  perhaps adopting an unofficial “HPDE 1.5” level/group within the HPDE 1 population, 8) incorporating the use of in car video, 9) positioning instructors with notebooks around the track to view at significant turns or areas of the track to provide feedback to the classroom or debrief sessions, 10) potential pathways to getting increased options for right seat/in car instruction.

9)  The tricks and differences in being an instructor in a lead follow environment versus being in the right seat and the potential for lead follow groups to become longer groups, which can make some of the instruction into a bad game of telephone.

10)  Riding a bike vs walking the track during a track walk.

11)  Several tips for new to track or high performance drivers.

12)  Bill unprompted supports Bill with the prep required before coming to the track as well as using 2-3 max goals and a few comments for each track session, especially during an HPDE event.  Now if we could only get the Wilson sisters to agree, lol.

13)  How your first few HPDE events can feel like your brain is drinking from a fire hose and how to potentially reduce this effect (like following the ideas from #12 above)

14)  Bill F. tries to sneak in a Good, The Bad, and the Ugly segment on how Jennifer did during here HPDE event.  Bill G. is much too nice to comply, but we will keep trying.

15)  How driving in a lead follow instruction environment make lengthening your vision particularly difficult.

16)  Tips for everyone (and us) on their next HPDE event.  Ours will be at Pitt Race in late July with NASA Great Lakes.

17)  The importance of focusing on consistently hitting your track marks and letting the speed build naturally.  Because it will.

18)  How teaching and instructing has helped Bill’s racing and how Racing has helped him as an instructor.  Hopefully, it will help our Bill when he gets there, lol.

GHIT 0123: Bill Griffin NASA Racing Driver and Jennifer’s HPDE Instructor from GingerMan

GHIT 0122: NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan – Post HPDE Review

GHiT at the 2020 HPDE at GingerMan
GHiT at the 2020 HPDE at GingerMan

Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill check in to review how the recent HPDE at GingerMan went with NASA Great Lakes.  We are not in our usual location and are recording under a roof in a KOA near Traverse City Michigan so there may be a bit more background noise than normal but we wanted to record while everything was still very fresh, even though we were all pretty exhausted.

Post HPDE
Giddy after the HPDE this weekend at GingerMan

On this week’s Dominating with Dawson, we go into a discussion to clarify apexes and Ben’s approach and how the point of rotation can apply to your driving, including a discussion of Ken Hill s podcast and how we should approach this during he (at that point) upcoming HPDE at GingerMan.

Jen coming into turn 2 at GingerMan
Jen going into Turn 2

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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)  We compare the structure of this HPDE which focuses on drills and with the COVID 19 separation not allowing for in car instruction at this point.

2)  The advantages and disadvantages of a lead follow, especially if it was a group of three this became more of an issue.

3)  How quickly NASA Great Lakes is responding to the new rules and conditions on track in a rapidly evolving climate and imposed rules by each state and track.

4)  What aspects of racing Vicki and Jen learned at this HPDE and what skills they refined during the weekend.

5)  How HPDE track days allow for focusing on the correct and repeatable line vs our racing where we rarely use the line and handle traffic while driving both on and offline.

6)  The drills we used during the weekend, including running the track in reverse.

7)  How a great track walk with a very large group led to great discussion and options for approaching several sections of the track that even some national champion drivers learned more about racing options at GingerMan.

8)  Ways to practice on your daily drive to help improve your track driving.

9)  Apex everything!

10)  The comparative differences between the HPDE 2 and HPDE 1

11)  The skid pad – Winter driving event we had scheduled for earlier this year is again one of the negative highlights for our season

12)  Vicki and Jen both had issue with getting their vision farther down the track, especially in the lead follow used during their HPDE 1 group.

13)  Both Vicki and Jen both felt their speed progressively increased on the track throughout the weekend.  It really was almost as if we needed a 1.5 level for these COVID impacted events.

14)  In car video issues during the weekend impacted our results but we discuss what we think the video will show of our driving through the weekend.  We shall see once we download our videos later this week.

15)  There were some pretty spectacular cars at GingerMan this weekend and we could not help but pick a few of our favorites that came to mind in our racing hangover induced state.

16)  Bill tries to work through Jennifer’s acceleration issues during the weekend and hos hypothesis is that she isn’t fully revving

17)  Bill inserts his foot fully into his mouth.  He will likely be sleeping in the bathtub for the rest of the week.

18)  Vicki almost got arrested for stealing as one night by mistake.

19)  Somehow, Vicki and Jennifer were introduced to the term Camber during our track walk for the first time.  Not sure how we missed it up to this point but apparently we did.

20)   We also went through our thoughts on the track and several of our favorite and more difficult turns for each of us.

21)  Vicki’s favorite track of the weekend was NamregNig (GingerMan backwards)

22)  Bill tries to get out of the hole he dug with John Pagel.

A few hopefully helpful suggestions for NASA we think are:

1)  Groups of two students with each instructor max

2)  Group cars and instructors by style, i.e. low HP cars with low HP instructor cars etc.

3)  Perhaps a 1.5 level with less lead follow and more with the instructor in the position watching the student from behind.

GHIT 0122: NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan – Post HPDE Review

GHIT 0121: GingerMan HPDE with NASA Great Lakes – Our Goals Going In

Bill Going to GingerMan HPDE

Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill are going to be attending the NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan, a new track for our team.  This is a short episode where we cover our preparation for the HPDE and our goals and areas of focus going into the HPDE event.  In addition, we cover coasting on a race track (Hint:  Don’t) and how to avoid it in this episode’s Dominating with Dawson segment. 

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 0121: GingerMan HPDE with NASA Great Lakes – Our Goals Going In

GHIT 0120: Christina Lam is our special guest driver

  • Christina Lam Behind the Wheel

Christina Lam is a racing driver for several series, is an instructor for Skip Barber and NASA, as well as a frequent contributor to GrassRoots Motorsports magazine.  We first started following her as her “After A Crash” 9-part series started a few months back and became instant fans of her approach and her dedication to racing, education, and giving back to the racing community.  On this episode, we go over how she started to be involved from a point of little knowledge and car/racing influences to where she is not only competing at national events, podium’ing many times, and instructing others to improve their skills.  It is a fantastic and quite rapid journey from newbie to racing veteran and her latest challenge last season will inspire you and hopefully get you to reach further towards ever higher goals. 

Christina Lam on the Podium

On our Dominating with Dawson, Ben goes over the difference in driving approaches for endurance racing, autocross, as well as various types of sprint racing. 

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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)  We have had a long, long work week in the garage, so long that Vicki blanked on her name for a moment and Bill can’t spell SCCA, lol.

2)  How she started off racing in Autocross one weekend and then had the opportunity of a lifetime drop in her lap a short time later (driving on a little place known as The ’Ring).

3)  Christina’s first time on track was her first time driving a stick.  This may be a good rival for what we ended up doing to Jennifer at her first race at Thompson Speedway.  Not our best plan, but we did learn from it.

4)  We share post-race hangover stories and several great ideas for further race cross training.  Rally, V8 supercars, Ice racing, so much fun to be had, so little time.

5)  What is involved with being a one-person team and how she accomplishes all that is required for a race weekend.  The big key is prep.  Second rule, prep.  If you need a third rule, be prepped early.

6)  We go into her accident last year and how she recovered, both physically and mentally, as well as her new race car.

  • A slightly used E46
  • Wheel took quite a hit
A “Lightly Used” E46 BMW Race Car

7)  What is involved with an SCCA protest

8)  How Christina found her #46 M3 shell to start her new build

9)  How much sleep she lost while working to prep for new car the upcoming 2019 national SCCA Runoffs in 60 days.

10)  Christina goes into the plusses and minuses of an E46 M3 vs E46 330’s etc

11)  Christina shares some of her nerves and almost PTSD after the wreck, what she had to work through and  getting back into the car on track at VIR

12)  What it is like being a female in a predominantly male sport at the track.

13)  How Christina’s first car quickly turned into a second car.

Honorable mentions and sponsors that have helped Christina along the way:

Drive Gear Racing:  for arrive and drive ice racing.  Seems like a terribly great idea.

Hugh Stewart from High Speed Motorsports:  http://www.hispeedmotorsports.com/

Katherine Legge @ www.KatherineLegge.com

Simona De Silvestro @ www.Simonadesilvestro.com 

TC Designs @ www.tcdesignfab.com

Hoosier Tire @ www.hoosiertire.com

Epic Motorsports @ www.epicmotorsports.com

Racing Harness Technologies (856() 912-1237

Skip Barber Racing @ www.skipbarber.com 

GHIT 0120: Christina Lam is our special guest driver

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Most Recent

  • DwD 0507:  Racing the Track vs Racing the Other Cars
  • GHiT 0506:  Eric Dewey DeWitt
  • The Mythology of Late Apex and Braking in a Straight Line
  • Glenn Robinson
  • The Fail Failage Rally 2023

Categories

  • Aerodynamics
  • Autocross
  • B Spec
  • Cars, Mostly ours
  • Comic Books and Movies
  • Dialing In
  • Dominating with Dawson
  • Driver Education
  • Fitness
  • Food
  • GLTC
  • Grid Life
  • Guests & Interviews
  • Honda Challenge
  • HPDE
  • Judges
  • Lemons Rally
  • Mechanical
  • Motorcycles
  • Our Team
  • Races
  • Racing 101
  • Radios and Communication
  • Safety
  • SCCA
  • SIM racing
  • Sundae Cup
  • Telemetry
  • Themes
  • Time attack
  • Track Photography
  • WoOT

  • About Our Team