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Garage Heroes (In Training)

Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

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GHIT 0177: Racing 101 – Building Your Race First Car

Racing 101

We are getting back to our podcast roots and wanted to start a special series Vicki calls “So You Wanna Racecar” that Bill can’t seem to say correctly.  This is part 1 of the series (of ~10) where we go over where we started and how things went at our first events.  We then move on tohow to go about building your first race car.  In case it isn’t clear, Vicki strongly feels its better to purchase a car that already races in the series you wish to enter.  So, if you need to build your first race car or only if you need to make sure your race car is ready for your first race, this episode goes into the various steps and areas that should be your primary concerns.  As with most areas, especially safety related, if you aren’t already familiar with the specific area, please seek help from us or someone with experience, or the racing series technical representatives.  This should be considered a starting point to work from and not an exhaustive, detailed plan.  We have already talked through many of these areas in prior episodes and will continue to cover each of these areas in future episodes.  Always In Training.

The outline for the series is:

Part 1:  Building Your First Racecar (and options to not)

Part 2:  Safety and Safety Related Equipment Needed

Part 3:  Best Entry Points To Start Performance Driving

Part 4:  Buying and Selling Cars (With Special Guest Lara Vernon)

Part 5:  Expectations between Going To and From The Event/Track 

Part 6:  Paddock and Pit – Best Practices

Part 7:  Perspective of a New Driver (With Guest Adam Owens)

Part 8:  Tools, Spares, Supplies Needed for a Race Weekend

Part 9:  Common Issues All Drivers Will/May Experience in When On Track For the First Time

Part 10:  Miscellaneous Topics (& Things We Forget to Mention Earlier)

Continuing with our racing 101 Series within our Dominating with Dawson segment, we go into many of the ways to enjoy racing at the track.  Especially when you are just getting started, racing is not only about winning the race, but there are also hundreds of “wins” each time we are at the track, many of which occur when you are not even driving on the track.  Just going and trying is a victory.  Winning isn’t everything and it definitely is far from the only thing.

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. 

Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating or even better, a podcast review, we would greatly appreciate it and it would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving.

For instance, leaving an Apple Podcast rating is very easy.  If you go to your podcast library, under shows and click on the podcast you can leave a (5?) star rating and enter your review. 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Please don’t forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, don’t forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.  Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order.  We have two systems for our team and Bill is looking to add a third for this season, pending CFO approval from Vicki.  They are a great system and truly invaluable in safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross etc.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We start off with a quick summary of our first racing events.

2)  The car preparation required varies widely, depending on what you are trying to do. 

3)  At first, we cover what is required for an HPDE event or an autocross event.  There you need very little besides a helmet, but we do cover a few potential upgrades like brake fluid and better brake pads.

4)  We then go into the preparation needed if you want to go on track with a particular target series or type of racing.  The first step is deciding (or guessing) where you want to learn, race, and compete.  Then you need to look at the rules for that series.  Everything is there, but it is at varying levels of difficulty in reading and understanding the rules and their implications.

5)  One additional factor that you should take into consideration when looking to buy or build or fix your first car is making sure it is fairly easy to get parts, support, and work on.  Ideally you should choose to use an already proven type of car that is widely used and raced, ideally with a low cost of consumable items, i.e., brake pads, rotors, tires etc.

6)  The first step would be having patience and waiting for the right car to start with.  The less issues to start with, the easier this whole process will be to complete.  Once you have the car selected and in your work area, you should likely look to clean the car up (inside, out, underneath, and within the engine bay) and during this time, perform a thorough inspection and generate a list of to do items that you will find.

7)  If it a dedicated race car, you will likely be taking the entire interior out of the car so that you can install your roll bar and/or full cage.  In general, you will remove anything heavy, anything flammable, and anything not required to race the car.  We prefer to leave the defroster for the windshield.  It’s up to you but be careful of the electrical systems and the ground connections.  If you damage any one of these, they can be very difficult to trouble shoot.  Also, in some series, you will need to remove the lock from the steering wheel.

8)  The next area to address is installing a roll bar or a full roll cage.  A roll bar is a project that you may want to try even if you are new to racing.  However, a full roll cage is likely one of the most difficult projects required in racing.  It is not a great beginner project and we would recommend working with an experienced cage builder or racing team in your area.  This is not an area where you should risk a mistake.  Besides the skills required, the design of a cage is not a trivial endeavor, both for safety reasons and fitting within the rules of the series.

9)  Vicki is very subtle in her preference towards buying your first race car and learning from there.  This is by far the easiest method to get started and reduces the hurdles/excuses to not getting started TODAY.

10)  Once the cage or roll bar is installed, you will want to paint the cleaned interior of the car and the bars for two reasons.  The first is to protect the bare metal.  The second is it is easier to keep clean and inspect the interior for part, tools, debris, before going out on track.  The key to a good project is prepping and protecting surfaces that you don’t want painted like glass, electronics, wiring, etc.

11)  This is an opportune time to review the rules again to make sure you are planning to conform to the series.  It is much easier now, than redoing or undoing.  It is also often way cheaper.  We also provided several tips for generating a to do list and ways that we have found to work for our team that can have as many as 20 or more people working on the cars at a time.

12)  At this point, it is a great time to reset your car and do a full inspection including changing/replacing all fluids and wear items like brake pads and rotors, and any rubber bits within the suspension etc.  (Essentially try to look at and at least inspect anything on the car that goes round and round or up and down)  In many cases, you will not know the history and current status of the car and this is a great time to make it yours and bring everything up to date and current.  To the surprise of absolutely no one, Bill has a long list, and it is available on our website.

13) Vicki mentions No Money Motorsports blog where he tries to show how to save a bit of money and still enjoy your racing hobby. 

14)  Next is safety.  Don’t ever try to skimp on this area and make doubly sure to meet any and all safety standards.  You can replace your car but your drivers, not so much.

15)  It is at this point that you should even consider working on the process of making your car pretty and things involved with the livery of your race car.  There are a few different ways to add numbers and a multitude of ways to change design/color.

16)  Bill misspeaks HVLP as High Volume, Low Pressure as high velocity.  Sometimes the brain doesn’t engage fully with the mouth.

GHIT 0177: Racing 101 – Building Your Race First Car

2021 Goals and Our 2020 Goal Review

2021 Goals and 2020 Goal review

As the year wraps up, we review how our 2020 racing season went and what goals we would like to do and accomplish in 2021.  Obviously, the year did not go as we had hoped or planned with the COVID pandemic impacting normal life routine. But we did make some significant growth and made the best out of a horrible situation.  Goal making is one thing that is very easy to do, but also very easy to skip. However, we have found it to be very beneficial to our growth as racers as well as is our personal and professional lives.  

On our Dominating with Dawson segment, we go over what it means to be driving at the limit, what is the limit, and how to get closer and closer to the limit safely and effectively. 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We start of looking at what our goals were for 2020 and how we did

2)  The next segment covers what we want to accomplish going into 2021. (including items that we would like to improve about our driving and our team.)

3)  We then begin to look at things that went well this year and things we could have done better.

4)  It probably wouldn’t be a podcast without our doing a Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, so we did.

5)  The final step was we tried to grade our year and then determine a few things that would define a successful year for ourselves and the team.

6)  We did forget to go into The Mirror that we added to aid us in getting in better shape for racing, so we added it as a bonus section after the credits.

GHIT 0158: Our 2020 Year in Review and Our 2021 Goals

Out 2020 Goals episode can be found here.

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

  • Porsche 911
  • Vicki's NB Miata
  • BMW
Some great cars, and some of ours attended this event.

The latest HPDE with NASA Northeast last weekend completes our season of track driving and instruction for 2020.  We try to summarize it as well as how the COVID 19 impacted racing season went.  And Bill can’t wait to start planning 2021.  It was a great weekend on track with fantastic weather, especially for mid-November in NJ.  We came with three cars good to go.  We left with zero.  Seems to be a familiar refrain.  The winter to do list gets longer.

On Dominating with Dawson, we cover driver communication going into and out of the car at the track.  

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We cover our goals going into the event.

2)  How was Bill’s new HPDE car on track for the first time.  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again or the fourth time is the charm.

3)  We also cover how Vicki and Jennifer applied the things they learned at the Lime Rock skid pad on the track.

4)  Bill gets to see the Lightning track for the first time, even though he/we drove this track for several hours last year.  Hood-Gate.

5)  Jennifer got to drive with and review the data from the Garmin Catalyst for the first time. 

6)  Vicki also started reviewing and using the data from the Apex Pro for the first time ever.

7)  Both Jennifer and Vicki got a lot faster throughout the weekend and seemed to have some of their best driving stints ever.

8)  Bill went on track for the first time ever in the ND Miata. 

9)  What were the areas of greatest improvement for Jennifer and Vicki.  Both made significant gains in both their lines and their car inputs.  Also, now they were both able to take input from the data and video and apply it on their next stint. 

10)  Bill apparently can’t count turns past 5 and gets confused with turn 7.  We will blame this on our post-race weekend hangover. 

11)  Bill really wants to put racing brake pads onto the M3 for the next track event.  The all-season tires were not as big a deal as anticipated but will also need to be improved for our first event next season.

12)  Vicki’s last stint led to an off on turn 5 that has caused some issue with her suspension.  Exact point of failure is still TBD at this point.

13)  We were able to get a lot of good video and hopefully good data.  We cannot wait to analyze further and learn what we can work on and how we are improving.

14)  Jennifer breaks the news that Ross Bentley is coming back as a guest for our 150th episode that is coming very soon!

15)  Vicki went into her off track event late Sunday at turn 5. 

16)  Brief review of some of our off season work and planning for next season.

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

We thought we would get a short podcast out to update how the day has gone and what we have been doing today.  Jennifer is in the Soul Red 2019 Mazda MX5 (Miata) ND2 and is in HPDE 1 this weekend.  Vicki is in her first HPDE 2 and, as always is driving her 1999 Mazda Miata with the Flyin’ Miata turbo.  Bill finally found an HPDE car that he can fit into that wasn’t stolen (yet) by the girls, a 2004 BMW E46 M3.  The day went very well and we all learned from the time on track.  We cover highs and lows and end with a short story time from Bill about the last stint of the day.  This will cover Saturday and we will likely have a longer episode covering the whole event in the future.  

If you are here, please say hi.  Jennifer actually ran into a listener in her HPDE class.  

Also, if you happen to have some race pads for an E46 M3, Bill has cash money.  

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

GHIT 0143: Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360

  • Dion von Moltke
  • Autobahn Country Club
  • Bill in the 2017 Toyota 86
Dion reviews Bill’s driving at the Autobahn Country Club in the 2017 Toyota 86

Our latest Podcast, episode GHIT 0143:  Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360 is out on all podcast services

After a recent HPDE event with NASA Great Lakes at the Autobahn Country Club near Chicago, Bill sent in some video of a representative lap to Racers360 to try their video coaching and see what he could work on to improve.  Dion von Moltke, from Racers360 and a podcast guest from episode #92, evaluated one of Bill’s laps and who knew, it wasn’t all that bad.  We thought it would be a great discussion of the use of video and the added benefit of having a professional driver and coach review the video for you.  Bill learned a great deal and every driver will.  This is especially valuable to the two ends of the learning curve.  The newer drivers will start off breaking any bad habits and the higher level drivers will finally have someone qualified, capable, and available who could help them refine the last few items to help shave the final few tenths to get closer to their potential.  The cost (~$100) makes this an exceptional value to all drivers looking to improve.  Ben and friends discuss the concept of weight transfer during the Dominating with Dawson segment.  Whether conscious or subconscious, it is an underlying fundamental to high performance driving and managing this is key to getting the most you can out of a car and reducing lap times.

You can email Dion directly at [email protected]

And follow him on Instagram at or twitter @Dionvmr

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

The raw lap video a bit after 11:30 in:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Am-epQIjT4&t=758s

A 5-minute snippet of Dion’s review of Bill’s lap can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT2-NzD3o4Y

Eric Meyer from NASA Great Lakes also discussed this lap from a data analysis perspective here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMtlsfwbSso

1)  We review some of Dion’s racing accomplishments including his time as an IMSA driver, winning the 24 hours of Daytona and the 24 hours of Sebring twice and his current work with Racers360 that is aimed at all levels of amateur racing of cars, motorcycles, go karts, etc.

2)  A discussion of NJMP’s Lightning track and its (obvious) nickname.  Just look at the track map.

3)  The advantages of personalized coaching and the feedback opportunities it opens up the coach and the driver.

4)  Dion asks Bill to self-asses his driving strengths and weaknesses.  This discussion was very short and very long, respectively.

5)  The coaching consisted of not only the “what”, but the “why” as well as an estimate of the potential impact on lap times and safety that area involved.  

6)  A big discussion of Turn 9 and Turn 10 at Autobahn that applies to several other turn complexes that lead onto long straights where sometimes you sacrifice a turn and sometimes it is not the best choice.  It appears that as in life, nothing is 100% all the time. 

7)  Turn 1 at Autobahn is a high speed right hand turn that Dion went into in general and also used as an example of how best to break down a turn (backwards) to determine what to do for a specific turn, especially if you are unfamiliar with the track or turn.

8)  To the surprise of absolutely no one, we also discussed vision and the need to relax and look very “long” and “wide” with good scanning practices. 

9)  Dion is a fan of trying to work on one or two things at a time and not overwhelming the driver while learning.

10)  Bill gives a brief description of the Garmin Catalyst and how it worked for him at Autobahn during his first weekend with the unit. 

11)  Dion gets (unfairly) put on the spot with looking at Jennifer’s crash at the Charlotte Roval.  He agreed that is looks like a catch done well and a recovery not quite quick enough.  Dion also recalls a time where he was able to catch a similar incident and save the car (with a bit of luck).  It can be found at about 40-45 seconds into the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPq5K1giAC8

12)  Racers in training weight loss challenge is entered.  Please let us know if you want to participate.  Dion may even help despite not needing to lose any weight personally. 

13)  Bill looks to scoop up a few brownie points when the opportunity arises.

14)  Some of the takeaways and how they apply to all laps and all tracks.  Many are going to be incorporated into his practice session at the track and on the sim.

15)  Bill vents his standard color matching issues.  Still no traction received.

16)  Track Addict may be worth some investigation and if your budget allows perhaps an AIM SmartyCam.

17)  Bill drags Dion into his current level of overthinking the geometry of a turn.

18)  Another vote for the Senna documentary.  Maybe Vicki will finally watch it.  It is really fantastic, even if you aren’t a race driver. 

19)  Post credits discussion of Mid-Ohio, with and without the chicane before the keyhole, and some volleyball discussion. 

GHIT 0143: Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360

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