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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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Driver Education

GHIT 0104: Liam Fischer’s Hot Ones Style Tribute Interview

Liam Fischer with Snowboard

On this episode we finally talked Liam into coming on the podcast by making it in the style of one of his favorite shows on YouTube, Hot Ones.  Since Bill has almost zero tolerance for spicy food, Vicki tagged in to assist with the interview and we also took advantage of the opportunity and covered several aspects of teenage driving, driver training, and racing.  If you prefer, there is a live video recording on our YouTube channel, creatively named Garage Heroes In Training.

YouTube Link

B.R.A.K.E.S. Logo

B.R.A.K.E.S. website:  https://putonthebrakes.org/

Our Dominating with Dawson segment for this episode add Heel-toe Downshifting to our jargon repertoire.

  • Vicki and Liam Fischer
Vicki and Liam Fischer

We hope you enjoy it. The episode is still going for Liam and Vicki, lol.

Also, we would like to the thank the team over at Hot Ones for their great YouTube episodes and wish them the best of luck.  They can be found on their channel at “First We Feast” or by searching for “Hot Ones” on YouTube.

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 this episode include:

1)  Liam’s history of learning how to drive and eventually race cars, he is still relatively young at 19 years old.
2)  Some thoughts and suggestions on training a young driver in general and how it has been helped by racing and race training events
3)  We go into a fair bit of detail related to one of the best training events Liam has gone to with the B.R.A.K.E.S. program.
4)  Vicki breaks out into her “it’s like trying to nail jello to a wall” when talking about racing with teens on our team.
5)  Angry Goat Peppers “Hippy Dippy Green” sauce was very well received.  Two Thumbs Up.
6)  Why Bill gets father of the year a few years back
7)  We try to provide help and suggestions to new racers or soon to be racers throughout the episode.  Please remember to ask before hopping into the hot tub.
8)  Liam tries to compare the 2017 Toyota 86 to a stock ND2 Miata and a Stage 2 Flyin’ Miata turbo NB Miata, however the wings inhibited some of his brain processing capability and the virtues of learning to drive and daily driving a +/- 200 HP car.
9)  Vicki tries to come up with three good things about her first car.  And fails.  3 bad things were way easier.
10)  You start to see the affect of the hot sauces about 25-30 minutes into the episode
11)  Liam takes a walk about at 40 minutes in and can barely think to answer from then on.
12)  What car or cars got away for each of us.
13)  Liam reveals his love for the SpiderStang and Capri
14)  Da Bomb hot sauce lives up to it’s reputation
15)  “I feel like I met the devil” and “Why is it the tongue”
16)  Liam can’t speak and tries to use sign language, not the best for an audio podcast
17)  Liam wants a shot at the Datsun Z and Vicki surprises Bill with saying she wants to drive Black Betty
18)  The hot sauces apparently make Liam delirious when he comes up with his dream car to build into a race car.
19)  Vicki and Liam’s favorite and least favorite tracks so far.  NJMP makes both lists for Vicki.
20)   Liam calls Brad out for a round 2.  Silly boy.
21)  Liam’s brain left the building, several times during this episode
22)  Mental sort of gets a shout out, not really, but it was funny
23)  An endorphin infused discussion on endurance race craft approaches and ways to compete successfully, especially with longer stints.
24)  We end with Bill attempting to herd the two cats for a final question and then a delirious ranking of the sauces.

GHIT 0104: Liam Fischer’s Hot Ones Style Tribute Interview

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 100th 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 - Driver
  • Ross Bentley - Author
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
Speed Secrets by Ross Bentley

GHIT 0092: Dion von Moltke from Racers360 and Professional Racing Driver is our Special Guest

Dion von Moltke

Winner of the Rolex at Daytona 24 and multiple Sebring 12 Hours

  • Coaching
    Coaching at Racers360

Dion von Moltke is our special guest for this week’s podcast. He is a professional racing driver who has won several major races including the Rolex at Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hour among many others.  Dion is currently focused on an excellent online coaching website with several other professional drivers/coaches at Racers360.  Racers360 provides many types of coaching to improve any level driver including track guides, technique improvement, webinars, as well as personalized driving reviews of your individual video or data.  The costs are very reasonable at $100 per year for a Drivers Lounge membership that has access to all the universal videos and webinars and the individual data and video reviews are $99 per lap. If our results are typical, the improvements can be quite substantial and the value cannot be beaten.

  • Video
Sample of a Racers 360 Video

For this episode, we cover a variety of topics including:
1)  Dion’s racing history
2)  An overview of Racers360 and its various offerings
3)  Coaching is available in many areas of racing including wheel to wheel, autocross, karting, and motorcycle racing
4)  How the coaches are curated and how they tailor their coaching to each individual driver
5)  The tiers of the Racers360 personalized coaching:  One Lap analysis for an +/- 15 minute review of your lap for $99 thru the full race analysis to review your skills and race craft
6)  Many, many race craft tips and techniques to improve your driving and several common areas where you can improve
7)  Comparison of professional vs amateur racing strategy and techniques
8)  The best modifications to improve your lap times:  HINT IT IS NOT ON YOUR CAR
9)  What is BOP
10)  When is the best time to start looking for assistance from the Racers360 coaches
11)  Potential car set up opportunities available at Racers360
12)  Dion recommends we get more cars.  Bill agrees very quickly.
13)  What lap video should you submit
14)  The importance of hitting the apex, as well as car angle at the apex
15)  We bond over our shared GTI history
16)  What is his favorite shape steering wheel
17)  Alan refers to El Jeffe as a trophy truck

Winning
You too may eventually be able to waste good champagne!!!


In addition, we begin our weekly series with Ben Dawson where we go into various topics related to racing and help you to understand and improve your driving skill and knowledge.  This week’s topic is “Smooth is Fast” Part 1.  If you have any questions or topics for us to discuss, please let us know at [email protected].

You can find Dion and his team at:  www.racers360.com  or using his email at [email protected] or [email protected].  We really love the team and the help that they have offered. 

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

GHIT 0092: Dion von Moltke from Racers360 and Professional Racing Driver is our Special Guest

GHIT 0089: Top 10 List of Things We Learned From Racing

Our First Two Years In Racing

  • Alan in Repair Mode
Two Years and Still In Training

For this shorter episode of our podcast we thought it would be helpful and fun to go over our individual lists of the top ten things we have learned in our first two years of low budget endurance racing.  We also had a few items added in from Kate as well as several thoughts from our Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

In addition to our top ten list, highlights include:

1)  If its worth doing, it worth overdoing, again.
2)  Bill’s math side is affecting his line and apex visualization and target, still
3)  Jen needs to work on her subtlety
4)  Vicki is confused with what racing means, but refers to it assuming she is addressing new drivers
5)  We review our top choices for low cost endurance tires and brakes at this point
6)  Square tires are not desirable
7)  Vicki and Bill discuss tire pressure and its potential effects on traction and grip and car handling
8)  Bill pretends to be Richard Dawson
9)  Black flags are not atta boys or girls
10)  Jen learns about blips and has homework for the morning
11)  Jen’s cat makes an appearance by rubbing on the microphone and says hi
12)  Alan apparently makes an appearance via Jen
13)  We talk about the video Mental said not to talk about
14)  Another discussion on the difference between front wheel drive and rear wheel drive cars
15)  Jim makes another drop in appearance
16)  Matt F, Randy B, Roger M, Jason H, and James M were kind enough to add a few items to our lists
17)  Purple mist with sparkly pop rocks

It seems like the only things we learned were from the Three Pedal Mafia.  Hopefully, you can find a team willing to help mentor you early in your racing team’s growth to assist you.   

Best regards,
Bill, Vicki, and Alan

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

Our 1974 Capri
Our 1984 Mustang GT Turbo
  • GHiT Flags Flying High!!!
    GHiT Flags Flying High!!!
Our 2003 Chevy S-10/Isuzu Hombre
  • E36 performed very well
Our 1998 BMW E36

GHIT 0089: Top 10 List of Things We Learned From Racing

GHIT 0083: Our 2019 Review and 2020 Goals Episode

On this episode, Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, Kate and Bill went over our 2019 season and our 2020 goals.  Are we on the same page?  Do we even belong in the same book?  Listen in and find out.  Some of it was news to us, lol. 

Areas covered included:

2019 Review:

1)  How did our Team’s 2019 go in your opinion, Highlight and Low-light
2)  How did your personal season go?  Highlight and Low-light
3)  Things you want to keep the same/similar and Things we need to change or improve
4)  Biggest team weakness or missing need
5) Best Race or HPDE and Worst Race or HPDE
6)  Our traditional Good, Bad, and the Ugly

2020 Goals:

1)  What race goals do you have For you, For the team, For cars
2)  Personal, Non-driving/racing goals
3)  What driving/HPDE goals do you have, Any tracks or races interested in for 2020
4)  Any additions to our team in terms of People, Tools, Training, Paddock, Cars,
5)  Roles/Responsibilities, and Team talents missing/needed
6)  What would define a successful year? For you and for our team
7)  What would you say to the other members of our team

We try to do this every year and would recommend it to you and your team. 

Bill’s inner planner sometimes takes over. 

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jen, Kate, and Alan

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

GHIT 0083: Our 2019 Review and 2020 Goals Episode

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