Driver Education

GHIT 0081: Kate and Bennett Danvers of our GHiT Team

On this weekâs podcast, we were finally able to interview Kate and Bennett Danvers and share with you a bit of their background and experiences with our team. Kate shared many words, Bennett, few. We hope you enjoy the weekâs episode at:

Highlights from this episode include:

1) Overall background of each, including driving, racing, and car history of each and the family
2) How to power oversteer a John Deere tractor and the impact on the grass cut, as well as life with a Mark VI GTI first car
3) Team areas of responsibility during race weekend and upcoming changes to our team for 2020
4) Bennettâs amazing tracking abilities and what kept Kate from coming to her first race so long
5) Bennettâs claim on the fireproof one-sie and our plan to get Quinn into our insanity
6) What cars are their dream cars, especially fellow lemons paddock cars
7) Wildest racing memories, so far with Lucky Dog and the 24 Hours of Lemons
8) What we have done well so far, including the Good, Bad, and the Ugly, and some upcoming improvements we can work on. Bennett can only find good in our food, lol.
9) Bennett offers words of optimism/prediction for our 2020 season
10) Heat upgrade for our winter garage is announced, so if anyone wants to come and visit, it should be warm this winter

Bennett Battery Assassin — Bennett Danvers: Battery Assassin

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 0081: Kate and Bennett Danvers of our GHiT Team

Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

Thank you to Chris and Chrissy

GHIT 0077: Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

Alan, Zombie Vicki, and Bill go over our recent Friendsgiving Work Weekend with special guest from the Everyone Racers Podcast hosts, Chris and Chrissy who came up to guide, instruct, and assist us with several of our cars that, as always, need repair and improvements.

Highlights to the discussion include:

1) Our two and a half Porsche 944s that are available and soon to be posted for sale for HPDE or racing use.

2) Capri update and our updated plans going forward

3) Winter is here in Northeast PA and when the sun goes down, the temperature leaves the garage in a hurry

4) How we organize our garage for both parts and cars and how Chris helped Vicki determine what is good to keep and how to identify the unknown items we have collected since our race team started.

5) What parts are worth keeping and what parts have donated all they have to give

6) Alan’s hamster powered internet shows up again

7) Our plans for the new Honda race car project code name Godzuki

8) The difference between parts replacement projects and part fabrication projects

9) Our repair update of the race truck/El Chrissy/The Bad Hombre steering issues and exhaust leak and the potential for a power steering line cooler to be added

10) Our repair update of the BMW E36 race car

11) How many ignore the potential for their race car to be their own planetarium

12) Alan bonds with several local FLAPS in our area

13) We need a bunch of camber shims to fix our S-10

14) We have renamed our race truck due to this week.

15) Alan gives a visual description of suspension geometry

16) A discussion of our hubs and bearings for the E36 and transferring the brake cooling ducts to our other race cars

17) Vicki and Bill plan to go to a local race shop to see what is available for our use

18) Alanâs fall led to a broken jaw, so does disagreeing with Kate. You can choose which is the cover story and which is real.

19) Alan impersonates a BMW E36 while Chris was investigating our electrical wiring issues

20) Spare parts and supply at the track discussion

21) Vicki, pre-Zombie, and Bill received a welding lesson on our Miller 211 MIG welder and began the learning process in earnest

22) Vicki relates welding to her art background

23) Chris and Chrissy had a spare moment to test our Mazda MX-5 on the test track for a good shakedown run

24) Skid pad event discussion and planning for this winter/spring at Lime Rock

25) Car show Fails on YouTube, a worthwhile time waster

26) The best way to say thank you/bribe people to help you (Hint: Food, drink, and beer)

Bribing Hard — We bribe our guests hard! And that was after we ate.

Special thanks, as always to Chris and Chrissy for coming up and helping. We learned a ton and accomplished quite a bit. We hope our bribes of food, drink, and racing were sufficient to lure you up again, hopefully soon.

If anyone wants a garage tour, we could put up a video (excuse the mess) on our YouTube channel. Just let us know.

E1R is Cool — Everyone Racers podcast is way Cool

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Links mentioned

For part ID and a great source for auto parts

Our Miller 211 Welder

Welding related YouTube channel

Everyone Racers Podcast

GHIT 0077: Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

GHIT 0075: Dillon Brennan of EJ2 Track Rat

EJ2 Track Rat x2 — Dillon Brennan with his EJ2 Track Rat

On this week’s podcast, we finally with Dillon Brennan also known as EJ2 Track Rat. This was after missing each other multiple times at the last Watkins Glen HPDE event. While he is an accomplished driver and instructor, he started EJ2 Track Rat to help raise awareness to everyone that they can also get out on track and enjoy our great sport with a low budget. You can follow him on his Instagram account and his blog, and soon on his YouTube channel.

Highlights include:

1) Dillon’s driving history within autocross, HPDE, and wheel to wheel racing (so far)

2) We interview a parrot for the first time

3) Honda engine codes and chassis codes aplenty, so if you are playing scrabble or battleship, feel free to try to use these random letters and numbers

4) How he has found ways to get onto the track and learn with a small budget (one less excuse for everyone). Things like working events for future credits, SCCA Track Night of America, etc. and the beginning of their Lobuk initiative

5) One way not to get a college test delayed for a track day

6) What is Honda Challenge series and how much fun can be had in this form of wheel to wheel racing

7) Bill shows off his Honda engine code prowess, or lack thereof, several times.

8) We compare notes on potential ways to paint and theme your cars livery, including a new one to us, Sharpie paint pens

9) What is EJ2 Track Rat and what they are involved in currently and future goals

10) The importance of a support group of friends and family towards making this a successful and very achievable activity for nearly everyone

11) We review all of our favorite tracks and also get a brief walkthrough of Lime Rock from Dillon

12) Vicki complains about the deer, again.

We end with a plea for help with our Porsche Boxster. Its ability to break every slave cylinder we can find. Any thoughts or options are greatly appreciated.

If you want to follow along with Dillon and the EJ2 Track Rat’s, you can follow them at:

EJ2_Track_Rat on Instagram.

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 0075: Dillon Brennan of EJ2 Track Rat

GHIT 0074: Scott Barton and Sim Racing

Early ideas for the upcoming gift season

Sim Racing Rig — Advanced Sim Racing setup

On this week’s episode we have Scott Barton as our guest. Scott is a very accomplished racing driver and very knowledgeable in the area of Sim Racing. We thought we’d learn more about both on this episode, just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Sim racing can be great way to get cheap track time, especially in the off season or during the work week when you aren’t near a track. As with most aspects of racing, you can go as deep as your interest and bank account will allow. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Highlights from this episode include:

1) Scott’s racing history and progression to where he is currently racing mostly in the AER series (American Endurance Racing). He has recorded a very impressive series of results since originally learning at HPDE’s in 1999 and racing in 2009.

2) Scott’s latest goal is try to finish his collection of first overall wins in Lucky Dog and WRL. This will complete his already stellar collection of 24 Hours of Lemons, Champ Car, and AER wins. Then he will have recorded overall wins in every major US street tire endurance racing series.

3) Scott is also a driving coach and is involved with many racing series and organizations.

4) We then began to cover various software and hardware choices available. Scott makes some recommendations (links below). He then describes some systems options available for different budgets.

5) The three basic systems we reviewed started with a single monitor, a three-monitor system and a VR based system with a good set of steering wheels and pedals. A sim vibe/butt kicker would be a very nice addition is budget allows.

4 Screen Sim Racing Rig — Go as far as you wish

6) More advanced options mentioned include motion/ full motions simulators, spring loaded harnesses,

7) Computer requirements in general, such as a 4-core processor, i5 or newer, with a video card capable of running a VR headset at 1080p and 90 fps (or better) should be sufficient for your system.

8) We also cover how to deal with motion sickness in VR if that happens to you in the beginning.

Sim Rig — They can even go to the track with you

9) Scott was even kind enough to entertain us with our traditional Good, Bad, and the Ugly series.

Also, Scott can assist you with defining your system if needed at his website below.

Items and Links discussed within this episode include:

Steering wheel and Pedals:

Logitech G29, G920:Â https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/driving/driving-force-racing-wheel.html

AccuForce Steering wheels

Fanatec Wheel and Pedals: https://fanatec.com/us-en e.g. v3 inverted pedal set, Club sport base/mount

Heusinkveld: https://heusinkveld.com/products/sim-rigs/sim-rig-gt/?q=%2Fproducts%2Fsim-rigs%2Fsim-rig-gt%2F&v=7516fd43adaa

VR:

Samsung Odyssey Plus Headset:Â https://heusinkveld.com

Oculus Rift: https://www.oculus.com/rift-s/

Optional Accessories/Upgrades:

Butt Kickers: https://thebuttkicker.com/

Full Motion simulators – Various sources

RaceDepartment.com for cars and tracks

Realteus force feel seat pad: www.Realteus.com

Chassis movers: various sources

Sim Racing choices:

iRacing: https://www.iracing.com/

Assetto Corsa: https://www.assettocorsa.net/home-ac/

R Factor: https://store.steampowered.com/app/365960/rFactor_2/

Project Cars:Â https://www.projectcarsgame.com/explore/?lang=en-us

Please feel free to contact Scott at:

Website: https://www.facebook.com/ProFormanceCoachingcom

Facebook Group: Sim Racing Deals at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SimRacingDeals/

Thank you again.

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 0074: Scott Barton and Sim Racing

RaceCapture and Podium with Brent Picasso

Podium Pit Setup — You want data that you can use?

GHIT 0073: RaceCapture and Podium with Brent Picasso

Brent Picasso has been racing since 2009 and has since created a company that provides the RaceCapture and Podium real time telemetry and data capture/display systems. We cover the development history and capabilities of the system, as well as his racing history. With what originally began as a self-tweeting race car, they have been able to develop one of the best and most complete systems we have seen to date.

Podium is capable of being used with virtually all data collecting systems and converts the data into many potential formats to aid in understanding and analyzing.Â RaceCapture is a separateÂ system that comes in three levels suitable for once in a blue moon track day participants to full time professional racing teams.

His initial racing history began at Thunderhill with what was originally intended to be a Peugeot entry. But eventually led to turbo Miata and 1,000 penalty laps and the race to zero laps began. The initial wheel to wheel racing action set the hook and he hasn’t looked back since. Since then, in addition to the Peugeot, his conquests included a turbo 3-cylinder Mercur XR4Ti, a Crown Vic, and a second gen V6 MR2. (Bill really wants a piece of that MR2 since he had one in college)

1) The development history of both RaceCapture and Podium and how each can be used together or with other data capture systems like AIM, MoTeC etc.

2) The use and capabilities of the various systems and how they interact

3) Data collection capabilities as well as how the data can be followed, used, and displayed, both in real time at the track, remotely, or within the racing car itself.

4) There are three levels of the RaceCapture system, what they are used for and how they differ

5) Podium app capabilities, use, and several upcoming features and capabilities

Podium on Cell Phone — Mobile and Remote usage as well

6) Ability to look at data in real time or as a review, especially with racing coaches and friends.

7) These systems appear to lower the barrier to look at and use any data you are collecting currently or in the future

8) Driver data comparison techniques and use

9) Some of the key improvements of this environment is the lower barrier to using and understanding and improving as a result of the data

10) The interface is also able to be used as a real time, in car dashboard and/or dashboard replacement

11) It is also able to be used not only in the car, but also in the garage/paddock at the track, and even remotely, all in real time on a wide variety of hardware including computers, laptops, iPads, phones, etc.

12) What is predictive lap time, how it is calculated and potentially used on the track

13) How the system works with driver changes etc., so common in endurance racing

14) Pit use vs in car use vs post-race review usage and options

15) Options and thoughts for use with multiple cars/multi car teams

16) We try to overview the installation process and requirements, as well as how they vary depending on the car being used, its OBD2 capabilities etc.

17) Options and thoughts regarding additional sensor use for things like brake pad temperature or tire temperatures

18) What is Canbus and how it can be used with the system to increase the capabilities and data that can be collected and monitored in real time, like differential temperature etc.

19) Shift X3 capabilities and usage to form alarms and warning systems for the driver of potential car issues such as engine rpm shift lights, oil and water pressure and temperatures etc.

20) Advanced customization options are also available for those interested through Lua programming capabilities built into the system

21) Options and use within dedicated race cars, as well as occasional track/daily driver cars

22) In car dashboard replacement options with using the system

23) We are very excited with several of the upcoming additions to the systems and steps to continuously improve the ease (of use and data digestionâ) and capabilities of the systems and how they integrate with each other and external data sources like video etc., as well as several advanced pit-to-car communication capabilities

All of this can be used for track days, HPDE’s, and racing events at all types of venues and tracks. This includes impromptu tracks and non-traditional racing areas common with Autocross events etc.

We are placing our order for several of these systems next week. We will likely have our review in an upcoming episode(s) as we progress.

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Several links mentioned within the podcast:

Autosports Lab/RaceCapture: https://www.autosportlabs.com/

Podium App: https://podium.live/software

Aim Sportline: https://www.aim-sportline.com/index.htm

MoTeC: https://www.motec.com.au/products-currentrange/product-directory/

GHIT 0073: RaceCapture and Podium with Brent Picasso

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