Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

Our Team

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

GHIT 0081: Kate and Bennett Danvers of our GHiT Team

Kate and Bennett
Kate and Bennett Danvers: Race Car Drivers for our team

On this week’s 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 week’s 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)  Bennett’s amazing tracking abilities and what kept Kate from coming to her first race so long
5)  Bennett’s 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

Working on the Capri
Working on the Capri

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)  Alan’s 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 0069: NHMS Race Weekend Review

NHMS Flag
NHMS 2019 – 24 Hours of Lemons race

Our podcast this week focuses on our race weekend at NHMS with the 24 Hours of Lemons teams.  We had a bit of a struggle getting ready, but the cars eventually cooperated and raced well, at least for a bit.  In the end, we had a great time and caught up with a lot of friends and made several new ones this weekend.+

  • Team at Tech
  • Mia as Death Doctor
  • Brad made it to his first race
  • Passed Tech Inspection
We confused Guitar Heroes with Garage Heroes, oops.

On this episode, Alan, Jennifer, Kate, Vicki and Bill are still recuperating from the race weekend hangover, but did manage to discuss:

  • Vicki learns the alphabet, finally.
  • Pre-race prep and race car struggles.
  • Not going as planned
    Not going as planned
  • Lost but found
    Lost but found
It all started innocently enough
  • We broke the first rule of racing and brought an non-prepped car to the track
  • El Jeffe/The Bad Hombre/The Trophy Truck/Race Truck was finished literally hours before the race.
  • The E36 BMW struggle did not complete until midday Friday afternoon when our great friend Bruce figured out a simple electrical issue that we could not find on our own
  • We had to pick up a windshield, which was in Canada
  • Bill learns to not joke with the border police
  • Normal race induced issues led to a lot of on track repairs and replacement for the race truck, especially related to our steering, power steering, and steering rack.
  • SpiderStang was almost brought into race trim since we had all hands on deck and needed two cars
  • We rolled the dice and brought the E36 to the track and hoped we could fix it with the aide of our friends in the paddock area
  • Friday testing went well with El Jeffe and we were able to get almost all of our new to NHMS drivers
  • Jennifer clears all prior NHMS demons from last year
  • Kate enjoys her first time on this track and then promptly has internet issues in mid story
  • Jennifer is very excited and saw many benefits of the Watkins Glen HPDE we sent to two weeks ago.
  • We may finally have solved our braking issue with the El Jeffe race truck
  • Bill creates a new word for the dictionary
  • Bruce saved our team having to get another engine and perform and engine swap by solving our issue and getting the engine in the E36 to fire.
  • Bill confirms that by fire, they meant to get it running and not that it had caught on fire.
  • Special thanks to the Thunder for Days team in their Folgers E36 BMW for all their assistance as well.  Apparently, they travel with an entire parts store worth of spare parts to each race.  Thankfully.  And Wisely.  We owe you all.
Team Folgers
Thunder for Days saved us
  • Our one time only Guitar Heroes In Training Theme for this race
  • Vicki confuses AC/DC and Kiss somehow
  • Mia tormented Craiggers as the Plague Doctor all weekend
  • Several other teams were theming hard this weekend including appearances by the Three Pedal Mafia’s Ambiguously Gay Duo themed new Pontiac Solstice and the entire gang that represented Baby Shark.
  • Baby Shark
  • New Driver
Baby Shark team and new driver
3PM is not Ambiguous
3PM is not so ambiguous
Solstice NHMS 2019
Their new Solstice race car
  • Jennifer’s costume was very helpful in getting our cars to have no penalty laps
  • Harley Quinn and the harlequin GTI were also a big hit, ad it was quite fast on the track.
  • We had a run on power steering pumps for the race truck this weekend, using three total, and we also lost the steering rack/box
  • We then run through the race for the race truck and then for the E36 race car
  • NHMS this year was the most aggressive race we have been in and there were many incidents, especially Saturday
  • We also had a Guest driver this weekend, Jeff Wright, who we met at our Lucky Dog race in Portland this summer.  We hope he had a great time.
Jeff at Tech
Jeff rocking out awaiting tech inspection
  • Our wheel spacers led to tire tracking issues in the El Jeffe race truck
  • We eventually (think) we lost the steering rack and had some steering difficulty that eventually led to the race truck parking for the last half of Sunday
  • Jennifer gets here first black flag in the race truck
  • Bill ran first in the E36 on Saturday and raced with several of our friends on the track for long periods of time
  • We peaked at 5th place overall, our highest position ever.  Now we need to figure out how to stay there for the whole weekend. 
Proof we can drive
Proof that we can drive a bit (5th overall)
  • We learn that there are two different style safety harnesses/safety belts
  • Saturday night dinner and post-race festivities
  • Vicki finally meets her girl crush, Amanda Tully, in full costume, in the Three Pedal Mafia’s hot tub, built for 4, but somehow managed to squeeze in 9 that evening.  Hopefully, we will have her on as a future guest.
  • The festivities went long into the night.
NHMS at night
NHMS at night
  • Alan eventually gets into a on race CSI investigation that gets edited out a bit.
  • Vicki proves that numbers are hard
  • We end up talking all over each other during the review of Alan’s Sunday stint
  • The Egan’s new car modifications led to a lot of fun but also a lot more gas usage
  • We ended our day in the BMW E36 when we lost either a wheel bearing and/or a hub
  • Team improvements for next year were abundant
  • Radios for each team member if possible
  • Earlier starting prep on race day morning with more people
  • Training matrix will be developed and monitor our progress towards overall team knowledge and skill improvement for next year and the future
  • New Pit Crew Chief election for 2010 season is very likely
  • Spares parts for the BMW for next season
  • On site car alignment verification capability within our team
  • We begin planning our off season and our 2020 season, including re-theming several cars for the 2020
  • NHMS 2019 is Over
    NHMS 2019 and our racing season is over

Thank you to all our friends, we can’t wait to see you again next season!

GHIT 0069: NHMS Race Weekend Review