Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

Safety

Optimal Mirror Positioning

mirrors

DwD 0360:  Optimal Mirror Positioning Tips

One of the fundamental aspects of racing that everyone agrees upon is the importance of your vision and constantly working to improve it.  Unfortunately, when you are starting out, this is even more important since it is very likely that your relative speed is lower than some of the other more experience drivers on a track and it is demanding both in front of you and behind you.  On this episode, we look at several options for selecting and installing the mirrors, as well as the mirror positioning to help improve your overall vision.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

Awesome choice #1:  Subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice and every episode will show up. 

Even Better:  If you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating

Mostest Bestest:  if you would leave a podcast review

We really appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Are you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with video? Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you.  We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars.  If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT“. This will give 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2  If you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems.  Please enter the code “ghitlikesapex!”. You will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill

Hosts and Drivers for the Garage Heroes In Training team

DwD 0360:  Optimal Mirror Positioning Tips

Overdoing It & Potential Burnout

Burnout

DwD 0354:  Overdoing It and Leading to Potential Burnout

As is often the case, we sometimes show you what not to do.  This time, it was after three straight race weekends in multiple states that Bill entered a zombie state.  This is not optimal for performance or enjoyment and can not only turn a fun recreational past time into a large effort/struggle, but can also impact your performance and potentially the personal safety through car preparation and/or your driving.  We illustrate this by our recent poor performance after our last endurance race.  It is still a good idea to treat a HPDE/race weekend as a sporting event and prepare for it accordingly, including food, drink, and sleep.  Ben offers up several indicators that can help you self diagnose when this may be happening to you at an event.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

Awesome choice #1:  Subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice and every episode will show up.  

Even Better:  If you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating

Mostest Bestest:  if you would leave a podcast review

We really appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Are you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with video? Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you.  We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars.  If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT“. This will give 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2  If you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems.  Please enter the code “ghitlikesapex!”. You will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill

Hosts and Drivers for the Garage Heroes In Training team

DwD 0354:  Overdoing It and Leading to Potential Burnout

How to Test Your Race Car

at the Track with Scott Robertson

GHIT 0334:  How to Test Your Car at the Track with Scott Robertson

We often hear how important it is to test your car prior to racing.  While listening to Scott’s Track Walking podcast (a can’t miss podcast), Scott was discussing how he and Becky were able to conduct a full track test and tune evaluation of their vehicle during a recent HPDE.  Since Scott is a respected coach and offers a service to help a driver to dial in their car at the track, we thought he would be a perfect guest to discuss how to best conduct a test and tune day most effectively and efficiently.  We start the discussion with what a test day means and work our way up from there.  This was recorded several weeks ago prior to the 2022 One Lap of America where Scott and Becky entered the OLoA in their Mazda 2 Sundae Cup car lovingly called Mooncake.  If we could go back in time, we would have asked how that car was able to come in second overall on the skid pad event versus some very capable and sometimes expensively prep’ed vehicles. 

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

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

Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate that very much.  Even better would be a podcast review. This helps us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you.  We are amid installing the system in two of our cars.  If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount during the checkout process at https://candelaria-racing.com/

PS2  Please do not forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount, a savings of $40.  Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order from https://apextrackcoach.com/

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

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

Highlights for this episode include:

1)  We start off with pre-event processes such as planning what you will test.  This includes aspects of what tools you have, what you are capable/willing to change at the track. 

2)  Some examples of the testing order and priority.  Things to do and things not to do.

3)  One of the key aspects is to determine what you are trying to get from the process, i.e., driver experience/education or car optimization etc.

4)  We also cover some of the key changes that you would like to change, as well as what tools you need to have for some of the key areas you will likely test.  Hint:  you will need a good tire pressure gauge and  ideally a tire thermocouple or equivalent.

5)  The best aspects of seeking an outside perspective or even better an experiences coach or F1 engineer, or even somewhere in between.

6)  Ideas of things that you would like to test, including front sway bar (full hard to disconnected), rear sway bar (same), shock sweeps (full hard to full soft), rake adjustment, alignment, aero, tire pressure, etc.

7)  Tips on how the impact of driver adaptation can affect the tests.

8)   The importance of testing documentation and how it can help you going forward.  A partial list of the items to summarize include the weather, track conditions, alignment, tires and condition, driver  etc.  This will eventually lead towards secondary goal of building you set up database for the car and the tracks

9)  We go into last year’s One Lap of America  and the (at that time) upcoming 2022 which since been completed.

10)  Scott and Becky finished first in class and 54th out of 84 entries for the entire event and stunned the world on the skid pad with a 2nd place overall.

To follow Scott, you can go to:

@TrackWalkingPodcast on Facebook or Instagram

@RobertsonRacing on Instagram

@RobertsonRacingMiata on Facebook

Or you can email Scott about coaching etc. at:  [email protected]

GHIT 0334:  How to Test Your Car at the Track with Scott Robertson

CPR and Racing

– Correct, Pause, and Recover

Correction Pause and Recover

DwD 0330:  CPR and Racing – Correct, Pause, and Recover)

CPR is typically referred to in a medical emergency.  But in racing, CPR is in reference to Correct, Pause, and Recover when you are out of sorts on the track.  The thought behind the acronym is that when your car gets out of shape or out of control on a track, one of the things that should be taken into consideration is that this can often require a procedure where you not only correct for the issue/error, but you must wait an appropriate amount of time for the correction to take effect on the car.  This allows the change to be transferred to the car through the vehicle through the suspension and then after seeing the car respond, the driver will then have to finish the process with a recovery to continue along the desired pathway on track.  This is because the correction will often lead to a change of course that requires a further input to track properly.  The unique aspect of this process is being relaxed enough to wait and feel the pause before applying the recovery before the correction has taken place.  Without the pause, a driver can often get caught up in greater and greater oscillations and get “behind” the vehicle and end up in a worse condition than the original issue would have caused.  This is likely part one of several episodes.    

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

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, that we would appreciate that very much.  Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

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

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you.  We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars.  If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2  Please do not forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not 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.  They are a great system and invaluable to safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross, etc.  The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

Hosts and Drivers for the Garage Heroes In Training team

DwD 0330:  CPR and Racing – Correct, Pause, and Recover

Dave Mills

Post our AER Race at PittRace

Dave Mills

GHIT 0321:  Dave Mills Post our AER Race at PittRace

Long sought after guest Dave Mills is finally on the podcast that you may know from his online presence as the Caddy Wrecker.  Dave is a long-time racer, rallyist, and was working with the AER team at our race last weekend at PittRace.  With so many things to talk about, we try to get a review of Dave’s rally and racing exploits as well as how he saw our race from the tower.  We also cover the Flagger system that was in our car that we mistakenly called by another product in our prior race review episode.  Please welcome to the podcast guest family.  Please excuse any of the internet induced noises and Robot Dave that appears sporadically within the beginning of the episode.

Also, a podcast first, help Dave find a new fun daily driver.  Let us know on Instagram, Facebook, or on our email at [email protected]

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

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, that we would appreciate that very much.  Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you.  We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars.  If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount code to all of our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2  Please do not forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not 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.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

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

One of Dave's Creations

Highlights for this episode include:

1)  Swag bribes work.  Looks its Dave!!!

2)  Some great tips about looking at what the better teams are doing and learning what they do and what they don’t do, especially in the pits and paddock areas.  This literally can be the difference between winning a race and being midfield or worse.

3)  Dave has had quite a few unique rally experiences, especially the rally that occurred right as Covid was ramping up early in 2020.  He may hold the record for the longest time spent on a Lemons rally.  We are also not sure if that is something to be proud of or not.

4)  How Dave’s professional experience has helped with the Flagger system that is being used by AER and is being reviewed by several other racing organizations.  Hopefully more to follow on this system in an upcoming podcast.

5)  We revisit the internet video where one driver missed a vast series of yellow flags.  If you missed it, the first video was on VinWiki and the actual rebuttal is available separately.

6)  What it is like to be “running” the race vs running in the race.

7)  As Dave is our first guest from AER, we go into a brief discussion of the differences between AER and several of the other series we usually discuss.  Especially the required pit stops system and some of the technology that the AER series employs in this mostly amateur series.

8)  Dave askes for some help in deciding on his next daily driver.  A podcast first and perhaps our first public service announcement.

9)  Dave’s experience living off grid.  Its not for everyone, but he gives some tips and tricks that made it better.  

For more of Dave’s exploits: 

Instagram:  @caddywrecker

GHIT 0321:  Dave Mills Post our AER Race at PittRace