Garage Heroes (In Training) - Page 3 of 36 - Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

GHIT 0155: Trey Shannon returns to discuss getting in shape during the off season

Trey Shannon returns to discuss several options to get in better shape for racing and life that can be done with or without a gym. We talk through a wide variety of ways to shave pounds off each car you drive by carrying fewer (extra) pounds in the driver seat. Trey usually works with several pro level drivers and many with professional aspirations. Podium Performance not only deals with physical preparation, but mental, visual, and many other related areas that can impact your driving performance, especially in long races or races with challenging conditions like heat etc. If you happen to live in the Charlotte NC area, Trey is local to you and he works out of Podium Performance Fitness at www.podiumperformancefitness.com or 540-815-2737.

We discuss the relative importance of driving perfect lines versus driving with full commitment on our Dominating with Dawson. This philosophy was brought up to Bill at a recent HPDE last summer and had a dramatic improvement on his lap times at the event. Maybe Bill was too smooth (for the first time in his life).

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) The podcast starts with a reference that won’t make sense unless you listen to the post credits. Is it worth it to make it all that way? TBD, but we hope so.

2) What would a good starting point program look like to get into shape or back into shape.

3) Trey also offers many suggestions for activities that can be done with body weight only or minimal equipment that you may have at home already.

4) Leopard crawls: what Bill usually has to do to get a new race car.

5) RPPWFB. Familiar? Its an oldie, but a goodie around here.

6) How often to work out and how long can be very dependent on your starting condition, but something is always better than zero.

7) Remember, getting into better shape does not mean becoming a better circle or more round.

8) How has exercise and people’s dietary habits been affected by the COVID induced isolation? Trey also goes into several online options to look for guidance at home, many of which are available for free on YouTube etc.

9) Trey also goes into the additional intensity that tempo can offer if you have limited weight at home. Bill dates himself with a Billy Squire reference. Trey being much cooler (and much younger) makes Flower by Moby reference. Both are tremendously effective ways to raise your pulse and intensity, even with light or very light weights.

10) Basic, fundamental diet discussion that leads to portion size control as a great place to start and work from, as well as the benefits of establishing an eating schedule.

11) Trey expands upon the one key principle that everyone needs to keep in mind, you cannot out work a bad diet, but you can easily out eat any workout program.

12) Vicki finds that the Noom app is very helpful for her to help control her diet and food consumption.

13) If you are very interested in the aspects of nutrition and diet, please look to working with a nutritionist to determine your exact needs and perhaps any food allergies etc. Even Trey’s team works with a nutritionist with several of his clients.

14) Why does it always come back to Slurpee’s with Bill? Trey tolerates it a bit and then they come up with a potential plan for controlling the craving for something while retaining control of your dietary inputs.

15) How to start with small steps and changes to begin a path towards huge results. Trey also goes into a planning approach to be ready for next season.

16) Slurpee substitute smoothie is included below.

17) Several gift tips for holiday gifts to help get in shape this year.

18) Vicki looks for tips from Trey on how to ease into a fitness and diet program, while secretly just trying to control Bill.

19) Hard Hog makes its first appearance in the fitness lexicon. We shall see if it catches on. Also, this proves that Vicki doesn’t just make up terms in racing.

20) Approaches for working with and around any prior injuries, pain, or joint issues.

Some of the online or at home programs we discussed include: Tone It Up, several Beach Body programs, The Mirror, Peloton, among a near limitless number of potential alternatives.

Bill makes a commitment to Trey that the next time he is on there with be 25 pounds less of Bill. We really hope we see Trey again. Lol.

Anyone interested in joining Bill in the contest, please let us know. We all know he loves a competition and is more than willing to bet many stickers etc.

Trey’s smoothie recipe is as follows: you can put in pretty much whatever you want, but I usually make mine two at a time, and I include the below ingredients.

1 Banana
1 Cup Strawberries
1/2 Cup Blueberries
1/2 Avocado
1/2 Cup Spinach
1 Multivitamin
Dash of Cinnamon
Dash of Turmeric
1/2 Serving BCAA Powder (Amino Acids – this is where the Slurpee flavor comes from)
1/2 Serving Protein Powder – Vanilla
Water (maybe a little bit of nut milk in there too)

For the strawberries and blueberries, I buy frozen bags. This makes things much easier, plus fruit that has been picked and almost immediately frozen tends to be slightly more nutrient rich than the “fresh” counterpart. I’ll freeze my own bananas, as I have yet to find pre-frozen bags of those.

GHIT 0155: Trey Shannon returns to discuss getting in shape during the off season

GHIT 0154: GridLife with Adam Jabaay

Adam Jabaay is a co-founder of the GridLife series and was kind enough to come onto our program to talk about GridLife and his driving and racing history. We were told by several people at the track that we needed to attend a GridLife event and after doing some homework and talking with Adam, we agree. The series is a mix of high level racing, HPDE, drifting, and a huge social aspect in the paddock. We may need to take a vacation after the event to recuperate, lol. You can find more info on GridLife at the website: https://www.grid.life/ and we are anxiously waiting for the 2021 schedule to finalize our plans. Also, please follow Adam on his podcast that is nearing 400 episodes, we are way behind.

We cover all the apexes on this episode of Dominating with Dawson. If you were ever curious, we not only go into the different jargon/labels for apexes but what they mean and why they are where they are. No mathematical geometry, nor proofs required.

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) Norm Abrams reference number one for our podcast, but that would be a WOOT episode.

2) We recorded post the GridLife event at NOLA and Adam was still recovering, unpacking, and finding what he left at the track. His phone battery did make it all the way through the episode though.

3) How the Slip Angle podcast is the platform for communicating to the GridLife paddock and future paddock.

4) Adam also covers a lot of the history of GridLife and the eternal question: What is GridLife and what happens on a GridLife weekend. Remember the first rule: it stays at GridLife. We are hoping to attend the Gingerman event if it is during the summer when school is out.

5) Sprint Races? Check. HPDE? Check. Time Attack? Yep. Drifting? Check. Concerts? You bet. Post-race weekend hangover included free of charge.

6) What is GLTC? How it became what it is? How to build a car for it? It’s all in here. Once class to rule them all.

7) What is the Time Attack event? What cars and levels/classes are available? Where would your car fit? A summary is here, but likely you should review the rule book for final classing determination.

8) What is a festival event vs a normal weekend?

9) How does drifting fit into the weekend? What types of drifting events do they hold?

10) How GridLife can have several thousand spectators at these events.

11) How the first ever tandem drifting competition went at NOLA? How someone can drift through turn 12 at Road Atlanta or even through the esses?

12) Can we hope to see an endurance type event at GridLife? Asking for a friend.

13) GridLife iRacing? Yep. Also, GridLife has been on Forza. Adam and the team are even working on a festival type event, perhaps even for this off season.

14) Tips and tricks for attending a GridLife event. Stay at the track. Come with a car already prepared. Sleep the week before.

15) You can’t have Adam Jabaay on a not discuss RV’s. So, we did. And his latest exploits going down to NOLA. Trailer hub maintenance is a real thing.

16) The weirdest recommendation to buy Koni shocks ever.

GHIT 0154: GridLife with Adam Jabaay

WOOT 0153: The Mandalorian

and Recent Announcements from Disney, Disney+, HBO Max, and Warner Brothers, as well as the current state of movie theaters during the COVID 19 pandemic

On this Way Off Our Topic (WOOT) episode, we overdo our review of The Mandalorian prior to the season 2 finale and predictions for what we think and/or want to happen in the finale. We then move into the recent announcements of upcoming movies and television series. Since we haven’t had a WOOT episode in a long while, we went really long with this one. Our hosts for this episode are Jeff, Josh, Benny, Vicki, and Bill.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Ahsoka — The Mandalorian and all rights are the property of Disney and Disney+

Grogu — The Mandalorian and all rights are the property of Disney and Disney+

WOOT 0153: The Mandalorian and Recent Announcements

GHIT 0152: Craig Watkins Joins us for Car Setup 101 Focusing on the Tires

Craig Watkins Car Engineer for Flying Lizards Motorsports

Carig Watkins with Flying Lizard Motorsports

Craig Watkins joins us for this episode to discuss his driving history, as well as his time spent as an engineer for Flying Lizard Motorsports, among others. Craig concentrates now being an amateur racing driver and fells the pain of being a single person team. We also go into his business that started as a tool he needed to help him as a race car engineer and grew into what we know as Smart Racing Products that offers several solutions that are easy to use to set your car alignment up, even if your car is a truck or a bus. We hope to have Craig on again to go into the area more deeply in the future. We had recording issues so the episode is a mix of two parts, and you may be able to tell a difference in recording almost halfway through. We cannot express how happy we were when Craig said he would come on again to cover the first section that we could not edit well enough to use.

Craig Watkins at the Baja 500 and on Pismo Beach

Craig Watkins on Pismo Beach — Craig Watkins at the Baja 500 and on Pismo Beach

Our Dominating with Dawson segment goes over how to get more out of an HPDE event or a track day by setting goals. It has helped our team to maximize the benefit of each event and get the most bang for the buck/minute of track time. This process will help you to improve as well.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

You can get your Smart Strings, Smart Camber etc. from Smart Racing products at: https://www.smartracingproducts.com/

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) Bill’s longest intro to date. Vicki had very little patience for it.

2) Craig covers most of his racing history, off road and on track driving, to becoming a race car engineer, to how he arrived at the present day as an amateur racing driver.

3) How professional racing is different but fundamentally the same as amateur racing.

4) What are some of the functions of a chief race car engineer and how he used several key pieces of data and the driver feedback to get the car as fast as possible.

5) Bad physics/chemistry flashbacks abound. Ideal gas law is fundamentally a relationship that says the Pressure X Volume is proportional to the Temperature. PV = nRT for those playing at home.

6) How the tires are really the critical control point to focus on to get your car to be fast and drive most easily.

7) What is the #1 most critical measurement tool to have in your racing tool belt, how to use it, and how to make sure you minimize variability by using a one individual gauge for all your measurements.

8) And then we also look to what the next few items and measurements are to further refine and improve your car’s performance and “dialing it in”.

9) A great summary of what the 24 Hours of Lemans – Lemans Classic event is and why you may want to add it as a bucket list item for you and your team.

10) Tire pressure at target. Then tire temperature uniformity across the tire surface and across the four tires +/- 30 degrees F or C?. If you aren’t sure of your exact tire temperature range, around 150 degrees is a good first level estimate to where you enter your tire’s performance window.

11) What are the three primary aspects of your tire alignment, Camber, Caster, and Toe, what they represent, what order to adjust them in, which ones are more critical to performance, and rough starting points for you to begin to optimize from further. As expected, we also get into some of the ways to set up the car to measure and adjust these parameters. We also discuss the other terms that are sometimes referred to including thrust angle.

12) The two ways that tire grip is generated. And there really are only two.

13) While each of the settings are car dependent, we attempt to give some broad based approximate starting ranges that will aid you in establishing a baseline point to begin from to set up your race car. We also try to explain how each parameter, and direction of change, affects the car’s performance.

14) As with several of our prior episodes, Craig explains how the best teams are better by simply being better at the several fundamental aspects of car prep and team operation during a race. And if you sprinkle in a bit of luck, they will compete well and have a better than average chance to win.

15) Craig teases us with his excel list of adjustments and effects that came from his experience as a race engineer. Next time we see him, we are going to get a copy. We have a chance at getting at least the format of the list, without the exact content. tbd.

16) Craig also brings up the very valuable point to remember that you are the one to define how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go and that should be the primary determinant in how deeply you get into the car and its set up.

17) Bill finally gets to make a String Theory joke, but it wasn’t very funny. Situation normal. But it was way better than his tuna joke.

18) We also go into the way to use Smart Strings and Smart Camber to measure and adjust your cars alignment before and even at the racetrack.\

PS Did anyone catch the semi-subtle Three Pedal Mafia reference in this episode? GHiT decals can be sent out to you if you let us know.

GHIT 0152: Craig Watkins Joins us for Car Setup 101 – Focusing on the Tires

Craig's Flyin Lizard Motorsports Porsche

GHIT 0151: Chance Hales on Car Photography & Videography

You may know Chance Hales from his work with the Everyday Driver TV Show, Podcast, and YouTube channel, or from his excellent Instagram follow @phattyhales for a ton of great photos of spectacular cars in amazing locales. With out team finally starting to get things together, we wanted to improve our non-driving related knowledge and skills as well and realized that as much as we like taking pictures and videos at the track and on the road, we have not kept up with recent advances that may improve our images. It is also an excellent gift idea for those who may want to improve their equipment with a seasonal gift (or three) and is an excellent way to get a non-driving CFO to enjoy the track a bit more and feel included in your driving passion.

I think we broke Ben on this Dominating with Dawson episode where we cover the concept of “two feet in” and make sure everyone is clear with what it means and how this technique can dramatically minimize the deleterious impact of an error that may momentarily exceed your current skill level on 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 start of with a quick introduction including an overview of Chance’s 1967 Mustang resto-mod and 2000 Porsche 911, his recent promotion to NASA HPDE 4, and how he grew into his current photography and videography profession, as well as Everyday Driver.

2) Bill mentions the story of how we first met each other online and how many of you can blame the Everyday Driver team for us starting racing and this podcast. They do apologize profusely.

3) Vicki learns what a “cars and coffee” is for the first time. Bill, I thought you raised her better than that.

4) Chance and Vicki go into what camera and accessories are needed as an upgrade to using your phone or a point and shoot type camera.

5) Chance also goes into the different types of cameras and some of the extensive jargon in a way that even Bill understood.

6) We also go into what are some of the options and features associated with a next level but still non-professional camera set up.

7) We go into the lenses most likely needed for shooting at a track, as well as some lenses that are awesome but cost more that most of our cars.

8) Chance is also an excellent videographer for both the Everyday Driver TV show on the Velocity channel, their feature length movies/DVDs, as well as their YouTube channel and goes into the various choices and alternatives, including GoPro’s and several options that provide even higher quality.

9) We did go into the details of shutter speeds and aperture settings, but in a way that most non-photographers will finally be able to understand. The good news is that most of the cameras have an automatic setting or a simple semi-automatic setting that will work for most shots of interest at a track.

10) Chance also gives a few resources to find the both equipment and several that have a resource that can advise you for the best options to fit what you are trying to capture.

11) Key settings and what their approximate ranges should be include aperture, exposure, and the number of frames per second.

13) Vicki and Chance also had several cheap and simple tips, tricks, settings, and add-ons to help protect your equipment and simplify the process by narrowing the need for manual settings and adjustments.

14) Our first Space Balls reference ever was made by Chance and it was long overdue.

15) Chance also helps us with several great resources for editing photos and videos.

16) Vicki misunderstands Chance saying “raw” and thinks it’s a type of graphic file. Bill makes a bad He Man joke.

17) Bill has a bad flashback to when everyone used something known as “film”. Things ae so much easier now.

18) Chance even offers a set of standard “shots” that you should pursue at each event. We also go into the best way to compose a shot to at least appear to be a better photographer than you really may be.

19) Tips and tricks to shooting in the weather to protect yourself, the camera equipment, as well as some tips to getting better shots that take advantage of the conditions.

20) Bill asks about a Leica camera, but meant to say Lytro. Worth a look? TBD. We will have to ask Chance next time.

21) Depending on your goals and budget, we are sure to have given you a few options that will improve your team’s photos.

22) Bill and Chance also discuss their annual “Pilgrimage Trip” to Spa and the Nürburgring. Vicki wants a camera so Bill thought, just in case…..

You can view Chance Hale’s portfolio work at: https://www.chancehalesphotography.com/

The Everyday Driver home page is at: https://www.everydaydriver.com/

Bob Chapman’s work can be found at: http://www.autosportimage.com/

GHIT 0151: Chance Hales on Racing and Car Photography and Videography