Garage Heroes (In Training) - Page 3 of 30 - Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

WOOT 0128: Christian James Hand Breaks Down Music on his Show “The Session”

For anyone over 18 and who has any interest or especially if you love music, here is our first episode with an Explicit tag and not for the kiddies, but it just flowed naturally that we are releasing it as is (We are running it live). If there are kids in the car with you, you may want to listen to this episode later.

In a long overdue Way Off Our Topic (WOOT) episode, we are joined by a special guest Christian James Hand who has a tremendous way to break down music into its component tracks (also called Stems) during his shows to demonstrate the individual components that are combined into the finished song. Our description does not do justice to his amazing style and presentation that he puts together. If you are even the slightest bit interested in music or ever were, we would hope that you would listen to one of his live shows on Instagram or to one of the podcasts he has and allow Christian to give you one of the greatest gifts that we know of. Christian’s “The Session” breakdowns give you the ability to hear a song for the first time all over again!

Christian James Hand at a Live Session — **Christian’s Live Sessions are cannot miss. If at home, Headphones always make it better**

**Christian’s Live Sessions are cannot miss. If at home, Headphones always make it better**

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 the episode include:

1) A short bit about touring with PM Dawn Peter Gabriel, The Grave Diggers and RZA and an acapella rendition of “Jam On It” by Newcleus on stage in front of tens of thousands live and broadcast over Swedish radio

2) Business tips, including do not buy a company blimp

3) Working on music videos including “Hey Ya” by the Outkast and several Def Leppard videos as well as Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn’s “Dodgeball: An Underdog Story” movie.

4) An upcoming podcast where he breaks down music with the cooperation of and with Universal Music

5) Benny cannot seem to count to six, lol.

6) Another special guest appearance by his Funko Pop “Odd Job”

7) How music is made and how it has progressed to where it is now

8) How Christian approaches music and how the song creation process in incorporated into his live song breakdown shows.

9) The incredible opportunity Christian has when being able to unpainting a painting when he dissects the song to its original moments and components and stories.

10) How sometimes the simplest songs are often some of the most complex tapestries to weave.

11) Incredible music recording history and stories

12) How digital processing, Pro Tools, and over-processing has impacted modern music and removed much of the humanity of current recordings.

13) What is groove and what is pocket?

14) The Gadd-Weckl-Colaiuta Drum Showdown is found at: https://youtu.be/K7h6hOs_ySw

15) Some of the fantastic songs to breakdown that came to mind during our discussion and are well worth listening to again, for the first time, especially for the songs that have almost become musical “wall paper” or have faded into the status of background music.

16) Christian’s rock band member breakdown is hilarious, every single time.

17) I think Christian nearly broke Vicki when he discussed his inability to listen to music while “occupied”

18) Some highlighted drum tracks, bass tracks, and guitar tracks that came to mind and are some of the cannot miss episodes.

19) His thoughts on concerts in general and the Counting Crows performing Mr. Jones in specific.

20) What Christian feels are the root masterpieces for rock music after the Beatles catalogue.

You can hear Christian James Hand break down songs at a variety of places online including:

At “The Sessions On Air” on Instagram at 11 AM Pacific or 2 PM Eastern on Instagram @thesessiononair

Podcasts such as:

The Session

Heide and Frank Show weekly on Mondays

And try to catch him at a live show once they are able to resume. Details will be provided on his website at: https://thesessiononair.com/

Audioslave’s Cochise music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMvN45sjo4 and yes, it is mind blowing!

Budget music systems suggestions:

Sony MDR-7506 headphones at ~$90

Better: Audeze headphones at around $400 use Christian’s discount code PS Audio Sprout system ~$600 Rega Planar 2 turntable for ~$200 Sumiko Needle Polk Audio or Klipsch or JBL Speakers of your choice (don’t need powered set Total system around $1,000 max

WOOT 0128: Christian James Hand Breaks Down Music on his Show “The Session”

GHiT 0127: Our Team Answers the Fast and Furious Question – By Request

We try to give answers to questions our listeners want to know, usually to help them progress as drivers, but sometimes we get requests to answer questions that are not going to help you drive any better, ever. This is one of those times and one of those episodes. Several of you have asked us these questions at the track or via the inter webs, so here they are, as requested.

Throttle steering is the subject for our Dominating with Dawson segment this episode. This is one of the ways that you can make a car turn without using your steering wheel.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 the episode include:

1) Somehow we combined the Fast and Furious questions with the Newlywed Game during this episode.

2) Who has driven the fastest on our team. Any guesses? Unfortunately, not all have hit triple digits, yet. New team goal for our next HPDE!

3) Alan wanders off during the podcast with his wireless microphone. Can’t even herd cats on the podcast.

4) Jennifer stretches the limits of what a car sound is, just a bit.

5) What were some of our team members “Ahhh Hahhh” moments.

GHiT 0127: Our Team Answers the Fast and Furious Question – By Request

GHIT 0125 Lucky Dog Is Coming East to Charlotte with Cathy McCause Fuss

Lucky Dog's First Ever East Coast Race at the Charlotte Roval — **Lucky Dog’s First Ever East Coast Race at the Charlotte Roval**

Cathy joins us on the podcast again to talk about the first ever Lucky Dog endurance race on the east coast that will take place in 4 weeks at Charlotte Motor Speedway on their Roval and we will be under the lights! There is no way we would miss this race and it will likely be our teams only wheel to wheel race this season. Cathy discussed how the Lucky Dog season has gone this year and what updates to the race procedures that they adopted to assist with COVID 19 compliance. If you haven’t been to Lucky Dog race yet, this may be a great opportunity. There are still a few spots left to enter a car and there may be seats available on their website under the “Dog Pile” area. We simply cannot wait.

Dominating with Dawson covers the term throttle steering and helps us to understand what it means and how it can be used on track to add a little more to your driving repertoire.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 the episode include:

1) Cathy’s history at the Charlotte Motor Speedway

2) How COVID 19 has changes the Lucky Dog paddock procedures and how everything is still very fluid and changes day to day and especially track to track

3) Changes that have been tried so far include no pitting on pit row, requiring a face mask or a racing helmet at all times, limited track access for kids and spectators/visitors.

4) The details of the Charlotte race include over 18 hours of racing, The BBQ event is still a go for Saturday evening, and a 10-hour race Sunday.

5) There is over $10,000 in prizes and awards available during the weekend, not counting the $10,000 in watches from Rebel Watches (We Are Rebels!) and the $3,000 d in tires from Hankook tires, hopefully our much preferred RS-4’s.

6) We may be able to debut the new 196 Honda Civic is all goes well with the prep and cage.

7) Attendees will include traditional west coast Lucky Dog entries as well as many east coast and midwest teams.

8) Horse trading seats as a way of trying new tracks and events

9) Potential tracks that may appear on the 2021 Lucky Dog schedule.

10) How Lucky Dog works with a flexible qualifying model to balance competitiveness and still allow for new and experienced drivers in a single event.

11) Randy Pobst will be racing his Volvo at the Charlotte event. He will be much faster than we are.

12) The mystery of the Fuss Fantom E46 continues.

13) Greg and Bill may have similar car buying issues. But on the bright side, Bill may have solved a race car solution for both coasts. Greg, call us.

14) Bill is confused between goats and sheep and everyone is confused with Lucky Dog racing and racing dogs.

GHIT 0125 Lucky Dog Is Coming East to Charlotte with Cathy McCause Fuss

GHIT 0124: GHIT Flashback to Thompson 2018 with the 24 Hours of Lemons

Award Winning GHiT Team — We Won (well, at least we got an award)

On this flashback episode, we cover our team’s second ever race at Thompson with the 24 Hours of Lemons series in 2018. How did the race go? Well, it was our first ever two car race. It was the first ever race for half of our team (Alan, Jennifer, Casey, and Pete). It was our first time on track with the SpiderStang and our friends at Prompt Critical showed Liam and Cassian how to “adjust” the boost on the SpiderStang. The Capri died and is still dead to this day. We won the “I Got Screwed” award. Details of our weekend and what we learned shall be provided. PS Never show your new to racing teen age team mates how to adjust the boost. Also, on this episodes Dominating with Dawson, we go over car control and what it means when someone refers to a car “rotating”.

**Capri’s dies while the SpiderStang makes its debit**

SpiderStang Makes its Debut — **Capri’s dies while the SpiderStang makes its debit**

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 the episode include:

1) We quickly gloss over the new raspberry additions that Alan and Bill added to Vicki’s garden area.

2) We cover from post-race of our first race at NJMP to the conclusion of our second race at Thompson

3) How our team grew from our first race with 4 drivers to where we had a two-car team with 8 drivers. Our preparation was not quite up to what it should have been. Especially with 4 additional drivers, two of which that had never driven a manual transmission before.

4) The advantages and disadvantages of a teen drivers on a racing team

5) How a perfectly performing a running car from our last race did not stay that way during the trip back from the track, to the great surprise of all involved. Carburetors are not our center of expertise and decided to let us know.

6) How the SpiderStang theme came to be and what we learned in doing it. It ended up looking great, but the process was not one we would recommend. Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do. We also mention how we built “Bondo”, a PVC and spray foam version of a mannequin to be used as Spiderman on our car.

RV Plumbing Fitting, not Automotive Grade, lol.

7) Vicki’s trials and tribulations for her first time driving to a race with a race car trailer. It did not go very well.

8) How our first time trying to stay at the track went. In a word: poorly. We have come up with much better sources for renting RV’s to stay at the track since then.

9) How our new drivers first time driving went. Quick checklist, panic attack at being strapped in, panic attack about going on a racetrack in the pit lane, first ever racing in the rain and heavy fog, and how to be a rolling chicane on the track.

10) Prompt Critical helped us with our cars but gave away a bit too much information to Liam and Cassian. They now knew how to adjust (read as increase to maximum) the boost of the turbocharger. After all, more is better, lol.

11) How to dial in a brake proportioning valve during testing.

12) Alan’s chipmunk powered internet popped up again, a few times. Bill had no idea on how to edit this, but it seems pretty funny.

13) How we became an award-winning racing team at this event. It all started with Jennifer and her license in driver tech inspection. Well on our way to minor internet celebrity status. Still on the way to this day.

14) Things we learned at our first ever rain race and our first ever fog race, all at the same race.

15) The story of the death of the Capri and the birth of El Jeffe, The Bad Hombre.

16) We share the secret concoction to keep fog off your windshield that was shared with us by the Three Pedal Mafia.

17) Alan treats his body like a temple? And we finally found the root cause for why Alan doesn’t want to work on the Capri.

18) Bill tries to avoid sleeping in the bathtub even though we won the coveted “I Got Screwed” award.

19) Finally, we go over the post-race awards and the trials and tribulations we went through to get home afterwards.

GHIT 0124: GHIT Flashback to Thompson 2018 with the 24 Hours of Lemons

GHIT 0123: Bill Griffin NASA Racing Driver and Jennifer’s HPDE Instructor from GingerMan

Bill Griffin has worked his way up to through the HPDE ranks to where he is a racing driver as well as an instructor, actually Jennifer’s instructor from GingerMan a few weeks back. We talk with him about his history and progression from having zero experience in performance driving to where he competes regularly with NASA and Grid Life as well as instructing when he can. Bill grew up liking racing as many people who grew up near Indianapolis did and eventually began driving himself when his work and family life allowed, proving again that it is never too late to start to enjoy performance driving and even racing. He is a very relaxed and knowledgeable driver and Jennifer loved having him as an instructor. We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instruction and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19. The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything. You can follow him on Instagram at Bill Griffin.

On one of our simplest episodes of Dominating with Dawson we review crabbing or cheating into a corner.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

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 the episode include:

1) We cover Bill’s progressions from newbie track driver and not terribly mechanical to a regular racing driver and instructor (who has been to the track 5 weeks straight and counting) (Very jealous)

2) What is a competition (or race) license, as well as several methods and paths towards getting one.

3) Bill seeks guidance to how to schedule a season of racing with the rest of our team. Perhaps an appointment for hearing testing is in order.

4) Bill also goes into a quick review of some of the exotic sports cars he gets to drive with Extreme Experience and their clients. This is especially useful if you are taller, like Bill who is 6′ 4″.

5) Bill (the other) also goes over the potential limits in size for a driver in a Mazda Miata MX-5. We have seen one with a cage that fits the owner that was 6′ 8″ and swallowed Bill up quite easily.

6) Bill even goes over why he chooses to remain instructing the HPDE 1 group of students.

7) We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instructional and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19. The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything.

Bill Griffin with his pupils — **Post HPDE Team Photo**

8) Suggestions included 1) potentially using in car radios to communicate to the students, 2) lead follow groups of only two students, 3) only using partial lead follow (allowing students to assume lead position and instructor to follow), 4) perhaps grouping the instructors and cars to match performance, 5) using better/more universally defined hand signals, 6) more use of different cones for initial track learning, 7) perhaps adopting an unofficial “HPDE 1.5” level/group within the HPDE 1 population, 8) incorporating the use of in car video, 9) positioning instructors with notebooks around the track to view at significant turns or areas of the track to provide feedback to the classroom or debrief sessions, 10) potential pathways to getting increased options for right seat/in car instruction.

9) The tricks and differences in being an instructor in a lead follow environment versus being in the right seat and the potential for lead follow groups to become longer groups, which can make some of the instruction into a bad game of telephone.

10) Riding a bike vs walking the track during a track walk.

11) Several tips for new to track or high performance drivers.

12) Bill unprompted supports Bill with the prep required before coming to the track as well as using 2-3 max goals and a few comments for each track session, especially during an HPDE event. Now if we could only get the Wilson sisters to agree, lol.

13) How your first few HPDE events can feel like your brain is drinking from a fire hose and how to potentially reduce this effect (like following the ideas from #12 above)

14) Bill F. tries to sneak in a Good, The Bad, and the Ugly segment on how Jennifer did during here HPDE event. Bill G. is much too nice to comply, but we will keep trying.

15) How driving in a lead follow instruction environment make lengthening your vision particularly difficult.

16) Tips for everyone (and us) on their next HPDE event. Ours will be at Pitt Race in late July with NASA Great Lakes.

17) The importance of focusing on consistently hitting your track marks and letting the speed build naturally. Because it will.

18) How teaching and instructing has helped Bill’s racing and how Racing has helped him as an instructor. Hopefully, it will help our Bill when he gets there, lol.

GHIT 0123: Bill Griffin NASA Racing Driver and Jennifer’s HPDE Instructor from GingerMan