Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

Grassroots Motorsports

Tom Suddard from GRM

Tom at home
GRM endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0252:  Tom Suddard from Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

Tom Suddard is the Director of Marketing and Digital Assets at GRM.  Tom’s first visit to our podcast was with zero notice and was at the invitation of Nine Live Racing’s Johnny C on episode #209 when we had our first episode on Aero. 

In spite of this, Tom decided to put up with us again in what we hope will be a long list of bad decisions in the future.  What do you ask of a prolific supplier of articles and videos aimed at helping grass roots racers and drivers improve?  Well, we choose to go into a great article that Tom wrote about “10 Ways to Keep Your Racing Effort Disciplined” which is a great article and will help almost everyone to improve a bit easier and more cheaply.  We also covered a few other areas and will provide a bunch of links at the end of these notes for even more information.  We have a ton more questions for Tom and hope to have him on again, as many times as he will tolerate us.  Tom gave so many great tips during this episode, Bill is still taking notes.

Please subscribe to GRM to learn a ton and support the grassroots racing community.  It is the best money we have spent in racing.

GRM

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, could you give our podcast a (5-star?) rating or even better, a podcast review. we would greatly appreciate it and it would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving.

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

A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/TomSuddard 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Please don’t forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, don’t 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 truly invaluable in safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross etc.  The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system greatly.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

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

To find even more from Tom, please go to:

1)  Grassroots Motorsports:  https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/ 

2) GRM Youtube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/Grassrootsmotorsports 

Articles we referred to for this episode:

1)  10 Ways to Keep Your Racing Effort Disciplined:  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/10-lessons-to-keep-your-race-e/162737/page1/

2) How to Wrap Your Race Car:  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/project-cars/LS-Swapped-2003-Nissan-350z/how-wrap-your-race-car-home-project-350z/

3)  Trimming down Your Racing Car’s Harness:  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/project-cars/LS-Swapped-2003-Nissan-350z/getting-ready-trim-down-wiring-harness-project-ls-/

GHIT 0252:  Tom Suddard from Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

GHIT 0120: Christina Lam is our special guest driver

  • Christina Lam Behind the Wheel

Christina Lam is a racing driver for several series, is an instructor for Skip Barber and NASA, as well as a frequent contributor to GrassRoots Motorsports magazine.  We first started following her as her “After A Crash” 9-part series started a few months back and became instant fans of her approach and her dedication to racing, education, and giving back to the racing community.  On this episode, we go over how she started to be involved from a point of little knowledge and car/racing influences to where she is not only competing at national events, podium’ing many times, and instructing others to improve their skills.  It is a fantastic and quite rapid journey from newbie to racing veteran and her latest challenge last season will inspire you and hopefully get you to reach further towards ever higher goals. 

Christina Lam on the Podium

On our Dominating with Dawson, Ben goes over the difference in driving approaches for endurance racing, autocross, as well as various types of sprint racing. 

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 have had a long, long work week in the garage, so long that Vicki blanked on her name for a moment and Bill can’t spell SCCA, lol.

2)  How she started off racing in Autocross one weekend and then had the opportunity of a lifetime drop in her lap a short time later (driving on a little place known as The ’Ring).

3)  Christina’s first time on track was her first time driving a stick.  This may be a good rival for what we ended up doing to Jennifer at her first race at Thompson Speedway.  Not our best plan, but we did learn from it.

4)  We share post-race hangover stories and several great ideas for further race cross training.  Rally, V8 supercars, Ice racing, so much fun to be had, so little time.

5)  What is involved with being a one-person team and how she accomplishes all that is required for a race weekend.  The big key is prep.  Second rule, prep.  If you need a third rule, be prepped early.

6)  We go into her accident last year and how she recovered, both physically and mentally, as well as her new race car.

  • A slightly used E46
  • Wheel took quite a hit
A “Lightly Used” E46 BMW Race Car

7)  What is involved with an SCCA protest

8)  How Christina found her #46 M3 shell to start her new build

9)  How much sleep she lost while working to prep for new car the upcoming 2019 national SCCA Runoffs in 60 days.

10)  Christina goes into the plusses and minuses of an E46 M3 vs E46 330’s etc

11)  Christina shares some of her nerves and almost PTSD after the wreck, what she had to work through and  getting back into the car on track at VIR

12)  What it is like being a female in a predominantly male sport at the track.

13)  How Christina’s first car quickly turned into a second car.

Honorable mentions and sponsors that have helped Christina along the way:

Drive Gear Racing:  for arrive and drive ice racing.  Seems like a terribly great idea.

Hugh Stewart from High Speed Motorsports:  http://www.hispeedmotorsports.com/

Katherine Legge @ www.KatherineLegge.com

Simona De Silvestro @ www.Simonadesilvestro.com 

TC Designs @ www.tcdesignfab.com

Hoosier Tire @ www.hoosiertire.com

Epic Motorsports @ www.epicmotorsports.com

Racing Harness Technologies (856() 912-1237

Skip Barber Racing @ www.skipbarber.com 

GHIT 0120: Christina Lam is our special guest driver