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Garage Heroes (In Training)

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John Lavin

GHIT 0157: John and Dean from Safety Third Motorsports Discuss Race Car Preparation

John Lavin and Dean Hesser join us to discuss improvements to our car preparation processes.  This includes before leaving for the racetrack, as well as at the racetrack and after the race.  We learned a ton of things that we should have been doing but weren’t simply because we didn’t know or hadn’t thought of it yet.  We hope that this episode will save you at least one headache at the track or eliminate one breakdown or even better prevent an issue on track that causes damage to you or your car.  We don’t have a lot of can’t miss episodes, but this is one of them for sure.

In addition, Dominating with Dawson we discuss some of the goal options for endurance racing.  It is not simply a situation where you are either first or last, but really it is a race where you and your team are trying to work together and perform at the highest level internally and the final position is a relative measure of the team’s performance versus the current bar that weekend.  While winning overall, or even your class, is a great accomplishment, it is not the only measurement available each weekend, especially early in your racing career.

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)  Bill makes up a new word, “ThankYouNess”, well you know what we mean.

2)  How Dean has “capitalized” on being target fixated during a race.  Your results may vary.

3)  Then we go into a “Weekend At Bernie’s” worthy moment.  For those under 40, it’s a movie.

4)  A brief summary of why many of the Safety Third Motorsports team members have ended up using BMW’s as their weapon of choice on track.

5)  Bill cannot help but to make fun of the test drive at John’s shop where the GHIT M3 HPDE hit a deer.  Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up.

6)  A discussion of their team’s racing plans for 2021 and how both teams generally decide where to race.

7)  How their team has progressed and grown over the years.  It appears that our team is actually following their progression, both in how our team is organized and how our drivers are individually progressing.  Perhaps there is hope for us.  Who knew?  Lol.

8)  How Dean and Jen both ended up learning and growing as racing drivers as a result of their track incidents.

9)  What is prepping a car?  What is involved?  What do you do before the race, during/at the race, and after the race to prepare and preserve your car and make sure that it has a higher likelihood of performing well.

10)  Basic assumption:  Assume everything is broken after a race and then verify before you take it to your next event.

11)  Develop a wear rate of consumables and moving parts and then develop a preventative maintenance plan to replace before they fail at the track.

12)  Overview:  Repair things as they break or replace them ahead of time at a certain interval.  Determine your team’s philosophy and plan appropriately. 

13)  A standard rule of thumb is to use a margin for wear, it can range from 75% to 80% to 90% of the experienced failure rate before replacing a still good part.  This does not address issues due to abuse or an accident etc.  As an example, if your front wheel bearing fails after 100 hours or racing, you may want to replace them all before they break at 75 or 80 or 90 hours.  The balance of costs and/or effort vs your acceptable safety/failure factor is a personal/team decision.

14)  Several available options range from paint marking nuts and bolts to adding safety wires.

15)  What should you do when at the track and prepping for the race in the morning.

16)  What to do the night after are race while racing the next day.

17)  What to do post-race weekend while packing up to leave the track.

18)  Why checklists are so very important and how your team will need to develop it from your own experiences and particular car.

19)  It was good to hear that we aren’t the only team to have had radio communication issues at the track.  They have come to the same solution as we have.  Painfully.

20)  The key is really to minimize the number and potential for errors.

21)  We finish up this segment with the post-race recovery process for your race car.  Don’t just put it away to wait for the next track event.

22)  We wrap up with a post episode discussion of the skid pad and the value that it has had to our driving, as well as Dean’s.

GHIT 0157: John and Dean from Safety Third Motorsports Discuss Race Car Preparation

GHIT 0112: John Lavin from Safety 3rd Motorsports

Safety Third Motorpsorts
John Lavin points the way for the Safety 3rd Motorsports team

John Lavin joined us from the Safety 3rd Motorsports racing team for a great discussion of his racing and team history, including how his background in racing snowmobiles, motorcycles, and snowboarding has led to and helped with his racing cars.  His team started with an initial car that was intended for Lemons but ended up being a second gen Supra that was better fitting into an episode of “Better Call Saul” and ended up in ChampCar and started with the usual issues and tremendous stories as his team grew.  The team is currently running in several ChampCar events each year, as well as several other organizations in multiple divisions. 

Safety Third Motorsports

We are hoping to talk John into letting us attend one of their upcoming races to learn more, if they will have us.  Please follow them on Instagram at Safety3rdMotorsports. 

Safety Third Motorsports

In our Dominating with Dawson segment, we go into racing in the rain and while some complain, it’s really actually better in many ways for learning and definitely should not be skipped or avoided.

Safety Third Motorsports E36 Racecar
Safety 3rd Motorsports E36 Racecar

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)  Sharing the pain of herding cats as the team manager’s primary role.

2)  It appears John’s path is similar to Bill’s, just executed much better.

3)  VIR gets another big endorsement, and it wasn’t from Ben this time.

4)  First race stories for the team, a true 24-hour race at VIR.

5)  Why they eventually switched from a Supra to a BMW to the annoyance of all the Fast and Furious fans.

6)  Racing is really a situation of management by crisis, we agree and couldn’t have said it any better.

7)  Several discussions on the differences and benefits of a racing school, as compared to HPDE’s and track days.

8)  A comparison of ChampCar and the Lemons series, with a bit about AER as well.

9)  How the teams racing philosophy has changed as they have become faster and a bit more competitive.

10)  A very good discussion on transitioning a team from having run racing a car to racing to compete.  A challenge our team is likely approaching.

11)  We offer our excellent BBQ rub and BBQ sauce for some of their secret sauce, so far to no avail, lol.

12)  Practicing at track days vs learning from an instructor and several other benefits of instruction.

13)  A discussion on the various aspects of car control, what it is and several techniques that can be used to improve it.

14)  The everlasting rumor of Lime Rock closing has reached Vicki for the first time.

15)  John even sneaks in a discussion of the modern style racing line for Lime Rock.

16)  Since John’s team races an E36, we can’t help but discuss some of his thoughts on the E36 setups and even more importantly how to evaluate and develop them for yourself or when using a shop to assist.

17)  We even went into more depth around tire temperature and tire pressure and tire selection.

18)  A dual team meetup is preliminarily in the works and sounds like it will be great fun!  Still working on the Baja road trip invitation though.  Lol.

19)  Bill tries to talk John into lowering his standards and joining us for a race or for weekend racing fun.  Still TBD to see if John is capable of making a decision that bad.

20)   John was even gracious in acknowledging our difficulty with the rear hub bearing a few weeks back.  We may even be able to replace the control arm Bill broke after our quarantine ends.

21)  Towards the end, we even went into team HPDE and team bonding ideology that are helpful to all levels of teams.

GHIT 0112: John Lavin from Safety 3rd Motorsports

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