Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

Lucky Dog

GHIT 0132: Our 2020 Races at the Charlotte Roval with Lucky Dog

El Jeffe - Citrus Race Truck

On this episode, we review the entire race weekend at the Charlotte Roval for our Lucky Dog endurance race.  The first race started Friday night and ended Saturday morning.  The second race was a 10-hour enduro that started at noon Sunday.  It was our first time at Charlotte Motor Speedway, our first time at a big oval track, and our first race of the year.  How hard could it be?  What could go wrong?  We found a few things.  Luckily, we had several friends and new friends at the track to help us work through the problems and we all had a great racing weekend.

On our Dominating with Dawson segment, we start to discuss the progression of driving skill and driving styles as you improve, moving from the introductory stages where you try to limit your inputs to one at a time and how to progress safely to where you begin to use and work towards mastering multiple inputs and more advanced techniques like trail braking etc.  There is a lot to discuss and we are sure to add more to this area in future segments.

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

And so it goes….

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  The two new car themes/liveries for our E36 “Deadpool” race car and our “‘Dat Tang Truck” citrus racing truck.  Several pictures will be on our website.

2)  Mechanical car prep saga for the race.

3)  Vicki and Jen drove the E36 BMW 3 series race car for the first time on track.  we cover their first impressions from Friday’s practice and the races.

4)  Our issues with both cars.  In summary, our race truck had issues with the power steering pump and hit a cone that tore off the oil line and also had issue with the mass air flow sensor.  Our E36 had an intermittent problem with the fuel pump and then tried to converse with one of the walls ending its weekend.

5)   Our thoughts on the Charlotte Roval and driving on the high banked turns, the chicanes, and the infield “mushroom” track of the Roval.

6)  Vicki finally experienced her first use of controlled slip angle during her stint as she progressively got faster and more comfortable with the E36 race car Friday night.

7)  The Bad Hombre/El Jeffe race truck experienced a brake fade issue, again, and was down on power until the issue with the mass air flow sensor was addressed (on Sunday)

8)  How the weekend went for our two guest drivers from the west coast from Deaf Power Racing, Jeff Wright and Lonnie Tannenberg.

9)  Jen’s accident going into turn 8.  We are waiting for Deadpool to regenerate.  Video on our YouTube channel and on our website on the post for this episode.

10)  How Jen is feeling after her accident and what the prognosis is for the rest of her season.

11)  We had a little fun picking on the vultures next to us picking the bones off the E36 carcass.  Lol.

12)  What we should do about replacing the E36.

13)  How we are going to treat the video like the Zapruder film and figure out what happened and what we can learn from the incident.

14)  We invent a new drinking game for this episode where you drink once for every time Race Bar is referred to as brilliant and/or somehow helps us get back out onto the track.  Try it.  Our podcast only gets better with drinking.

15)  Jeff Caplan from Race Bar took a run for an hour in our race truck and even with power steering issues and being at less than full power, he seemed to really enjoy the race truck.

16)  We came.  We saw.  We were conquered.

17)  Bill is still working on getting all the names straight on the Race Bar team, since each of them seems to have at least three names.  Lol.

18)  Racing at night and on the high banks, we looked just like NASCAR, just at half speed, lol.

19)  Our racing and HPDE plans for the rest of 2020.

20)  Our traditional Good, Bad, and the Ugly for the weekend, as well as what we learned and several changes we may need to make going forward to improve.

21)  Cue the Kenny Loggins….

22)  Jennifer may have the best and shortest responses to her Bad and Ugly ever.

What are our plans going forward to replace the E36?  What do you think we should do?  Please let us know what you think we should do in a comment or ideally in a podcast review or email us at [email protected]

GHIT 0132: Our 2020 Races at the Charlotte Roval with Lucky Dog

GHIT 0131: All about tires with Danny van Dongen of Hankook Motorsports

Danny van Dongen

Danny van Dongen is an accomplished racing driver and has started several businesses in Europe and the US, including a racing school, a racing series, as well as successfully starting up Hankook Motorsports that offers tires for racing in the US to nearly all forms of both amateur and professional racing series.  We would like to thank Danny and the team for their RS4’s our tire of choice for endurance racing and the official tire of both Lucky Dog and WRL endurance racing series.  We try to summarize some of Danny’s racing career initially and then we move into the area of tires, their construction, and their proper use in racing.  This is hoped to be a good introduction to tire technology, hopefully we can have Danny back for a 201 level discussion.

On this Dominating with Dawson episode, we talk about the monster under the bed that many do not acknowledge, fear as a factor in going fast and going faster.  Fear is literally a totally natural thing and affects everyone at some point.  We talk about it, where it may arise, and several ways of dealing with it.  This may be a first of several parts in this area.

You can follow Danny on Instagram at @DannyvanDongen

Danny van Dongen

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)  How his racing experience has helped with both car testing and development as well as tire testing, also complimenting his business development in both areas.

2)  How his race at the 25 Hours at Thunderhill went last year and the pleasure of a mostly night race on a very muddy track.  His skid school training was really pushed to the limit.

3)  How the different Hankook Motorsports tires are designed and manufactured to be longer lasting and more stable, perfect for endurance racing.

4)  A discussion of the benefits and challenges in designing a tire, both slicks/racing tires as well as the 180 tread wear tires we race.

5)  The basics of tire designations and understanding the letters and numbers typically on a tire such as 245/40 ZR17 vs 225/50 VR16 etc.

6)  Tips on tire and rim selection and the importance of the interaction of the rim width and the tire tread width.

7)  Important considerations like rim width to tire width, tire profile, tire loading, tire circumference interaction with the car gearing, etc.

8)  How the mass of a tire affects the heating up of the tire and affects the endurance/stability of the tires.

9)  Whether you need to break in a tire, how to break it in, and why the cars are always swerving back and forth at the beginning of a race.

10)  How best to pre-heat your tires on pace laps.  Also, please avoid the marbles, nothing good can come from them.

11)  Heat cycling, proper tire break in, and storage of tires for racing slicks and possibly RS4’s.  Sunlight is not your tire’s friend.

12)  Optimum tire temperatures and hot tire pressures for the RS4’s and similar tires.

13)  Whether heat cycles are an issue on RS4’s, as well as racing tires and slicks.

14)  Bill reminisces about his bad Armor All experience when he was much younger.

15)  The importance of tire temperature and pressure and general windows for the Hankook tires.  Including how to measure and interpret the tire temperatures when testing at the track, as well as suggested car or tire changes to respond to tire temperature variation across a tire or from side to side and/or front to back.

16)  Temperature ranges and pressure ranges for slicks and R comps tires and how it varies by the compound you select.

17)  Autocross users may need to look at using tire warmers to alleviate the problem of thermal transients and never reaching a true steady state temperature or pressure.

18)  Jason from Lucky Dog has been keeping a secret from us related to using RS4’s in the rain on a track.  We will have to talk with him at Charlotte, lol.

19)  A good discussion of filling the tires with air vs nitrogen vs carbon dioxide.  The key is keeping the water out so that it wont boil in the tire affecting the stability of the air pressure during a race.

20)  What is involved in keeping tire records and how to actually use the information.  Sounds like Bill will be making another excel spreadsheet immediately.

21)  We tried to get some breaking news on the new RS5’s but we did find two new size additions that are coming soon.  All NDA’s stayed intact during the episode.

22)  Vicki brings up the time when Bill lost a tire, again.  She just can’t help it whenever an opportunity arises.

23)  Vicki is jealous of the Lucky Dog RS4 tires having a Lucky Dog sticker and is trying to figure out how to do it with our logo.  Still tbd but she is all over it.

GHIT 0131: All about tires with Danny van Dongen of Hankook Motorsports

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: 0113 Erik and Chris from the Lucky Dog Racing Series

Erik Torgeson and Chris Wilhelm

Erik Torgeson and Chris Wilhelm joined us to talk about their racing history and the Lucky Dog racing series.  Erik is the Director of Operations and runs the Dog Pound penalty area during the races.  Chris is the head of vehicle safety and technical inspection as well as usually covering radio control and timing and scoring during the Lucky Dog races.  Erik is also known as Bulldog while Chris is the Junk Yard Dog (JYD).  In addition, we go into the upcoming race (hopefully) at the Charlotte Roval where Lucky Dog comes to the east coast for the first time.  We cannot wait to go to another Lucky Dog race and we found a few items we will need to add to our list to pass tech for Lucky Dog, as well as several of the differences between Lucky Dog and the 24 Hours of Lemons series we traditionally race in on the east coast.

    You can find Erik and Chris and the entire racing series at www.racelucky.com and say hello for us please if you see them a the races.

    Apex of Failure on Facebook for the RX-8 project Erik referred to.

    On Dominating with Dawson, Ben covers several of the racing lines and approaches to circumventing a racetrack in the most expeditious manner.

    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)  Bill apologizes for his pit lane violation at Laguna Seca by not stopping for his egg timer.

    2)  Vicki points out that we did not review the rules prior to the last race.  This is not best practice.  Perhaps her interpretation of the goal of the pit lane timer was a bit off, as well as her not attending tech inspection led to a good discussion of the safety practices for the Lucky Dog Series.

    3)  Why Lucky Dog has elected to use pit lane timers and why they chose to use window nets, as well as many of the key inspection points prior to a race, along with several of the key differences between the safety requirements of Lucky Dog and several of the other racing series.

    4)  Alan steals our Lucky Dog branded Hankook RS4 tires for his daily to “test” them, lol.

    5)  We also go into the importance of the attitude of the Lucky Dog series and how it magnifies the fun of the racing weekend.

    6)  A lot of the details related to the upcoming race in Charlotte.

    7)  Our to do list is adding in dash bars into two cars and window nets into one.  We are planning on bringing three cars and have an undetermined number of drivers since it is difficult to firmly plan with everything going on currently.

    8)  Erik and Chris should get Lucky Dog style trophies to represent their Lucky Dog names.

    9)  Both Erik and Chris have a history of racing that includes autocross as well as their start with working with a series in ChampCar.

    10)  Chris goes into the excellence of a Ford Fairlane in autocross.

    11)  Erik sends out a non-controversial message to auto crossers.  Please send you comments to [email protected]
    and we will forward them to Erik for you.

    12)  We discuss the upcoming season and the uncertainty still within the system, especially with the different states and tracks involved.

    13)  How racing is not only tremendously fun but also generates great friendships that can last many lifetimes.

    14)  Car 196 may yet live on in the upcoming Charlotte Roval!  (But in a new

    form)  We also discuss our mutual history with them in Lucky Dogs.  It turns out it may not all be our fault after all.  But it likely was.

    15)  Erik sends out a non-controversial message related to Honda-based race cars.  Please send you comments to [email protected]
    and we will forward them to Erik for you.

    16)  Vicki sets a new record for the number of edits when going into her Laguna Seca experience.  This one will be tough to beat.

    17)  Bill reminisces about her services of the car at Laguna for Mental.  It reminds one of the second autopilot scene from “Airplane”.

    18)  Probably two of the worst, and potentially scariest, “Ugly” story we have heard in a while.  Some people can be very scary when under the red midst.  Bill couldn’t help but make another “entrepreneur” joke from the recent YouTube and Facebook racing kerfuffle with a different, but perhaps related drivers.  (THESE “DRIVERS” ARE FAR FAR FAR FROM TYPICAL)

    19)  Alan gets offended that Erik has the title of “Black Flag Guy” but it is for a totally different reason than he originally thought.  Alan’s version of the title is still intact.  Unfortunately.

    20)   Some of the key differences and details that are needed for the Charlotte race.

    21)  Race Invaders gets a shout out.  We are long overdue for having you on.

    22)  Both Erik and Chris agree that ORP (Oregon Raceway Park) is there favorite track.  We are adding it to our list.  Now, how do we get a car onto the west coast?  New project!

    GHIT: 0113 Erik and Chris from the Lucky Dog Racing Series

    GHIT 0085: Amanda and Adrian from the Faster Farms Racing Team

    Faster Farms Racing Team

    On this week’s podcast, we had the pleasure of interviewing Amanda Baak of the Faster Farms team who we met at last week’s Lucky Dog race at Laguna Seca.  Vicki and Amanda had some very exciting racing for a dozen laps or so until things ended poorly on our end.  Their team races a Plymouth Belvedere, as everyone should.  After repeatedly racing with them Saturday and Sunday, we had to have them on to find out more about the team, Amanda, and Adrian who made an impromptu appearance.  We enjoyed our conversation and hope you will too.  We can’t wait to see them again, hopefully at the track. 

    Chicken Car
    Are You Scared!

    Some highlights include: 

    1)  How and why a Plymouth Belvedere came to be a race car for the past twelve years
    2)  Faster Farms team history and its ties to a real chicken ranch/pick and pull
    3)  We compare the different racing areas, like California, Colorado and the east coast race crowds
    4)  How they installed their crystal auto-break system to make other cars break before passing them

    Crystal Shifter
    Crystal Shifter (With Auto-Brake Function) at least on our cars

    5) Bill has a(nother) bad plan for west coast racing
    6)  We also begin to make a plan for an upcoming Thompson race
    7)  Seeking revenge on Willow Springs
    8)  The upcoming Alameda parade
    9)  Probably the best “Good” story we have ever had with our Good, Bad, and the Ugly segment.  We are pretty sure Adrian isn’t familiar with the word “good”, lol. 
    10)  Shout out to our many Belgium and Australian listeners
    11)  Differences between the Lucky Dog Series and the Lemons series

    Goodbye
    Sad to Say Goodbye

    Hopefully, we can be a bad influence and get them out to Thompson for a race at some point, maybe even getting our all-female driven car team goal accomplished. 

    You can follow them at FasterFarmsFacing.com

    Best regards,

    Bill, Vicki, and Alan

    Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast
    and team members in the GHiT
    Immature Endurance Racing Team

    GHIT 0085: Amanda and Adrian from the Faster Farms Racing Team

    Real Racing!
    Waiting for AAA?