150. Reese Brothers Race Cars, Turbo, Supercharged, and Nitrous Builds, NT + more w/ Quentin Reese

What's the overall cost beginning to end, if somebody wanted to come and get the exact same car, similar car built?

Depending on how much carbon and titanium they want to run. Normally, with like this car, you'll be, at the end of it, you'll be anywhere from 250 to 280.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations, and I'm here with my Ford loving co-host, Dan. Mr. Garage, got a garage.

Mr. Garage, Mr. Garage.

All right, off to a great start already. Yeah. And today we are, what city are we in? Temple, Georgia?

Temple, right.

We are here with Quentin Reece of...

Reece Brothers Race Cars.

It's like one of those like, say it three times fast sort of things.

Right, a hundred percent. Yeah, it was nine pages long.

And today we ended up here because I was just talking about this off camera already, but Abdullah, who we had on the podcast six episodes ago, said we should come check you guys out here. So go ahead and tell us a little bit of what it is you guys do. And we'll go from there.

Well, we do. Now we do full blown turnkey race cars. Used to just be just chassis work. But now it's kind of developed into doing start to finish. So now we do a full chassis work to powder coat, to paint, to wiring, to plumbing, to keep to the track racing. As just overall, that's what we do.

So how did all this start, I suppose? I mean, how far back does this go?

Probably since I was like a child. I'm not 30. So I mean, since before I was born, I felt my dad's always built race cars for himself and his buddies, stuff like that. And then I would say in 2018, when he was kind of getting out of manufacturing, he wanted to do it full time. He was like, let's try it. I've always done it. I think I could do it. And 2018 started with some projects that he had already kind of had mixed in. And then in 2020, right before the pandemic happened, I came on to kind of help do a little bit of structuring because it's kind of just throw it to the wind and kind of hope it works good.

But handshake deals, like, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, please.

Now it's a little more formal. Obviously, you can always improve. But that's pretty much how we've been going that way. And then kind of expand it every year. It seems like business-wise, work-wise, we quadrupled in projects for the first four years that we were kind of since I was on. And then whenever we started doing our own wiring in-house, we kind of stepped back a little bit and tried to make sure that we can get everything going through good scheduling-wise without over-promising and under-delivering. Okay.

So how many projects are you guys kicking out like every year here?

Anywhere from 15 to 20 projects total. Full build-wise, I would say we're complete full builds. We're probably at 10 to 12. Okay. And then we'll have our occasional front clip, wreck repair, back half, wiring job, plumbing, stuff like that, they kind of sprinkled in throughout the year.

So you will still do it all then?

Yes.

Come in and do something, I say small, but I'm sure there's no small part of any of this.

Yeah. It always evolves. We always do it because car will come in for setup. Sometimes we'll have like, oh, well, we really don't work this way. We really need to look at the chassis. What's wrong with it? And then it turns into, oh, well, we really need to like back half this car or we need front of this car. And then it kind of goes in there.

The famous while you're in there.

Yeah, right.

100%.

Hey, while it's there, can you go ahead and rebuild the whole thing? Yeah, yes. Sure.

So, okay, so let's call it 15 to 20 cars a year. What's that range of cars looks like? Because you mentioned no time, you mentioned a variety of different things and, you know, classes and all that.

Right.

What's the scope of everything you guys do with that?

Everything.

Everything.

Pretty much everything. For the radio outlaw series that we kind of run down here. So we got X275, Ultra Street, LDR, Pro 275, RVW, even some Pro Mod classes with Pro Boost and Pro Nitrous as well. And a couple, a lot of the grid scene around here, because we're about an hour and a half from Steel, Alabama. So they have a lot of grid racing there, and same with like Middle Georgia, out in Macon. They have a pretty big grudge scene that we have seen to kind of got into. And that's kind of really to where we kind of, I guess, boomed with business because our, our original El Diablo Camaro that we ran in no time 275 kind of kickstarted the business back in 2018.

Was that the car that you said is now Beetlejuice?

It's Beetlejuice. Yeah. John Daltrey owns it now. And that's, it's kind of, it's a weird story with that car. We ran, it was probably the winningest no time car in two, three years. It won 75 races consecutively before we kind of switched gears and then we kind of wanted to kind of move more into running Radio Versus of the World. So we got rid of it then, moving to RBW. And that's where 2.0 kind of came around. And then we ran a small block Hemi program. So we ran low 50s with it. And then we ran that for a couple of years. And then the El Diablo car kind of came back around for sale. So we got it back, stripped the wrap off of it, kind of did a couple of things here and there. And then we did repainted it to the green that it's now. And ran it for a couple of races, sold it again. So it was all gone. And now it's kind of trickled down to where John's got it.

Do you have any go-to, I guess? Well, for example, I noticed this car behind you has FuelTech. Is that kind of like one of your go-to's?

Right now, yeah, I would say that's, they seem to be given the most support of the track. At least where we're going to the races are. They have the most support. And we've gotten to know those guys really well, too, over the past few years as well.

Is there like, let's come in here, I want a race car. Is there like a catalog where you're like, OK, you pick this body, you pick this chassis, you get this motor from here. Like, what's the secret sauce and where do you get it?

So typically, everyone wants to either do a 69 Camaro or C7 Corvette. OK, it seems to be the go-to body style as everyone likes. And then every now and then you'll get like a Nova, which is what we've always seen around. And typically, they either want to run the fastest no time class, which is going to be the no time 275 classes running around, the 484 class, which is the nitrous class. And then they don't want to go down that path, they go straight to running part 275 and immediately want to run a Hemi and a Screwblower, anything from ProLon. And that seems to be what's popular right now, at least. So they can't, there's ebbs and flows, we'll have a run of nitrous cars, a run of Screwblower cars, a bunch of, right now we're kind of running through some turbo cars and pro-charger cars.

Okay. So you guys don't do as many turbo cars as the others?

Not as many, but not because of any reason, like hard reason, it just seems that the fastest combos right now are either going to be a Screwblower or a pro-charger.

Interesting. Okay.

Yeah.

So what kind of power do these, again, I'm sure ranges, but what kind of power are these things kicking out?

Anywhere from 2,500 to, let's say, 4,000 horsepower.

Okay.

Easy. Only like the stock style body, 275 tire cars. Now the pro mods that we're doing are kind of, there's a big leap to like, I know a lot of guys that run pro-line motors, they run anywhere from 5,000 to 5,500 horsepower with the twin turbo setups.

Okay.

Pretty wild.

Are those typically twin turbo setups, or does it still linger in like that screwblower pro charger sort of?

Typically, the horsepower wise is always going to be with the turbo horse.

Okay.

Seems like they're going to be kind of top tier, it seems like, but they're a little more finicky. So they're not as consistent as to say the screwblower or the pro chargers. Pro chargers, I would say, have gotten more consistent. Just through the years.

Okay.

It seems like they've been a bit of a hard push to kind of bring those cars up to the top of the class.

Okay. What about like when it comes to setups at like the track? Are you guys doing like any track support or anything like that?

Yeah. So we have our own like shock program that we run through, Mincer, as our El Diablo series shocks. And so pretty much if you get those either through us, through our website or anything, we will support you 100%. And that's kind of like kind of what you should pay with the private label deal because they are I think a few percent higher just because we give that extra support. They're necessarily kind of get that off of Mincers back so they can focus on what they got going so we can kind of work on our customers and make sure they're doing good.

You guys don't just do the Probe Mod stuff then. If I roll a Fox body in here and say, hey, I want a seven second car, that's something you can chassis, do all of it.

Yeah, that should be an issue.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Once you got a motor, we can probably put it in there and then hope you get there.

Okay. Yeah. When it comes to the Probe Mod stuff here, I don't know much about this world and I'm probably going to jump all over the place with questions.

No, you're good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where do these, so how do I decide what body I want? Where do the bodies come from? Because they're basically underneath, they're all the same, right?

Correct. Yeah, they're all the same.

So how do I decide like, oh, I want a Mustang or I want this or I don't give a crap? Like where are they coming from?

So a lot of the like the Camaro bodies, like this body is a Joe Venno body and they're made in, I believe, Canada.

Okay.

And then we have a lot of, a lot of them are kind of northern, I guess, location wise. Glass Tech is a lot of the ones I get the carbon bodies from and then some fiberglass options I get from VFN. So it kind of bounce around. Sometimes you can't get full body clips from some manufacturers. You only get front clips. But I would say whatever, it's always personal preference. So we would always either go with a Camaro or a Nova, but a lot of people love the Corvettes. They're like, they're really nice, really wide inside the car. You got to get into them, and they're really narrow to get in.

Okay.

Really narrow. So it's kind of harder for guys who are shorter and stockier or guys who are really tall.

So do you have to know what body they're going to use before you start doing a chassis?

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

How does that affect, like, does that change how you build things, I suppose?

Yeah, it's just how wide the car is going to be and how long the, like, the rocker bar is going to be, where the dash bar is going to be, where we're going to put the motor. And a lot of it, too, even after that, once the body is mounted, it depends on your overhang, because you're allowed 45 inch overhang. But a lot of this Camaro, you got to put like a pecker extender on it just to kind of get it to that dimension versus this Corvette. If you do have to put one on it, it's very small. So just to kind of get to that dimension. Okay.

Is that the technical term, pecker extender?

I believe that's like the professional term, actually. So that's what I've always heard this is referred to as a pecker extender. Yeah. But it could just be a little.

Yeah.

So more on a personal note, when did you, were you always kind of interested in this? Like when did you kind of come into the full, you mentioned 2020, but before that, was there any, like, were you part of the track support, for example? Was there an internship?

Definitely. So I grew up in it. My dad has always raced, ran Orska back in anywhere from 04, I think, to 07, won a championship there, did that. We kind of, I grew up in it. And then I was like, I kind of got the bug that I wanted to drive. So we kind of, I think at the time, we lived in South Carolina and did some like dirt track go-kart stuff. And so kind of sort of get the feel for that. And I ended up having an accident. So didn't really post that. I kind of lost interest in driving and racing as a whole. But I think I was like nine or 10, maybe. So I was like, oh, I don't care about that. I'm just going to go focus on other stuff. And then kind of go through everything, graduate high school, I get married, and my best friend growing up is all of a sudden got in the cars. I'm like, oh, cool. He's showing me all these street car stuff. And I'm like, well, that's not what I remember, like going to the racetrack and seeing. So at the time, my dad was running a pro mod. I was like, oh, let's just go to the racetrack. And it kind of from there, it kind of kind of get the interest back for me. So whenever, so since I say 2015 to 2020, I've been trying to talk my dad into let me come work here.

Okay.

So, cause it was like, I always, I want to come help you. I think I can help you do things that you maybe you're not so strong at, maybe with the ordering or answering phone calls and doing all the, let's say, boring stuff. But I'm more interested in the, I say, organization part of it now, that where I can focus on it. So he can focus on giving good support to the customers and building cars as fast as possible as well.

Are you involved with the building side from time to time as well?

Usually final assembly, I'll step in and help with, because typically most of the guys are fabricating. So that's always going to be like, hey, I'm going to pick one guy out of the crowd and like, hey, I need y'all to go put this car together. And if they ask either they're struggling time frame wise or it might just go to better quicker if I help them. And I'm at a lull of what I'm doing. I'll step in and help on that side of things.

How many employees you guys got here?

We got six currently.

Okay.

Yeah, six. Had to think about it.

So what's that consist of? How many fab guys?

So we got essentially four fab guys, two wiring guys.

Okay.

And the fab guys are the put together guys as well, the plunk, doing all the plumbing. My dad wears pretty much every hat except for wiring. He could do it, but he don't want to focus on, he's told me multiple times, I don't want to wire, I just want to get it going good. And I want it to look the way I want it to look. So we kind of let that up to our wiring department to kind of make sure it gets done right.

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I want to know how many times when you search it at the end.

I'm going to search it in the transcript after, and I'm just going to bleep it all out.

You can put a little counter up.

Just ding, ding. Anyways, it's like Cooper Baguette. He has that was it, the Brett La Sala.

Everything that gets mentioned.

Yeah, he has the bell he hits around. But anyways, for the class or series, for example, this car behind you races in, what's the overall cost beginning to end? If somebody wanted to come and get the exact same car, similar car built.

Typically, it's going to obviously, depending on how much carbon and titanium they want to run, be the light weight. So we always try to be the lightest, but not necessarily you don't actually have to spend the money on all the fancy gizmos and gadgets. Usually simpler is better. But normally with like this car, you'll be at the end of it, you'll be anywhere from 250 to 280. Okay.

Is that with all the titanium and carbon bells and whistles?

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah. So I would say take 30 grand of that off. It's going to be like your steel option.

So let's play the carbon and titanium game then here. What are you guys replacing with carbon and titanium?

We're doing steering columns, window frames, pedals. I got window nets, parachute frames, four-link bars, anti-roll, wishbone, lower control arms. We have done firewalls in the past. It's still an argument. I would say that it's not as light as some people would like to think it is, because you still have to weld like your steel frame in to the car.

Okay.

And you still have to bolt it together with stainless bolts, and I think by the end, it probably just welded in a steel firewall.

So yeah.

So and then like we'll do a carbon and titanium, a driver containment tunnel, our drive shaft containment tunnel. That's the, I say one of the biggest savings versus a steel one. The steel one is going to weigh, it feels like 500 pounds, and it's really like 15 pounds probably. And then the titanium carbon one is like four pounds.

Okay.

That's way light.

Yeah.

So overall, if you were to do like versus like, I mean, how much does that extra 30 grand save you weight wise, if you had to guess?

50 pounds maybe total.

Overall, the whole car, jeez, so 30 grand for 50 pounds is kind of...

I feel like I should just, you just not eat for a week or two.

Right. So when we ran Radio Worst of World, it was always the game then to be as light as possible and have the most horsepower. And since we had a small block, we were allowed to kind of be a little bit lighter than everybody else based off the rules. So we want to try to push the envelope a little more to do extra titanium and carbon stuff. So like we even did like titanium hardware, like the steering and on the beadlocks and everything. I remember dad joked that he spent 40 grand to say four pounds, which might not be 100% incorrect.

Yeah, because that was like one of the things that we saw at Street Car Banging Rides. It's just... Well, one of the things that we were talking about, was it Abdullah or... No, I think it was John Dock. I think we were talking with him. When it goes into even balancing the car and just choosing what setup you're going to go with just for the sake of balance, is there any particular way you'll push a customer? Or is it purely just based off of what they want?

What they want, yeah. What their budget allows. Because we can get, because a lot of like even usually the no time guys want to be as light as possible because they can't be. There's no weight rules. But if a class car guy is going to come through and he wants to be lightweight, sometimes like the car is going to be heavy anyway. I wouldn't spend the money there if you don't have to. Unless you just want to. Well, since a lot of this very cosmetic, it's really nice. It's got a little bit of gag, titanium and carbon stuff all over it. Most of the time, you don't really need it. Especially with like, let's say, a Proj 75 car, which this car is legal for, it's got to be like 2,800 pounds. That car is probably 23, 2,400 pounds with a driver in it right now. So you got to put 400 pounds in it anyway. So like, I don't know if I would want to, but if you were going to run no time, you want to have all that weight out.

So you could add ballast or something as needed, but you can do multiple things with the car.

Correct. And we try to make them as versatile as possible because the rules are evolving every month. It seems sometimes when the races are kind of popping off, it's just kind of, I feel like they always change in them. So we try to make the car semi-legal for multiple classes when we are building them. Because sometimes the timeframe where we're building them, you could almost not even be able to race it by the time the rules change, if you're not having enough foresight.

Yeah, that's one thing that's affecting my schedule, too, of what events I want to go to, because my friends might not be racing in a particular event, because they change the rules. I'm not changing my entire race program for this event, you know?

Right. It really could hurt one event, because if they see the car counting there, they could just take it back.

Right.

And they're like, cool, everybody's back now. Yeah, it's kind of give and take, it seems like.

So you guys also have customers around the world too, right?

Yes, we have quite a few in Australia. We got some in Kuwait, Qatar, UAE. Okay. We got guys, I have a couple of guys in Mexico, a couple in Canada, and throughout the US.

Actually, I don't know if you have thought about this question before, but is there a language barrier sometimes?

Yes, it's tough sometimes. But I mean, you try to muscle through it, and if they seem, which is comforting because if they are going through the trouble to try to convey what they want, right, and jump to the hoops, they got to be serious about what they want to do.

Right.

Which is nice because it will always tire kickers and everything in the industry, always get emails like, hey, I need these many parts for this project. If it gets to a point where the language is hard, that they don't understand what we're saying back, and they just don't care. Usually, they fall off anyway. But a lot of the guys, those Middle Eastern countries are very passionate about racing. Yeah. Very passionate.

The whole Gulf Coast. Yeah, we learned a lot about that from them, too.

Yeah, they were in it. I think if they could come here, with no expenses, they would. And just race here, and then just go back home for a little bit, and come back. Well, it's crazy.

It's kind of what they do as well. There's a lot of them that come over here and just race.

Right. Yeah.

Super cool.

I guess a lot of them are probably bilingual, too, as well.

Yeah, I would say it's probably... I know that in my background before coming to Race Cars, I worked for a German chimney exhaust manufacturer.

Okay.

So they always push for their employees. If you don't know English, you can't work here. Yeah. Because they had to work with us here all the time. So it seems like a lot of the US pushes a lot of the industries. So it helps that they know English, and we don't have to know their language, because there are so many other languages to know. But I guess it's a little bit like first world problems in the US.

Well, the technology has changed a lot too. I suppose Google Translate, things like that probably help, especially if you have it in text form, and get an email or something like that. You could be like slide and yeah.

WhatsApp is a very popular thing that we use.

Yeah.

It's a very nice tune.

Oh, so when it comes to, do you, a lot of your customers come in and already being racers to a degree, like have they already worked their way out from, a basic street car Mustang? And then they just, the bug caught them and they're just upgrading more and more. Is that typically what it is? Or?

Yeah. I would say that's probably, I would say 80% for sure. And then you got a couple of guys that we've dealt with, been great, that came into it relatively recently, that came with a buddy to a race, like man, I can do this. And they got the funds to be able to do it and jump right in. So, which is kind of what I think, I want to say like, I wouldn't be afraid to say that most of the guys in the top of the classes, it seems like they just got money, but they care just as much as the guys done it since they were born, you know. So it's just, their timeline is a lot shorter and they just are able to do it.

Right.

Because they got the funds.

You ever hand over a race car and go, ooh, this isn't going to go well?

Sometimes. Sometimes, man, I really hope this is great. It's like somebody needs to talk to them maybe.

But well, that's one of those things like, it's kind of like that was it build versus bought sort of thing.

Yeah.

It's I don't know how often it applies, right? Because like I have friends that have, absurd 3000 horsepower cars and they know how to wrench on it, but they'd rather give it to the shop that lives and breeds it. Yes. And then they're able to support their family with their job and all that and their race car addiction.

Right.

And just give it off to the pros. I mean, is that often what you see as well?

Yeah. A lot of guys like since we're so close to pro line and they, they seem to fund a lot of the cars that we are as fund motor wise. A lot of cars in our kind of circuit, they do it, like you said, every single day. They don't have, you know, the guys can literally like drop the car off, like, all right, guys, see you in a month and go and do what they need to do. And the guys that do it every day don't know the word about them messing up. Right. And I understand. There's more people getting towards that. And sometimes they don't charge that much. So might as well. Right. So.

Well, I've never really thought of it as a time thing. Like you said to where, so like I'm 43, I'm not going to build a race car from scratch. Like I don't have the time for that. You know, it's, I don't have very many years left. And I want to race now.

How much of your stuff is Proline versus anything else?

A lot of it, I would say, it's changed. Really, it's, they, the past three years, it seems like a lot of guys are kind of just switching and just doing the Proline thing.

As opposed to what was...

Just kind of just going to an individual builder, like say going direct to Noonan in South Carolina or going to the other Hemi shop that you build a motor. Sometimes it's easier because all the fast guys are running Proline motors and they have that brain trust. And usually to build and get access to that brain trust, you got to get a motor. So it's the easiest way to do it, to kind of go straight to here.

There's something to be said for that too, like buying in to like a group of people. Once you're a customer, it's like your family now, but not like the b******* corporate way, like actually.

Right, for sure.

Yeah.

So then, do you do a lot of traveling for events as well?

Yeah, we go all over. We went as far as Texas, up as far as Michigan, Virginia, a lot of Florida, obviously. My dad goes to Qatar and Australia. And I want to say that we might have some other kind of pop up in the next year or two as well.

How about street car stuff? Do you guys do much of that or is it not really the audience?

Not really. A lot of like when we first kind of, I'll say when I first kind of got in with the shop, so between 20 and say 22, we were doing a lot of suspension set ups and track set ups. And we had some more street guys that we were doing then, but nothing really out there. Usually it's more full built cars that we kind of have, kind of not pigeon-holed ourselves into, but it's kind of our market now.

I'm just bouncing all over the place. I'm just, I feel kind of dumb for sitting on this side of this car because I just keep looking at it. It's just very distracting. You mentioned you have a paint guy up in Kenosha.

Yep. Yep. He's a customer turned friend. And he does great work. And we kind of, he's kind of worked his, you know, his way into our little close-knit circuit of our build process. So he's done really well. We raced with him when running Project 75. And it's, it was crazy because we joked now. But when the car, the Gremlin first got dropped off, dad was, he was kind of, he was working on something else. And he kind of came in, they dropped the thing off, and kind of handled what was going on. And they left. He's like, you're going to have problems with that guy. And like a year later, he started painting cars for us. And like, I think we talked like at least four times a day, every day. Like we got group chats of like constant projects we were doing and stuff. And it was kind of funny that it was like, we might not, we might have issues out of that guy. But no, no problems. It was right.

Are you guys constantly bouncing ideas back and forth in a group chat?

Yeah. Always kind of like, hey, you know, usually now it's kind of like, just make it look good. It's kind of, we trust you enough. I think now just make it look good because we kind of have to all speak for it. Yeah.

Okay. So of that $250,000, $280,000 price tag, what's, so if you're going lump sum, right, what's the most expensive component?

I would say wiring and paint tie.

Really?

Okay. Yeah. I would say overall, like doing the wiring, all the components and everything. And then all the bodywork and all the paint and all the travel and everything kind of as a whole, they're kind of even in the 25-ish grand range of like a single eye line item thing. Under that would be your things that break, your zoomies, your rear end housings, your shock package after that. And I would say those like, and then your wheels, I would say that's like your big, big ticket items that usually take the longest to get. So usually whenever we ask for like a deposit, that's what we get first. It's like your wheel is housing, brake package, shreds, rear shocks, and wheel, you know, they kind of go from there. Make sure.

What's your mid line, like let's say not top of the line, but not bottom of the line, pro line engine gonna cost the guy?

I don't know what to call off hand, but I think whenever we were quoting like our 4.6 Hemi that we have, our small block Hemi, it's like in the 90, 85 to 90 range for, I think it's, I think that's what it was. That package, it was like kind of like that package deal. But obviously they do the full, like if you're gonna get a pro charger, you're gonna get like a line out for the whole package, plumbed and everything. All you do is put it in the car. And it's, I would say probably 130 ish probably.

Okay.

They're about, hold on.

What about transmission? Are these all running like, what, M&Ms?

Yeah, all of them are running M&Ms these days. Well, we've run like Liberty Gear stuff in the past until it's kind of, until Mickey and them kind of seem to like set the world on fire with their stuff. It seemed like they were already always kind of doing it, but it seemed like it was a no-brainer to just get their stuff because everyone else runs it and they're there to track and give support versus I'm going to wait. Well, we could show to get gears for something we won't try.

Right.

Where's Liberty based out of? They are in Michigan.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. I'd be one to add to that because I'll be going back to Detroit here.

Yeah.

Two months from now, one month, whenever this episode drops. So one question that immediately comes to mind is, these three cars, what's the differences between all three of them? Like what are they built for and any specific differences?

The biggest thing is these two are nitrous cars and it's going to be a pro-trunder car. So these two are kind of the same. They got the same motor, same transmission, everything.

What's the difference?

I'm sorry.

What do they have for...

Oh, they are running a TRE 404, just like a 765 cubic inch.

Okay.

Yeah. They're both running those. I think the shock packages are even... Yeah, they're the same shock package and everything. We were testing some on the Corvette, a little bit different, but I think they're 100% apples to apples. I would say, well, apple, like a green apple to a red apple, because one's a Camaro, one's a Corvette. They're essentially the same, but not, because this car is going to run a limited drag radio moving forward, and then this one's going to stay in the no time room. So this will stay lighter.

You know what breaks my heart? No, it's not the 2% female demographic. It's the fact that 80% of you guys are not subscribed and following the show. So go ahead, hit subscribe or follow. And of course, if you're on YouTube, hit that bell so you are notified when we drop a new episode. Let's get back to the show. So, actually, kind of go deeper into that. So kind of differentiate between shock packages.

So normally, we always run men's stuff, always. Okay. I know we are... Some customers that have like a strange package that they want to run are like a JRI, rear package, Penske stuff. But typically, we're so confident with our valving with Mark's stuff that either we just kind of just go through it, and if nothing really works, we try to always put Mark's stuff on there because we know for a fact it's going to work. And then he's always updating stuff and doing different air shock style programs now, which I think both these cars here are running the newer air shock style rear shocks.

So when you say newer, right? How often, first of all, how often are people coming back for maintenance work? And secondly, how often are people coming back to update stuff?

Usually, I'd say within two years or so, either we're going to kind of overhaul the car or build a new one.

Oh, really?

Yep.

And then what happens with the old one? Just gets sent to the Facebook Marketplace or what?

Pretty much, yeah. And then you'll see it pop up like, oh, it's going to be running out of time in this class with a different motor. And they, I mean, the chassis will last, I would say, 100% six years, as strong as they're going to be as new. Obviously, you're going to have some things that will interfere with that. But I would say if you had no, nothing crazy happened, you raced it all the time, you should get probably six years out of your chassis.

Do they often get sold as like rollers or?

Yeah, because I know we sold a couple just because we want to, it's hard to get our engine package. So we usually sell ours as rollers. Or sometimes it's nice to sell it turnkey. It's great, but usually that's not as easy because usually everyone has an idea of what kind of motor they want to run. What they feel confident with.

What's, is there like an expiration date or limit to how long a chassis can be started for or?

I don't believe so. I have to look at the specs for sure. But I think as long as it's constantly being tested and they don't see any issues, I think you're good. Okay. As far as I know, they're pretty thorough when they come in, because we'll have four or five cars at one time, and Mike Wells will come. He's our regional, our, I guess, our, yeah, our regional guy. And he's pretty thorough. He's here all day and checking everything. Sometimes like, come on, come on, guys, we gotta go fix this.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So like it happens every now and then. We had, we had like an issue, we luckily caught it. We only had, we got it like a fresh match of material in and they were not as thick as they should have been on a certain diameter. And it was really just like small gusts of things. So like while it was here and he was checking it and he was like, yeah, that's wrong. Like, great, go cut them out. So and then we had to fix it. And then-

Was that a pretty big job or?

It was going to powder coat the next day. So it was a pretty rush deal. Luckily, it was only, I don't know, probably six, eight bars.

OK.

So they cut them out, put them out together, welded back in. He tested them. We're good to go.

OK. So how does that whole thing work, by the way? Like, do you have to schedule something? Is it like a surprise?

I'm here or? Definitely schedule because usually he wants to try to do as many as possible. He don't want to come all this way just for one car. OK. I would love it if like he was like down the road, but no, usually we have to schedule about four or five cars. But normally he's at events and if the car doesn't get done here, you can do the first event you go to because there's always going to be someone there that can serve your stuff.

But every single one has to get done?

Correct.

Yeah.

OK.

I'm assuming it's like a building inspector. Like once you get to a certain point, it's safe.

And like, it's like, hey, you have an issue, this won't pass. And then we got a phone call, which luckily we haven't had that as far as I know, at least since I've been here doing things. Right. I think we're good.

So.

Where is he based out of them? Is it not too local?

I think he's in Florida.

Florida. So it's a bit of a hike to get up here then.

Yeah. Like he's got to be worth it for him. Yeah.

And I assume that it has its own kind of cost as well, right?

Yeah. They have, they charge per car. It's a couple hundred bucks.

Okay.

It ain't that crazy.

Okay.

How much racing does your dad still do?

Right now? So he did the six weeks over in Qatar first this year.

Oh, geez. Full six weeks?

He was there eight weeks. So he did the six week race. The six races, won the championship. He won five of the six races. He was in the final for five of the six races, won four of them, had a motor blow up and won it. So he had to skip a race. So it was a bit of a haul to try to get a motor rebuild in a week and be ready for the next week. Yeah, it was rough. But so whenever he got done with that deal, he went over to UAE, so just Burmese next door. And we're building a Mustang and a GTR over there right now. So I think he's going back August-ish, I think, for another week or two.

OK.

And we have a challenger here as well that's going to Qatar to be finished.

So you guys have built some cars over there, too? Like you'll send a team over there to do it?

Usually it's just him. OK. Yeah. So like back in, it was probably 18 or 19, he went over and built three like sand drag trucks in like two weeks.

Oh my God.

A bit of a thrash. Because there were obviously way longer days. They get it's like he says it's like 18 hour days and you get like four hours break in the middle of the day because it's the hottest part of the day. So it's nice to have a little bit of break in the middle. But you only have like one day off and it's Friday.

So he doesn't golf or anything, does he? No, he's a busy guy.

Yeah, busy, busy. We shoot every now and then here and then he's gotten into riding Harleys, so.

Okay.

So sand drag cars then, so does he do that fairly frequently or not really?

Not after that first batch. We did a truck here that got put in a container and sent over there, and I believe via Balushi. And I think Stevie Fast was attached to that program. Apparently, from what I understood is whenever he got there, they put all the fluids back in it, crank it up, made their three passes for the event, set the track record, the class record, and the event record, and blew it up, and that was it. So, I think it's like one pass and just set the four world on fire, as far as what I was expressed to me. Well, go for it.

How does that shipping cars, and has it changed since, you know, the certain things that everybody's been upset about as of late? Is it, or because they're not vinned, is it not as difficult to...

No, it's not as crazy as you think it would be. Price wise, it's changed just from normal everyday life stuff, but it's still, I mean, I would say it's... I know timeframe is the biggest thing now. Yeah. Like when we sent two cars to Australia a couple years ago, it was in port for four months. Just, my God, there, you couldn't get to it. And I believe the stuff going to the Middle East is way easier, but I think it's just because they might not have as much stuff going as far as I'm aware.

Does it always go by ship?

Yes.

You've never done any like Russian plane ones?

We've done... We almost did one, and I think it was like 10 times the price to do it. I'm like, oh, let's not do that. One of the ones going to Australia was like, either spend six grand to ship both these cars or spend 30 grand to send one.

Yeah, that's usually what comes out to. Let's not do it. Yeah, when we had Shawn on the episode, he shipped his Mustang to the Nuremberg Ring. I think it all came out to like 40 grand or something.

Yeah, that's how I can believe it.

It's intense.

Yeah. Don't sound fun.

But a whole four months in port thing, like that'd be... That's like when stuff gets stuck in port, it just goes to die sometimes.

Yeah. So it's very like we kind of didn't anticipated like a long time because it was right after COVID. We sold our El Diablo 2.0 car that ran RVW. And then we were building a 3.0 Corvette Pro Mod that we were going to run. Never got to race it, ended up selling it to one of the guys over there. So they both went at the same time. That car actually, that 3.0 is actually running a rotary setup now for pack, I believe. And dad's going down in August to hang out with them and do an event or two.

Where was that going to?

Australia.

Australia?

Yep.

Man, that's a bucket list one. Hopefully we end up over there in the next few years because Australia and New Zealand are calling our name.

For sure. Like when dad says, I gotta go back, I'm like, can other people go with you? Or yes, I would definitely let it go.

Well, it doesn't sound like you guys build losing cars.

We've been fortunate.

Yeah. What's the secret sauce? Or what's the most important part you think out of Aspect? Like if you had one section you really needed to concentrate on.

What makes a winner?

Yeah.

Good chassis.

Yeah.

Good chassis and good backing on your motor program. For sure. Between those two, if you don't worry about the chassis, all you do is worry about the motor. And those guys got the motor figured out, the chassis is good. All you do is try to figure out how to set your next personal best.

Yeah. Now it's a driver problem from there, right?

Correct. Yeah. That's why I want to make it. I want to make it a driver problem, not our problem.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

When you say motor backing, what does that look like?

I would say like getting in with the Proline guys or getting in with, like, say, Pat Musi or Swicer, anything big name. I would say if you're able to get with those guys, you're good. But obviously, there's a lot of teams that do really well that are on the ups, too. So I think that as long as you got a good team around you and they're all that same motives, you should be good.

You're always doing good till somebody comes out of the woodwork with a junkyard LS and then just starts... Right.

Where did that come from?

I imagine you guys aren't doing a bunch of LS stuff here.

No, I mean, we're doing a Dragon Draft car that was originally going to be LS, and I don't think it's going to be a Hemi now. But we did the Beetlejuice car. Whenever we sold it to Jesse, who owned it before John does, we converted to an LS set up, but that's really, I would say the only thing that's been, that we've messed with, that's either not a Big Box Chevy or Hemi lately.

Is there anybody on the up and up, good, is there anybody on the up and up to pay attention to in the industry currently? Whether it, in any component?

I would say, Scarlet Solutions.

Okay.

Those guys, they're constantly trying to do better with their sensors and everything. And Forrest does a great job of support. I would say that, like he's been like, I would say most of them do pretty good. Like, hey, if I have any issues, let me know. But he's been the only one that's like for sure, told me like, if I have any issues, let me know. Cause if you don't tell me, I don't want to fix it. I don't know that it's a problem. And he's been the only really guy that I know that has been, that cares enough, it seems, to want to fix everything and do better.

I find that actually quite often, if somebody is going to, they just, they'll complain all day long. But then I'm like, have you reached out to them?

Right.

And they're like, no. I'm like, well, then how do you, like-

Right, like how would they know?

Yeah, right. Well, that or they're, they may be willing to help you and you have no idea. You haven't even tried yet. So-

For sure.

You have to remember, we're from Minnesota, where we all silently complain, right?

Yeah, that's true. We leave y'all from a passive aggressive area.

Yeah, we leave the Google review, but we'll never call in to be like, hey, can you send me a new one or something like that? Because this is broken? No, it just sucks. That's the Midwestern way, damn it. Okay, ECUs, right? So you said pretty much all cars are on FuelTech here?

Yep.

Do you run a range of FuelTech products or is it just kind of like, here's the package?

That's kind of what we're kind of focusing on right now, just because we are kind of new in getting the wiring department stuff going. Sure. Obviously all FT600 stuff, and then with this one, we're running the new 700 Plus, which is kind of a new outlier with what we got going. But kind of we want to focus on this program and then really work out the chinks on timeframe and pricing, all that stuff first before we... I mean, obviously, we could probably... I don't see why we couldn't do anything else, but right now, if we had to pick, it'd be that right now.

Okay. And what's the difference between a 600 and a 750, anything in particular?

They're doing a lot. A lot. It's a lot of different. There's a lot. It's like a full vehicle setup versus just engine stuff. So like, this one's got cameras, and you could do everything remote now through Bluetooth. I think they'll work on a new cloud network and everything. So you can, in theory, from my understanding, you can create the car, do your burnout, like, that's going to make it work, and fix it, and just send it to it. Okay. Oh, that's kind of cool. So I think they're getting towards where it's going to be, I think a lot more street car guys, and more like the Dragon Drive guys, I think they're going to really love that set up. I wouldn't say, I mean, the Pro-Bike guys probably want to eventually, but I think it is a little heavy on the heavier side, because there is so much, and the screens are larger. But I think right now, the FT600 is good enough, and it's not broke. So I'd say this is a newer, this next step, rather than to what everything's going to turn into the next few years.

What's the price difference?

Don't hold me to numbers. Let's say, I think the 600 is like three grand, the 700 is five grand, and the 700 plus is like six grand.

Okay, so quite a bit more, but it's also quite a bit bigger, trade-offs, all that.

Right, yeah. It's kind of cool you can put cameras on it. Like this car's got an NCAB camera, so you don't set a GoPro in there. It's got a reverse camera. That's cool.

Perfect for drag and drive stuff, too. Do you guys do any drag and drive cars?

We get one coming through. Is that Peng right now? That's going to be... He's tied in with, or he's, I would say tied in, he's buddies with Brett La Sala and those guys. He's supported them, and I think he bought one of the Snot Rocket cars recently. Tried to re-campaign that.

What is it, the 2.0?

Yeah, he's got 2.0, yeah.

Gotcha, yeah, I remember that coming up. What about you? Do you race at all? Do you do anything?

Now I do mainly all the... I think I would like to race... If my wife will let me. Okay, there's the key. But I enjoy going and supporting the guys. I'm a team player. If someone else can... If I can be there and help them where they can do better, I'm going to be the support guy.

Being part of the experience.

Right. I think I played better at support than the leading man kind of thing.

So even though you haven't been racing, I'm assuming you've learned every aspect of this. You can look at a car when it goes down and be like, oh, we need to adjust this or do that.

Yeah, just being in it, just you gotta pick up on things. And I'm always trying to pick my dad's brain because he don't write anything down. It keeps it all right there. I'm like, we gotta write something down, dad. No, we don't. Okay.

I'm just saying, he could probably get some pretty awesome royalties if he wrote, like, how to build a pro mod or something.

Well, it says Reece Brothers. You said your uncle's right over here, too. Is he the brother?

He's the brother. That's yeah. So whenever they were building cars when they were younger, it was Reece Brothers then. And then they kind of went their own separate ways. And then whenever my dad went full time back in 18, he kind of kept the name just to stay loyal to that. And everyone thinks I'm my dad's brother, which is kind of funny too. But it's like, are you the brother? No, I'm the son, actually.

My dad, we've gotten that from time to time, too, with my dad, and he likes to rub it in my face. Like, oh, you're going to be your brother.

Like, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, oh, thanks. Yeah. You're the reason why I have gray hair.

Yeah, right.

That explains the Reece's orange back here.

Yeah.

No, I'm sure you've probably heard.

So is uncle not involved anymore or is at all? Or I mean, did he race too?

Yeah. So it's my dad and he's got two brothers. So the older brother was the Reece brother. And then I think whenever my dad was running Pro Mod, my other uncle was kind of then became the Reece brother. Then it kind of flopped. So they all have been involved. I always race my my pop-ball here. He's raced in bracket cars forever.

So the guy out there mowing the grass.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I take about a millimeter off every pass all day, every day. Rain or shine.

I see he wasn't driving that thing super fast, but he enjoyed it.

Sometimes he makes practice passes. I think he just works on his timing.

Does he?

Yeah, he does.

So what's next for you guys? What does the next few years look like? Obviously, this thing has grown quite a bit in five, seven years.

Yeah, seven. Yeah.

Yeah, 2018.

Yeah. So obviously, I want to work. We want to focus on our efficiency to get as many more cars out, more wired, more wiring projects, more branching out from there. I want to take on different weirder projects such as motorcycles. I think right now it's like the we're going to try to do motorcycles because we've done some things here and there for some like guys that do some drag bikes and stuff.

Oh, okay.

I think that'd be fun just to kind of try.

Yeah, it would take up less space in the shop too.

I think we could build more. So to be honest, I think it would be a little bit quicker. Yeah. But really just want to focus on that. We've gotten into making a lot more parts now. And even with like, we've gotten into the 3D printing space as well, trying to provide certain support items for, you know, different connector pieces and different mounts that can be, that don't necessarily have to be a billet of aluminum. So just we're trying different things. See what kind of what sticks, I guess, right now.

You guys use CAD and all that stuff in pretty regular years. Does your dad always do that? Or is that a thing that he's had to learn or still doesn't do?

He learned it quite a few years ago. He doesn't do it that much now.

And he adapted it early on.

Correct. Yeah. Usually like whenever we did, because me and him kind of been similar on, I say like, job pass. We did a lot of chimney exhaust stuff for quite a few years, industrial steel stuff. And he learned there. I learned 2D at the time when I did my stuff. And then I've gotten into doing more 3D work. And we got a guy here that is working on a wiring department. He does design as well. Okay.

So you guys all kind of share that workload when it comes to designing stuff?

Kind of, yeah. And I got a buddy of mine that we outsource some stuff to. That does really well.

You may have noticed that we have a lot of guests on the show who design their own parts or systems. And if you want to learn how to do that as well to make a car faster and safer or a product stronger and better, you can learn how to do just that with our partners at the High Performance Academy. Using code Minox to save 55% on their courses, you'll get access to hours and hours of step-by-step 3D modeling and CAD content that'll teach you how to create and design before you execute. All details in the description below or at the partners page at minoxide.com. Let's get back to the show. So how do these, when you decide that you're going to sell something, like for example, those mockups and stuff, like where does that idea come from? Like who comes up and who came up with that?

Just spitballing, really. I was like, hey, they got these new 700s coming out, cool. I don't want to put that in the car at all. So is there a way we can like scan that or they have like a model or something we can use and we'll just, and Jason, that works, he had a printer, he's like, hey, we can just print them mock up. I'm like, that's a good idea, let's do that. So we kind of worked on a good design that worked really well. And then we started getting some here to kind of offset, we don't have to worry about doing it at home. And then it kind of went from one machine to three machines doing stuff. So, but it was kind of like just wanting to not mess up something that was so expensive that I couldn't afford to fix if I had to do that. So, that's kind of where that came from. That started that. And then it was like, oh, cool. Well, now we have these machines, what else can we do? And there's a whole other world that I was not prepared for.

Did I see something on your website about drifting too?

Yes. So, with our website, it's kind of an overarching thing. You know, we can get side-by-side stuff, we can do different kits for like, I know like a lot of like the drifting's getting really big. And we got, I want to say a year or so ago, we had someone reach out to us about selling tires and stuff. So that kind of was like, why would we sell drift tires? But I mean, here and there we will, a lot less drift traffic on that front, but online, you almost have to be available for everything. So that's why we kind of have like the Atlas race parts thing. It's kind of like, it's everything. It's a full catalog. And then like Reece Brothers uses this. This is what we do here, but we have access to everything.

Well, in the days of drop ship now, it's like, why not add the products?

Yeah, for sure.

It's that easy.

Makes it a little bit easier, and I don't have to worry about it.

Right.

How about partners in the space? Obviously, we talked about your Pankeye. Do you have any, like, I know you have a lot of in-house stuff outside of the Pankeyes. Is there anything else that you're outsourcing?

Right now, we've managed to kind of bring everything in. For up until we did our own wiring, we used John Hollmeyer. And his stuff has always worked perfect, and worked great, looks great, functions really well. And then really, that's, and we've kind of dabbled with, like, some modern harnesses here and there, some pre-made stuff, because for the most part, our cars are the same. So we tried that before we kind of got into doing our own custom harnesses here. So it's kind of just evolved into, like, we can just do it, you know, why not?

Is there anything that you'd tell customers no, like, for? Like, oh, that's a bad idea, or talk them out of, like, all right, like, isn't it coming with some misconception you have to change or not really?

Sometimes we're going to have to, like, if, yeah, maybe if, like, they're unaware of, like, other issues that might pop up here. And then we're like, well, you know, in our experience, when we do A, B happens, so we just skip B to go straight to C. We don't do that anymore. So there's a lot of, you know, back and forth, I think, on my part, that I have to do whatever, like, quoting projects, something like that. But sometimes, budgets, a lot of it. If you're like, oh, if they want to go ahead and do this, there's always, like, the biggest thing that I see is a guy wants to have a stock adventure car, and he's like, all right, cool. I want to do a ladder bar. Okay, there's no problem. Let's go back out the car. No problem. He's like, yeah, just like in a year or two, I want to four link it. Like, you know, I'm going to stop you there because you're going to spend the same money. This is going four link it. Yeah, just go ahead. And if it's a weight penalty, take the 50 pounds. Just you're going to be happier because you're going to spend, let's say 40 grand to a ladder bar in a year and a half. You know, let's say parts go up. You're going to spend 50 grand to a four link it. And you got to do the exact same amount of work.

Yeah, and you basically just wasted the 40.

Yeah, you just wasted it. Like, I wouldn't... Like, unless you just want to do that, I wouldn't. But that's the big... I say, like, on my end, that's the biggest one I've seen for trying to, like, hey, let's just not do that. Let's just do something different.

So out of all the things that you guys kind of provide, what's the cheapest, like, one package that you put together here? What would be, like, the 275 stuff, or?

Yeah, I would say, I mean, you could probably build a car. Wouldn't, I mean, typically, a lot of people like to wrap cars, too. But you always, you still have to do the bodywork. So unless, you know, if you have to be in a class where, like, weight don't matter, just paint it. So we'll do, sometimes the wrapped cars are the guys that care a little more about time frame. So usually they already kind of are coming in with a project to have most of the chassis already kind of done. So we kind of have to look it over. So it's a little bit different there on the price wise, because you're going to spend a hundred hours going back over, making sure this is right, cut this out. We'll just make that right. Fixing little things that you honestly have to do. But I would say like cheapest, like steel components, you know, normal hours, nothing crazy. Just from start to finish. I mean, you could probably do one in 170, about 80-ish ballpark. And that's with a steel body. So obviously you're going to have a little, not as much, like you do a little bit body work there, just because the panels, typically the panels come in separately when you just do like your own skins. You'll spend $1,500 in skins versus eight grand for a body. So it's a little bit cheaper that way.

How small do your projects get? Or you said you don't say, no, what if I just went and bought a 19 F-150 off of Marketplace and I came here and I was like, hey, I just want you to put a Whipple on it. You guys do that too? Or?

I mean, we probably, I mean, I would say it would be wasting your time frame wise. Yeah, based on scheduling, I would say take it to the speech shop. Yeah, just because I have so much chassis work inundated. If it's like I want to put a little small cage in there, I can probably squeeze it in because we're already cutting, cutting tubing.

Right.

So I think that would be easier for us. I would say we have done projects like that, but they're usually like I had to plan for them a little more. Because it's something we don't necessarily do all the time.

What's your turnaround?

Typically, so we could build a car in 650 hours.

Okay.

So that's about two and a half months. Okay.

Is that after everything arrives on time?

So normally when we, we normally don't start the project until everything's here.

Okay.

So we can just knock it out, boom, done. And then the day there goes, it'll be at like the longest time frame we'll have that we don't like, I can't control really would be paint. So like I might, we might spend two, three months on it, but we might have it seven because it took that long for it to go through the paint process because it's behind two of the cars. And they only really work on one at a time because they're trying to get all the detail in.

Yeah. If you're trying to get an immaculate job like this, I would, that looks like it takes some time.

Yeah, it takes a little time, but I mean, I think it probably is good.

Well, even like from, you can tell when a car has orange peel and this car really does not. I mean, I could crisp, like look from my angle, I could see that those are lights and the shape that they are. It's not all distorted and all that. So, which is crazy for, you know, a race car.

Yeah, something you could potentially put in a wall.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Well, it's just like, so we always have to have this debate on this show. It's like, because at the end of every episode, we ask people to pick three cars on limited budget, you know, daily drivers, show car and track car. And a lot of this is why I like talking to race car guys. They're like, well, race car is a show car because a lot of love goes into a lot of these.

Yep.

I would say except for the drift guys. Well, kidding. I love you all.

They so like, you know, I would say we joke that we build show mods.

There you go. Okay.

So they're all show car quality cars. And we proved that we took our Baba Yaga car, our Nova, to Rick Ross' car show at his place. Oh. And won first place in special entries. So. Okay. I mean, we crank it up, but we didn't have to. But to win that.

Subtle flex.

Right. I don't want to, yeah. But.

I don't mean to brag.

Don't mean to brag. We were there. I'm not saying I paid for it or anything, but.

No, there's just, I don't know, man. Like, again, I'm very young in this industry. So it's like when I go to like PRI, it's just like you're in Candyland.

Like.

Right. You have all the cool stuff. All the cool, shiny stuff.

Well, it's like the first thing I like when I came in here, I'm looking at the wheels of this one over here and I'm like, man, that is as gorgeous.

Yeah.

So you could tell that. And again, it's like. Do people get sticker shock sometimes or not really?

I would say so. Yeah.

OK.

So it requires a lot of like kind of walking through the project, usually on my end. Like, you know, here's everything like, wow, that's a lot. Yeah, but let's let's let's talk about it. Like this is what we got to do. We can do this here. We don't necessarily have to do this here. We can do this instead. You know.

So OK, so let's do this instead. Like so. Let's talk about like a fully dressed car, like 280k or whatever it is. What are some, obviously we talked about the carbon and the titanium bits, like, all right, let's maybe not do that. What are some other things where you may kick the can down? Yeah, dial it back, kick the can down the road. Like, oh, you're going to upgrade this later, probably.

But I would say for a shock package, just because there is cheaper shock packages out there, we could do that.

What's a shock package? You said Mensers?

Yeah, Mensers. Yeah, we run their stuff. So let's say it's like $4,200 for a set of struts.

Okay.

A set of four-way rear shock is like $6,200, something like that. And that's when we can like, oh, we don't necessarily have to do four ways. We can do two ways. So that's $2,500. We can do that. And it works just as good. I mean, I know Stevie Fast went, you know, 210 and ran like low 350s on a two-way. Like it's possible. You could do it.

Takes a lot of knowledge though.

Right. Like they had their stuff dialed in pretty good. So with the four ways you have that realm. But I would say, you know, different brake packages are different. You know, we could do, not necessarily do like a strange brake package or like everyone loves the TBM stuff now, which I love Doug and them. We run strange stuff, just because that's what we're custom to using. And since we are custom to using strange, when we use strange products, when you tell them you're going to like use some like TBM stuff, it's, you know, I got to pay full price for strange stuff. And then the full price stuff for TBM stuff, just to make it work, because they don't really coincide easily. But I think they're working on that. So I don't think that's going to be an issue for a long if, it's just kind of, they're getting way more popular versus when TBM was by itself. You know, different wheel packages too. We don't necessarily have to go with the fancy, let's say like the Weld brand, like let's say for like a Big Talker, or like a Delta, they're like $4,500 a piece. Or you can get a Sanders wheel, and they're like $45 a set. So we can just do that. That'd be a little bit easier.

What's the trade off there though? Do you have, is there, or is it just?

We run Sanders, we've run Sanders forever. I think a lot of it's name.

Okay.

Yeah, you paid for the name brand. And Weld controls, most of the industry, time frame wise too. I know when it was kind of hard to get their stuff, they were kind of like, oh, it's kind of hard to get, so they're going to make, or it's, they're going to up the price, and then make the lead time longer. Well, dang, well, that's where we kind of start looking around.

Okay.

Well, let's see other options here, and there's always new wheel companies popping up. I know a lot of, like, I think Race Star is big now. I know, I'm trying to think of some other ones off the top of my head can't, but there are other great options, RC Components. We run a lot of their stuff, but if I'm going to go with like the cheapest reliable, we're going to run Sanders rear wheels and like a wailed front, and they have similar styles where they don't look weird together.

Yeah, like, I mean, these are different on the front and back. Yeah, so I don't have an issue with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Works out pretty well. Yeah.

Give me the wheels out of the clearance bin. I'm fine with that.

Who's your mentor in this industry?

My dad.

Yeah.

Yep.

Taught me everything. I'm just saying that he taught me everything with this, because, I mean, there's obviously you can like look in and watch YouTube videos all night and do a thing, but they're only going to tell you enough. And it's not if you're in it every day. And he has a process of teaching people certain things where like you don't necessarily have to ask the why. Once you know, like, what we use, like, cool. And then you discover the why body on your own. So I'm fortunate.

What's what did he start with? Like, what brought him to this point? What do you know what his first car was?

It was a Chevy 2.

Chevy 2? Okay.

Ran some bracket stuff back in the day. I'll say back in the day. Street raced a lot.

Yeah.

And then kind of I want to say the Orska days kind of made it more like go to the track and race all the time from my understanding. Okay. And kind of just getting rubbing elbows with all the guys. And when Orska kind of went away, then it kind of went into running the Outlaw Pro Mod stuff. So you can make the big jump in the Pro Mod. He ran that and then kind of stopped racing for a while. And then in 18 went backwards and then we went all under radial stuff pretty much because it was on the right.

What's your guys' big event every year? Do you have one particular event?

I would say lights out and no mercy. We're kind of like a big race we go to. Okay. It's a big week long deal. We have a lot of customers that go. So we have to make sure we're there to have support. And we'll have a couple here and there that like pop up that I would say in the past, US Street Nationals was a big one. World Street Nationals, Southern Orlando are kind of the ones who are like, oh cool, let's come back up and you go do that. But now it's like we have our six races we go to. And then now with the no time stuff, it's been fun because the races are, I don't want to say I have to plan for them because they kind of just pop up all the time. But I think that's becoming more structured too, like the normal class races are.

What's track support look like for you guys? Is it something that is included in when you buy a car or when you go out, you have like a, hey, we pay us this much, we'll be there for you 100% at the track? Or do you have like packages when it comes to that?

More or less. So we split, so we charge a day rate. And if we have four customers, we split it four ways.

Okay.

Not necessarily charge everyone the full tilt.

Right.

It don't seem fair. We don't want to try to get over on anybody. So if we're like, right, we're going to plan on being here, we can get this many guys there. We'll do these things. Obviously some people require more. So like if I got two guys that we're racing with and I got one guy wants to just do some testing stuff, like, you know, we'll give him, we'll split these guys. I'll give him a little bit of a deal, you know, just because he's going to be, I'm not going to be able to get to him as much just because his isn't as dire. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Right.

Who's a competitor, you respect? Or somebody in the industry, as you respect?

So it's funny. So a lot of people think that Cameron Johnson down in Florida is our competitor and not the case. We buy a lot of parts from him. We have a lot of support. I talk to that guy all the time. I respect his work. He does great job. He has a really good eye for detail. And I think that's why we do so well partying with parts and stuff, because my dad is very anal on parts. And I know Cameron does as well. And we give him our time all the time. We always kind of use that chroma already as well. So it kind of helps with the work side of it.

Okay.

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Typically, they have someone in mind. If they don't necessarily like, sometimes it's like, hey, can you help me? Like, my dad will help get it going. Sometimes we keep them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we don't.

As in your dad will do the tuning?

Correct, yeah.

Gotcha. So is he mostly well-versed in FuelTech?

I would say has become more well-versed in FuelTech.

What was it before?

All MSD, grid stuff, yeah.

Gotcha. Yeah, what are you most proud of when it comes to you, or your pops, or the shop as a whole, or everything?

I would say... The fact that we get to build so many cool cars for so many people. Okay. And they seem to be happy. So if they're happy, I'm happy.

What they're doing to Minnesota reviews, right?

Right. Yeah.

They don't tell you. They just review it.

Right. Yeah.

They send you back and stab you and over and over.

That's fine.

It seems to be working for you, whatever way you're doing it.

Whatever helps them sleep at night. Yeah. If I don't know about it, I don't know about it.

What's your favorite car that's come out of here?

So we did a duster for the Firepunk guys out of Ohio. The diesel car that we did. It runs in Line 6 Cummins. It's way cool. It's on the verge of being the fastest diesel car period.

Okay.

It's definitely the fastest door car. I think they were at 385 at like 199 or something, which is pretty crazy for a diesel car.

Yeah. Is that the... I saw a YouTube video of a diesel guy came in and interviewed, must have been your dad. Was that...

Yeah. That was the purple duster. Yeah.

Okay.

So I would say that's my favorite because it's the most different thing we've done. Outside of that, I would say it's our El Diablo car, original car that kind of started it back for me. Yeah. So outside of what we've built currently, I would say it's that car, the original one.

If I called you tomorrow and said, I want one of these from scratch, how long am I waiting before you guys get started?

I would follow that one. Do you have a body?

No, I don't.

Okay. Well, whenever the body gets here, we'll start in four or five months.

Really? Okay.

Yeah. Thereabouts. Cause that's usually the one. That's like my longest lead time is bodies.

So they don't have them just sitting in a warehouse normally?

No, they seem to be made to order more so nowadays.

Okay.

Yeah.

Have you had any crazy custom bodies come through?

The Gremlin that we did for Brian, just cause it's so out there. And like the front end, we had to make the front end because no one makes parts for a Gremlin. It's more 6.9 Camaro than Gremlin in the front of the car, just cause it's the parts we had to use. And I think a big cowl on it's off of a Pro Mod body. And it's the lower half of the front end is on Camaro. But for the most part, you can't tell. I mean, I know cause we, that's what we used to build it.

Yeah.

Shoot, man.

Well, what are you thinking? Should we rip the final three and then maybe do a tour?

What's the fastest car you guys have built?

Fastest car we built would be our El Diablo 2.0 car. We went 351 with a 9 or with an 8 at 214. Mile per hour wise is our Nova. We went 216 with that same ET, but with a smaller tire.

Wow. So I talked to John Dock about this. We had him on a couple of weeks, a few weeks ago. I don't know, this all burned.

Two months ago now, two months ago.

Okay.

Anyway, couple of days ago.

Because he's doing pro mod stuff too. And I'm like, I watched some in car video and what an intent to like race for three and a half seconds is that's wild. You're just, and then it's done. I'm like, what in the heck? That's crazy.

So you guys do any road course stuff too or?

So we have it per se. We did a wreck repair on a Saline S7.

Okay.

I saw that on your website.

Yeah. So that's what they're doing with it. That's here and there. So that's what they're going to do with that car. That's like the Texas Mall and so like that.

So it's definitely take a rare one-off car and go to a road course.

That's cool. That's crazy. Yeah. That's wild. It's even more crazy. He bought that car wreck and was like, cool, who wants to fix this? I said, no one wants to touch it. Oh, I bet. We could try. So we seem to do a decent job. He was happy. So awesome.

That's tough. That's got to be nerve-wracking for a shop too. This is like a super limited, super expensive car. Right.

There's no way to like, other than just put it, get a new body and do it. There's no way to fix it. You have to make it. Yeah. So I was like, all right then, let's do it then.

Well, here's one for you. What's the most expensive build that's come out of here? You know, I have to say, I think it's going to trouble you.

No, I don't, I don't think Reece is a build, really.

That's probably hard because you probably have some that have spent more over a lifetime, you know, by the kid coming back and returning.

Right.

Like, here's a hundred here, here's 150 here, here's 30 here.

For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of, I think they're all about the same really. I think kind of like, when you get to like the 280 ish range and they kind of hover there, and then we would just, if something were to happen, then we would just try to treat it separately. Okay. I would say something that has like latest and greatest, coolest stuff would be this car. Okay.

So outside of the FuelTech, what else is latest and greatest?

Well, now it's going to have the latest and greatest, Proline, Hartz Procharger, stuff that they're going to campaign, that they're going to pioneer it this upcoming season. So that's going to be, it was already going to be running some cool stuff, running like titanium exhausts originally, when it was a twin-turbo car. But now that it's got the new Hemi going into it, it's going to be way cool.

Do you guys have a turbo brand you see more than, often than not?

Hartz is, become popular. I've seen a lot more of those lately. Obviously you got your normal precision stuff. Yeah. That seems to be like, every now and then you'll see it in Garrett. But mostly it's precision or that, or Hartz now.

Interesting.

Okay.

That's like asking people what kind of oil to use sometimes. It's like there's so many different turbo manufacturers out there.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

What's kind of like what you brought up with the brakes earlier. It's like, it's what you're familiar with, right?

Right. Yeah.

It's what I know that we can do quickly and what we know works really well. Like even with like some cars, like with this car, it's a lightweight car. It's got steel front brakes. Only because we know that if the parachute handle brakes and you have to kill the brakes, they won't seize up because we have done that with our LJ Abloh car and spun it around and wrecked it. So we tried to, if we don't have to, it's like, hey, we can do steel brakes on the front. We want to. Now I want carbon. Okay.

What do you guys run for seats or just safety in general?

Seat wise, we'll do typically a carbon wraparound seat with a DSP pour in. And we're on DSP side and custom top pad and a driver leg pad as well. Gotcha. If we don't run that set up, if the car can fit it, we'll run the race tech seats.

Yeah, I got on a call with Race Tech a few weeks ago and they're really happy with what John was saying about just the whole safety side of things. So you don't know car keys in your cars?

Here and there. I mean, typically, it's preference. It's like, hey, I don't really want to get a race taxi. I just want to do the car keys fine, no big deal. Okay, fine, we'll do that. Then we'll put a nice cover on it or we did a car recently where we did a houndstooth upholstered cover for one. It was nice, turned out really good.

That's cool.

Just something to make it look a little pizzazz.

Now, should we?

Yeah, let it rip, man. I think I got every single question answered. You sir are a good salesman. Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

No, that's good. All right. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver, and a show car. You have an unlimited budget. You can build whatever you want, swap whatever you want.

Oh, I don't know. I would say show car. I pick any C10 truck. Yeah, just because I've always liked the way they look.

Okay.

Simple. None performance was as crazy about it. Just like the way they look.

You can swap anything in there?

I mean, I would, I mean, yeah, I guess the limited budget. I mean, I would say, thanks to my buddy, I'm a mopar guy. I would say I would probably put like a hell of a great motor in it. Just, I think it'd be kind of cool. It'd be a little out there.

Something different, yeah.

Yeah. I don't know of anyone that's done that. So I'm sure it's first. Could be. That'd be awesome. Track car. Now, like drag track or you pick the track. Yeah.

Okay.

Drag car. I would do 6-9 Camaro, Screw Blown, 4-9 Hemi, set up. Budget wise, I would say, just what we run, just because I know it works. Yeah. And I know my dad has fun with it, so I know I would. Now, what was the other one?

Daily.

Daily. Daily? I'm gonna go out in the left field.

Toyota Yaris.

Close. I don't mind the newer Nissan Z cars.

The 400Z?

Okay. Just because it seems a little more richer style.

Sure.

I would pick the yellow too, just because. Yeah. So, let's see how it looks.

Oh, it's standing up. It's cool.

A little different.

Oh yeah, I don't think we've had, well, we've probably had C10 before.

I think I've had 400Z on episode 18 with the kid from Colorado. I think that thing, yeah, because he had one.

Oh, that would count. Yeah, right?

It's like, my dream car is right behind me. We get that answer about half the time. Oh, no. Real quick, because it came to mind, the 4.6 versus 4.9 Hemi, which do you see more often? Because you mentioned 4.6 already too, right?

So, we campaign the small block. So, there's various people that have it. 4.9, it's the baddest thing they make.

Okay.

I would say, if I had to pick, that's what we get. I know we've talked that if we were to get away from the 4.6, we would get a 4.9.

Okay. Fair enough.

So, just because the weight advantage isn't there anymore, because it makes some, let's say, makes comparable power. It's not as much power, obviously. Let's say it, you know, 4.9 makes 4,000 horsepower, or let's say, actually be more realistic, would be 37-ish, 100 horsepower, and the 4.6 makes like 32, the 34, 100 horsepower, something like that. So it's, I mean, it's off, but the weight advantage isn't there anymore. So, there's no, I mean, this is just because it's what we've always had, this is where we know we ran now. So if we were to pick something different, it'd be the bigger 4.9.

I guess another one. Where did this love for, or I guess attention to detail come from, right? Like there's people in the industry that may not provide this level of quality. Where does your dad get this from?

Yes, that's what stands out. Everyone can build a car. They can't, I mean, I think it's harder to build a car that's nice. Sure. And I would say that we don't always build the nicest cars because we can always do better. So there's always that extra level of detail you can kind of go into.

Sweet.

Well, on that note, where can everybody find you guys?

Anywhere, Reece Brother Race Cars, anything that says RBRC, atlasraceparts.com is our website. They will sell everything that we run. And if it's not on there, give me a call because we can get it.

Sure.

Dan?

Yeah, you can find us at Gunna Garage, just on everything, or MrGunnaGarage on Facebook, or keep staring at me inside.

Two N's?

Come on, now. You haven't put the pressure on me on that in a while.

Well, awesome, Quentin. Thank you for making this happen. This is awesome. Hopefully next time around, we can get you and your pops together. Next time we're in Georgia. Yeah. Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time. Thanks again for watching the show, guys. Be sure to go into the description down below and check out all of our sponsors. They are what make this show possible. It allows us to travel the country and talk to some really cool guests. So be sure to check them out, support them just like you support us, and see y'all next time.