158. Motorsports, The Monte Carlo, Safety and Racetech w/ Adrienne Peters

I am so sorry about the cicadas in advance. I thought the mics wouldn't pick it up. However, if they do get a little annoying, go ahead and jump ahead 25 minutes. Let's get to the show.

I had a Monte Carlo to build. So I'm like, this is, yeah, every dollar I made went into that car, but I was committed to the vision.

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.

Yep, again in enemy territory today.

There's not Ford in here, right?

We're all friends here.

Yeah, yeah.

But there are no Fords. You're outnumbered.

Yes, I am. And today we are here with Adrienne Peters, VP of RaceTech, or VP of Marketing.

Marketing.

Nailed it, sorta nailed it, it's okay. Well, I think I'll just let you do your own introduction here. You have quite the career background, lots of fun stuff, especially, is it generally GM or Chevy?

So I did work for GM, but the team that I worked on was Chevrolet Performance and Dodge Racing.

So give us a little bit of a background of what it is that you do, what you've done, and we'll kind of go from there.

Awesome. Well, thank you guys for having me on, and on this Christmas of the car world, which is the world we're drink cruise, Christmas week. So I got my start working up with Chevy Racing. I was with GM for almost 15 years, and first half of that was with Chevy Racing, overseeing brand experience activations throughout all the different racing series that GM was involved with, and then managing that role expanded to include managing the driver track series agreements. So I was entrusted with GM's most valuable relationships in the motor sports world, which of course shaped the overall connection with GM's vehicles and selling trucks and Camaros and Corvettes. So I built a great foundation to carry my passion for motor sports and performance parts starting there. I got to work in everything from World of Outlaws, dirt track racing with Tony Stewart Racing. That was my very first program out of college that I got my start on. So many a weekend at Eldora Speedway and getting to see the four wide start at Knoxville Nationals. And I had a chance to work with, at the time it was ALMS, IMSA, NASCAR, NHRA. At the time even Trans Am and Grand Am series. So yeah, attending, doing the display that we had at IMS, which is now called PRI. So I've been honored to be a part of Chevrolet's legacy in motorsports and the enthusiast culture very early on in my career. And that transition, I transitioned over from the motorsport side to the performance parts side as the performance parts marketing manager. And that role continued to expand as well. So I had an opportunity to move into, to add product marketing to that role. So that role was, was perhaps the most dynamic that I, that I had, that I have had in my career because I got to be a part of the product development process from concept to reality. So at that, in that role, I was really a part of shaping the future of performance parts and enthusiast culture as Chevrolet Performance was related to it. So, you know, right down to working with the designers on what color, what color brake calipers would be and where we would place logos on the shock tubes with our off-road racing development program, working with the engineers to make sure that we were defining the right performance requirements to build as much value as possible into our factory backed and engineered performance parts. And then dividing the strategy and execution for the social media communications and consumer-facing marketing side once the product was launched. And then even interacting with our dealer network in terms of training and marketing assets and making sure that our voices, our voice to the customer was as authentic and well-informed as possible and driving that enthusiasm around the community.

So you did that, when did you finish with that role? And then when did you transition into RaceTech then?

Well, real quick on the social media thing. Sorry, I had read somewhere that you had grown that to be their most successful channel at GM?

Yes, and I say, and I was one part of a team that I couldn't have done that without an incredible team around me. And my creative director at the time, Justin Sessler, was an absolute integral part, and he was my agency partner in that role. And his connection and vision creatively in the motorsport world, we had really set out on a mission to elevate content from an OEM perspective. And at the time, there weren't really any other OEMs producing content or telling stories within car culture at a premium level. And when you're at an OEM, you know, in theory, our parts were developed, validated and tested the same way a Silverado or Corvette or Camaro would be as a production car. So, you know, we needed to make sure that we were going to market at that same level at a premium level. So, you know, through working with Justin and a network of incredibly talented photographers that had that passion, we were able to communicate the Chevrolet Performance story in a way that hadn't really been told before. And that in turn drove tremendous engagement on the Chevrolet Performance channel. And we actually had the opportunity to kind of test and learn when new features would come out on Instagram or when Snapchat started to be a thing and businesses started to kind of play around with Snapchat, we had a chance to kind of pioneer and test those platforms for GM and then share our learnings back to help the greater organization, the greater enterprise to take advantage of those platforms as well.

So what does it look like when you're using those platforms? Like I actually, I've re-downloaded Snapchat and it's like I'm seeing more ads than ever on there. It's different than the Snapchat I grew up with like 10 years ago when I kind of, what was it, 12 years ago? Something like that. How does, how do you utilize that as an OEM?

So, I mean, at the time, we, I haven't used Snapchat in a business execution since I was there and you're right, it has changed quite a bit. I think it depends a lot on your audience and kind of your, and your brand. In my current role with RaceTech, and I think even, even kind of on Chevrolet Performance side, I don't know that I would go back to Snapchat at this point. You know, there are a lot of, the car community has started to embrace TikTok. But I think, you know, Instagram, podcasts, YouTube, I think those are still kind of the three king platforms. And I think the more you work in those different platforms, you find ways to use them that are, you know, very different from each other. So, you know, Facebook, for example, I'm not gonna put a lot of time into curating a feed for Facebook. But in terms of learning about what your customer is looking for, what's important to them, how they're using their product, what trends are happening in your space, Facebook groups are a great source for that.

Yeah, you can get in trouble too. What was that? I can't remember what company it was, but it's like, oh, here's a, I think it had like 60,000 members in there. It's like, here's why this company sucks.

Yeah, but no, that's just that, it's a page dedicated to hate on that particular company.

But then there's actual people from the company inside the group, they're like, oh, this is great feedback.

It's tremendous. And, you know, one of the things, one of the rules we always had on the Chevrolet Performance channel was, you know, if someone came on there to, you know, share some negativity on the channel, we never deleted those comments, because if someone feels so compelled to put that out there on the internet, they want it to be seen. And if you go in and delete it, they're going to get all their buddies and they're going to, it's just going to escalate. So we let that feedback come out. And, you know, every time, our community would kind of come to our rescue. And if someone was saying, you know, no, this is wrong, this is how it is, then our community would say, no, they're doing X, Y and Z, and that's why it's the best or why, that's why it performs this way. So we really didn't have to do much policing at all in that sense. We certainly monitored it, but it's great feedback because, you know, you have to be secure enough as a brand, as a marketer, as a storyteller to take that feedback on. And if you start seeing, you know, you've got to be able to notice those trends and if there's something that you need to course correct or adjust or communicate better, you know, to continue growing and being a sustainable brand in this industry that does move so fast and relies on innovation, you've got to be open to that feedback so that you can deliver the best product you can with the most compelling story you can to your customer.

Yeah.

So, okay. Given, have you been in Detroit your whole life then?

Yeah.

Pretty much?

Okay.

Born and raised. Proud of it.

So, then you've been able to see over the course of two generations, kind of see how it evolved. How has the industry evolved over the last, you know, 20, 30, whatever years from your perspective?

From a marketing standpoint or?

I think so, or just even understanding to consume. I feel like we understand consumers, I mean, within regulations, unfortunately, but I feel like we understand consumers more than we have before. I mean, is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, I 100 percent. And I think social media is really the driving force behind that. And, you know, you look at it, I like to look at Formula Drift as a case study where that's a platform that has been arguably more than any other type of racing shaped by content creators and social media, perhaps more than more than anything else. It is immediate real time feedback of what's happening in the industry and social media as a whole. And that's driven traditional media to change as well. Hot Rod Magazine, Motor Trend, OVR, you name it. All of those magazines all have social media channels now. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm much more likely to keep up on what's going on on social media. And there's certainly a time and a place. I just don't have the time to sit down and read a magazine anymore, you know. But things also get shared around on social where, you know, there might be an excerpt from a really interesting article. And if it's good enough, yeah, I'm going to go and look it up and read the whole thing. Or if I'm trying to find information about a certain topic or technique or trend, I'm going to do more research on it. But a lot of times I feel like that starts quite often on social media. I certainly do my fair share of Google searching and checking the industry sites and all that. But the media landscape just moves so much quicker. Stories get told in a much more dynamic way.

Well, authentic too. You're seeing that so much more.

Yes.

Because it's not like, I mean, you know what the show, it's not so curated down to like a five-minute interview. You get to hear the full story nowadays.

Yeah. And it's making car culture so much more and the industry is so much more accessible for young people. The more I come out to Woodward, the more I find myself in this. It took me a while to kind of realize it, where I have kids come up and they look at my Monte Carlo and they have a million questions. You know, how did you get started? How did you get into this industry? And you know, when you're, and these kids are 14, 15, 16, they ask their older sibling, can you take me out to Woodward so I can look at the cars? And like, when I, sorry, I just hit the mic. And when I see that, it's just like, you know, there's so much passion. When I hear people say, oh, young people don't care about cars. Like, that passion is absolutely there. And it's our responsibility as professionals who've gone through that process and that growth to find ways to bring them in and continue driving that enthusiasm and that passion. So all this to say, you know, I think that's perhaps one of the other major benefits of social media, where if you have a phone, if you have a camera, you know, I see so many kids taking pictures of young kids that don't have drivers licenses, taking pictures of cars on Woodward. And I was just in the UK last week, and a Regera drove through one of the streets. And I kid you not, 12 kids had to have all been under the age of 16, ran after that car.

I remember those days.

With their, I mean, some of them had full DSLRs, and some of them had camera phones. But I mean, like, what an incredible, like what an incredible and accessible way to connect with something that is so aspirational, and so few people have access to. But those kids have access to that because of social media, and they can share with their community, with their friends, how that moment affected them, how those cars affected them, and they can find a way to tell their, you know, the way they see and experience car culture in their own way. And that's how so many creatives in the automotive industry have gotten their start through just photography. And that's-

Well, that's how I got here.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of so many different ways to get involved. And I really love that. And, you know, they're not just sitting at home watching silly videos on YouTube. They're using it for something that inspires them and is going to kickstart a life long connection with this industry.

So where does that- I have to ask because just in case we go down a detour, but where does this start for you, right? For a lot of kids, you know, it's like, oh, I saw the earliest memory of this car. You know, for me, it's the Viper from Gran Turismo 2, right? Like that's where it all kind of starts for me. Where does this all kind of start for you then?

This starts with the car that's sitting in front of me and kind of to the side of you guys, the 1969 Camaro Copo clone that my dad bought as a rough, as a, well, not rough, it was a clean rolling chassis in California built by, I don't think they're around anymore, California street rods. It's a, you know, that was the first classic car, my first exposure to car culture growing up. And I was maybe four or five when he first got that car. And I remember going to the shop with him and, you know, seeing how the progress was going. And he would teach me about what was happening with the car. And when it was finally finished, then we would take, that was the first car I got to cruise Woodward in. And so by the time, by that time, I had memorized and I understood every speck of that vehicle. And so, you know, people would ask him what was, you know, tell him about the car. And they'd be like, ask her, she'll tell you. But there was something about, yeah, I've been around cars my whole life. Both my parents worked in the industry as car designers. I sadly got none of those genes. So I love to be as close to the creative storytelling part of this this community as I possibly can. And that's kind of why I found my way into marketing and communications. But it really started with that 69 Camaro. And, you know, seeing all of the different ways people can express their passion through lifted trucks, through monster trucks, through lowered trucks, through Mopars, Fords, Chevys, it's imports, German cars. Like you just, there's so, there's infinite ways to connect with this culture. And I loved how, I loved how it kind of, it was just seemingly endless. And it was something that was very personal to you that you could kind of share with people, like cars and coffee and the sat in the other thing. But so, you know, I grew up going to a lot of car shows with my dad and his Camaro. And I very, I was, I was adamant about having, I was fixated on a fourth gen F body. I am a hardcore fourth gen F body girl and saved all my babysitting money to buy a 99 Camaro SS for my first car. And my whole life revolved around that car. Like after school, I was washing it. I was taking it to Woodward. I was staying up late after my parents told me to go to bed. And I was burning CDs that had a very specific cadence of songs for me to listen to driving to school, driving to my high school every morning. And I've told this story before, but it's probably what captures my mindset the best in high school where I was not making very much money even though I imagined, you know, I'm going to put a pro charger on this car. I'm going to, all these things I want to do with it. But I had some mechanical, I had like the cutouts that you unbolt. I bought a three inch Flowmaster exhaust for it. Cold air intake, little bit of a tune in it. So, I mean, it wasn't a monster, but I had so much fun in that car. And it was quite loud already with the three inch exhaust. And I, you know, that wasn't loud enough. So with the cutouts that you unbolt, my parents were like, you cannot drive to school with those cutouts open. Because they had already fielded several phone calls from my private Catholic girls school down the road here about how loud my car was. And I'd roll in with my teetops off, listening to Led Zeppelin or Motley Crue or something.

You definitely got a lot. We were listening to that, was it? Oil and Whiskey over here.

Yeah.

Like it sounded like you got in a lot of trouble with that. Which by the way, that's a fantastic podcast. I also recommend you check that out.

That was fun.

Yeah, it was almost three hours. I'm like, oh, this is going to be a riot.

I was like, oh my God. I couldn't believe they posted that whole thing. I was like, oh my gosh.

Well, we have a minimum of four hours. So no kidding.

But no, we just need to go one minute over.

Just one minute over. We try to do this every once in a while.

So going to an all-girls school like that, was there any other, being in Detroit area, odds are probably better than not, but was there other car enthusiast females going to school that were, you had to be the only?

No, I was the only one.

You weren't driving to school to impress anybody, that's for sure.

No, I was driving to impress my damn self. Yeah. It was that, I mean, the people I met that, I really hung out with my dad and my mom and their friends quite a bit, just because they were all car enthusiasts and I learned so much from all of that. But now that I had my own car to take out to Woodward, I met other young people that had various types of cars, you know, muscle cars, trucks. One of my friends had a 94 Caprice, that was an absolute sleeper. And it didn't look like much, but man, like, there was nothing more satisfying than seeing him own people in that car with a built motor and trans and drag radials. And it was always quite a bit, quite a lot of entertainment to see that happen. So that turned into a lot of weekend trips up to Mile and Dragway for test and tune and things like that. And I kind of found my people there on Woodward. And they didn't care that I was a girl or that I went to a Catholic school. Like, they just, the people that I met out there, they just saw that I loved cars. And that's one thing that I always say to people that ask, it's the number one question, I guess, what's it like being a woman in a male dominated industry? I'm like, it's great. Like, in my experience, and I don't want to ever speak or correct someone else's, but my personal experience has been, I've always made it a point to be completely transparent about this is what I love. I will do this until the day I die and whatever afterlife awaits me from there. And that has always resonated with people. Like, we want to be, and you guys know this, like, you want to be surrounded with people that share your passion. And it doesn't matter if you're a Ford guy or a motor car guy. You're looking more comfortable now though.

It's, well, like you said, though, this community, like, we can give each other crap, but it comes together for everybody, right?

It doesn't.

Yeah, it doesn't. I've had GM burn me a couple of times. I haven't not owned one. So it just I choose to give those guys the most crap. So it's you have to.

Like I had a buddy in high school that he had a Mustang and I had a Camaro. So naturally, we were we were great friends and like we were like co crew chiefs on on a friend's car up at Waterford Hills Raceway here that raced in the SCCA IT class, old C4 Corvette, another car designer, Kip Wasenko. But I mean, he and I would just be battling every time we would drive there. And I'm like, we it was just it was so much fun to just kind of have this like Mustang versus Camaro thing. But like we we were also great friends because we both loved cars. It was that simple.

What was your first time working on a car?

On my Camaro, for sure, my 99 Camaro. Like I said, I did. I put an exhaust on it, did a cold air intake, did the cutouts.

And were you teaching all this yourself? Did you have some knowledge, like with helping like your parents in the past? Or where does that come from?

My dad kind of started wrenching again when I got that car. And then I did a little bit, but I also learned a lot from all of my buddies in high school because they all had different types of cars. And some of them were into lifted trucks. Some of them were into jeeps. Some of them were into classic muscle or modern muscle. So any given day, the cadence was like after school, we'd all get a burger or something, go out to Woodward. When the police would kind of push everyone off Woodward, we'd wind up at somebody's house working on something. And it was like kind of musical garage every night. And so, and I learned so much from them working on cars, on different types of cars. So I bought a lifted truck, 78 Chevy pickup when I was in college and then went through that one front to back. Rewired the whole thing, rebuilt the engine, repainted it. So I was starting to get into a little bit of bodywork and that is not my favorite. But got into a little bit of bodywork on that one. And every car I had and every car I worked on, I learned it was sort of the stepping stone of learning more and more and more.

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Yeah.

I guess, I'm sure there was some mistakes along the way too, probably.

Yeah. I mean, it was a lot of... I never got discouraged. Sure. You know, the thing that I always go back to is like, and it was actually my friend, one of my friends, his 94, in a priest, we put headers on that car and there was, everybody's got a header story or several. And I feel like that's like, you know, that's where you build the most characters when you're putting headers on a car. And we had some ridiculous combination of swivel sockets and extension, long extension, short extensions to kind of get this last bolt screwed in. And like, you learn to, it teaches you, and I didn't realize this until later in life, but it prepares you for moving into the business world or any sort of team environment, working with different personalities, different skill sets and problem solving together. And when you work on cars, like you almost don't realize you're doing it. You really don't realize you're doing it at that age. Like when I was a teenager, I had no idea, but it was like, there was no, you know, we can't do this anymore, we're done. Like it was like, we're going to figure this out. It takes all night.

Yeah.

You know, whatever the project of the evening was. So.

What was the most difficult one? Or did this like one bring a memory? Just the most pain in the a** project.

That's a good question. The truck was, I wouldn't say it was a pain in the a**, but my 78 pickup was a pain in the a** because it was just like one thing after another would keep breaking. And it was like, I couldn't drive that car for that truck for two weeks without something going wrong. So, I eventually got it to a point where it was super sullen and I took it muddying as one does after spending all this time. And my dad helped me a lot with that one. Like, you know, like he would, I was in college at the time and like he would go on his lunch up to the junkyard and find parts for me and stuff. And we'd come back and try to figure things out. And that was a definitely a love hate relationship with that truck. And it was perfect when we finished it. And I was like, I'm going to take it muddying. So took it muddying and it was everything worked great with that. And luckily brought it back, cleaned it up, detailed it, went through it front to back. And I was like, I can't, I'm pushing my luck with this truck. It needs to, it needs to be out of my life. So, and at that time I had bought the, this black car, my 70 Monte Carlo. And that was a rolling chassis. So, it was time to move on to the next project.

Probably gonna be a bad idea for us to close the...

I was gonna say, is that gonna be a problem?

Well, that and the cicadas are loud as hell too. Yeah, maybe just at least for a bit.

Yeah, so the Monte, I had fantasized about building a 68 Chevelle, actually, for many years. I was, I had wanted to build a 60s, 70s muscle car, always. And I thought about doing a Chevelle for a long time. And then as I was doing research and kind of just looking for inspiration and whatnot, and I came across the first gen Monte Carlos, I'm like, I don't even think I've seen one of those. They're quite uncommon. And no one really, I love black on black on black cars, obviously. Never seen one, not only that, but I had never seen one done like that. The cars, the first gens in the Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift were kind of the closest to that, like, you know, very, very raw, very, you know, kind of very purpose built looking, for lack of better words, version of a first gen that I'd ever seen. And so there was definitely some inspiration in those cars. They built three of them for the movie, but I wanted to do something a bit unexpected. And the Monte Carlo kind of just fit the bill, because to me, it still had that aggressive, sculptural muscle car look to it. But even to this day, I, and there are no badges on it and people are like, what is that? I pulled up to Roadkill Nights the other day, and I just, I just had it parked in the car show. But they were like, are you a Dodge owner? Because they had special parking for Dodge owners. And I was like, no, no, this is, this is a Chevy Monte Carlo, but thank you. I probably should have just told them yes, because they wouldn't have known. Right.

Just get all offended, like, how dare you, you know?

I'm just, I'm used to, and I actually, I quite enjoy the element of surprise and confusion with people on that car, because it's, I like it to be a bit of an enigma. But I had this vision for this, you know, long, lean, sculptural, satin black, monolithic, you know, beast of a car, back half, big tires, big block. I've never, there's never been anything but big blocks in my family. So, that's the religion I was raised on. But in addition to going to Catholic girls school, but my dad and I sat down at the kitchen counter one night and like, I sort of kind of talked through what my vision was for this like long, lean, low, b***** Monte Carlo vision. And he would kind of sketch out this.

Oh, that's so cool.

And like, you know, we went into the dash, the stance, the gauge clusters and all of that. And he kind of would do these kind of little vignettes of different parts of the car as we were talking. And I still have all of those original sketches, of course. But that was like when we really kind of solidified. I'm like, yes, this is the project.

How well did that show from sketch to reality? Did you keep most of those aspects?

I did.

Okay.

So, the only thing that is not captured in the real car is I wanted to chop the roof. Oh, okay. Very difficult to do with curved glass, of course.

Right.

And I was still in college at the time again. So, I certainly should have been saving for a house. But I was bartending and I was working at Custom Creations, which is an incredible shop up in Sterling Heights, Michigan. They are credited with building, doing several movie cars when they had all the tax credits here in Michigan. So, they built the robot truck in Real Steel and several other feature films here that I actually worked on a few things. And then, several high-end show cars, SEMA concept cars for GM. So, I worked there as a metal fabricator and a paint technician, did some bodywork and such there. So, I had that job and then I was bartending at night. Then, I was in school at Oakland University, working toward my business degree.

Like, no, you were just busy.

I had a car. I had a Monte Carlo to build. So, I'm like, this is, yeah, every dollar I made went into that car, but I was committed to the vision, of course. So, that was kind of one of the things that was really the only big thing that went to the wayside. I almost didn't back half it, but having those wide rear tires and the stance was, to me, I'm like, if I don't do that, it will lose the whole vision if I don't have the tires. So, I was talking to one of the head fabricator at the shop, Don Roberts there and he was like, yeah, he's like, we need to do it. So, we kind of triangulated everything, measured everything out and I took a Sawzall and hacked off a section of the frame between two of the body mounts and then rebuilt it with steel 2x4s, welded it up and in went my 14 inch or my 390, 40, 15 rear tires.

Is that something they let you work on there at the shop and kind of on your own time?

Yeah. Yeah. So, I'd work on it during my lunch, after hours and stuff. They also helped me quite a bit with that car. I had a lot of help. I did as much of it as I possibly could and anything that I hadn't done before, I did with whoever the lead was at the shop. Because I'm like, I want to understand front to back, how everything works on this car. And I want to make sure that, you know, if I have a vision for something and it's, you know, some unusual thing, I want to figure, I want to problem solve and get it to work the way the way I see it. So, the only thing I didn't do by myself was I needed to have intended to drag race the car full time and not do any street driving on it. So, the cage needed to be welded by an NHRA certified welder. So, they did the cage for me. But yeah, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Then there's really, I've also had ideas. There's something about a diesel swapped muscle car that I really enjoy. So, there may be, I've got a ton of room under the hood.

I was going to say, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's either. Go ahead.

What's in there for drivetrain right now?

So, it's a 462. It's original, it's actually an original LS6 block out of a 70 Chevelle 440 over. So, it's a 462 big block. I had custom built AFR heads for it. Single plane Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake and a quick fuel 950 carburetor. It sounds exactly like it looks. I'm actually, I love the sound so much that I'm actually quite nervous to do anything to the engine just because I think it's perfect the way it is, but I have so much space. I'm like, do I put twin 90s in there? Do I Duramax swap it? I still want to chop the roof quite a bit. That's...

I wouldn't put a Duramax in it. I think you want to run still.

Well, that's your inner Ford guy dogging. So, I'll just take that and file that away.

All right. Sounds good.

It would be cool to see it just chute and smoke. I mean, I hope the EPA is not listening, right? But like...

I mean, it's got to be legit.

Yeah, but at the right place at the right time, just flip a switch. Yeah. That'd be kind of cool too though.

Yeah. I don't know that I would do anything anytime soon to it, but...

Enjoy it as it is.

Yeah, I really do. I mean, quite honestly, it might sound lame, but I have so much fun just cruising it up and downward. And it just brings me a lot of joy. I've had the car for, gosh, maybe almost 15 years now and it's just still surreal to me that I was able to bring something like that to life. It took quite a long time, but...

Yeah, what's that time period look like? From the moment you get it, you suddenly get it as a roller, right?

Yes.

So then how do we get to where it is today then?

I'm trying to think. I think I bought it in 2010.

Okay.

And I believe I got it running in 2015.

Okay.

2015, 2016.

Which is not bad for your own project.

Yeah.

Some shops take it long too.

Well, and I was very optimistic at the start of that build, saying, I'm going to have it running in a year. And I'm sure I appreciate everyone not trying to kill my dreams on that one, but yeah, it took some time. But it was worth it to do it once and do it right. I mean, the bodywork is flawless on it. I mean, for having such long body panels, that was another thing I opted to defer to the shop to do for me because I did not love doing bodywork.

I don't think anybody loves doing bodywork.

No. No. So, you know, but I was quite happy to let them do it. And obviously, those body panels are very long and very straight. So, but I'm very, I couldn't be happier with how it came out. But you got to be committed, for sure.

Do you have anything, any aspirations? So, you know, you don't have to mess with that one. Do you have any aspirations of adding something else to the collection? Do you just have a daily then right now? Or is it just that and this? Or what else do you have or looking for?

It's funny you ask. I've been on this obsessive mission to track down my old Camaro.

Okay.

I literally, this has been going on for two months. Like, I can't seem to let go of it.

Do you have the VIN?

I just got it yesterday. So, I've been trying to somehow all paperwork, all my old insurance slips and things all gone. It was funny. I called my mom to see if she had any old paperwork from when I was in high school. And she's like, you might want to check your speeding tickets. Oh, thank you for that. They don't put the VIN number on speeding tickets, but thank you for reminiscing on that with me. She's not wrong.

Yeah, it sounds like you had a thick stack of speeding tickets when I was listening to the podcast. Any idea how many you got over the years? I... Oh, wait, hold on. Insurance is probably listening. Big insurance?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I had a bit of fun, but I had a lot of fun in that car, but I was also very lucky. Safety, of course, in my new role with RaceTech, safety has, and even for the industry, has become such a paramount part of my life. And the older you get, the more you have to lose. And I think, looking back, it's important to have fun when you're growing up, but unfortunately, people can learn a hard way, you know, not having proper safety equipment in their car. And that's why I think it's so amazing that there are so many places that you can drag race, road race, drift, off road, like, you know, safely. And the sanctioning bodies have, you know, sanctioning bodies like Unlimited Off-Road Racing Series and NHRA. And there's so much going on in the safety world now where that's, I think, bringing it more top of mind than it ever was. And that's certainly at the core mission for RaceTech, is bringing drivers home safe after every race. And at the end of the day, if you're going to do something cool, you want to live to tell about it and keep doing it.

Cars aren't getting slower either.

Exactly. So, I mean, I think especially in the drag racing space.

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Safety has tended to be a reactive conversation. RaceTech is not the only one that's certainly a priority for us, but our goal is to make it more of a proactive conversation. So working with sanctioning bodies, working with racers, working with builders to communicate the importance of safety. And I mean, there are several, I mean, John Dock that was just on your channel shared some pretty black and white examples of how important your race, having a properly designed and engineered racing seat. And we're very grateful to him that, you know, he's generously shared his experiences with RaceTech and why he trusts RaceTech with his safety. And you know, when you think about it, to me, your racing seat is perhaps the most personal choice you make when building a car of any kind. And I mean, I immediately purchased RaceTech seats on my own. I didn't want.

When did you do that?

Right after I got the role with RaceTech.

Okay.

So, you know, it was important to me that I purchased them myself and installed them in my car so that I could go through, number one, so I could go through the whole customer experience. But I'm not someone who is going to work with or work on something or work with a company that I don't believe in at my core. Passion is a huge part of this industry, and it drives everything that I've ever done in my career. And if I don't believe in it, I can't. I'm not going to connect with it, and I'm not going to channel that passion into it.

So, what triggered this whole kind of safety interest, right? Because as you mentioned earlier, when you're younger, I was hopping in 2,000 horsepower cars, no problem, four years ago. Nowadays, I'm like, I don't know if I want to go for this ride along. I second guess myself. I mean, I'll still do it, let's be honest. But I second guess it. But did something like, when did you start thinking more about safety?

It's hard to say. I will say a lot of that came, a lot of that mindset shift happened when I was at GM, because again, as an OEM, I mean, right down to the amount of legal disclaimers that we had to have on our off-road videos and things like that. But it does really make you think. And you see, you know, you see wrecks happen, you see explosions at starting lines and things like that. And, you know, whether it's the safety equipment in the car or the safety infrastructure at the track, you know, you can, you see how final a line that is. I think especially to your point, as cars have become, we are living in the golden age of speed right now. You know, whether it's, you know, the ZR1X and the ZR1 that just set sub-second Nürburgring times with our seats in them, or, you know.

They have RaceTech seats in there?

They do. So RaceTech is, we have nearly, not the sidetrack, but we're nearly 50% of the GT field globally in racing. So Porsche GT3R, the McLarens, the Austin Martins, the Corvette, ZO6 GT3R program. They're all running RaceTech seats in those race cars. So IMSA, WEC, the endurance challenges in Europe.

Well, actually, and trust me, sidetracks happen a lot on the show. I think I remember, was it when I was talking to you guys, or maybe I had looked it up somewhere, like it's like the only FIA certified seat or something like that, or something weird like that?

And we, all of our seats are, most of our seats are FIA certified, I should say. So, and our founder, David Black, he has actually been instrumental in shaping FIA certification policies. They have actually, the FIA invited him to participate in crash testing and defining what those regulations actually are from his experience. So, he is a former motorcycle and rally racing champion, who flew off a 75 foot cliff in a rally car and walked away from it. In 19, I think it was 1994 that he had that wreck. So, safety is very personal to him. And I'm getting very serious right now, but it is a serious topic. You know, safety is very personal to him, and that is very much at the core of everything that he wanted to do when he acquired RaceTech or when he purchased RaceTech. So, you know, our seats have the most robust level of innovation. And, you know, when you look at some other seats and then, you know, I go back to drag racing, there's a time and a place for different types of racing seats and there's a different need based on rule books and things like that. So, you know, I can appreciate what our competition has brought to the market. But RaceTech, at RaceTech, we are continuously innovating the way our seats are engineered and designed. And they are so, not only are they safe, but they're extremely ergonomic based on the way that your body fits in the seat. So, when you see a driver in a RaceTech seat, they're hardly moving around in it. It feels like it's conformed, it's formed to your body. And with the different levels of padding that we offer and just the ergonomic design of the seat, the way you fit in it, it's designed... David's taken time to understand the way the body reacts to impact and lateral and forward g-forces so that our seats are able to hold drivers in place safely. And at the end of the day, if you feel confident in your safety equipment, you're going to feel confident in pushing that car faster and further, harder and longer than you would if you were not feeling as confident in your safety equipment.

Well, that's a regular conversation with some of my friends that do like whether autocross, road course, whatever it is. You drive better when you have an actual racing seat. Like, granted, even those seats in your GT 500, they hold me snug. I don't think I was shifting around too much. But yeah, like you get, you kind of get more, well, what is it? The butt dyno. It never lies, right? Like you feel what you're driving a lot more.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the so the the back mounting geometry that RaceTech uses is actually it was actually patented. Well, really?

OK.

And one of the and that is that is a tremendous talking point that we hear as feedback from racers. And one of the reasons why we why we highlight back mounting as being such an important part of your your safety structure, your safety cell, is that it is that responsiveness, that increased feel of a car. Again, coming back to confidence and a more confident driver is going to be a more competitive driver every time.

So it's not just a matter of safety, it's more just connection with the vehicle. I guess, so what is typical? Is it just basically like two bolts in the bottom or like what do you what does a RaceTech seat address?

I guess so it addresses fitment, it addresses driver feet, you know, and it's going to differ based on different types of seats. So we have non head restraint seats that are like what I have in the Monte Carlo there. And then we have head restraint seats and there are different levels of performance and shell construction. So there are the composite seats and then there are carbon kevlar and we're also developing a pure carbon seat to address different weight concerns. Oh, okay. So then there's also ducted cooling. So if you ask a Trans Am driver or an endurance driver, they're going to say that's a deal maker for them on a seat to have ducted cooling. But, you know, we're able to innovate extremely quickly right down to homologating brackets in a matter of days for race teams testing in Europe. Or, you know, feedback we got from some TA2 drivers in Australia and New Zealand was that they needed a 90-degree bend for that ducted cooling in the back to just for better clear, for more easier clearance or they had less clearance behind the seat. So having that 90-degree bend to run the plumbing. And we developed and 3D printed a part for that, that we validated and tested, and now it's in production, and that's only taken a couple of weeks.

So, okay, so the carbon offering is not yet on market then, but it's coming?

It's coming.

Gotcha, and that's mostly just, again, for the weight concern?

Yeah, so it's for weight concern, but it's also, you know, it's gonna give, this particular model will be a non-head restraint version.

Okay, I was gonna ask this, if you have something that's a little more, not just straight race, but more stylish, if somebody has maybe a lower horsepower car, they're not taking it to the track, you wanna throw in something classic or?

Yeah, so if I were racing that car, I would put a head restraint seat in it. But because I'm driving it on the street, there are, you know, side mounted brackets, we offer back mounting brackets as well. So it kind of depends on your use case for the car. We do have a low back seats as well. And then we have...

Oh yeah, that's right. I remember seeing those on the website. Yeah.

Yeah, so then we have, we also have a vinyl kind of vinyl cupboard for kind of street track club racing type cars. So quite the variety. We have the variety. We have a safety seat. We have a safe seat for every type of racer.

Okay. So, okay, so you can so composite. What was the middle one? You said carbon cablar?

Yes.

Is that what it is? Okay. Interesting. Yeah, because I know a particular seat that one of our upcoming previous guests uses. And like, I always wonder, like, why is it that they don't run RaceTech? So it's like, okay, so do you have any idea? Like, it's not to mark yet, but do you know how much lighter it's going to be by any chance?

Yeah. So just going back on the safety element and kind of how RaceTech innovates for, it innovates based on racer feedback. So we had a 9119 carbon Kevlar head restraint seat in the market with one of our drag racing customers, and he was looking for a lighter weight option. We're trying to see, okay, he wants a non-head restraint because he's going to run side pads in the funny car cage in his pro mod. And so we went back and David and the team in New Zealand engineered a full carbon non-head restraint version of the 9119, 10 pounds. So this will be a new product that we're looking at bringing to market. So the one that's going to be in the car, Alex Laughlin is going to run it in his pro mod. And so that will be kind of the first of a new development program that we're looking at bringing to market.

How do you guys do you know anything about how they test this stuff? Do they like just run it over with a truck in the parking lot or how do they?

Well, when something is FIA certified, I mean, those those seats have to be sled tested. Okay. So it's like a full crash test dummy rig. Okay. You know, like a car. So it's it's serious. Okay. So when you get something that's FIA certified, you know, it's it's for serious applications. Now, that being said, there are several classes of drag racing that, in fact, most except for the factory classes, they don't require FIA or SFI certification on your seats. So for that purpose, we released the 4200 HR seat with that you can purchase without the FIA certification. It is the same seat, same engineering, same quality built in our same factory in New Zealand, hand built there. But you just order it without the decal. So then you don't have to buy a new seat every five years.

Oh, okay.

Gotcha. So you had the same safety, but it doesn't have like that certification or whatever.

Yeah. So it's literally it's just the decal. So we offer a hundred dollar discount to buy that non FIA certified version, but it is the same exact seat just without the decal.

So you just wouldn't be able to compete in those specific categories that require that actual.

Right. I mean, Factory Stock Showdown and Factory X are fantastic classes and super exciting, but they are smaller than the overall sportsman pool of racers. So, you know, we brought that to market to just... We're trying to do a lot of testing to also, you know, listen to the feedback from racers, looking at the world book. Where can we offer racers more options and something that has, you know, had a tremendous amount of innovation and development over the past, you know, 10, 15 years and as recent as the past five to 10. So, you know, you're not racing something that is based on 30 year old engineering.

Right. This fold out chair is pretty good.

I know, right? They're pretty good.

Just get some towel straps so you're good to go.

Well, I don't know if anybody's ever had a project car that they're moving around and it doesn't have a seat and anybody's ever said a five-gallon pail or a milk crate in there to sit on. Yeah.

Yeah. We've all been there.

Yep.

Absolutely. I will say, interestingly enough, the other thing I'll say, just speaking of cooling and comfort, because we also think of comfort as a factor of safety because you're not distracted by so in the Monte Carlo, I get very hot in that car. The car does not overheat, but I overheat in the car. And the kind of moisture-wicking, breathable mesh fabric that is over the back of the seat, like I got out of the car driving to Roadkill Nights, it was 95 degrees out. I'm like, my back isn't soaked with sweat, which is so gross. But like, that was one of the first things I noticed that I did not expect to. The first thing I noticed when I sat in the seat was like super comfortable. I feel like it fits me properly, and I feel super secure in that seat. And I can feel the car a lot more the way it's mounted. But that was a great benefit that, you know, now I'm paying a lot more attention to that as well. And that's something that I'm used to when I drive that car places, I'm just dying when I get out of it, because it's so hot. So, yeah, so they've really, we've really thought of all of those little details that make the whole, the driver experience as safe and confident and comfortable as it could possibly be.

So how does this jump happen, right? Because you work with Chevy for, was it 15 years? I think it was.

Yeah, almost. Yeah.

How do you end up into the aftermarket world?

Well, I mean, Chevrolet Performance, you know, at the time, we, I did a lot with SEMA and I think this year will be my 17th SEMA show. So, yeah, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else as much of a grind as it is. But, you know, Chevrolet Performance, we've thought of ourselves very much a part of the aftermarket. And, you know, without the aftermarket, the aftermarket is kind of makes these cars what they are. Seeing the different, people make decisions on whether they're going to buy a Camaro, a Mustang, a Silverado, a Ram, a Jeep, based on how they want to modify it and what their vision is.

Well, I was going to bring that now that we're back to that spot here where he cut me off earlier. Oh, I'll have to get one. I know. It's like that with social media and everything now, I think it's the new version of what sells on Sunday or what wins on Sunday sells on Monday.

I think you're right.

I mean, people are interested in what you're doing to your car or modding it. If you're out in the street or at the drag strip, people are watching that kind of content and deciding, hey, I want one of these. And then, cause let's be honest, they're selling way more Traversas and Equinoxes and stuff like that than they are Camaros and Corvettes. So it's kind of weird that they still put that time and effort into that because people have passion for it.

Yeah, and I mean, even if you're passionate in cars, using, you know, just quickly using those as an example, you know, if you're going up north with your family and, you know, having the roof racks and the towing accessories and things, it's just the aftermarket is everywhere. And I mean, it's even if it's roof racks and towing, it's it's also superchargers, brakes, suspension and seats, safety equipment. So, you know, making that jump, I left GM in 2023. You know, the priorities, the strategy there had changed quite a bit. And, you know, I know Chevy hasn't been at SEMA in a long time and or in a few years. And, you know, I kind of saw that part of the business at GM shrinking. And I'm like, I had always wanted to start my own thing and, you know, be closer with the aftermarket, having spent so much time working around the SEMA member community, serving on the MPMC Select Committee, which I'm back on. I'm very proud to be back on the MPMC Select Committee, Motor Sports Parts Manufacturers Council, which we're now changing one of those terms to media. So very proud to be back on that council, working with some incredible colleagues there. But of all that I had learned at GM as long as I had been there, I knew there was so much that I could give back to the aftermarket community in a consulting role. And there was so much more that I could do on my own from that position than I could from a seat at GM. Sure. So it was really, it all kind of aligned perfectly for me to step away and step into something that was going to allow that I could do more than I was at GM and to really help shape the future of the aftermarket. I had to be in a position where I could communicate some of that knowledge to the aftermarket.

Okay.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. It's been amazing to work with some several different aftermarket brands, and when I had the opportunity to come on full time with RaceTech, going back to working with a team and a company and a product that I believe in, it was an easy decision and it brings so much more meaning to my, not that it wasn't meaningful before because it always was, but to bring the element of safety into it and champion that mission, to me that elevates how important the work that we're doing is. We're literally saving people's racers' lives in those seats. So, yeah, that's kind of the short version of how we'll transition from that.

I noticed your phone case, too, when you had all your signals. So you were with Quadlock, too, for a little while?

Yes, I was. And that was another kind of going back to the creative side a little bit. You know, a lot of content creators out there and a lot of ways to tell your story. You know, Quadlock is a fantastic product, ironically based in the same... They're an Australian company in New Zealand. RaceTech is based in Wellington, New Zealand. So they've built an incredible, enthusiast brand around a phone case. And they've made... They've taken something that is just something you interact with every day. And they've built a community, a passionate community around something that enables people to enjoy their passions, whether they're running one of the map programs in an off-road setting or strapping it to their race car to film content. So there's another great enthusiast platform there.

Yeah, I've definitely seen plenty of their ads and stuff on Facebook. I used to ride Harley's and stuff, but I had already been out of it by the time I saw that. I'm like, of course, this comes along already too late.

We can still make a connection there.

Okay, all right. I do ride snowmobiles, but I don't really have my phone out much for that.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, that's cool.

And then you did some consulting as well. Is that what I read somewhere too for a little bit? Okay.

Yeah, so I've had a few different clients on that side. And it was interesting for me to, when I first stepped away from GM, one of them, I didn't expect it to be as rewarding as it was. But I mean, I always loved creating a brand, creating brand stories and kind of building that into something tangible. So being able to, and I'd spent my whole career building Chevrolet Performance's brand, which I loved. And when I work with a client or with an organization, like I treat that brand, I treat that budget, I treat that product like it's my own. Because, you know, getting back to, we talked about authenticity earlier. It's important that that comes through, that I really believe in the work that I'm doing and the story that I'm telling. So being able to create a brand for myself, Ardent Strategies, was a really rewarding experience for me to kind of be able to translate and encapsulate my passion into all, into one space. I mean, Ardent means, I played around with a variety of different brand names, but I mean, Ardent means to be like hyper passionate about something and that, that captured it, captured what I needed to there.

Yeah, that's, some people just need that little extra help because they know how to get their ideas out there, but not how to get it in front of some other people to kind of help them partner up on that. So I can see where that would be definitely useful.

That was a very pointed attack and I'm a fentanyl.

I was going to bring you up in the whole deal and I was like, I'm just going to go a different route with this. I wasn't going to use the answer to that one.

This guy sucks at everything. So do you spend some time on that side of the world then? Because that's, how long is the flight to New Zealand at this point?

So I spend quite a bit of time in that part of the world. My better half is actually the Chief Operating Officer at HP Tuners.

Oh, okay.

So it is a lot of motorsports and aftermarket 24-7 in our lives, which we love. Yeah. And so we spend, he's from Australia, and so we spend quite a bit of time there. And New Zealand, Australia, that's about, depending on where you fly from, if you fly from Dallas, it's kind of a, I think it's maybe a 15, 16-hour flight.

It's not too horrible.

To be honest, I actually enjoy, I'm starting to enjoy those long-haul flights the most because you can really just like kind of settle in and mind your own business and be in your own little world for that time. The hardest part for me about those flights is flying. I like to fly out of Houston or sorry, Dallas because it's only two and a half hours from two and a half hour flight versus like a four or five hour flight to LA. And that I find is actually the hardest.

Really?

The hardest part. Yeah. So highly recommend. Both places are phenomenal. So and the car culture in both is as outstanding.

Well, that's what I'm finding. It's like so one of our sponsors is High Performance Academy, right? They're based out of New Zealand, out of Queenstown, if I remember correctly. And I was trying to like plan any future trips, right? I'm looking like, all right, Auckland's over here. And then was it Wellington's kind of like in the middle of New Zealand, right? And I'm like, this is not a road trip. Like, I didn't realize how it's a big cut. Like, that's a long country.

It's far.

Yeah.

It's quite far.

And in what part of Australia do you spend your time in them?

Melbourne.

Melbourne?

Well, Melbourne.

Yeah.

He's going to comment on the video after this and ask why I didn't pronounce it the right way.

I will forever pronounce it wrong, so. Well, that's also, that's not what. Which one's on the opposite end of Australia? So you got Sydney and Melbourne and they're like, they're not far apart, are they?

Right there about, I think it's maybe eight or nine hours. I've done that drive once before. He actually bought an RS6 Avant.

Okay.

And we flew to Sydney and then drove it back, which was awesome.

Okay, that was, yeah.

That is the ultimate road trip car.

That didn't suck.

Truly, yeah. He likes it so much. He just bought a Merlin Purple one here.

That's a rare spec. That is such a great color.

Yes, I'm very excited for him to have finally tracked one of those down. And that's quite fun because this is what I come from and he comes from kind of German car, Euro type performance part, performance. And I respect that and he respects this. And we come from very different angles of car culture. And it's really fun for us to like, we do talk about work a lot. And because we come from kind of different parts of the car world, like we always have very interesting conversations around, you know, just different perspectives on business and car culture and how it's changed and evolved over the years. So it's good fun. Yeah.

Do you guys travel together often or do you spend time apart since it's different parts of the world then?

Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, there are times where like, you know, I'll go, I'll have to go to a work event that he's got something else going on. And it's always, we, you know, it's always nice. We can go to SEMA together and PRI. So it's, it's fun. We get to do a lot of, we do actually get to quite a few work things together. And that is, you know, perfect for, for his business as well, where it makes sense. So I, but I mean, when I graduated from college, I was, I mean, 20, 21, 22, traveling by myself 37 weeks out of the year to different races from, you know, even if it was a short one like Aldora Speedway or going to Fontana or Auto Club Speedway in California for NASCAR.

Was that mostly stateside at that point in your life?

Yeah, yeah, I wasn't doing any international travel at the time. But I was, that was a whole new world to me. So I was, you know, just by myself eating dessert every night. Sitting there with my laptop at whatever the local bar was, having my dinner and planning the next work event. So I'm planning the next week.

And I'm sorry, what did you say his role was with HP Tuners?

Chief Operating Officer.

Okay, well, tell them thank you for the...

The Ford stuff?

Yeah, all the S650 and F-150 tuning.

I will, I will do that.

That was on all of my pages. That was big news as of a week or so ago.

I will pass along the good message. We've actually got quite a few team members from HP Tuners coming up to celebrate, celebrate the week that is Dream Cruise this week, so.

Oh, perfect. I'm glad we brought it back to that, actually. Dream Cruise, this is our first time at Dream Cruise. And by the time this episode airs, it'll be over and we'll have our opinions after, but going into it.

As long as you say nice things about Detroit, that's all.

I love it here. My wife's actually been job shopping out there.

This is our fourth time here in the last 300 days.

Amazing.

It's our most common trip. It's also like a quick, a 10-hour drive. Yeah.

That's not, that's not a, see, now you're ready, you're ready to fly to New Zealand because you've already done the 10-hour.

I keep telling people, like, I think it's going to happen within the next year. I really want to do a 2026 world tour, and that's going to include Canada, which is basically our north, it's just north Minnesota. And that's really all it is. And New Zealand, Australia, I'd like to do that, like a two-week leg, just go out there. But anywho, I'm ready for that quick 10-hour drive.

There you go.

But okay, so Woodward, you've been experiencing it your whole life.

Yes.

Can you give us a little bit of a history of Woodward? Because I know nothing about it. I've like gone into it.

So there are several versions of this. So the Woodward Dream Cruise is, there's a main road in Metro Detroit that runs from Pontiac all the way down to the Detroit River through downtown Detroit. It is a mecca of tens of thousands of hot rods that descend upon this road. And it's generally, I think it's six lanes total, two directions, bi-directions with the quintessential Michigan left throughout as you go down. But back in kind of the 50s and 60s, cars would go cruise up and down Woodward. There's quite a history of street racing, which I'm sure if you ask people on Woodward, that Woodward, they will tell you stories of the glory days when guys used to street race there. And I'm sure that still happens. I wouldn't know.

We've heard a few things, maybe not on Woodward anymore, but yeah.

Yeah. So we've got to be safe. But cars, you know, tens of thousands of cars come every year to literally just cruise up and down Woodward. The kind of the best kept secret of the Dream Cruise, though, the official day is this coming Saturday. But it really happens all year round. As soon as the weather starts to get nice, if you go out to Woodward on a Friday and Saturday night, you will have cars parked on the side of the road and cruising up and down and getting ice cream. And that happens all summer. These two weeks leading up to the Dream Cruise are the best where it gets really packed. Like it's nonstop. The lanes are backed up like 10 deep with cool cars. And it used to be known as more of a muscle car, classic hot rod thing. But it's evolved into you'll see military trucks and exotics, you'll see full on just full blown race cars, lifted trucks, monster trucks, you name it, you will see it on Woodward.

I saw somebody in a little like go-kart, race car thing the other day. They were on the sidewalk, but they were driving down.

Yes. You will see it is a very colorful cast of characters out there. But I mean, in the best way possible, it's everything car culture all in one place. And I always think it's so funny, like trying to explain Woodward to someone who's not a car person. And my favorite thing lately is to kind of step back and think about how like car enthusiast behavior looks to other people. We get up first thing in the morning, we start up these loud, smelly, noisy cars, and we go sit around in a parking lot and drink coffee. And then we go to a racetrack and then we watch cars. And then we go drive around, drive cars around on Woodward at night, and then park and then we watch other cars drive around. Like, it just sounds insane.

I was about to say, you're making it sound really sad.

Well, not to mention the two hours you spent cleaning it and waxing it and warming it.

That's the best part of the summer here in the Midwest. I mean, it does, it gets cold and it snows here. But I mean, I think it's funny to think of it from an outside perspective because like, it must sound absolutely insane to people.

Is there like a winter version of it by any chance?

Not really, but there are some cars and coffee spots that people will, if it's a dry day, people will bring their cars up there or they'll bring their dailies. But that I think it's around to, at the end of the day, no matter what you love in car culture, it's really about the people and the community that make it what it is that keep us coming back to SEMA, to PRI, to racetracks, to cars and coffee, to Woodward.

Oh, getting a drink at PRI is like a new staple for us now. You're probably going to need to ship your car soon, or know somebody that will. And as someone who used to work in freight logistics, I understand the difficulties of finding reliable transport, especially when trying to make it to rallies, racetracks or the warehouse to hide your Corvette because you're going through a messy divorce and when she says everything, she means everything. Anywho, Nick Shearer is the proud owner of SureThing Logistics. Having traveled much of the country with every type of vehicle you can imagine, he's got the experience and reliability that you want to ensure a safe journey for your pride and joy. If you want to find out what it takes to ship your vehicle, go to surethinglogistics.net, fill out the intake form, and be sure to let him know I sent you. Let's get back to the show. We've only been to PRA and SEMA twice now. We're rookies compared to you. You're 17.

Yeah. Hang with me this year. Okay. I'll take you around. I can't go two feet without running to someone, but it's the best.

Well, even just being on Woodward here, like you said, we've been here before and just had dinner. Him and I stopped for lunch at Dugan's last time we were here and we ended up sitting next to a gentleman that's been working at Detroit Diesel for 40 some years. And he's just been like, yeah, we build big-a** diesel engines and he's like, he loves it here. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot of OEM, OEM, like car designers, engineers, like, you know, chief engineers of, you know, some of our favorite vehicles that it's like, Woodward is for everyone. This industry is for everyone. And it's kind of this magical place where everyone comes together, whether you're a 16-year-old in a 99 Camaro SS with cutouts or you're a senior executive at an OEM, like we're all there for, it brings us together all for one purpose and we're all lining up at the Dairy Deluxe.

Yeah.

So I was going to ask you, what is the best ice cream?

Dairy Deluxe.

That's it?

Don't go anywhere else. Don't go anywhere else.

I had my phone on you. I don't know which one I went to last night.

I respect the other establishments out there and I wish them all the best, but Dairy Deluxe.

I wish them all the best.

I wish them all the best, but Dairy Deluxe is the spot.

Okay.

So Dairy aside, what about if you had to pick three places that somebody would have to visit for their first Woodward Dream Cruise, what would it be? Dairy Deluxe is one.

Yeah. Dugan's is also a staple. Recommend the chicken fingers.

Okay. There's something about chicken fingers here. One of our other friends from here. They're so good. He took us to a Mexican restaurant. He's like, don't get, you have to get the chicken fingers. That's right. What are you talking about? And they were delicious.

Yeah. Another, there are a lot of good spots. Mount Chalet is also like a very chill kind of low-key place. The food is phenomenal there on Woodward and then Bistro Joe's. They have this kind of upper deck terrace area that looks out onto Woodward. And that's less of like a pub. Kind of it's less Dugan's. It's a little more. It's still casual, but the food is a little more. You have a little more optionality there. Okay.

I did like Vincettas. We went there one time.

Yeah. The vibe is that they did a great job kind of capturing the vibe there with Woodward. Yeah. Lots of great places in downtown Birmingham as well, depending on what kind of food you're after.

Well, we're staying in Royal Oak. And I pull up, we've got here and we're like, okay, we're going to go get something to eat. I don't think there's anything within 10 mile radius that's rated under like a 4.4. I mean, everything here-

One of the colvers I went to was 4.3 yesterday, so.

Well, that's a, I mean, that's a chain, but- Yeah, yeah.

I know. It was the only thing open.

But like Ronan Sushi, Imperial on Woodward in Ferndale, great tacos, like Nine in Ferndale, there's some great spots.

Yeah, but I would say-

I want any recommendations after this for sure. What's that?

I want any recommendations after this episode for sure.

Yeah, I mean, it's further south than the Dream Cruise goes, but even in downtown Detroit, the restaurant and bars down there, the nightlife is incredible.

We really enjoy coming here for the industry, at least my family and my wife and I have been here before. We did like a whole abandoned building tour. We've been out to the Packard Plant and the Stamping Plant down by the, there's like a Model T museum down there. Just kind of did that. That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I know they're cleaning some of that stuff up now.

There's so much less of that now. And now with Michigan Central being open and Ford has done an incredible job restoring that. It's been an icon in Detroit as long as I can remember and kind of a place that photographers would sneak in and take pictures. And now it's a beautiful space that the whole city can share. And I know there's, I think it's called Cars at the Station that's coming up in September. So they'll do a Cars and Coffee.

There was another one recently, I think, too, right? And Mats Zubik posted about that. There's some Cars at the Station event or something.

Possibly.

Maybe like a promo event.

Yeah, I think it was a promo because the actual event is in September.

Gotcha.

So I'm likely to be at the NHRA Charlotte Race. I think that weekend's are...

Somebody told me to go out there.

Four wide. It's a four wide race. So all of our, most of our drivers in NHRA are in Factory X and Factory Stock Showdown and Pro Mod. All three classes are running.

What's Factory X?

So Factory X is sort of a combination of Pro Stock and Factory Stock. It's sort of a kind of a forward leaning sort of Factory X, like kind of experimental. Gotcha. Pro Stock transmission, Factory Stock engine and Factory body panels. And they're stick cars, which is crazy. And if you talk to some of the Factory X guys, like they love the complexity of staging those cars because there's so much entertainment, so to speak, going on. They look incredible. They're super, they can run very fast. And I think they're some of the most exciting and coolest looking cars that NHRA is running right now because they bring back that kind of Factory, relatable Factory look. So, and almost every one of those cars runs a RaceTech seat. So, highly recommend looking. It's a super exciting class, it's a small class and it's newer, but it's got a tremendous amount of potential. And, you know, watching those cars run, there's something very special about it that kind of feels a bit nostalgic.

That's, I'm kind of glad they're doing something like that, because we kind of gravitate more towards the street car side of things. And I think because of that, right, they're a little more relatable than some of the Pro Mod stuff, even though it's got headlights and, you know, Camaro painted on it, doesn't necessarily mean that it resembles one at all.

Yeah, I've gotten, I've actually gotten really into Pro Mod lately. There's something like so extreme and dramatic about those cars that I love. But yeah, FactorX, there's something really special about that class to your point. And I think, you know, the more you can, you know, it looks like the car. They look, they run a lot faster than that, but they look more like the cars that you see running up and down woodward. So and, you know, but they kind of bring that that performance element from the Pro stock side. So it's this really interesting combination that I'm excited to see. And it's somewhat, you know, it's some of the newest geometry in terms of how they did the safety cell and built the cage. And obviously, you know, our seats are RaceTech seats are a bit bigger than than most than a traditional race seat. So, you know, it's a very intentional purchase to put a RaceTech seat in your car and you're building the cage around the seat. But at that point, you've got the most you've got the safest, most advanced set up you could possibly put in your car.

Are you, so Seema, are you going to go to the NHRA race the weekend before as well then?

Yes.

Okay. Cause I got invited out to that and I'm like, you should definitely come.

It's Vegas, man. And it's four wide.

I know. I'm sorry.

Yes. Yeah.

Those are the only two four wides in the country, right? Charlotte and Vegas.

I believe so.

Yeah. I think that's the case.

So I actually, I haven't been to the Vegas NHRA race before. This will be the start of a 10 day run in Vegas.

Is it the weekend before?

Weekend before. So here's our struggle currently. I want to go to World Cup Finals, which is the weekend of SEMA. So I'm thinking, fly into SEMA, go to Baltimore, Maryland and then go back home.

The most important days for you to be at SEMA are the first few, right? Tuesday and Wednesday.

Yeah.

Right.

And then there's the media day on Monday. But if you're there Tuesday and Wednesday, you're going to check most of the boxes.

And that's kind of what my IP thought is on it, too. But now it's like that event as well. And it's like, there's so many cool things going on all at once.

It's a good problem to have.

Yeah.

I mean, selfishly, I'm going to say you should come out to the Vegas drag. I mean, Drag Race and then SEMA. It's pretty good.

I'm not going to force you to go to that. It's hard to get Dan away for 10 days.

I was already thinking that if we were going to cut our Vegas short, that we should go earlier, like Monday. We'll probably fly in Tuesday. I totally can do that.

When's the event start? Saturday, right? Or is it Friday? NHRA at Vegas?

Friday. I think it's Friday.

We'll talk about it.

It's a good plan.

Okay. So then, you bring up an interesting conflict here. You were around all types of motorsports. Do you find yourself leaning towards any particular one? Because again, 37 weeks out of the year, you're traveling for all these things. What did you end up leaning towards?

I would say if I had to pick one, I'm going to drag race every time. Because that is what was for a few reasons. And those are personal to me. Like, Mylon Dragway is like an hour drive from my house. And I grew up. That was the most accessible type of racing for me.

Well, the stoplights around here, too, are pretty good.

No comment.

No comment.

I'm in the safety business now. Yeah. But, you know, drag racing was the most accessible to me. And, you know, I grew up going to see the Nitro cars run. So, I mean, I was always fascinated by the Nitro cars, but that was never what I wanted to do. Like, I always wanted to race door cars. So, if I had to pick one, I would say drag racing. But at the same time, one of my later projects of my time at GM was launching the Off-Road Racing Development Program. And at the time, I had really no exposure to off-road other than mudding my 78 pickup at the local kind of woods off-road park here, which is phenomenal, by the way, the mountains. And I met Matt Martelli and some of the guys running Mint 400 and got to know a little more about that culture. And, you know, guys like Blake Wilkie and, you know, being immersed in that and experiencing tech and contingency at the Mint. Like, if you've never been to an off-road race before, the one to go to is the walking tech and contingency at the Mint and then going to check out the race.

What kind of off-road racing is this? I'm thinking like, what's the actual vehicle?

Trophy trucks? There are several different classes, but it runs the gamut of all, from trophy trucks to factory trucks. So we ran, we campaigned a factory off the dealer lot, Colorado CR2, that had, we developed and validated a range of performance parts, longer travel shocks, general shocks, like steel driveshaft, a bunch of different components to kind of beef up the suspension to make it even more capable for desert running. Sure.

And this is the stuff you were overseeing or not overseeing, but you got to witness beginning to end as well. I think you touched on that earlier.

Yeah. So we, I mean, we were working on, you know, prototype parts. We started racing that truck at Vegas Torino in 2017. And then, you know, tweaked and adjusted the portfolio of parts that came with it. And eventually came, you know, at SEMA brought the race truck dirty from, I think it was the Parker. I might be getting this wrong. Parker 300, maybe. It was the best in the desert race. Straight from the race to the SEMA show, dirty. And like, here are all these brand new, factory engineered, factory backed, off-road racing parts for your Colorado. And that, you know, that program has continued to grow since there, and that those trucks are still competing. They added a Silverado to the program. So long story longer, getting into the off-road space was super exciting. And it's a very, that's another one, I think, you know, perhaps almost more important is content creation, because off-road racing is really not a spectator sport unless you're watching short course racing. Right. Desert running, those endurance races, those trucks are, it's really the kind of the final frontier, the only truly unlimited class in motorsport out there, really. So to watch those trophy trucks barrel through the desert, content has become so important and social media has become so important in making that more accessible for people, because you can't, maybe at Baja, you can in some places, not safely.

I've seen the videos.

Yeah, but it's, you know, the Mint and King of the Hammers as well, that team is, you know, social media has really been instrumental in bringing off-road racing closer and more accessible to people. And for people to really see how dynamic and exciting those races are. There are a couple of the trophy truck teams that run incredible live streams on Instagram where you can see, you know, aerial shots of them rolling into the pits at night. And it's some of the most exciting racing to watch. And, you know, Matt and a lot of those guys have done incredible things in changing how relevant off-road racing is. And bring, you know, bring modern safety into it as well.

So with some of these, you know, you're you're attending these events throughout the year, again, the 37 weeks.

Yeah.

Was there any type of sport where I was just kind of throwing you in the deep end and you had to learn about it real fast?

Oh, yeah. I mean, all of them.

Which one was like the most like fascinating to you?

They honestly, they all were for different reasons. I mean, it working with World of Outlaws was, you know, super grassroots, but wonderful people. It really still felt like you kind of were working with a family run business. But I was also in the room with NASCAR negotiating multi year your comp GM's multi year contracts with NASCAR corporate at the time. And, you know, discussing with Jeff Gordon's agent and Tony Stewart's agent on the personal service agreements that we had. And I learned a lot about the legal, the business and legal side of what, you know, that kind of eventually would evolve into influencer contracts. So that's super relevant in today's, you know, today's day and age. And that was when I was in with Chevy Racing, that was really before social media was huge. And that was a thing. Influencers were a thing. So learning a lot of how those contracts works and the types of language to use, the things to watch out for, the things to make sure that, you know, things are worded in a certain way, that is all kind of evolved and become relevant in its own way in today's day and age with influencers. So I wouldn't say anything was particular. But it was all learning a lot at once. And for me to look back on as young as I was, I can see how my passion again, kind of opened the door for my bosses at Chevy Racing to trust me with these incredibly valuable relationships with Hendrick Motorsports. And I really just kind of let my passion lead me. And always, I was never afraid to ask questions. And the more I could learn, because I knew that the faster I learned, the more I asked questions. And if I could go and try something without fear, the faster I could learn it and, you know, continue growing and moving forward in my career.

So we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier. But so when you were wrapping up at GM and you were exploring other options, was RaceTech already on the radar where you just was safety like the whole space is a hole on your radar? Like what exactly were you kind of looking for when you made that move?

I'll be honest, I didn't really have that much of a plan. Sure. I was like, I'm gonna put together my business and then just get out with our business cards and reconnect with people and kind of see what happened. And it was like the more momentum that you build for yourself, that's when things happen. And that was one of the things that I've shared with clients, especially we've had that conversation with Quadlock and they've increased their event presence in the US quite a bit. But it's like you've got to be out there talking to people. You've got to be in front of people. You can't just be behind. You can't just be an Instagram account. You can't just be a website. You've got to build relationships. And the aftermarket and the motorsport communities, I think are, and I'm gonna use the word old school and not in a derogatory way where these relationships are all very personal. And I think some of the best jobs in this industry come from your network and from, I mean, the job that I have at RaceTech didn't exist before. But that was a relationship that I had slowly built as consulting for them one day a week. And that has evolved into something much bigger than that. And safety, to address your question on safety, that's always been top of mind, I think because of my time at GM and how important that was. We had to take, there are a lot of aftermarket companies that, or I should say a lot that the standard has, you drive around the block and it works great, put it on the market.

It sounds very aftermarket. No, it's very true. There's a different energy when you come to Detroit, when it comes to things being thought through in a different way, compared to the aftermarket.

And I don't mean that, and again, I don't mean that in a derogatory way either, because you've got to start somewhere. And I give a lot of credit to all of these businesses started somewhere. And that may be all you know, that you don't know until you try something and you fail and you do it better, you do it differently the next time. So it's amazing to see, even HP Tuners is a great example, how quickly and how much they've grown and evolved over the years. And I'm very fortunate that I got to see that firsthand when my fiance joined the business. And there's so many other stories like that. And I see that in RaceTech, where they have an incredible product. I really believe it's the best on the market. And knowing what I know about the innovation and engineering and research that has gone into those seats. And there's so much more of their story that can be told and shared with more people and growing our platform so that we can in turn grow the business.

Well, the thing with the whole safety side of things, it really is an individual risk tolerance. Like, there's a guy that was a power person, I don't know if you saw this video, a thousand horsepower gutted Honda or Acura RSX. And I'm thinking, that's great, he's beating all these ZR1s, I know, given where we're at. But like, he-

Hey, competition breeds excellence, that's what I always say.

I'm not even kidding. Several bus links on Palo Alto, this is 900 horsepower ZR1. Like, this thing was freight training it. And I'm seeing it, I'm looking at the interior of this car, I'm like, I don't know if I'd go in that one. But there are different levels of risk tolerance, right? So there's something for everybody too. And people evolve, especially if you get four kids like this guy, like you want a safe seat and safety in general.

Yeah, I mean, you see someone, we've seen even just this year in racing, we've seen some pretty gnarly wrecks on drag strips. And some people walk away, some people walk away injured, and some people don't walk away. And when we all have seen those over our lifetimes in various capacities, and I think whether it happens to you or whether you see it happen to someone else, you know, our mission at RaceTech is to, you know, move beyond that and let's get ahead of it. Let's not wait until you have to, you have to live through something like that. Like David's, our managing director, David Black, you know, he's lived through that and he doesn't want other people to live through those kinds of extreme wrecks.

Well, you said you guys, you said all GT3 cars run RaceTech seats, I think it was?

So it's all Porsche GT3Rs. Oh, gotcha. The Corvette GT3Rs, the Z06s, Aston Martin and McLaren.

Okay, yeah, just the other day, I was thinking of a GT3 race I saw or clip and it was like a Lamborghini that got hit by a BMW, of course. And he got out of the car.

He wasn't using his blinkers, probably.

Yeah, actually, it was some close racing, but he hit the wall and it was just a massive fireball. And then he was out of the car in like two or three seconds or whatever. I don't know if it was a RaceTech seat, but it's just crazy that you could have a crash like that and walk away. Like he ran out of the car within three seconds of getting to a stop.

Yeah.

Well, and was it, Calvo says the RaceTech seat saved his life. Basically, he crashed it over 200 miles an hour, nothing left of the car.

Yeah. And those are the stories. It's like, that's the reason why we do what we do. And I mean, our seats are more expensive. They require a little extra, they require some proactive planning in terms of building the cage around the seat, building the chassis around the seat. But when you hear stories like that's like, isn't that worth it? Absolutely, isn't that worth it?

Do you put a price on that at all, really?

Right, and you can even think about it from a business perspective where a lot of, like if you're racing Pro Mod, a lot of these guys are business owners. They can't afford to be in the hospital, like who's gonna run their business?

Well, it's also a million dollar program too, for a lot of guys at least.

Yeah, they're investing a lot into their racing career. So there are several ways to look at it, but it's like, it all comes down to, is it worth affecting any parts of these parts of your life?

Well, that's kind of the story with anything in cars. For example, Dan was considering doing a MoTec in his GT500. Well, what's the cost of popping one of those motors? So it's like, kind of pays for itself. Or like in my case, a radar detector, that's come in handy a couple of times on the way out here. But again, it's that proactive approach.

Yeah. Yeah, so we try to, that's why we appreciate so much guys like John Dock and Calvo and guys that are willing to talk about their experience with a RaceTech seat. And that's someone a lot of people know and respect and for them to share those stories, that makes an impact for a lot of people. So, the more we can advocate for people to invest in their safety and invest in their life. You know, I mentioned earlier, like that's the most personal, I believe it's the most personal decision you make when you build a race car in any capacity, whether you're running it at GridLife or at the US Nationals. You know, you have your hands on the steering wheel, you've got a roll cage around you, you've got a fire suit on, but like you are sitting, that seat is holding your life. Like that, you're-

Or we put it that way.

Yeah.

But it's true. Like, I mean, it sounds dramatic a little bit when they say it, but it's black and white. Like that seat is holding all of your vital organs and your body in place.

Well, it's got a lot of lines of defense too.

Exactly.

Well, people dump a lot of money into these builds too, and that's where you're gonna skimp.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're gonna spend $50,000 on your engine, but like, you know, and we purposely have made seats, they're all, you know, I would consider them all at a premium price, but we've made them at, I mean, you can get into a RaceTech for less than $2,000, and, you know, all the way up to 10 if you want, depending on what your application is. So like the GT3 cars that run an IMSA are running $10,000 seats.

Yeah.

But not everyone needs that. And, you know.

You also don't need two seats either. I always think of two for some reason, but then when you're racing, you only really need one.

Well, in some, in like factory stock showdown and super stock and some of those other class, those stock classes, you do have to run two seats. So and with in the NHRA rule book, if you can run a an aftermarket seat, but you've got to run two.

Interesting.

OK.

So they don't. I mean, you know, you can run your your carbon head, your serious carbon head containment on one side, and then you can run, you know, a super lightweight, you know, non-containment as your passenger. There's there's ways to do it.

Yeah. Well, some people will spend three, four thousand dollars on a set of seats just because they look cool, too. So it's, you know, I mean, that is high.

I built that entire car because I think it looks cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, have you done any like road course stuff with that car?

It is not for that.

Yeah.

I was going to say, yeah, no, I did actually in my Camaro. I did a few. I did some road racing in that car. It was actually quite the suspension was stock and I was actually quite surprised at how well that car handled stock. And I'm sure now I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't feel that way. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was a lot of fun. There's even, it's hard for me to pick just one type of motor sport that I'm passionate about because there are things that I love about all of them. And even just earlier this year watching Rolex, like, I'm pretty sure I watched, I'm pretty sure I watched 18 or 19 hours of that coverage. Like I just, I couldn't pull myself away from it. So.

Who were you rooting for?

You know, I just kind of watch, I come from kind of the Corvette world, so it's hard for me to not cheer for Corvette. But, you know, I just, I think it's just the racing itself is very exciting.

That is one of the best looking cars, period.

Thank you. Well, I don't know why I'm saying thank you. It's not my car.

Well, I remember watching like the Daytona, like the, I think it was the first year that they released it. I think that's the year they had a couple issues too, if I remember correctly. But I was like, man, that was a cool looking car. And then people were starting to put delivery on street cars and like, that's awesome.

Yes. Well, so you can buy, I'm not sure if it's still for sale, but GM did offer a C8R like graphics package.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So and I will say one of my favorite things. So the Cadillac prototype DP cars. Yes. I'm drawing a blank on the acronym because they were originally announced as DPI VR cars. I know that's not what's called anymore. But they have that hybrid EV to combustion transition. I can listen to that on loop on anytime. Like Hertz team Jota posts it a lot on their Instagram. Those starts and it's addictive listening to that. And it's funny listening to David, our managing director was over at Le Mans this year. So we of course have several customer teams that are running our product at Le Mans. And he sent me a video of the prototypes driving by. And you know, they sound, you know, it's like, okay, that they sound louder than the Cadillac comes by and it just sounds so aggressive, so much louder and so much more aggressive. It was quite funny. It's like, yeah, you always knew when the Cadillac was coming. So yeah, good old American muscle.

Well, it's just like a whee, just yeah, it's so.

I don't make good sound effects. So I wasn't going to try to recreate it.

I'll take the shunt over here.

You did great.

Yeah, you just don't want to hear my accents. That's where I get in trouble. Yeah, no. So you get to attend some of those events. Have you been to a Daytona in person then?

I have been to the Daytona 500 several times. I've not but still not been to Rolex. But next year, I'm planning to do Rolex next year. And then Le Mans has escaped me as well.

What do you do? Okay, do you and your better half, as you said earlier, do you guys plan certain events to attend together as well then? Or not really as much because you guys are already attending so much stuff?

Sort of. So we... So there are two co-founders of HP Tuners, one, Keith Prochik, based in Chicago, and he is a Trans Am TA2 racer. He's had a killer season as well. And then Chris Piastri is the other founder and his son is Oskar Piastri. He's speaking of having a killer year on track.

I think he's still leading, right?

Yeah, he's still leading the Drivers' Championship, which is incredible.

I hope that stays the case. I told you on our call like a few weeks ago that that's who I'm rooting for anyway.

We appreciate your support. So we do actually, we've been trying to go to at least one F1 race. So we did Spa this year.

Oh, that's cool.

Which so we try to do kind of a different one each year.

So was that three weeks ago, I think?

Yeah. Yeah. So we, the first year, his Oscar's first year in F1, we did quite a few. We did Bahrain, Monaco, Monza. I think there was one or two others that we did. He did Vegas, but that was, it was wild because we remember, we've followed Oscar's career since he was in Formula Four, Formula Renault, all of the series leading up and getting up at three in the morning to watch his races. And then he was just, I mean, he would just clean sweep the Drivers' Championship every year. And you could just tell he had this unbelievable natural talent. And we'd see him at family get-togethers and things in Australia. And he's just the most polite, calm.

The calm thing is like his thing.

To me, that's what does it. Because I mean, he's just like this. And he wins a race and he goes like this. He just keeps on going. It's like, it's incredible. But what I what I've heard, too, is that one of the other things that makes him so successful is his ability to his intuition and the way he feels the car and the level of detail that he can articulate every little feeling movement everything about the car back to the engineers to the point where like he would sit in the technical meetings and they would have to pull them out of there because he had other commitments, but he wanted to just really dig into the technical side as much as possible. So his engineers are able to set up that car so specifically based on his feedback.

That reminds me, I think I was watching one or two of the Schumacher documentaries and that was like one of the things like he'd always be in the technical meetings. And I think, yeah, I'm excited. I knew like, I think it was like two or three years ago, I started paying attention to his career. I'm like, oh, this kid's got it.

Yeah. It's funny how you can just kind of tell. And I'll be honest, I did not follow F1. That was really the only motor sport that I had never... Did that eluded you? Yeah. I just never really connected with it and I wasn't around it.

Well, so relatable. Anybody can get into F1.

Yeah.

It's just testing.

There's so many seats.

Just testing to and up in Milan. There's no difference.

Yeah.

Gonna drive my race car home. Yeah. But it was really... So I was kind of following Oscar's career individually, but I still wasn't paying any attention to F1. And then we started watching Drive to Survive, and Andrew was deep and had been kind of deep in F1 for a long time. So Drive to Survive for me was more like, how quickly can I get up to speed with all the teams and the dynamics and everything?

Well, that's so good for me and my dad, because my dad watched it when he was a kid, and then kind of like in my younger years, and then we got into it together again. So it's just me and my dad every Sunday now.

That's awesome.

And so, and it's, say what you will about the Drag to Survive fan base, but it got a lot of people back into it too.

It did. It's certainly great for the sport. It's great for motor sport, I think, in general. And I'm all about things that are good for the industry and good for racing, good for the community. So I will say funny, interesting story on Oscar. So in 2018, I think he was in Formula 4 still. He was maybe 14 or 15 years old. And we had traveled through it via the UK. Andrew was there visiting dealers and we were headed to custom show Emirates in the UAE, which speaking of incredible car culture, Said Al-Marsouki runs that show. It's called Something Different Now, runs top speed performance out of the UAE. And like, if there is a, it's like a parallel universe, cause their car culture is so similar in terms of like drag racing and hot rods to the way it is here. But anyways, so we stopped in London for a few days in the UK and a longtime family friend of mine that has the Ferrari dealership here in Michigan, Jeff Colley, again, a wonderful, wonderful friend and advocate for motor sports and for the industry. He very kindly connected us with one of his colleagues that was at the time at McLaren and they got us a tour of the Tech Center. And Oscar was in boarding school in the UK at the time and we brought him up to McLaren, and took him through the Tech Center. And we all got together for lunch afterwards and we're like, wouldn't it be cool if you raced for them one day? He was like, yeah, it would be pretty cool. So it was kind of, I mean, and he was still very early on in his career. So it's kind of surreal to see that. And he actually mentioned it in an interview. They kind of asked him, what's this been like for you? And he's like, oh, I remember the first time I went up to the McLaren Tech Center, before I kind of had this first view of what the future of my career could be like. So it's pretty amazing. And he's a great kid. I mean, adult now, I guess, because he's in his 20s, but great person, great personality. And for someone to have that level of natural talent, I think it's been really amazing to see him grow with McLaren, take over the Drivers' Championship this year.

So well, his press or his tweet is also like forever, like the best motorsport meme of all time too.

Oh, yeah. I think it's like his lack of expression when he does make those faces. And he's kind of like low key hilarious with how dead man his comments are.

The second coming of Kimi Raikkonen.

Yeah, that's all it is.

Yeah, so I know we kind of went down a little bit of a F1 rabbit hole. Have you met Zach Brown as well then or no?

I have not. I've like been around him. Sure, sure.

It's just cool to have an American in the sport as well.

It is. It's totally cool. I think, I mean, I think he's I find him to be very likable. Like, I don't have any issues with him.

Sure. It's that wheel of fortune energy, man.

Yeah. And it's also cool when he's like hanging out with pro hockey players and drive to survive and stuff. He's got kind of a really interesting friend group. I'm like this, like he's he's relatable, but he's also done some really incredible work with that team over the years.

I had to catch Dan up to speed here. So he was on wheel of fortune. However, what, two, three decades ago, really? Yeah, he won and he took that money and got his first go-kart basically. OK. And now he runs an F1 team. This is all because of wheel of fortune.

It was a wheel of fortune.

Yeah.

That is the ultimate career trajectory I can't even imagine.

Well, actually, career trajectory. What kind of sets you on this path, right? Was there at any point you thought that you were going to go work for 3M and design tape? Like was that at any point? That was almost my career.

It's actually funny you say that though, because with my parents both being designers, they're graduates of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. And like I grew up with just like art supplies everywhere. And like when my mom left GM, she was doing a lot of design consulting work and stuff. And so, they would have these like they're called tabare's and they're sort of these like stool looking things with different drawers and like markers and chocks and all these art supplies. But they would do tape drawings for different projects or she and my dad both depending on what they were working on. So, there was just this like drawer of these all these cool different colors and like metallic tape and different widths and stuff. And I used to like as a young child, I thought that was really cool. So, I would like make little projects with all their like actual design like professional design. Anyways, that was my short stint thinking I was going to go into the tape world. But no, I just remember kind of I was always kind of I was always fascinated by their careers and car design. They you know, they let me stay up late when they would have all their car designer friends over and I would just kind of sit and listen all the conversation. And they were all I learned a lot about like form language, design language and gradients and things like that. And but I just somehow knew that I didn't have it. I did not have the touch for design. So, you know, I kind of gravitated toward I knew I wanted to be in some type of a creative field. I wanted to be as close to it as possible because they both worked for GM and I knew so many cool people that worked for GM. I'm like, that's I'm going to work for GM one day. So that was always my North Star growing up. But, you know, the more I became exposed to the industry and worked with race teams and race tracks and promoters and met other, you know, other aftermarket coworkers and attended the SEMA show and that opened my mind so much to the opportunity and how many other stories are being told and built and designed out there. So, you know, I loved, you know, I told my own story with The Monte Carlo and then at GM, you know, every year we would bring 20 SEMA concept cars and I was in those meetings where we would say, OK, we're going to do this drag racing development program and we're going to, you know, we're going to photograph it this way and we're going to paint it like that and we're going to showcase these parts and this is going to be the theme of this vehicle and it's going to showcase these different technologies and things like that. So, kind of crafting the story around these builds and around the overall messages at the SEMA show, I became, I just became very passionate about the storytelling aspect, whether that was through photography, which was a huge part of, I dabbled in photography and when I say dabbled, I mean, I took a lot of pictures of my Camaro in high school. Usually in front of a cemetery, there was something about like taking pictures at a cemetery that I thought was like, oh, this is art, guys. We're like reflections of my wheels in a bottle.

Just playing three days grace in the background or something.

Something like, it was probably my chemical romance.

I was gonna say that because I think I see, is that the same? That's my chemical romance logo on there, right? Isn't it? Or is that a different font? This one? It kind of looks like the same font or am I tripping?

You're tripping.

Yeah, I'm tripping, it's good. It's not, but that's fine. I appreciate that your mind went there.

I've been looking at them like, eh, that's not the same, but.

Yeah, no, it's something different. No, I appreciate that. Yeah, the photography was huge. I mean, I was not a photographer, but that was one of the things working with Justin Sessler that I learned so I learned a lot from him and, you know, connected with so many talented people that, you know, captured their vision of vision of these different cars. And we were able to tell some really dynamic stories in a very different way, having different photographers shoot different cars for the SEMA show. And, you know, that was, you know, that was easily one of one of the favorite, my favorite parts of of my job was, and I hate saying my job because it didn't feel like a job at all. A lot of people think photo shoots are boring, but they certainly can be when you're standing around. But, I mean, I just loved the energy of like watching, watching this vision come to life with the light painting and setting up the camera and waiting for, you know, many a dusk and dawn shoot and things like that. So and then just the outcome of retouching and changing the lighting afterwards. So, that was a really cool part of telling those stories at GM that I've, you know, kind of continued to do today.

How do we and I know we're gonna slowly start winding down here at some point, but how do you pass this on to the next generation, right? Because like I recently turned 26, like I'm gonna eventually create the next generation. So, how do we like keep that scary to think about?

But yeah. Yeah. I know it's terrifying a little bit. Yeah.

You know what? Listening to your kids in the pool today, I'm just like, you know what? Never mind. I'm gonna stay single forever. But how do you keep this energy going? Because obviously, you got to have some awesome experiences. And at the beginning of the show, you're talking about like, oh, like these younger kids, you know, they don't seem to care about cars or whatever.

That's what people say.

That's what people say, correct.

Yeah.

How do we keep that going? Obviously, the ability to express yourself through your car, it's in some cases difficult, but in other ways easier than ever. Like now, I feel like the next generation is going to be 3D printing their own parts.

Yeah.

Or something.

No, I totally agree. I think that's why there have you seen so many startups and things in there. I look around the SEMA show and I feel like some of these companies that are displaying there, like the people there just keep getting younger and younger because they're, I mean, you can learn so much on YouTube and with AI and things like that, that, you know, these tools that we didn't have growing up, that these kids are, we think about how fast we learn technology and how easy it is for us to use. Like, they're learning it even faster. So, you know, I think there are a lot of things that we should be doing. At any chance we get to encourage people if they even show a spark of interest and just exposing them to what's possible and that there are so many ways you can get involved in the industry. And you look at a race and you think about all the different roles that people play. There are the drivers, there are the mechanics, there's the guy that designed the rap, there are the photographers, there are the tech officials, there is the marketing guy, there are the media people, like there's the track promoters. It's wild, like there's the guy that, you know, not everyone has someone towing their trailer, but like, they're, you know, they're guys that drive the big haulers for the pro teams. And there's just so much that goes into, you know, just at any given race track, whether it's grid life or NHRA or Le Mans off-road racing. There's just, and you know, even beyond that, there's so many different disciplines. And even if you're not, don't want to get into hardcore motor sports, just in the aftermarket itself, there are so many ways to get involved. But the thing that I always tell people is, you know, getting out there, go to your, there are cars and coffee everywhere nowadays. There are car events everywhere, especially here in Michigan. And I had a young person that was asking me about my car. And he asked me, how did you, how do you get involved? And I said, you're doing, he was 14. And I was like, you are doing exactly what you should be doing is you are out here, you're asking questions, you're talking to people, you're learning their stories and their perspectives. And you just never know, like you're going to keep running into the same people. We're a bit here in Michigan, I think we're a bit spoiled in that.

In that regard, where there are a lot of OEs here, but I mean, anywhere you can find car culture, there's gonna be somebody that's connected to the industry. We've all done it, or go to your local race track and you can volunteer. There are race tracks, I think that's probably one of the biggest things that is overlooked and probably not talked about enough is like, they're always looking for volunteers. Yes. Even at the F1 level, they're always looking for volunteers. And anytime, hey, can you... You know... Check tickets, at the ticket, little things, you just gotta start somewhere. And there's, you can never start, there's no such thing as starting too early. But I think, and you guys know this, you know, your network is everything. And the more people you can meet and talk to, the bigger your network is gonna expand. And there are people that I met when I was in high school that, you know, I might have worked with them or I fell out of touch, and then I get back in touch with them last year. And you just never know where those connections are gonna lead or where they're gonna come back and find you, whether you're gonna help them or they're gonna help you.

Yeah, like the reason I'm in this garage right now is because I reached, RaceTech commented, the New Zealand page commented on a highlight I made of John Dock. And the only reason I had John Dock on the show at all is because I just shot him a message on Instagram. He wasn't following me back, nothing. I'm like, hey, we're gonna be in North Carolina. You wanna do a podcast. And that was a three hour drive to get to the shop. That was a commitment.

Well worth it.

It wasn't a ten and a half hour drive.

Yeah.

Listen man, back gas station lasagna. I will be back.

Gas station lasagna?

Yeah, it was middle of nowhere in North Carolina. There was not a whole lot of office.

Small town you will say.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he's like, you guys want to go to the usual place. And it's like a gas station that has like a cafeteria, like legit red trays from schools. You know what I mean? Slow down. All right. What do you want, sweetie? Like it was like that sort of deal, right?

Awesome.

I will take the lasagna. So it was like, yeah. So, but to my point, it's like, you really didn't ever know. Like just a simple message can go far away.

100%. Yeah. That's, you know, that's the other thing. Like don't ever be afraid to reach out to someone on Instagram. You've got Ralph Gilles, who's the head of design at Stellantis.

God, that'd be like the Bucket List one.

Even the guys that aren't currently involved in the industry anymore, that have retired, that are still, there's still so many of them that are active on social media.

They have some of the best stories too.

Yeah.

Because they're not limited either. I think you share.

Right. Right. And you can get a lot of that at the Cars and Coffee's here. But you know, I think, and I mean, Garrett from American Muscle, with American Muscle HD, I mean, he's a great example where, you know, we were just talking at Roadkill Nights about how amazing the growth that he's had over the years. And, you know, we, I met him when we brought him in to do, he was not just getting started, but it was still fairly early on in his career. And he was kind of one of the OG car, you know, car Instagram accounts. And we started working with him with Chevrolet Performance. And like now Ford's flying him to Europe to go to Le Mans. Like, it's a, but, and that's, I think, leads me to another really important point where like, he's such a cool dude. He's got a great story. He's so passionate and so open about that. And he's just nice and straightforward and cool to hang out with.

Like, I wish we could have spent more time with him when we were in the land. We were on a time crunch. I wanted to just hang out with that guy all day. Like it was such a blast.

Yeah. And like that's, you know, that's the thing. I think, you know, you're not afraid to show your passion and and you know, just be be who you are and not be afraid of, you know, owning what you're passionate about. What? Even if it's different from the person that you're talking to, like, I know for a guy that's very passionate.

Well, I don't know how far.

I mean, they could just do an episode, the two of them. I know for I know Garrett likes a lot of different types of.

He does. Yeah, I like Garrett and I have we've we've had some good times. I think it goes back, you know, would you say you've got this bug from just hanging out with your parents and their involvement in this stuff? Or because let's just put it this way, I'm here right now on a family vacation. I mean, we didn't go to Florida. My other kids are, you know, they're going to Florida. They're going to Disney or doing this stuff. I asked my kids, hey, there's this thing called Woodward Dream Cruise. Let's rent a house with a pool. Let's go spend a week driving up and down Woodward. I can show you where they make the Mustang. We're going to do the F-150 tour, Henry Ford Museum, all that stuff. They were like, absolutely, sign me up.

That's amazing. Especially that you can do that with your family.

Right. I think more people need to involve their family in their hobby. Yeah. First of all, it makes it easier for you to do your hobby.

Yeah.

The second of all, you don't know what that's going to spark, you know?

Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's a great example. Like when I was at the Norwalk NHRA Race recently and talking with Lenny Ladek and Jesse Alexandra, two of our factory X drivers and like you walk, they pit together. They're good friends. They pit together and it's just all of their families there together. And it's just, it's so cool to see they're like, and they'll just tell you straight up, like, we just love to do this. Like, we're, we just go and we beat up on each other at the track, but like, we're good friends. We all hang out together and it's, it's really amazing to see, like, racing for someone who's not close to racing. You might think it's, it's not a family sport or that you can't have that level of community. But when you go to a race and you witness that in person, I mean, there are even some smaller teams that it's husband, wife, kid, and they're all just working on the car together and they're running and it's like, that's passion and that's, I think, what makes this industry so special. Yeah.

How many, is one of the reasons, so I got an RV, I do a little bit of racing and it's, I bring the whole family, we stay in the RV, my kids run around in the golf cart and I, cause I go there a lot of times and like you, I see all these other families and kids run around on pit bikes and do all that stuff. And we're racing during the day and everybody's hanging out at night and it's just a lot of fun.

Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I mean, to answer your question, it definitely started with my parents and being surrounded by this my whole life. Like I didn't know any different and this was completely normal to me. Like going, you know, driving through the snow to go to Autorama in downtown Detroit with my dad in the winter and like going to car shows every summer. Like, you know, when we always have stacks of, you know, Hot Red Magazine and Chevy High Performance on the table and I would read them cover to cover and I just wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. Like I couldn't get enough of it. And, you know, that just sort of it was just this domino effect that once I had my own car and I met car friends and car people and started going to SEMA and meeting industry people. And it's just that momentum just never stopped. So yeah, it's I credit but I mean, I credit so much my parents, my colleagues, my friends, the people that I've been so fortunate to work with, you know, Dr. Jamie Meyer, who's I introduced you to him, Harris, that Herb Fischl, who was, you know, the kind of godfather of Corvette Racing at GM Motorsports, former executive director. There's so many, and I have to say, my boss at Chevrolet Performance, Kara Brodebeck, she saw my passion and she saw me for who I was and what I was capable of. And she really was kind of the turning point of shaping me into the professional that I eventually became today. So, and then now working with David, who someone who is very aware of how passionate he is. And I'm like, this, like this, that's kind of what we connected over was this, this passion and enthusiasm that we never get tired of. And being able to channel that today into something as mission critical as safety in a setting as cool as motor sports, like I couldn't, I couldn't design, I couldn't design a more, I couldn't design a better life for myself. And I can't wait to see what's next.

Great. It's my next question. What is next?

I mean, my, I, as long as I can continue building with RaceTech, that is my goal. Like I never start working with a client or with, I mean, there are some projects where, you know, we need you to do this press campaign.

Sure.

That's different. But, you know, I like to work with, I like to build long term relationships because there's so much more. And I think there is so much with RaceTech is a great example where there's so much headroom for them. You know, my vision is to continue working closely with the team there and, you know, achieving that goal of transforming the way racers view safety and prioritize safety from from a budget, from a chassis, you know, chassis, roll cage construction perspective and how it how it affects the racing community overall.

I think that's a good note to end on.

Well, yeah, I mean, you can't go into anything thinking that this is going to be temporary or you're only going to do this for a little bit and then do something else. You don't you can't get the same level of passion when you're doing something like that either.

Well, and, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, like, we need to make safety sexy again.

Do you guys do any like at events, any like ride alongs or anything like to show people the seats?

Not yet.

Okay.

But stay tuned. We've actually had so Mike from Stance Works in his GTK Ferrari project, we were actually talking about, he's like, he would like to put another seat in that car so he can do ride alongs at grid life events. So, you know, that's obviously very tough to do with drag racing, but I mean, that's a great idea.

Well, I know it could be really cool. Like have you ever seen like, and sorry to interrupt you, but like at SEMA, like have you ever seen like, they'll do like side by side drag racing, like sims or whatever, like, or reaction time and stuff? I don't know if you guys already do this or if anybody else does this.

We actually do build a sim rig, believe it or not.

But like to get out of the seats, sort of, you know, like how, like when you race, like how quick can you get out?

That's a great idea.

That'd be a cool competition. Like how fast can you get out? Cause like, I know you had to do that at the Optima.

Yeah, I think they gave you five seconds to get out of the car.

Yeah, that could be a kind of a cool thing to do at SEMA or PRI. It's like, I would love to race Dan is what I'm getting at here. Like who can get out of the seat faster?

Yeah, that's a great plan.

Build a fake cage and everything, you know? Like, I don't know, sorry.

No, I love it. The good ideas come from anywhere. So I think that's important. I love it.

I think you should put them in a seat and push them off a cliff and then see what happens there.

I'll get out so fast. Yeah. I'd live cause it's a RaceTech seat. Yeah, I know that's what I'm saying.

Trust us, you'll be fine.

Yeah, I had to get that idea out there before I lost it.

I appreciate that. I will put it in the mix.

Sure. Well, anyways, on that note, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on before you popped the usual three?

I think we talked about a lot. I mean, I appreciate the opportunity to share what inspires me and what's exciting for me from a career perspective. But I think one of the most important things that we talked about is not as yet safety for number one, and also how we encourage the next generation, and find more pathways to encourage the sustainability of this industry from keeping kids excited about it and being unafraid to express your passion in whatever automotive form that that takes. Yeah.

Let it rip.

All right. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars.

No.

Yep. I need a daily driver. I need a track car, and I need a show car. You have an unlimited budget.

Can a show car also be a race car?

They technically are. Show mods.

Okay.

Okay. Daily driver Escalade V.

Okay.

Sold. I love the interior on those.

I just love how loud, how freaking loud it is. It's so the cold start on that. I don't know how.

Speaking of that, are you going to start this for us before we leave?

Yeah, obviously. All right. Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

I shake the paintings off the wall, but that's fine.

Yeah, I try. I think they're all extra secure between all of the big block horse power. Yeah. Track car, like anytime, any kind of track. I mean, I'll say that. I mean, that one needs a few things to become a proper drag car, but it would definitely be that, be my Monte.

Twin nineties.

I mean, you never know. Maybe it's the Duramax swap. We'll see. Sure. And a show car. A show car probably. Actually, I'm going to switch it up and I'm going to say a trophy truck for a track car because I've never driven a trophy truck and I've always wanted to build slash race a trophy truck. And then my show car is going to be that. It's going to be the Monte.

Fair enough. I think that's a good cruiser.

But I can check all the bait. I can check all the boxes that way. Yeah.

Have you ever been in a trophy truck?

No.

As a ride along? Okay.

I'm not real good with ride alongs. I like to drive.

Yeah.

Yeah. I may even switch up the show car and switch. If I were to go Monte as the track car, then I would say a Ferrari Enzo as my show car, even though it's my show car.

So what are we locking in though?

Yeah.

Do I have to lock in?

Yeah.

I mean, we'll be back for another episode in the future, probably.

But I mean, that's a that's a tough one.

The daily is for sure the V.

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah. Yeah. I might have to go race. Yeah. Monte is the race car.

OK.

And Enzo is the show car.

OK.

I think I'm not like I appreciate supercars. I'm not a I'm not a huge supercar person, but I do. I love them. But there's something about the Ferrari Enzo that has captivated me ever since I saw it in this. It was announced in this little corner thing in an issue of Auto Week magazine. It's like burned into my brain when I was in fifth grade.

It looks so different, like compared to anything else at the time.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get it.

And then it was in that Charlie's Angels full throttle.

I was like, oh my God.

So good. It's the only thing I liked about that.

Well, put a long travel suspension on your V.

Oh, should we say the M-Zone? No, no.

I actually thought that's where you're going with that too.

Yeah, no. I mean, I guess if you're that crazy, go for it.

That's what Sam Barrow said about the Bugatti. He's like, let's make it just off road. Yeah. Bugatti. Well, perfect. On that note, where can everybody find you slash RaceTech slash whatever you're working on?

So, RaceTech USA on Instagram and racetechusa.com. And then I'm, I'm Adrienne at Arden. Well, I'm just Adrienne underscore Peters on Instagram. So, I kind of typically try to keep my following to industry friends. But I post a lot of RaceTech, a lot of RaceTech content, and Oscar Peastery and mid-century modern houses.

Sure. Is there any way people can actually like try out a seat? Like, do you guys like have places around the country or just events?

Yeah, we have a, we have a dealer list on our website. Okay. And then, you know, John, John Dock has a few of our seats there. We have some great dealers in the North Carolina area, really throughout the country.

Sure.

Our headquarters in the US is in Carson City, Nevada though.

Okay, cool.

So, just go see John Dock. He's got about 14 cars sitting in there and he will probably sit in any one of them and figure it out. Yeah.

Yeah. And Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage or Mr. Gunna Garage on Facebook, for me personally. Sure.

We'll roll with that. Well, perfect. Thank you for coming on to the show. Thank you for having me. Dan, thanks for existing and we'll see you 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 you all next time.