178. Creating Fueltech, Innovating ECU's, Pushing Platforms and Personal Projects w/ Anderson Dick

This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox. More on them later. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, a.k.a. Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my Ford loving co-host for day two of PRI.

Yep, day two.

Dan, Mr. Gunnit Garage. And I've been really excited for this one, by the way. Ever since we got hooked up, Howard got us in contact and all that. I really wanted to get you on the podcast. So today we are here with Anderson Dick. So go ahead, tell us a little bit about yourself, Fueltech, and we'll go from there.

Okay. Thanks for the invite. It's a pleasure to be sharing some of the stories. So I started as a college student in Brazil 25, 26 years ago, pretty much, when I was like 19, and always loved cars, racing, but as Brazil, racing scene, been a smaller racing scene than obviously US and everywhere, it was really hard to get involved with racing. So I ended up having a couple of friends that had race cars at the beginning, and we were able to, actually, I was able to learn a lot in the beginning, how that worked, but remember, one thing important to remember is, Brazil 25 years ago was like US 45 years ago. So Brazil was kind of 20 years behind US in terms of technology and racing and that kind of stuff. So all the cars in 1999 were like carburetors, nobody had a data logger, nobody had a fuel injection, and that was literally an opportunity to try to do something different and to try to do the electronics. And also Brazil has been very close to import and being a small market, no aftermarket issues at that time were available properly. So basically I got a couple, one of my friends actually asked me to do a very basic fuel controller and I was thrilled to do that. So I pretty much designed a very small, simplistic fuel controller, which I almost cannot call like that. So simple it was, but it actually worked really well. Did the job for that specific task, was a carburetor car with additional fuel injectors, a turbo car, four cylinder. And that worked well. I thought I could already sell some of those products to another friend that asked me to buy. I sold to him, installed it in his car. The injectors stuck open and broke his rod in the first ride on the car. Then I decided to stop, or that could not be a good idea at the beginning. So I ended up, it was my first year in college, in electrical engineering. I pretty much was studying to move to Germany. I had a job offer in Germany when I finished college. And a long college I ended up restarting the fuel injection project with one of my buddies. And we pretty much designed what will be later the first FuelTech. That was not intended to be a commercial product. It was just like a college project degree. And since I had the plans to move to Europe, to Germany, I wasn't really focusing on making that as a product or a business. Long story short, I failed in two classes and lost the opportunity because it was a time-sensitive opportunity. I had to finish by that particular time. And I thought my life was over. I thought like I have to restart everything. Then I pretty much took that college project to a racetrack. One of the largest Brazilian events, which was called Velo Park, sorry, which was called Festival, Brazilian Festival of Drug Racing. And I pretty much stopped team by team, trying to show them. But I was like a 19-year-old kid with a shoe box and a small prototype product inside. A few of the teams, or most of the teams, didn't even really pay attention. They were so comfortable with what they were already doing. But a few of them, actually, three of them were looking to do something new and try. So I was actually invited to come to their shops and install the product and start trying. And that was really the first steps of what will become later, the FuelTech.

Do you remember what year was this?

It was 2002.

2002, okay. So what kind of cars are racing?

Brazilian drag racing is mostly front wheel drive, four cylinders. Some hero drive, but usually four or six cylinders. And at that time was very few V8s, to have an idea. Because technically, most of the sold cars in Brazil, they were like small, smaller cars.

Compact cars?

Yeah, compact cars.

Okay. So, I'm sorry, you said 2002?

2002.

2002, okay. And they're still carbureted at this time, too?

Yeah, they mostly of them were like Weber carburetors, modified and then some of them had fuel injectors, but they were pretty much on and off controls. And basically what we've done was controlling them a little more precisely with some kind of a manual adjustment. Actually, since most of the tuners in Brazil, they were not even comfortable using a laptop. And remember, that was 25 years ago, right?

Right.

And we actually did the first product that you could tune or adjust the tune up through the screen, was like four push buttons and a small display. And you would have like the main field table, some compensations and some diagnostics through the screen. And that was actually a perfect fit for that particular market. That was not really intended, and they could not understand exactly, or those race teams, they were not able to use a laptop or data log, they were not used to do that. There was the very first Wideband O2 readers, and there was a news, I would say that they came up a couple years later actually. Most of them were just reading regular narrowband sensors, O2 sensors, and pretty much like very intuitive tuning by just adding fuel until it stops, or remove fuel until it stops, miss firing, reach miss firing.

Okay, so you're developing a product and selling it there, and then here in the States, we're already way well past that.

And so then after Brazil had a very good opportunity in the year 2003 actually, those three, four teams that actually started using our products, they start really winning and more, and everyone else start paying attention to us. And there was pretty much no other products. It was like we were the only product in the country available. So we started, I was manufacturing my bedroom apartment, pretty much everything by myself. I was being able to do like five a month, 10 a month, 20 a month, and growing. Then we decided to rent a small office space, like a 400 square feet office space.

When did you get your first employee? Or who worked on this, if it's the beginning?

It was before even getting that office space. I was living in a college apartment with two friends that were from my hometown. And one of them was actually, and ended up helping me at night, and building the stuff and doing that. Then I ended up making him a job offer to quit his job and help me during the day. So pretty much he woke up from his bedroom, he came to my bedroom, I had my bed, two desks, very small bedroom apartment, we have those two desks and pretty much assemble all the products, put together the harness. I was literally a two man show pretty much.

That's awesome. So then you guys get the office space next?

Then we got a 400 sq. ft. office, then we thought that was so much larger than the 100 sq. ft. bedroom before, and then we started trying to get more volume, it was really hard to get even cash flow, we never really had any kind of investment, it was pretty much like the money we would do making and selling, some would build more units. Then I ended up figuring I would have more help, I needed more help, then I hired one of the guys that started building the product, assembling the hardware. This guy works with me still nowadays to have an idea.

Oh, really? I was going to ask that question if he's still there.

We have like 20 plus year old employees, or 20 plus years employees. And then, from then, from 2004, 5, 6, 7, we grew consistently in Brazil, maybe getting like to 5, 6 employees and already being recognized the product. We released a few more products. We were a very startup company and doing a lot of stuff very fast. Then in 2007 was the first time ever I came to US, and then I came to watch a race. One of my friends actually invited me to come to NHRA, Sport Compact, in English Town. It was the actual last event ever, because they finished the Sport Compact in NHRA. And it was funny because we were three friends, we came early, we came like Thursday morning or Wednesday, and we were at the gates, the gates were still closed, the trucks were parked outside, it was very cold, New Jersey, English Town. We were sitting literally on the curb, waiting to the gates to open. One of the truck or the teams actually opened the window, rolled over the window saying, what are you guys doing outside? And we were like, oh, we came from Brazil to watch this race. Oh, it's too cold outside, come inside. And then they invited us, that happened to be Gary Kubo from Chris Rados, Scion, front wheel drive Scion, the pro front wheel drive. And then we ended up meeting as well, Perry, the crew chief from Red Bull Racing.

Okay. Oh really?

For that time, which they had the pro front wheel drive team from Gary Gardella. And those two teams ended up being very nice to us that weekend. We ended up spending all the weekend along with their trailer operations. And they were pretty much sharing everything they were doing on their cars. And they were using the best of the time, like in electronics, they were doing like traction control, they were doing like a lot of strategies to manage power. And that was mind-blowing for us, because we were so, we were a very simple EFI, let's say this way, fuel control and timing control. And a few, like a two-step rev limiter, but not really a traction control. What happened was, with the ideas we learned on that weekend, when we came back to Brazil, we really stopped everything we were doing and started designing differently some of the features. And we did one major software or firmware update on our products in 2007. And that was to include a time-based rev limiter, some predefined traction control strategies that worked really well for them. And since the Brazilian market was pretty much front wheel drive, they really depended a lot on that. That was very successful, very successful. Every single of our clients in Brazil, they literally went a second quicker in that, after that firmware update. And that was a big jump for us to really grow into the Brazilian market. Then we pretty much designed like a boost controller, a data logger, and pretty much started developing a lot of products. And from a fuel controller, we became a fuel injection already with more things. And always with the idea to be very simple, to be user-friendly. The basic user to be able to really tune without even a laptop. So, 2008, we thought we could be trying to get into the US market. And we literally thought California would be the best place to present the product. We started our first tentative of FuelTech USA. We established FuelTech USA in California. I literally knocked like 300 doors over that year. And only one shop opened the door for us to introduce the product. It was Jack Sakiti from JC Enterprises. He was a Volkswagen air cooler specialist. But at that time he was building a Honda to compete on a front-wheel drive class. And it wasn't his thing, so he accepted help. We ended up wiring the car and installing the fuel injection. And went to the dyno, it was great. But he ended up never really racing that car. And that car, just a jumping story, that car sit for maybe 15 years. And then Brent from PFI Speed bought that car, without even knowing that it was the very first Fueltech car. And now that car is actually running again, but that was so long ago. And then at that time, so we gave up California, we ended up spending a good amount of money, could not accomplish anything, that everybody was saying, Oh, you guys have to do a PRI show. So you went here at PRI, you were actually in Orlando, 2009, 10, 11, 12. And we started with a 10 by 10 booth, Walmart table and cover and some products we brought over the luggage from Brazil and showing the products. But those four years were very frustrating because pretty much everyone, the product was still a lot behind the US market, obviously. The US market was way more advanced already, really tuning from a laptop and that kind of stuff. And our product was always with the idea of having the screen incorporated to be able to really not need a laptop. But at that time, we already have a lot of software for a computer. But everyone was really stopping by our booth and saying, Oh, guys, you should be doing a black box under the dash with a serial cable. Nobody really wants a screen on the car. Everyone just needed the tech. Remember, this is not even a race pack. I mean, race pack was with very older dashes. The idea of a dash was mostly to display some information, like a gauge. Nobody really was understanding the potential of tuning or having more information or even reviewing a data log through a dash at that time. Then in 2010, we reintroduced the FT400, which was the first one with LCD touchscreen, the first CCU that we were fully capable of tuning through the screen. And remember, that was the year of the iPhone was released. Yeah, okay. Sometimes we forget how technology advances quickly.

Yeah, absolutely.

But we were at the same year that the iPhone was released, literally. Trying to introduce that to RACI. But it wasn't really successful. So 2009 to 2012, we established our FuelTech location in New Jersey. We had a, I would say, a wrong strategy, because we tried to give away products and it was a very cheap product, it was an entry-level product, too basic for the US market. And getting by the bottom of the market wasn't really successful. We ended up, at that time Luis was one of our interns in Brazil, and he was the only one that actually accepted the challenge to move to the US and try to start the business here. Still, we ended up probably spending one year and a half, two years in New Jersey with that operation, ended up not working. Then we had some, we tried through Florida, we tried different strategies, we came here so many times, but it wasn't really getting. Then we realized that our product was really, was not really set for the market, for the US market. We learned through those years a lot what the market, we really expected from a product that we could do different.

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We still haven't, we still were sticking with our strategy of getting the product really in a way you can tune through the screen and incorporate the information. So then we started designing what will become the FT500. The 500 was completely redesigned on a platform, was a big jump on the processor on the, because the previous platform was literally designed on my bedroom apartment with a very older, like 1990s technology. Then FT500 was a very up to date, 2010 technology and a very powerful processor. And for that time was so powerful, that that platform lasted for 12 years. And we actually incorporated like software updates. But at that time we ended up doing a, we tried through multiple ways to get into the market, but in 2012 we ended up meeting the guys at Proline Racing. They're very known as the domestic engine builders, and they operate race teams. And they ended up, a friend of mine from Brazil, he bought two ProMods from him. They bought to take to Brazil. When they, so he introduced us to them, and we ended up start a relationship with them. At that time we had the FT500 under development, was not released yet. So after that conversation, we shifted our project to allow us to control what they needed. Was like a 16-injector sequential features that at that time, only a few issues actually could do. So we made our product capable of doing that. And then we switched the strategies. Instead of entering by the bottom of the market, we tried to go by the top. So we developed so many specific features for drag racing. And so many very specific controls that made those cars when Proline switched over and had those cars running FuelTech to really see a difference in performance. So then, pretty much 2014, we started our, we always call it our third tentative of the FuelTech USA. And like I said, the difference between failure and success is how long you stay trying. Sometimes you just give up too early. And that's kind of the feeling we had at that time. We were giving up, but then we saw another opportunity. And then we grabbed that opportunity and put our best effort. So from 2014 to 2017, 2018, we, man, we, we developed so much. And actually since until now, but we developed so much features, so much. We went so much to the racetrack. We tried to listen to the racers. We, we, we try not just to do what they, they asked us to do, but understand their problems, understand what they actually were trying to solve and design something that made nobody else had thought of doing that way of doing. So it was more like intense of just following instructions, you know what I mean? So that was the big, when we established, let's say this, the Swaefield Tech USA.

Okay, so how many people are working for you at this time? Because Brazil is already very established at this point, correct?

Yeah, in 2000, about 2014, we had probably 25, 30 employees in Brazil. And we were solid over there, but the industry was smaller, obviously, way smaller than the US. And when we start operating from US was 2015, so 15, 16, 17, and 17, I decided to move to US. And it was a risky move because we were so established in the Brazilian market, but I felt that I would be more helpful here, and the development was way being pushed from here, and the Brazilian market was being benefited. So that 20-year gap the Brazilian had was closing, was closing because, let's say we were helping a lot, the drag race in Brazil, at that time, about 2008, the first specific drag race racetrack in Brazil was built, we were, it's like 20 miles from us, and we were very close to them, and that actually helped a lot the drag race in Brazil, because we had finally a quarter mile specific drag race strip over there. Then in about 2016, 17, we had about 30, 40 employees, and 2018, 2019, the US market really picked up quickly for us, like doubling, doubling, doubling, and then started coming around what we were be selling in Brazil, and by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020, just before COVID, we were about 100 employees in Brazil, and US sales overcome Brazilian sales. There was an important part of the history for us.

What was the big reason for the sales to pick up that much in the US.?

The market is so much larger. The difference is in the US., let's say this way, everyone can have a race car. I mean, everyone can afford to have a race car. In Brazil, the labor and cost of goods are so different, so different than a race car is really a luxury sport for very few people. So I would say the US may have a thousand times more race cars than Brazil. You know what I mean? Or more, eventually. It's that kind of a gap. So even having a small share from the US market is still bigger than 100% of the Brazilian market.

Okay.

When you made that jump from the FT400 to the FT500, so in the beginning, you're an electrical engineer, right?

Yeah.

So putting together hardware, all that stuff is good. Who's doing all of your software and code writing? In the beginning, is that you or do you have somebody that came on early on?

I had, at the beginning, early, early, early beginning, I have an original partner, that he was the software guy and I was the hardware guy. So I designed the whole hardware and I also was building, then I became the media guy, I became the sales guy, I became the tech support guy and that kind of...

When you start a business, you got a lot of hats, right?

But that first partner actually stayed only until 2005 with me. And he left, it was not easy, but it was a great thing that happened because then I hired another guy, another friend that was the same electrical engineering school or college with me. And I always joke that guy still with me today, he's one of my lead engineers. That guy actually made more money than I did for five years at least. You know what I mean? Because he was one of the most important guys in the company. At the time we developed the 500, we probably had already eight full-time engineers working on that project. And I would say we're very proud to hire great people always. And I would say one of the secrets of any successful company is really having the right people, motivation properly aligned. And that's why most of the guys that started working with me 20 plus years ago, they're still there. It's usually we hire really well and we keep them really well. Anyway, so then when we developed the 500, then when we, in 2019 jumping from, actually 2015, we entered NHRA, Pramod, we won the championship, it was a very important moment for us. 2016, the switch over from many of the domestic side, and then the import actually started looking back to us, because they kind of lost attraction for a few years, or lost interest for a few years, and then they went back after that. So it's rare, in my opinion, to see a company or a ECU worldwide that actually can supply so many different applications. So it's usually, you're very good in some application, and you're successful in that small application. Because of the South America market is different, every sport, every niche is smaller, you have to be great in everything. You know what I mean? And so we ended up, our product has always been very successful from drag racing, circuit racing, rally, and any kind of sports, streetcars or anything. But at the time, we went to the US market, we really were successful in domestic V8s or domestic Pro modes. And then we start spreading to other applications.

Okay.

So that was, when we start spreading, that's where we believe we ended up growing more.

So when you were doing development at this time, I always hear this when I talk to tuners or whatever, it seems like whoever makes all the ECU companies, it's almost like they don't even look at each other's products. Were you doing that at that time? Were you comparing yourself to others? Or were you just doing what racers wanted?

I would say the very beginning, I was always, there was the one product in Brazil available. There was another Brazilian made product from the 80s and 90s, actually. I never really touched that product, but it was not that I thought I would not learn from that, but I just felt bad copying that.

Sure, right.

You know what I mean? It's almost like I wasn't really understanding. I didn't want to look like we copied him. And that always been a thing for us. So we always try to understand what has to be done and creating. And I would say that particular decision was great, because if we will have copied that product, now I understand they had a wrong strategy of tuning. And we will be backwards, let's say. Now we ended up creating our round, which was very simplified. So I would say we're a company that... Some companies, they start developing their product top down. Let's say an OEM issue. That's like thousands and thousands of tables and controls and complexity. And some of the products that exist in the market today are based on that kind of product and scaling down simplification. But you always keep your roots, you always keep some things that is hard to really change if you start like that. We actually did the opposite. We had a product that had like four push buttons and we started adding, adding, adding, adding. So, in the end, you may come together in the level, obviously, or even different levels, but the roots are different. So that brings, that's one of the reasons why I think our product is kind of unique, because we always came from bottom to up.

So at this point, obviously, it's work, work, work, work, work. Did you start having your own cars and toys at some point? When did you start having some fun as well?

I was going to say, different than Luis, I'm not the guy that like to race to race my car. I'm the guy that likes to build and the challenge of developing something, you know what I mean? So that's why we actually complement or meet each other. But I always try to have... My first car, my second car was the car I actually started modifying, was a Chevrolet Vectra, which is actually an Opel Vectra in Brazil, a European model.

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I started always to do something, I had a second car, it was Opel Calibra, which is a front wheel drive car, also very popular in Brazil. I always used my cars as a tool to develop something, a feature or application or validate the product or really operate for many, many hours. So I always try to use that as an excuse, let's say to have those cars. So in different levels, I started since the beginning, you know what I mean? Whatever I had funds to do, let's say this way. And then in 2019, 2020, COVID came, and that was a huge challenge for everyone, right? Because some countries, they shut down, some countries stayed operating, part of the country operating. And we were very lucky to make, that we had made some good decisions, that, for example, we decided to overstock supply chips because we realized that they may be missing on the market because of the COVID. And some other competitors actually did the opposite. They slowed down, they stopped for a while. And at that time, in two years, we grew like 100 plus percent. We doubled the company. So in Brazil, we jumped from 100 employees to 200 employees in two years. And that was a tricky growth. It's really hard to keep up with that. So in US, we already, we probably have 15 employees. We jumped to 20, 25 in those two years. And in a few, after COVID was done, we didn't have space to actually sit everyone back in the office. So we had to move to another building. We had like a 7,000 square feet building. We moved to a 70,000 square feet building.

That's a big jump.

And then that was 2022, 2023. Okay.

Was this the building that got flooded?

Yeah. And 365 days later, after we moved to that building, we had a major catastrophe in Brazil, the flood. That flood was unbelievable. It's hard even to explain. Imagine two million people lost their houses. Two million people. It's not like, it's an area of a few states, of a full, completely flooded. And there was a combination of rain, never happened or happened 80 years ago, one time, and a combination of failures of the retention areas of the city, because the city sits below the lake level, and there was retention, a complete failure of everything. Then that flood stayed for 30 days.

Oh wow, I didn't know that part.

It's like six feet of water inside of the company for 30 days. Everything, literally, we lost all the wiring, we lost all the inventory, we lost all the machinery, the assembly line, because we do everything in house, everything. It's like we develop, we manufacture, we assemble, we everything in house, and everything was done. This was May of 2024. It was, I would say after going through that, I would say nothing scares me anymore. It's hard to say, but...

Well, in Brazil, there's probably... Do you have insurance?

No. I was going to say that's different.

Nobody has flood insurance.

Nobody. It is so unbelievable. I mean, imagine water six feet here, in the whole city, it's not just like this building. Nobody will ever imagine that could happen in a city like that. The city is a few times larger than Atlanta. It's like everything, everything. So anyway, we had to restart, literally restart, acquiring machinery. We ended up manufacturing our products through other industries that were not affected, that offered us the assembly line for the weekend, or for some nights, some shift nights, night shifts. And by January, we ended up being able to get our new assembly line. We got loans to do that, and pretty much was really hard. We re-established inventory, but it was an unbelievable event that we thought we would not go through. And ended up we did, obviously, we lost a lot of money. We had to have a lot of help from everyone, even donations for the employees, because from our 200 employees at that time, about 50 lost everything. Wow. And so we're 50 families. So we got donations from US, from Brazil, and we were able to cover everything they lost through donations. So it was really, really impressive also. So all those employees that got helped by us, we ended up being able even to help families, direct families from our employees that lost stuff. And then that brought them closer together even more, because they were so thankful for everything we've done to, everyone done to help each other. I would say that that event really put together a lot of people that were, I mean, a lot of people never know they could help so much or receive help so much. The whole country actually helped a lot. So we were very creative of how to overcome that. We accelerated product development, I mean, we did everything we could to, like we said, we had to compensate that some way.

Did you have a lot of active orders? Or also did you have to shut down the website and stuff for a while there? So you were down for a total of 30 days?

We had inventory in the US, enough to keep up for a couple of months. And usually we always worked with inventory. We never really had back orders.

You know what I mean?

So, but that was a problem because I had like five months worth of inventory lost. So we had to, we put the message on the website, especially in Brazil, and same people don't stop buying, but we don't know when we're going to ship. And a lot of people really did that. I also had one of my cars that I liked more was a Mazda RX-7. It was only seven in Brazil, very rare car. Mine was, I would say in the US, pricing, I would say that car was worth $150,000. It was the nicest possible restoration, a car very, very nice. And we had, we saw a lot of shirts everywhere, especially in Brazil, and we had 14,000 shirts that were damaged on the flood. And when I mean damage, we thought, okay, let's just wash and sell, that should be fine. When the first load from washer came, it was damaged, like the corner was all stained. It was holes on that because it was 30 days under very heavy chemical water. And so we ended up doing a strategy of selling those shirts with a stamp saying that shirt was saved from the flood. And who will be buying those will be helping our recover. And we will be giving away the Mazda RX-7 4. And then we also added a few other prizes, like we brought 9 people to the US for SEMA show, and traveling, we gave some of our products. So it was a big giveaway action. That was actually what helped quicker cash flow. Oh, wow. To bring, to keep running the operation. So we did that and many other different actions to recoup from that. But at the same time, we understood that the US market, although a lot of our clients were trying to help, I would say 99% doesn't care what we were going through over there. So we had to, let's say, stay up and keep working, even our company being flooded in Brazil and trying to not run out of products, what inventory we had. So it was a tough strategy, but obviously we made it.

Right. Yeah. Was this around when you had the 600 or 650 coming out?

No, we had the 600 was released in 2016.

Okay. Well, no, no, no, no.

No, the 700. Yeah. So we were already a couple of years working on the 700 project, the development platform, and that was our, this is our third big major platform change.

Yeah.

And when you do a platform change like that, it's really starting from scratch. It's not copy and pasting software. It's really different platforms, really, really different. So we started developing that in 2021.

OK.

And or 2022, maybe. And we were close enough to start pre-selling it. Then obviously the flood pushed us to start the pre-sale of the units. And that was another action that helped us to come up, to recover from the flood. So we start pre-selling that. And then we ended up start delivering it in March this year. And I was going to say that that product is such a big jump in technology because most of the modern issues, they are still like 10, 15 years older technology. And again, if you think of 15 year old iPhone, how much difference, how much apps, or what the performance difference you can run on it. So we understand that the technology, with the advent of AI and all the electronics are so important in a race car that we needed to do a big, another platform update. And that is heavy on any company because that takes, when you invest three, four years of development without selling a single unit to come up with something, it's a heavy investment. Then most of the companies are willing to do, let's say this way, especially if you have a company on a later stage of life, where eventually the owners are not so motivated or they're not even present. Eventually it's easier to keep rolling with your existing product.

Right, yeah, just keep updating it and all that, yeah.

Yeah, until you can, but obviously there is a limit. And there is a thing, so since we're like, Fueltech has 24 years old now, and I expect to have to complete in 50 years, Fueltech, so we still have another long time ago, a long time ahead to develop products and release products and that kind of stuff. But so that this big jump was necessary. And now, we consider the product literally delivered with what we expected to be, for the product to run maturely and complete right now. I mean, by the end of the year, this year now, we're actually finishing, considering the product, like on a stage that we say, okay, product's ready in terms of having everything we promised, and everything is needed. But now we see another 10 years of expansion and developing on that platform. Because now, for right now, it's like the idea was, the initial idea is just to replace the 600 with a 700, and a car that is running very well, let's say this way, and has all the features from the 600 taking care of what he needs. So the next, once we get to this stage right now, people will jump for the next stage and understand, okay, what's next? What can I do more with such a powerful hardware?

So you're obviously very big in the pro mod stuff. Do you guys plan on getting into some more street car stuff then? And do you have a pretty good like CAN bus system and stuff like that except for integrating into a car that you don't be driven around in an everyday use kind of thing or?

So the previous platform until the 600, the CAN bus wasn't customizable. So we had a few predefined CAN buses or settings like the Volkswagen DSG transmission CAN bus or some Volkswagens and jet skis for, let's say, the Yamaha, the SIDU, full integration, so completely plug and play, and a few more, but it wasn't really focused on the previous product line. So the new product line, the Vision, with the 700 and the future products that are coming with the Vision FT, we have a completely customizable CAN bus. We are already doing, I would say I'll have a, I have a, you can go either from a newer car, like a Corvette C8, that you can actually control a lot of stuff through CAN bus, and I have a FT CAN bus, which is, in the later cars all had that, and a few ECUs actually have a FT CAN bus, like we have. Also from a 1999 Mercedes that has a dashboard through CAN bus that we can supply information, so the customization of the CAN bus is exactly what we incorporated, that is very, very nice, one of the things.

Yeah, because if you're, I mean, if you put it in like a true race car, there's not a lot of need for a lot of that stuff, right?

So yeah, the newer, the later race cars are using a lot of stuff through CAN bus like PDMs or newer technology or even other products, but obviously the street market requires a lot of customization and integration with other, yeah, like the IEM electronics.

Okay, we talked a little bit about the other stuff that you have. So you said you had jet skis, you guys are doing side by sides and stuff now too. What's that market like? Is that pretty big for you guys or?

I would say the jet ski, really high horsepower jet skis is where we sit better. We do have plug and play for any jet ski. And that actually became a relevant market for us. We are getting better, stronger in circuit racing. All the advent like lap timers and tracing for circuit is something we're incorporating right now to the software or to the products. Then we go, import obviously is where we were very strong as well if you go to Orlando or even sport the World Cup finals in Maryland. We feel we have a good, one of the largest market share of this racing scenes.

And I'm sorry, did you guys do side by side stuff? Yeah.

We do have like a play and play for the Canams, the X3, the Polaris and some of them.

And I know that Yamaha, their engines are pretty similar across all of their platforms.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was going to ask, because when we were at Ball Ground, we got to check out some of the cars that you have over there. Sorry, the red car, what was that car again?

Opel, the Chevrolet Opala.

Yeah. So you said that was your second car or?

No, no.

Or is that different?

My second, I have a few cars in Brazil and a few cars here. That Opala is actually a friend, one of my friends that a few years ago, I told publicly that I would like to buy one of those and bring over here, because nobody, I mean, the US never seen an Opala, and that car is very important in Brazilian car scene. So one of my best friends said, okay, take any of my cars, he has like five, six of those. And then I took one of these and I used like, it would be mine. But my first car is like a, is a Chevy or the second car was Chevy Vectra. It's a more like a sedan, like a Cavalier from the 90s. And those cars I have in Brazil. I think I have like 12 cars in Brazil and about 10 here, something like that.

Okay.

Oh wow.

Okay, cause like Luis was telling us, you kind of like those like movie cars. So how did the DeLorean end up?

Yeah, if you run out of room and you need to get rid of the DeLorean, I'm open.

No, that's likely. I have a problem selling any of my cars.

I had the same problem.

The DeLorean was obviously, I have a bucket list of cars that I want to complete and always trying to find a DeLorean. It's not really hard to find. Right. It's more to have motivation to do something. Cause the stock engine sucks and really doesn't really perform any like it should. So I ended up buying that car in January of 24. And it was sitting without engine transmission, 25 minutes from my house. I bought a car. I had already a Maserati engine sitting in the shop. That I thought it would be a good fit for the car. So I bought a Porsche transmission like a 997.

Okay.

Which is the DeLorean community already have some mounts for those transmissions. And it's a typical swap when you need more reliability. Then I started manufacturing or making the adapter plate to fit the transmission to the engine. Well, like K&W suspension, wheel-wood brakes, I started updating, I restarted the frame, pretty much bought a lot of DeLorean parts to fix the car, because the car was not really in great shape. And when the car was actually getting closer to be finished, I was like, man, this car is getting so nice. It would be nicer to have a Ferrari engine instead of the Maserati engine, which was made by Ferrari, but it's not a flat-plane crank, it's a cross-plane crank, the Maserati engine. But everything else is the same, the bolt button, everything, size. So I was scrolling through eBay, and I thought in buying a crank shaft from Ferrari and change the camshafts and really make it a flat-plane out of a Maserati engine. Then the crank shafts were like $4,000 and that kind of price level. And the Ferrari engines, complete Ferrari engines were like $27,000, $30,000. And I was like, then I ended up finding one engine for $12,000. And I made an offer on eBay, the guy accepted $10,000, I got the engine.

Okay, not bad.

Then I ended up switching to the Ferrari. But then I had a big challenge because that engine is direct injection. And at that time we were not really done doing any direct injection controls with the FuelTech. And obviously nobody would be stupid enough to bring all the Ferrari electronics into a DeLorean. That would be bringing the bad part of the platform. So then it pushed myself to actually develop the DI control, the direct injection control. And I'll be honest, I had a wrong impression that it would be harder. And we were very lucky to do certain decisions on the development aspect. And I'll tell you something, that is also another example of, if you base too much on OEM, on OEM, sometimes you overcomplicate stuff.

Okay.

And DI, if you talk to any OEM engineer that developed application of DI, which I talked to a few, they all have a vision overcomplicated for some perception. I'm not saying for DI, OEM, it's needed, because you have stratified injection, you have a lot of details. Then we thought, man, why don't we just do the basics? Let's first control the injector, then we control the pump. And if we have some stabilizer, then we were struggling to get the DI pressure, the high pressure control, stable enough, because it was oscillating like 30 psi, up and down on a 2000 range, and we're not happy with that. And then we're like, man, it needs to be better, it needs to be better, it needs to be better. Then we ended up doing some more research, we saw OE actually spikes 100 psi. And we're way better than OE in that perspective. So, ended up everything working really well. The car started running very nicely, but last year, since I bought the car in January, last year I wanted to have the car finish for SEMA show. So, ended up that we missed it for a few weeks to have the car finish. So we took to SEMA show 2024. Also was the year of the flood, so obviously everything was behind for us. But then a lot of people saw that it was missing, shafts, no wiring harness, and a lot of people actually said, this is a typical SEMA show, and not even drive shafts or the shafts. And then we ended up, we took the car back in November from SEMA, worked in December and January, the car was running this year. And along this year, I drove the car a lot, not say it as a daily, but I drive it very often, too often maybe. And then when this SEMA show came up 2025, I had a few friends that were doing a trip from Brazil, driving all the way from Brazil, a Chevy Caravan, which is the wagon version of the Opala. It's a nice car. And they were driving from Brazil, but they ended up getting delayed, so they had to ship the car from Brazil to Miami. And they start driving from Miami, and then they stopped by our place.

Okay.

And then I was literally in Brazil, actually in a podcast, and on a Monday night, they called the host of the podcast because they had agreed before, and invited me to drive the DeLorean all the way to Vegas.

Okay.

The car never really drove more than 40 minutes.

Yeah.

In the same trip. And then I was like, man, it's really hard. I'm still in Brazil. I need to fly to US., sit in the car and drive three, four days straight in a car that I don't believe, I'm not sure if it's going to be reliable enough for that. And then I tried, my idea was to get out of that. I was like, okay, I invited the host of the podcast, which lives in Brazil and is a good friend, say, okay, if you go, I will go. And then the guy is like, oh no. When we finished the podcast, he called his wife and I called my wife and we were like, man, let's do it. And what could possibly go wrong? And then we ended up, I went to US. I arrived like at 7 a.m. in Atlanta, drove back home, confirmed I was still married, talked to my wife and kids for a few minutes and left and went straight and raining. And then we drove 2000 miles and we was in a group of about seven cars. And one of my guys actually, we decided to took a truck and trailer because we- Just in case. Just in case, right? It would not be good to call a bed over there.

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.

But my guys on the shop, they all had a bet that I will not stay more than 200 miles driving the car. That's how you will probably put it in the trailer.

A lot of people lost that bet, huh?

Yeah, everyone. And then it happened that I drove all the way, and we made it 2,000 miles in three days, zero problems, zero issues. It was even a cool proof that the product, the FT700, the DI, even the platform, because you always think that a Ferrari engine is not reliable. But in reality, if you have modern electronics, those cars can be, you know what I mean? The engines are really good. So I ended up doing a great trip, had a lot of fun, catch a lot of attention and got in Vegas.

It's kind of funny that you took two unreliable things, the DeLorean and the Ferrari, and you put them together and made them something reliable.

Yeah, but I'll tell you something, the Ferrari engines from the 2010s and up, they are completely different engines. If you take, even I have a 355 as well, Okay. 1998, which I made a single big turbo, and before doing that, I actually took apart a rod and checked the rods, the pistons, how, and I bought another one, not for my engine, but the engine is built, it's amazing. I mean, all the internals, the pump, the oil pump is fantastic. Everything is, the heads, cams, everything is like super lightweight, it's super nicely done. My, the engine, the Ferrari engine has 90,000 miles. Oh, wow.

Really?

When I bought it, that's why it was so cheaper.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And then who would think like a 90,000 man? And I just dyno this week, last week, and it made 440 wheel horsepower, revving 9,000 RPM.

Wow.

And it's unbelievable. It's amazing car.

Did you crack it open at all, or did you just slam it in? Yeah.

I just.

Put it right in. Yeah.

Yeah.

I was going to say, two of my favorite parts about that car, first of all, the 700, the dash is the coolest thing ever. But also, you took the wheels and it's like, is it like the, those are like, that's be like, what, 325s? Like that's a big wheel you have on there.

No, it's actually, it's, no, it's a, so I did, I ordered custom wheels. I just told the guys that I want, it's like the guys at Pure Wheels out of Florida. I told them I want the same design, two inch bigger, one inch wider, and the most concave you can make the back. I just gave them this prompt, let's say this way. And then they designed those wheels. And that will obviously, we found the right offset. And, but it's, I think it's a 265 or 275 in the back.

It looks amazing. That was one of my favorite parts.

I would say there's no better wheel for a DeLorean, because you, if you try to fit any other wheel, it always look like cheap or, or it's hard to...

Yeah, you don't want to put TE37s on there?

Yeah, it's a, it doesn't match. That car has to have that particular wheel. But obviously there's 14 inch and 15 inches too small for nowadays look, right? So it's a 16 and 17.

Well, you obviously have a wide collection with a lot of variety, right? Is there any brand that you, because like, correct me if I'm wrong, Brazil's big on like GM and Volkswagen, right?

Yes. Number one and two. Yeah.

So do you lean one way? Did you, were you a fan of anything?

When I was younger, it was literally like either you were GM or you were Volkswagen. And those were the ones racing each other. It was like tribes, different tribes. And since my first car or second car was a Chevrolet, I went from GM. So if I would pick one brand, it's Chevrolet. Sure. But I have Volkswagen's.

Sure.

I have a few of them.

I saw you have that electric one too, right?

I have an electric Volkswagen we converted. That car was a cool project because we got like a 1994 or 1992 Golf, which is a Brazilian version of the Golf. Yep. And that is the most iconic Brazilian sports car, the GTI. And we built what will be Volkswagen, who had made that electric in the 90s with 2020s technology. And so we put a 200 horsepower electric motor, and we kept the stick shift. We ended up locking in third gear, because it's so powerful, it spins the tires at any gear that there was enough. But that car is a Volkswagen. I had another, a Beetle, and also electric, a Volkswagen 73. And I'm building one of my nicest, the one that I like a lot, is a Volkswagen Savelo, which is a small truck, it's like a gold truck version, which is very, very small. And one of the cars I regret selling in my life ever was an Audi RS2 Porsche. That RS2, that car had only 1500 made in the world. Go search for that car later, because that car is so unique. It was the first RS from Audi, 1995. That car was worth, at that time, when I had it in 2010, $15,000 if you convert from US, now it's worth $150,000. And if you look in the US, there's a few of them, it's very, very valuable. But anyway, so that car had a 5-cylinder inline engine, 20 valves, turbo, all-wheel drive, it's super nice from 1995, 315hp. So I did a complete swap of that engine and transmission into my Savero, the truck. So I built a Volkswagen, I call it Savero RS2, to do that. It's like all-wheel drive. I did a burnout the other day, where we hooked up the car and did a all-wheel drive burnout, like a lot of smoke in that car.

It's probably making a little bit more power in the stock too.

Yeah, like 900 now.

Holy s***!

In that little car. The car probably weighs probably what? 2,500 pounds?

No, it's 2,100.

2,100 pounds?

2,100 pounds. That's impressive, that car is impressive. I have another cool project, Volkswagen, on Audi related. It's an Audi S2, 1991. Coupe, with a Bentley W12 engine, twin turbo, manual transmission, all wheel drive.

Oh my God.

That car is being finished.

And what car was that going in?

Audi S2.

Okay.

It's the Audi 80.

Okay.

The S2 version.

Yeah.

And a coupe.

What made you want to do the W12, though?

Because the same place I bought the Ferrari engine. I ended up looking at their inventory.

Oh no, that's a bad idea.

And found out they had those W12s, which is the two VR6s from Volkswagen. I had $3,000. I was like, man, I just saw I bought on an impulse. I was like, oh yeah, let me buy this. I will figure where I will fit that car. Then a few months later, I ended up finding this Audi. Because that Audi is a 5-cylinder and the VR6 is shorter than the 5, actually. So the W12 is the same length, but obviously it's super wide, but it fit. I put the twin turbos on top and it's being built.

I was going a lot through your channel when I was doing the highlights, when I did my episode of Luis, so like I said, I'm so happy that YouTube has Translate as well, because I don't know Portuguese, so I sent it to Translate. It was actually pretty good. I was watching some of the videos and researching it back then, but so other projects wise, are you doing anything else in the future here? Are you doing a break?

I have a very nice, I mean, some cars like my daily is a BMW M5, the V10, the E60.

Oh yeah, yep.

I put like some headers. I also daily a lot Mercedes 1999 SL600, which is the V12, the M120 from Mercedes, which is the same platform Pagani Zonda uses. So we did a nice header, that sounds like a Formula 1 car.

Wow.

Even being a convertible said from Mercedes. I have a nice Supra, MK4, Supra with 2JZ billet block, dry sump, it's a 79 mm turbo, makes 1000 wheel. And I had a 10-speed transmission on the car from the Camaro. The 10L90 transmission, that car is a right hand drive, that car I love, I drive it a lot. I also have the Opala in the US here, and I have a nice project, the hardest ever I have ever done, and it's not finished, it's a 1986 Mercedes 190E, Cosworth, the one, I bought a body kit from like the Evo 2, and I'm doing a car that is a tribute to Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian Formula One driver, that was the first car he raced.

Was that the one also at the warehouse?

Yes, it was at the warehouse. A black one with the gold stripes. I also have the Ferrari 355 in Brazil, I shipped to Brazil to actually do the restoration over there, and it's coming back. Do you have an idea that restorations in Brazil is a great idea to do? Because the Brazilian restoration shops are so good, are so good. And the price with the exchange rate is a fraction of the cost in the US, and they can do a car like in a full restoration body of everything in one year, which is really hard to accomplish. And shipping the car over there is $12,000 or $15,000 back and forth. So it's not that...

It still ends up being cheaper in the long run?

It's way cheaper and way quicker than doing it in the US, unfortunately. And so I ship it to the Ferrari to Brazil, doing a full restoration. Because that Ferrari I bought, like a very cheap Ferrari, it's like $30,000. I even ended up fighting with Ed Bullion from Vinwiki because he was trying to buy that car and I was trying to buy the car at the same time. He was trying to buy for a show, he would be destroying the car. And the old man that was selling the car ended up selling to me because everyone else trying to buy the car was like too aggressive and he was the nicest guy according to him trying to buy the car. But the car was a front accident, front clip replacement and had like a bad history. But I ended up fixing the engine in turbo, Fueltech, nice wheels, nice brakes and the car became so nice that I had to do restoration and rebuild the front end and everything. So the car is being finished now in a couple of months. And in Brazil I also have a 1972 Cuda, a Plymouth Cuda, which is...

That's probably pretty rare in Brazil, huh?

Yeah, very rare, but I built the car here with a big blower outside of the hood, it's a green color, and that car is super nice, I ship it as well to do a full restoration as well. And that's kind of... And when I ship the cars over there, they usually stay about four or five years, because then I not only do the restoration, but I go to some events and I actually benefit from that as well, and then ship the car back here. So should be shipping the Audi and Supra and maybe the DeLorean in a few as well.

Are you doing any hands-on stuff with these two? Or are you getting in there and wrenching on this stuff too?

I'm more like the electronics guy.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm more like the mechanical guy. Sure. The mechanics and I love to stay weekend sometimes overnight. Like the other car I have here is the Corvette C8. Oh yeah. My red one that I was the first to run eight seconds in a quarter mile. So nobody would take that title from me. And everybody was saying that car was untunable. That was my, okay, I will make this. So I was one of the first to make a thousand horsepower plus, to run eight miles the first. And that car, I broke four engines or three engines, nine transmissions. And, but we developed a lot on that car. Sure. We developed a lot. And now we're actually, that car is on the FT700 and now we're actually taking over everything. So that will be the big step. But that car, for example, man, I spent countless weekends or nights by myself at the shop with the oscilloscope and on the car, on the dyno. It was one very sad moment on a Monday or a Sunday morning or a Saturday night. I was working really, almost getting the full control on the transmission because I was trying to get the eight second pass. And I could not make it work. I went home at midnight and I gave up. And the next morning I woke up and I know I was doing wrong. And I was like, man, I need to go there. I had my wife asking me, can you go buy food for lunch? And I said, okay, take the kids with you. I took the kids with me and I drove by the shop. I had the kids waiting on the car. And I went to the Corvette, it was actually bought on the dyno, on the hub dyno, because I was testing. And I loaded up the adjustments, fixing what I thought. I ran the car, was idling, and the next weekend was the race that I wanted to really... The next weekend was the actual 06 release. And I knew GM was going to do a big thing about that. And I really wanted to be 8 seconds before that. Or the following week and something like that. And then I run the car, idle the car, as soon as I put in gear, it split the transmission in half. I made another mistake, set it up something wrong and engaged both clutches on the dual clutch transmission at the same time and split the transmission in half. Man, I'll say that was one of the saddest days of my life. I was like, I didn't told anybody. I shut the car off, cleaned the mess and went back home. I told my wife I needed some time off, I needed to sleep. And I was like, man, I can't believe I broke up, I broke this and it was so hard. Then the next morning the guys arrived at the shop and they saw the car broke on the dyno and I didn't tell anybody. They said, man, let's buy another transmission and just reverse back what you had. They said, man, how can we find another transmission right now? It was 2021 or something like that. And then anyway, we ended up buying a transmission, we drove like five hours to get the transmission, put the transmission back, then we took the car to Orlando that weekend. And then I ran 906, 904, 907, 903, and eight seconds never came. Then we ended up, in the first pass actually we figured the VVT didn't work, then I realized the oil pressure was down, then we realized we missed four quarts of oil on the engine. And then we were like, oh, we're done. And then I was like, man, we need to do this weekend, we need to do this weekend. So I ended up walking through the pits, found like a Liqui Moly booth and they had some additives, I never really was a big fan of that kind of stuff. I was like, man, give me whatever you want, I put the additives, change the oil, put the right level, and then we're still running. I was like, man, maybe the engine was not damaged. And then we ended up running at the 8 second pass on that night, 897. And it was like 20,000 people on the stands, it was one of the most important moments for me. And I called my wife after that, it was really, really cool. And then, man, we did it, we left the race. The next weekend, I was at a big cafe in Octane, big car show in Atlanta. I drove the car one hour to the show, stay over there, drove the car back, and then the next day I was like, oh, okay, maybe let's pull the engine here and make sure everything's fine. When I pulled the engine, the crankshaft was blue. The rods were blue. It was like the rod bearings were like flipped. And was, I don't even know how the engine was even running. I was like, unbelievable, unbelievable. So after that, I became a big fan of that additive.

Yeah, I bet.

But anyway, so then, in that car, after that, I gave the car like a couple of years of break. I was like, okay, eight seconds is enough for now. And now I'm back, actually, to that project, to try to run the seven seconds now. Oh, wow. That's the goal.

Good, the CH needs some help, man. Yeah, there's people are trying to crack that nut in this.

Yeah, after that, HP tuners cracked the ECU and now it's way easier to do the tuning on the engine side, but still no solution for the transmission. So that's where we were focusing on. Okay.

Are you guys able to do anything with the transmission yet then?

Yeah, I mean, I was, I think I was the first to actually do the piggyback with the pressures, clutch pressures, and I done something more aggressive that I was, to have an idea, the OEM pressure on the clutch was like 14 bar, 12 and 14 bar. When I run 8 seconds, I had like 19 and 21 bar. And after that or before, when I was trying something different, I went to 27 and 29 bar clutch pressure, but then it was too risky and damage the transmission, which happened. But now, now we're not, we're out working on controlling the clutch pressures and pretty much taking over everything. Okay.

Where's this? So you were talking about, you've got a couple electric swaps that you've done. One of them I really like is, I'm a Ford guy, so I like you have a 93 Cobra. Yeah. Where'd the affinity for that come from?

Especially in a world where that's kind of a, you know, a subject like you saw, I'm not one brand guy or one kind of application. I have Roderys V8, V10, V6, I mean, I love all the forms of cars. You know what I mean? I also had a Tesla, a Blatt, which nobody can disagree, that's fastest. It's unbelievable how fast those cars are. And my wife has a Rivian, the electric, the ROS1, the Quad, there's also a thousand horsepower, it's crazy, those cars. But anyway, so we all, obviously there's no, I don't believe it's going to take over like some people expected a few years ago. But at the same time, there is no, this is a platform that will grow, it will stay. At the same time we will like cars, sometimes you can find a middle ground, so that's why we decided to do the Mustang, to convert the 93 Mustang into electric, but keeping the stick shift, the manual transmission, so try to keep some of the feeling of having a vintage car. And at the same time, for us as a challenge, as a company, the ECU is the same to control a gasoline engine or electric engine motor. It still have throttle, pedal, still have wheel speed, we still have cooling system, we still have traction control, we still have range control, let's say some way, you still have, the electronics are similar. So we were halfway of controlling an electric vehicle. So we ended up deciding to, and that's one of the things we always do, we use an excuse of developing something, and the passion to do that, to actually accomplish that. So the Mustang as well, the other cars were a project to develop our products for those applications. And even not being something very popular, we do sell a lot for EVs.

Oh really?

Yeah, that's another market we actually do very well. What I mean very well is it doesn't compare volumes to regular applications, but in that industry, for example, even in Brazil, we have over 200 buses using our products on commercial transportation, for example. They are diesel engine buses converted to electric and they need a brain to control that and we've been supplying that. So that's one application that came from this work.

Yeah, that's cool. I mean, there's a lot of torque there, right? That's kind of seems like a good race car.

And by the way, we haven't been able to drive it too much because every time we step on, it breaks the shaft to the clutch, the shaft to the flywheel, actually. And we're actually redesigning that a couple of times to see if it will stay.

That's awesome.

So as we kind of start to wind down here, first of all, I could talk all day, but obviously we want to get back to the show and keep you on schedule. But over the last few years, besides the flood and COVID, of course, was there anything difficult in like that 2010 to 2020 period? Or was it just kind of go, go, go? Like, were you guys able to grow without much issue?

No, like I said, we failed three times on the establishment of the FuelTech USA or the operation here. We ran out of money a couple of times with that because it ended up costing a lot of money for us, so we had to scale down and the weight. Fortunately, we were able to turn around and the South American market was always strong for us, pretty much paying for the cost of us trying to do here. We never had an investor in terms of some companies actually have like private equity or that kind of stuff. We always thought that it would be a benefit not having because we can actually have full control. So 2010, 12, 13, 9, 10, 12, the failures on the US. Then there was some crisis around, political and economical crisis that is also a challenge to deal. We're facing one right now, which is the tariffs being applied for imported products. So fortunately, we were the manufacturers for the products and we can actually work around that some, but it's obviously not easy, not a good news. It's affecting heavily our operation, let's say this way. But on top of that, every product release or development is a challenge, you know what I mean? It's also coming out with a new race car out of nowhere, that you have to figure bugs and improve and develop and promote and keep up. But at the same time, for example, right now is one of the hardest economical crisis happening in Brazil and political crisis related. But we see that as an opportunity. So, for example, that home track for us, VeloPark, the racetrack that was built in 2008, that operated for 18 years and we were the main sponsors for the racetrack. It was really important for us and by an amazing co-incidence of factors or planet alignments, let's say this way, this year they decided to sell the track, the racetrack. And I wasn't really considering we could actually get involved on that until we realized that that could end up going for another application, it's like going for a warehouse or something, and we lose a racetrack in Brazil. But remember, Brazil only have two racetracks, Drag Racing. So if you lose one, it's half of the market gone. So that catch our attention, and we started working really hard to try to fund, be able to fund or finding eventually an investor to buy the racetrack, and ended up doing, happening that we ended up buying, we bought the racetrack ourselves without any external investor. We ended up doing a very good negotiation with the owner, the family that owned that racetrack. And we were the only buyer that would actually continue the legacy they wanted as well. So it's a, we built some name and reputation that gave us the credibility to actually sit on the table with them and be able to seal the deal. So we ended up buying the racetrack, which is an insane move for them.

I don't know of any other ECU company that owns a racetrack.

It's not just any racetrack, it's like a circuit racetrack, a drag strip. It's a very complete racetrack, it's not just a strip. It has like closed pits, garage. It has like a very nice structure. And we ended up...

What's the name of it?

Velo Park.

Velo Park?

Yeah.

Okay.

Velo Park in Brazil. It's 20 miles from our headquarters.

Yeah.

So it's literally the home track. And so we actually took possession this previous weekend.

Okay.

So they gave us...

Congratulations.

Yeah, we got the keys for the property.

Oh yeah, you got go-karts and stuff there too.

Yeah.

That's awesome. We're gonna go there then. Yeah.

The go-kart facility actually was split from the place and sold for the operator that was doing that. And we got the racetrack and we got another 20 acres of land. Oh yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, we got another 20 acres of land for future expansion for...

Oh, nice.

More stuff, so we're very excited.

Yeah.

And that was also for us, for product development, testing, marketing is so beneficial.

How far is the other track from your headquarters?

Brazil is a large country, right? It's a thousand miles away.

Okay.

So ours is in the south, southeast of Brazil. But the benefit is we get all South America countries, like believe it or not, every race, like this weekend, we had 240 race cars over there. About 40 of them came from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, all the neighbor countries. And they travel like a thousand miles to race there, because there's no other racetrack like that. And then the other one is in São Paulo, which is a great friend of us, Sidney Friggo, he races NHRA Promo as well in the US. And he owns that other racetrack. So there are only those two that really have professional racing.

Is that one only drag or is that also...

His is only drag. Yes. And ours is like circuit racing.

Yeah, you kind of got a little bit of everything there. Yeah.

Man, the racetrack is 50 weekends of a year busy. And it's an operation. It's not really a profitable business. Especially if you take in consideration the cost of building. But there are so many side effects that we can benefit from that. Because even if the racetrack operation makes even, we're still making money through the products and people racing and buying that kind of stuff. So, awesome.

I want to go drive on it.

Yeah. Should we pop the usual three?

Yeah.

Unfortunately.

All right. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver, and a show car. You have an unlimited budget, you're a guy who likes to swap some stuff, you can swap, build whatever you want. It's going to be hard for a guy who's got 20 some cars.

I will pick from mine because I'm the kind of guy, I don't feel good spending $500,000 on one car. I'd rather spend that on 10 cars.

I'm the same way.

It's not about money, it's about what actually brings me back. I would say the show car, the DeLorean, even though that car can drive all across country, the DeLorean with the Ferrari engine. The daily, believe it or not, I really love my BMW, the M5. It's a great daily, I don't care how much miles per gallon it makes. It sounds great, it has space and it's a cool car. And the track car, track car would be something like, I would say more like, there's many. I would like something vintage, something like a DTM from the 90s, you know what I mean? I would build something like the Mercedes or Opel Calibra, which is very strong on me. Those cars from the 90s, 95s, where DTM had a very strong competition in Germany. And I would actually build a race car similar to that, or one of those cars if they ever exist. Yeah, they still exist.

Well, that's awesome.

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

Social media, Anderson Dick, and Instagram, YouTube, and my YouTube channel, Luis just started his YouTube channel.

Did he?

Yeah, in English now.

Yeah.

So, but I do make like weekly videos on Saturday morning, 8 a.m. or 6 a.m. here sometimes.

Sure.

And to pretty much share of some of my projects or some of these passions, it's like something not directly related to FuelTech, but ends up everything obviously has a...

Yeah, I noticed that when I was going through, I watched a lot of videos. So I was going through, when I was researching, I was like, it wasn't like a FuelTech channel, it was like an Anderson Dick channel. It was really cool.

Yeah, we thought because... And that actually was a successful strategy, especially in Brazil, where it's easier to connect because of the language, obviously. But even in the US, I got recognized by the projects and a lot of people don't... when they see the CEO and the owner of the company really passionate about what we do, that feels that it makes connection better. And I think people understand that that is a company for purpose. So in the end, it's about who is behind the brands. That's how you gauge how, I mean, usually how successful a company will be. If you try just to run a company by the numbers, it's usually not long-term successful.

Yeah.

Well, Anderson, thank you very much for coming on the show. I'm glad we got to finally meet, this is fun. Dan, thanks for existing and we will see you all next time.

Thank you.