43. GridLife, Autocross, Evo’s and Racetracks w/ Piero Pucci AKA ”ThatOneEvo8”

I am way too caffeinated right now. All right. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast for episode 43. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my co-host, who also has many automotive aspirations. How you doing, my uncaffeinated co-host?

There's no way I can never aspire to be as great as you. You have, when you come up to me and you're talking to me, I'm like, whoa, dude, like chill. I just want to do like the bare minimum to get by here.

Well, you're succeeding in that.

All right, well, my name is Sean. I drive a orange BMW 1M and a blue Durango Hellcat. That's my daddy wagon. And this is the Minnoxide podcast, where we take you beyond the meat and introduce you to some of the people that make our community so great.

And today, somebody who makes our community so great, Mr. RoadCourse, Autocross, Mr., I don't know what to call you. You're just on the track more than anything else. And funny enough, we had a discussion about this a few weeks ago. Not all show cars are race cars, but all race cars are show cars. And I think you fit the bill on that because I love your Evo. It is a beautiful car. So we'll talk about that again. But Piero's an OG, dude. What was it, episode five, I think?

Four.

Four.

Yeah, we were just talking about that.

Yeah, so you were a third ever guest. So now that we are, you know, damn near, what, 40 episodes later, we had to get you back on here, especially since it's later in the, yeah, it was in the winter when we were recording with him. Oh my God, so you just had a whole track season, because like your last event's next week, right?

Yeah, yeah. My last Autocross for the season, yep.

So tell us a little bit, I don't know. I feel like I want to talk a little bit about that BRZ. Is that BRZ or an FRS?

FRS.

FRS, because-

I'm not that rich to own a BRZ.

Is there a price difference in them? Yeah, the badge is more expensive. Actually, no, I remember like a few years ago, one of them was like a higher premium, I think.

I think the BRZ is a higher trim.

Was it?

Is that the Toyota?

Well, the Toyota is, once they closed Scion, so it just turned out to be the 86, no more FRSs. So once the FRS was out, the 86 came in.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, so that thing has a full blown freaking race seat in there, is that, by the way, do you buy knockoff parts?

No.

No, you buy all the legit sparko stuff. Like you actually care about safety?

Oh yeah, I mean, once your life is on the line, yeah, I do. Yeah. I mean, it's how much you're worth, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, I don't buy knockoff stuff.

Did you watch the Donut Media High Low episode about it?

Oh yeah, all of them.

Yeah. So it's like, you kind of know what's up.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you don't do anything sketchy. So which car have you been tracking more this year? Still the Evo?

No, the Evo has been in the back burner because we had issues blowing up turbos. So I blew three turbos this year again. So just put it in the back and then just not worry about it, figure out what was the problem. We kind of figured what the problem was, but until we test and everything, don't know. So I've just been tracking that for us. So much cheaper to do it than the Evo anyways.

Do you, so do you do the same track events just in a different class then?

Yep. So the Evo used to be in street mod and disc cars and Club TR with GridLife.

Okay. And then what kind of, so is the FRS tuned at all?

Yeah. So since last time we spoke on the podcast, it got an engine swap.

Okay.

So it got the FA24 out of the 2023 BRZ.

Oh, okay.

Instead of the FA20 that they usually come with. So it picked up 55 horse, which is a lot.

For a little car like that, that's a lot.

And 30 foot pounds of torque.

Yeah. What is that? That's like 25% increase in power.

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous how much power that little thing made.

What's the difference between the street mod and you said club TR?

Yeah.

So I remember street mod, that would be like, you know, full modifications. You got wings, you got aero bits up the wazoo on that thing. And you got, you know, upgraded engine components.

So street mod, they allow you to have a wing, no bigger than the width of the car. A splitter that's no longer five inches from the bumper. You're allowed to have a built engine or mix match engines. As much boost as you want, but you're restricted to 200 trailer tires. All wheel drive cannot have more than a 255 tire. Red wheel drive, no more than a 285. So there's still things that you have to keep, like carpet and all this stuff, radios. So the car stays in street mode.

Okay.

Real quick, pull the mic just a little bit towards you. There we go. Less editing for me.

And then the Club TR?

Club TR is more like the easier on budget to get in. So it's like, you can have a car that is no bigger than a 2.5 liter NA. You can have more than a 1.6 liter turbo. If you have a turbo car, you can up the boost. E85 is allowed. No interior. No more than three inches on splitter. Wing cannot be bigger than a certain size. It has to be like 69 or 70 something inches. Yeah, so it's very competitive. A lot of K-Swap cars, Civics, FRSs with a K-Swap, FA24s now, S2000. So there's a lot of cars there.

I was going to say, so what do you normally see in these classes?

There's a lot of BRZs, FRSs that are K-Swap, Civics that are K-Swap, FA24s, and S2000s with K-Series. So that's...

So it's just anything that you can put a Honda K-Series.

Pretty much, yeah. We try something different with our Smotrs. Yeah. To compete with a K-Series, because a K-Swap in our cars is like $17,000. And that doesn't make it budget-friendly anymore.

Yeah, what?

Yeah, it's the K-Swap, the K-Power kit is like 11 grand without an engine, without wiring, without tune. It's ridiculous.

Oh my gosh. So, I mean, so it was supposed to be a budget-friendly class.

Oh, it's not budget-friendly anymore.

Yeah. And then people just took it to a whole nother level because they're way too competitive. And once you do that, people have to shell out money to stay competitive. So what was originally the purpose of the class? Was it obviously for smaller engines? So it was like older Hondas or what?

Well, the idea for this is that it was supposed to be budget-friendly compared to anything else. But it was like a step down from... GridLife has something called GridLife Touring Cup, which is the Wheel of Wheel series. And these cars are pretty much ready for GLTC Wheel of Wheel, but you need a cage. So once you put a cage and fire system, a fire suppression system, then you can just go race in GLTC, which is what I'm planning to do.

Okay.

So that's when you're racing against other people on track?

Correct, yeah.

Oh, that's gonna be sick.

Wheel to wheel.

Yeah, I figured it was wheel to wheel. I just want to confirm for those of us that are a little slow, Sean, some of us are a little slow. Yeah, so that's freaking sweet, dude. So you've basically just been building the heck out of the FRS then. Damn it, I lost the question. I had a question earlier what I was gonna ask. The heck was it? I'm losing it today.

Drink more Jocko.

I know, dude, I think my brain's going a little too fast with this Jocko today, because this is my second one.

Yeah, okay, maybe slow down on the Jocko.

You mean drink more?

Slow down, no, slow.

That's what they say at parties, right?

Break, break, break.

This is good.

Yeah, I told you.

No, that's what they say at parties, though. It's like, oh, if you're not feeling the coke, do more. I think that's what they say, right?

No, I think it means you got a bad batch. You're just snorting baking soda at that point.

Oh my God, yeah, you got to test everything nowadays. Oh, that's what I was going to ask. Oh my God, it finally came back to me. So you basically have to know all these rules then. You had to be on top. So like...

Well, there's a rule book that you can look it up.

Did they all follow from the same general rule book then?

Yeah, we all have the same rule book, which is pretty interesting because it makes it so competitive.

So what happens if you don't adhere to the rule then? You just get disqualified?

Yeah, you get put in a different class pretty much.

Oh, so you get put in a different class. You won't get disqualified, you just get put in a different class then.

Yeah, there's a class for everybody.

But I mean, think about it.

There's a class for me, I'll tell you about that.

There's 200 horsepower cars. If my car, because it has aero, it cannot go to street class. It has to go to street mod. And I'm competing against people making 700 horsepower. Like, what's my little car going to do?

Exactly.

You get walked on straights.

Yeah, well, especially if it's, you know, road course, like it's not as easy as, I shouldn't say it's easy, but like Autocross, you can get away with...

Low power.

Yeah, less is more.

Yeah, I guess, because you even tuned down your Evo, right? At one point.

Oh yeah, now it's making 330 horsepower.

And it was making what, 400 something horsepower? 510? That's a lot in that little car, dude.

Yeah, that car was ripper.

I really wish I could talk details about a certain Evo right now, but I'll have to say it off camera, but...

I kind of know what kind of car you're talking about.

You know who I'm talking about. Cause like, so how much do you talk to Ronnie at RS Motors?

I was just there yesterday.

Yeah, so you know what I'm talking about then?

Yeah. So I'm talking about a certain Evo that just came. Yeah.

That thing is going to be fast, dude.

I already know how much power it made.

Yeah, I know.

I can't say, but yeah.

Oh, the new power? The new power, like the retune?

Okay, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. So I can only imagine how the listeners feel right now. They're like, shut up.

No, no, no, the listeners will have to wait for the next episode.

The listeners will know, I think. By the time this drops, I think the announcement will be made. I hope. I can't talk any further about it, but so.

Oh my gosh. So I want to know what's the new budget-friendly class then if this one now has a $17,000 price tag on top of the vehicle.

Now it's a class that everybody loves, is the Honda Fit, the Sunday Cup. Yeah.

We saw a couple Honda Fits running at Road America last weekend.

Best freaking budget-friendly car.

Why? Why is it so awesome? We saw a lot of them.

You make 90 horse. What are you going to break? You're not going to break an axle or a transmission.

I get it. You know, it's the whole less is more and it kind of just helps you build on your driver skills more than relying on the vehicle itself.

So last weekend when I was in Harland, the Honda Fits first to sixth place, were all divided by two tenths of a second. The sixth cars in two tenths of a second. That's ridiculous.

Oh, that's tight.

Wow.

Yeah, like from first to sixth was two tenths of a second.

That is freaking crazy. Like I'm sure you saw it on my face. Like it was really delayed. Like I took a sip and I'm like, did you just say two tenths? Like that's tight. Even if you get into like fast cars, like Formula One, like a grid of two tenths, like that's...

Yeah. I can't imagine making it in a car that makes 90 horsepower.

So are all those guys just equally like skilled?

Yeah, pretty much. The cars are the same.

Right.

But the cool part about it is like every event, there's somebody else that won, you know?

Right.

So it's pretty cool. I like Sunday Cup. It's the new budget-friendly car.

So, and I didn't get to see what's all done to them. They're completely stock, you know? There's no swapping the motor out. There's no, you know, like exhaust modifications, I don't even think.

I think you can have like a cat-back. I mean, you cannot pass... I don't even know what it is. I think it's 25 to one power to weight ratio, so 25 pounds per horsepower.

So, and then, but what about, so stripping out the interior, putting in like, you know...

As long as you're 25 to one.

Okay, so as long as you're 25 to one. So, 25 pounds for each horsepower. So I'm trying to think, would you be adding weight, then if you like added a roll cage, you know, cause you need safety and you, you know, strip out the seats that you don't need then, and then you lose weight.

Yeah. As it's just ridiculous. Cause those, those guys are just balls to the walls. Yeah. Like you're talking about like they, whenever you're hitting your brake marker, they're still going. Cause they're not, they're, they're like, I need that 10th of a second.

Yeah.

And that's like 10 feet every time is like, oh no, that's ridiculous. But yeah, it's, it's awesome to watch. All right.

Let's get a couple Honda Fits.

What do they cost?

Well, they cost, you can find it for like 3000 bucks.

Yeah. I can't imagine they cost more than 5k.

Yeah. And then you put like a nice set of coilovers, falcon tires and just go for a rip.

Oh my God. And some aftermarket, yeah, aftermarket wheels, that thing would look clean.

Yup. I think you can have more than a 225 tire, 215 tires or something like that.

Oh my God. It's like a bicycle tire.

It's awesome.

I rock 225s on the Gulf in the winter.

Okay. Skinnier tires are better in winter anyways.

Yeah. Oh yeah, dude. Today, we were over here, I was ripping the GTR over here and I got, what was it, 325s on there? And I got squirrely at a stoplight at the rain. And it's just, it's dry-ish, but since it's such a wide tire and it's a summer tire, I was at like 3,000 or 4,000 RPM and just lost it a little bit.

I think it spun from second to third.

Yeah, it's still slick out there today. And today we're at, I gotta give a shout out here, we are at the Chanhassen Motorplex, Fort Gars and Caves.

Last Saturday of every month. And is this the final month?

I think it might be because, you know, it's-

I thought it was one more in October though.

Maybe, I think it's pending weather. Knowing Marcus, who coordinates this event and he'll be back next year, I'm so excited to have him back. So basically he had like a board meeting to be like, hey, are you running a good show? He's running a good show, so he'll be back next year. But yeah, so I think he'll do it pending on weather. Like he'll just be like, all right, yellow, let's do it. So yeah, it's a good show. I think compared to what it was like last year, like people actually show up for this one. Like we had a big pre-meet today of like 20 cars.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

So one thing I really, really wanted to talk to you about just because I might be getting involved into something here next year. What are your favorite tracks?

Well, I remember when you sent me the text, it was 10, your favorite tracks within 10 hours from here.

Yeah, let's just go in, let's go in general.

General, okay. Probably my favorite track ever that I can't wait to go back on is National Corvette Museum in Kentucky, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Dude, that track is the most amazing thing I've ever been on.

How big is it again?

I don't know, it's 25 corners. So it's a lot. Yeah, it's got more than freaking Koda, and your hands are moving constantly. You got high-speed corners, you got elevation. You got even a little jump in there. It's awesome.

That is an expensive track, so I was trying to get that track for Whiplash Rally. I can't remember what it was. I want to say it was like, I want to say it was 32 or 40 grand for a weekend.

They don't do it. For just a weekend? Oh, for two days?

Yeah, because you're not allowed to, some tracks, they have, they don't rent it out for just a single day. You have to do like the full weekend. So two days is like the minimum. So like, you know, if you have like a little festival or something like that, like they only care for the big guys that, you know, if Porsche Club of America goes there, they're gonna do it for two days. So they can get all their members coming in. We had a lot of Porsches over at Road America during the rally.

There's some crazy club sport ones that I've, you know, only seen in videos.

Dream car. Dream car, man.

Club sport Porsche?

Yeah, GT2 RS club sport.

Oh man, I, did we see any, I don't think there's any GT2 RS ones over there.

No, not GT2 RS, but like literally like stripped down like.

GT3s, GT4s. Yeah, that is nuts.

There's a couple here that go to a slow pokes event. The GT2 RS is.

Yeah.

Club sports.

Wow, really?

There's crazy amounts of money in the slow pokes event.

A lot of money goes into those club sport cars too. Cause like you're going through.

I think they're like $650,000 for a car.

Ah, depends on what, yeah, probably the GT2s.

Yeah, the GT2 RS club sports.

I think the GT4s you can get sub 200 or around 200. I don't know. It's all over the place. That does, you need money for that.

I want a Porsche, man. I just want a Porsche.

Dude, they're fun. It's a different kind of fun though. So I drove the Drivify GT3 a number of weeks ago and it was amazing in every way. And it's, we talked about this. I want to say this last episode, the episode before, we talked about how everybody's spoiled with power now. Everybody needs more power. Everything needs to have 800, 900 horsepower. And that Porsche is like 500 or whatever. And it's like, I find myself wanting more because I'm a speed demon. But if you can appreciate that car for what it is for a track car, it's freaking phenomenal. I actually just watched the Chris Harris video. He just drove the new GT3 RS. Have either of you seen that?

No, I haven't watched the new Top Gear.

No, it's not on Top Gear. It's on his personal YouTube channel. It's like a four minute video. Dude, those new GT3 RSs are freaking beautiful. And they're literally saying like, this should not be street legal.

Yeah, have you seen the whole FAS date corner?

They look insane.

Yeah, have you seen the whole FAS date corner and you can move dials for the traction control? And yeah, like that's a dream car, man. That's like an F1 car just in your hands.

So here's a great question. What are your thoughts on cars getting more technology, right? Because that Porsche GT3 RS, it has a mountain of technology in there, but you're able to take corners faster and faster. And I feel like as a driver, you almost never, or not never, but I feel like it's got to be harder and find harder to find that limit, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, even just new tire compounds that come out every year, there's different tire compounds that you're like, oh, I used to be able to take this corner at like 80, now I can take it at 90, because the tire lets you do that. But I mean, it has to come to the driver. The driver gets that little feel when the car moves under you or something.

So do you feel like even though there's a lot more technology, it still takes an equal or a lot of driver skills still?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, because when you drive some of those older cars, like sketchy cars, I mean, what year is your Evo?

2003.

2003, so I mean, that's not too old. It's still like, it's got a lot of modern technology. But if you go-

Yeah. That's about it.

Yeah, if you go older and older, there's a different type of driver talent that goes into that, I feel.

Probably, I mean, I don't know. I just, I think faster cars are the way they are because of technology. Yeah. So, you're not going to compare an Evo to a GT3 RS, right? So, because the GT3 RS is a lot better of a car.

Mm-hmm, that's fair. Yeah, because like you couldn't throw 800 horsepower into a road course car 40 years ago.

Yeah, you couldn't.

I just feel like it wouldn't be possible. Well, F1 cars currently, they only do paddle shifters, right? Yeah, but when did they get rid of manual in F1?

Well, it was Ernst Senna in the 90s, I think.

It wasn't?

I couldn't imagine where they even put a manual gearbox in those.

Did you not see Ernst Senna just driving one hand to shifting gears on Monaco?

It's such a cool, those old videos are so freaking cool. It breaks my heart that we don't see like these crazy drastic changes. Like if you look at back in like, what was it? 76, 77, 78 or whatever. I want to say it was the 70s when they had the six wheel F1 cars. It's like, you would never see that in F1 today. Like, you know, this guy has four wheels, that guy has six, like drastically different designs. I feel like it's getting funneled more and more to be more like, I want to say indie, you know, where it's more consistent. We got AJ from episode 35.

We got a live crowd here.

It's freaking, yeah, that's the one of the cool things about being at shows. Actually, I want to hear people's feedback on this. Message me on Instagram or Facebook. I've thought about doing like a 12 hour live stream.

Do it.

Yeah, dude, we're coming up on one year. Yeah. We got to do something special.

Yeah, do it.

It'd be kind of cool to like do it at like a location like this or at my future location, which I'll announce here in the next few weeks here. To basically just have people coming in. Like every two hours, like I'll have a new guest come in and it'll be like a 12 hour live stream from eight to like eight or something like that. Would that be cool?

That'd be awesome.

I'll probably be one of those guests because I don't think I can do more than two hours.

I remember the episode where Sean is like, just end this.

I was ready to get up and walk away. I'm like, all right, see you guys.

Yeah, we had to stop doing the double headers here because Sean just couldn't, he couldn't keep up, dude, but you're doing well today. I mean, he took over early on. He's caffeinated. He had his breakfast.

I mean, you know, this is something that, you know, it's fresh in my mind. And it's something that I'm really interested in because I feel like it's a really fun sport. Like when you do it, you I had an amazing time at Road America. So like talking to you and you telling me like Road America is not even the best track, like there's so much better tracks like to go to. And it's like, I want to go experience these. And the best way that so far I've been able to do it is through road rallies, because we get a day at the track and we're not like super competitive. We're not in like some competition. Yeah, we're not a competition. We're not in a class where it's like, oh, you're all set up similarly. So this is the times that you should be running. So it's just something that I'm really interested in right now.

Yeah, well, I'm not saying the Road America is not a great track. It's just personally, I'm not a big fan of like straight corner, straight corner, straight. Like there's nothing that you have to think about. You don't have to think about like, oh, I got to set up myself for this next corner because it's just all 90 degree, 100 degree corners.

You like it more technical. Like you want to plan the next three corners.

That's why I think NCM is my favorite track because there's your hands are constantly moving side to side, taking apex as like you're just the S's, you got to think like, oh, I cannot just straight up this corner. I have to back side the corner and then do the other corner and then come back from straight away like fourth year. So shift mid corner. Like that's the stuff that I like to think about.

Yeah, so when I did my first Autocross event with Morgan's Motorplex, like I really, really got a feel for that because in Autocross, like depending on how to track a setup, like you got to think about the next few corners. Just before I would get onto that super long straight, like I could be losing 5, 10 miles an hour going into it if I messed up my last two corners, which is huge. That's precious seconds. And that's where I really wish I got another two laps in because I probably would have done so much better.

Oh yeah, that's why I like Autocross. You only get six runs. Like it or not, if you've messed up your last two runs, then it is what it is.

Yeah, it's really exciting. I don't know, I'll have to throw around the idea. I might have to join you guys on that last one, just full send it.

Like I said, I'm gonna put it here in the podcast. I threw Harris my keys. It's his decision to see if he wants to go or not.

You do not want me... Okay, so we found this out on the rally, by the way.

Yours is a manual?

Yeah, your own second gear.

Well, still, he'd find a way to mess it up.

I'll find, yeah, I'll give you...

I just put a new transmission that I broke last week, two weeks ago, and it's got a new clutch. So there's nothing you're gonna break.

Oh, I'll break everything. I'm gonna give you six neutrals immediately. Why are you in six, Harris? I don't know, we're going fast. No, so we found this out last week on the rally, right? I can drive manual, but in more rally-like circumstances, I get really stressed. I was really, really stressed out, because I would try to drive spirited. I can't. I don't have enough seat time for that yet. And so basically, I didn't stall ever outside of... When you park, I don't count that as a stall. You're a mean person if you count that as a stall.

Yeah, you meant to stop anyways.

Yeah, I was literally parked. Had the handbrake up. I just forgot to turn the car off. But my biggest f***-up would be going from... I'd try to go fifth to fourth. I would pull it too much and end up in second. Yeah, it's not good. Yeah, so that was the scare. I did that two or three times, and then the rest of the rally, I was like, no, I think I did it twice. And then I was like, you know what? I'm taking the slow, the rest of the rally. I ended up 20 minutes behind everybody.

I don't know how you guys did the rally on the way here from the cruise, my back started hurting from my seat.

Dude, shut, no, no, no, you got a full blown race seat in that thing.

That's how I did the Colorado trip.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could not. Yeah.

It had the...

Yeah.

How do you even see?

Well, you just hope nobody's there.

Oh yeah, because it has those side things.

What is it called?

Containment.

Containment for your head.

Yeah, so it has the halo kind of thing for side to side when you crash.

That's a legit seat too. What do those seats go for?

I think they're about like $850, $1,000 maybe.

Yeah, because that's like top tier, right? Pretty much. Because then you start getting the ones that don't have the side to side and all that stuff.

That's what the Evo has for Autocross. Like the one with all this, it can take it to the track when it freaking runs.

When it freaking runs. Hey, I want to ask you this, just because I'm doing a little bit of market research. Would you rather... Oh, because have you ever been down south, like Tail of the Dragon?

No.

That's a tough question. Damn, I was going to ask you, do you prefer the Appalachian Mountains or the Rocky Mountains? But I guess you can't really answer that if you haven't been down there. You kind of got close with...

I've been to both. I would definitely do Appalachian. The Rocky Mountains, they're dangerous. They get, all suddenly, you're just going downhill for a really long time and it can overheat brakes. And same with going up. So I would do Appalachian. I really like it because even though there is a lot of elevation change, it's smooth elevation.

You can rip it pretty hard. Me and Ross were in the Supra last year and we were going through Blood Mountain. That was one of the best experiences I've had in a car. Blood Mountain is by far one of the best roads I've been on. Now, we did miss Cherohola Skyway. I want to try that next. We did part of Devil's Triangle. But yeah, we got to get you down south, dude. You're going to you would love those roads.

Yeah, let's plan on it. As long as I don't have to drive the race car there.

Yeah, yeah. Well, definitely don't do it on E85. You're one of the few people that's done a rally on E85.

All those. Yeah, that's tough.

Mark did it in his GT 500. They planned out the whole rally. But the thing is, the rally was Minneapolis to Chicago. It's a lot easier to plan if you don't have...

Not multiple, multiple states.

So the stretch when we went on the helicopter ride, it was Venom. From the helicopter ride to, I don't even know where it was. We passed a state to get to Colorado. It was Wyoming.

I want to say we went through Wyoming. What's the one under it? There's an... Oh my God, my geography. Dude, you know what's messed up is that when people come to this country, such as like my parents are immigrants, they have to know all 50 states. Yeah. I've been in this country 24 years. I'm forgetting my states right now.

Is that part of the Northwest that is just like they're all one state, essentially? Correct.

I don't know them, don't really care for them. So when I was driving down, my fuel gauge was a quarter of a tank, and the Evo got like 45 miles per quarter of a tank. And we had no reception. I was like, I'm just going to get stranded in the middle of the road. My wife was in the car. She was like stressing out. And I was like, God, why did I take this car here? And then we got a little bit of signal. We called Trevor. I was like, Hey, Trevor, where are you at? He was like, and he was just cutting out, I was like, meet me somewhere. And he sent me my location. And when the car was like already sputtering, it was like, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And we saw Trevor just waving his hands. We're like, Oh my God, we made it. We just filled up as much as we could with some random E85 and made it to Colorado that night. That was rough. 20 something hours because the Evo only made it to 70 miles an hour. You guys were there for two, three hours. We got there, you guys were drunk. I got there and I got went to a hotel and just slept. So rallies are not for me.

Dude, rallies are stressful if you're on E85 because I know Carissa was on E85 too. It's like, it's just stressful. Don't do it to yourself. Like you got to do it. And here's the other thing. You're on a turbo car. Just do flex fuel. It's okay.

Yeah, you can. Because then you have to worry about what kind of makes this in the car. Then you got to do it.

Yeah.

I just feel that.

It's tough. It's tough, especially when you get like older cars. Because I think new cars, you can do flex fuel a little bit easier, right?

I don't know. I haven't done it.

Yeah, that's fair.

I either go full blown or don't do it at all.

Because Eric's GTR, when he had it, it had flex fuel, right? So like he'd be able to switch between E85 and E93. No problem. I shouldn't say no problem, but yeah. I wonder what's that revving out there.

What the?

That was loud. No, dude, we were on the way to the show here today. A truck did a burnout. Did you see that?

I saw that. Yeah.

And then the... What was it? It was a Dodge something also did a burnout.

I think it was a Cornett.

Cornett. That's what it was. Yeah, just right stoplight. It's like, dude, like really?

I was like, you're right by my house. Don't do that. Don't do that s***.

They're just showing up on the Mercs who can't do a burnout because they have no idea how to turn off the traction control.

Oh, dude, it's super easy to turn off traction control on the Merc because it's just a dial. Because some of these newer track cars, literally, it's just that it has like, oh, I want 30% traction control of dials. It's super cool.

That's so cool.

Yeah, I'll show you in a car. I'll show you after. It's super sick. Like, it's just so. I talked about this with Mark, right? Because he would have let me drive the GT500 on a track I found out after. I wish I knew that. But it's like some of these newer track cars, they're so dummy proof and they have so much cool tech. It's like, oh, I want this. Turn the dial.

Yeah, but the problem is when you put a dummy driver in a dummy car and then the dumb thing happens, then you end up in a wall.

You make it too easy for them to turn off driver aids.

That happened at Road America. I shouldn't say he's a dummy driver. I don't know. Maybe he's very skilled. But apparently he crashed his own car at Road America the day before. I can't remember what car it was. And then he brought his dad's R8 the next day. And apparently he was also holding up traffic from what I heard from AJ. And it's just like, all right, cool. Maybe get some more practice.

It's scary. I mean, I personally crashed. And it's so scary to get back in the driver's seat after that happens.

Yeah, that's what I was saying. I'm like, dude, once you crash, it's kind of like the universe telling you, hey, don't give up. But maybe stop and think about what you're doing.

Well, I didn't even have the time for that. So as soon as I got towed off track, I parked it and my wife kept calling me. She's like, are you OK? I saw on the live stream, you're on a wall. I was like, I'm fine. And I turned around and my friends had my car parked. They're like, we're going to get you in the next session. So two hours later, I didn't even have time to think what happened.

Yeah, shake it off.

Yeah, I didn't have time for that because I was working on the car, just grabbing a hammer, make sure the tires won't rub on the fenders and borrow parts from a different car and then just put it on, drove straight to grid. They called five minutes to grid and I was already on grid. So it was ridiculous. I had to go back on track. So that's the only reason why I think I'm still doing this. Because I think if I would have had time to realize what happened, I'd be like, oh, maybe I should just park it, just go home. Then I don't think I'll be back in the driver's seat.

Yeah, if you let the nerves, if you start overthinking it, this is hardly comparable. But I really hurt myself in the gym in January or whatever. And I was lifting triple the weight I am right now. It's still in the back of my head. I'm overthinking it. It's like, oh, man, I'm scared. What if this happens again? What if next time the injury is worse? You might be thinking, what if next time the crash is worse? Or whatever. It's tough when you get in your own head. But do you know who I respect a s*** ton? Joe Guanyu after that crash? What was it? Last year? It was last year.

Joe Guanyu hit the wall in Road America in 2018. No, no, no.

Joe Guanyu's crash in F1 when he flipped sideways.

In the barriers? Yeah, those.

So I don't know if you saw this clip, Sean, but basically what happened is Joe Guanyu, I think he got hit by someone. Something happened. But anyways, he ended up upside down, sliding on the halo of the car. And he was sliding on the halo well over 100 miles an hour. And then he hit the guardrail. And then he was between the guardrail and the barrier.

And the tire wall. And he was just stuck there. And everybody was like, I was watching the race. And I was like, no way.

I was watching it live. And the photos afterwards looked sick, by the way, because it's literally just sparking above his head. But he shook it off. He came back the next day.

He literally got out of the car. He's like, I'm okay. Thanks. And just walk it off. F1 cars have crazy safety, though.

But that, so the Alfa Romeo, I was reading about it. It actually had, I think it was like, I think it was like 50% more safety or whatever on the halo. Like they were actually over spec on that Alfa Romeo. I'm not sure if the other cars were, but they take their safety seriously, dude. He would have been dead without that halo. 1000%.

Yeah, that's what I like. I don't play when it comes to safety, man. Like I, people make fun of me because I'm walking around in my fire suit, you know, like I wear a fire suit. I wear racing shoes. I wear gloves. I wear a hunts. I wear a helmet. It's all this stuff, you know. What if something happens? You're on a car that has fuel on a hot exhaust. You get a fuel leak, you're on fire. You know, I don't want to deal with that.

It reminds me. Have you seen Telladega Nights?

Yeah.

Yeah. He's like, he thinks he's on fire. I'm on fire. And then he's like talking about like, I'll switch to whatever religion. Jesus, Allah. All of them. He's just like freaking out. But no, dude, it's it's scary stuff. Like, because you're talking about precious seconds. Like, again, you know, to go back to the Dota media high low, it's like when they are testing those gloves, these ones burn immediately. Those ones, those ones buy you what? 10, 11 seconds.

Yeah, that's more than enough.

That's precious seconds. You know what I just remembered?

You remember Ramin Grosjean when he hit the wall at Bahrain?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was scary.

The fact that he got out on skate, that was crazy. But I was talking about I wanted to talk about earlier this season. I think it was the season where Carlos Sainz, his car was on fire and the car was rolling back. Where was the safety team? They were taking forever to get there. You know which race I'm talking about?

Yeah, it was the Red Bull Ring.

It was the Red Bull Ring. Yeah, he's literally like they couldn't get the blocks under the car or whatever to keep the car from rolling back. So he's literally the car is moving and he's on fire. Like that was like that was sketchy s***. And it was like full flames at that point, I think.

Yeah, that's why I don't play with safety.

Yeah, you don't want to mess with safety whatsoever. So that's yeah, that is crazy.

The only thing I'm missing is a cage, but I also don't have $6,000 to spare.

So yeah, would you do a half or a full?

It has to be full for wheel to wheel.

That makes sense. Why are you putting a cage in the 1M?

Never. I realized the 1M is not a track car. It's a rally car.

That's a track car. It's definitely a track car.

No, I mean, like I wouldn't take it to I'd want to take it to the track, but you know, it's good for those occasional, you know, it's good for getting to the track and getting off the track. I think like getting a full track car and using that as like, I'm going to run this on this track multiple times, like for multiple events. That's what I've finally like realized. Like I don't want to do that to like my own, like to the 1M. Like it's meant for it, but it's not meant for it.

He wants to keep it for himself.

I want to keep it. Yeah. I mean, like some people do it and like, it's because they got like high a** miles, but this car is just so perfect the way it is. I like the way it looks. To continue to change it, it's going to hurt it. And I love the way that it handles how it drives. Like if I'd want to like change it, I'd put in like, you know, full, you know, race seats in it. I'd have to get, you know, cage, a harness. I'd have to, you know, maybe strip out some of the interior. And then it turns into a track car, which it's just not.

You can't drive anymore on the street.

And then exactly, it's not streetable.

Like it's a 1M, but then it wouldn't be like your 1M anymore. It'd be the tracks 1M.

Yeah, exactly. I'd have to trailer it everywhere. Wouldn't be comfortable. And that's why I like it as a rally car. It's comfortable enough where I can drive across the country for hours in it. You know, the transmission, the clutch, it's, you know, I can drive it on the street and I can take it to the track. It can handle it, you know.

So I mean, we did Autocross at the beginning of the year, too.

Yeah. I mean, like taking it to small events like that, too. Like I can do that. But yeah, like I just don't think I want to turn it into like full-fledged race car.

Yeah. I mean, I don't blame you.

Like I take like a 135 and turn it into a full race car. Like, that'd be fun or getting like a C5 Corvette and turning that into a full race car or join your join your buddies at the Honda Fit Sunday Cup. Like, oh, we should do.

We should totally do that.

I just want to roll up to the meet in a Honda Fit.

Keyword being rolled. podcast livery all over the car. That'd be sick.

Yeah. I should actually probably get that made next. Actually. So for the rally, we actually made like a Minnoxide automotive podcast livery. I don't know if you saw, but it had the M colors. It looked really cool. I was really happy with that. I was thinking about doing the same thing for my Golf, like taking the exact same design, but making it German colors. So that'd be really cool. It looks it was awesome. That it was a quick design that I put together, but it was legit. We took off all the stickers at a gas station, though, because we found this M4. So the GT500, this is a funny story. They saw the M4 coming on the ramp, ripping it. So then they were about to go mess around with this, this random total guy. We saw him a mile before, a half mile before. So Sean's downshifting. By the time the GT500 didn't realize the M4 was there and it was an actually quick car, Sean was already doing triple digits. And this is not incriminating Sean, because he's not admitting to any of this. Right, Sean?

No, this is all fiction.

This is all fiction. This is Harris' f****** fantasy.

Yeah.

It was all done in Mexico, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Habla, habla. No, I don't know. Yeah, okay. Real quick rant. Not a rant. Short tangent. I took five years of Spanish in all my years of schooling. I don't know s***.

What do you know?

I don't know. I said vamos yesterday.

I know how to say mi amo, Sean.

There you go.

I don't know. I know how to say the dirty stuff.

Dos tacos.

That's very important to know.

These are the important things to know. Do you remember that taco truck on the Whiplash rally last year? That thing was good at the track.

I can't recall.

Dude, there were some good-a** tacos. I bought tacos for everybody. I was like, put it on Amex. That's going to be a bad future team name. Put it on Amex. We got a little bit sidetracked from 20 minutes ago. You really, really love National Corvette Museum. What are your next favorite tracks and why?

I would say Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama. That's a really, really nice track. The facilities are awesome. It's a five-minute drive from when you get into Barber to when you get to the track. It's a five-minute drive. It takes you up hills and you get to see the whole track. It's really awesome. That track is really cool. Then, I don't know, a track with no risk, like pretty much zero risk, is Gingerman Raceway in Michigan. It's only 10 hours from here. It's pretty really nice.

Yep. I was supposed to rent that one for Whiplash Rally North before I ended up canceling the event. Amazing people. They were super friendly.

Oh, they're so nice. They're real grassroots people. Grassroots motorsport people.

So then, I kind of want to get a little bit of clarification from you on this then. So what makes a track an amazing track to you? Like, what do you look for? What makes it the one?

When there's technicality, there's speed, there is... There's got to be a lot of mental preparation. You know, whenever you go and you study, like after every session you get, you watch your GoPro, you're like, okay, I can push it here. I'm taking this corner like a little wrong or something. I like that stuff. So there's like tracks like Road America, there's not really something you can study. I mean, yeah, I'm hitting the... I can hit the brakes a little later here. I can get on the throttle earlier, you know, but I don't know. I like more technical kind of tracks for myself, something that doesn't have a wall five feet from the track, because I'm not a big fan of that stuff.

So you want it to be technical, but you also want it to be a good bit of runoff too.

Yeah, so I like, that's why I like NCM, Barber. Ginger Man has like literally only one wall that you have to be something, doing something really stupid to hit that wall. Even though it has happened to a friend of mine, but I don't know.

It's a, is Ginger Man pretty technical still?

Yeah.

It's pretty flat, I've heard, right?

It's pretty flat. There's not a lot of elevation, but there's like SS, like high speed SS, which is like, typically in my car, it's fourth gear, like 90 miles an hour, which is like SS turning the car.

You feel it.

Oh yeah, it's awesome.

It's a two mile road course too, right?

Three, two point something, I think.

Yeah.

It's really nice. I like that. It's got two straights, you're going to hit well over 130 in a real fast car.

So you're a big advocate for GridLife.

Yeah, I mean, it's the only pretty much racing series that I've been on.

So how does a, so it's a series then, so is there like points and stuff in that?

Yep.

So how did the points in that work?

I think it's 25 points for first place, 18 for second or something like that.

And that's based off of times of day? Or like?

Times of the weekend.

Times of the weekend?

Yeah.

So what do you mean times of the weekend?

So GridLife is usually a two, three day event. So your fastest lap of the whole weekend is what counts.

Oh, okay.

And then you do a festival event, is like you qualify and then there's a top five shootout. So like you only get two laps out of the top five fastest cars in each class. So then you have to say your fastest lap within those two laps, and that puts you in a podium or fourth or fifth.

So then when you register, do you have to register for all GridLifes throughout the year to compete?

No, you can pick. There are seven usually, but you can pick from one, two, three. I think to be in a contention for a championship, you need to have four events.

Four or more.

And then only the best four count. So you can do seven events, but only your best four count. So if you got fourth, but then you got another event that you got like second, you can use that event instead of the fourth place.

Okay. So that makes sense. So if I were to go do all seven and you just do four, you could still win just by doing four because only the four count.

Yeah. Let's just say you do seven, but you ended up second all of them, and I ended up first in all of them, then I still win.

Okay. That's really cool. So is there like a bulk registration thing too, like if you want to do all seven or not?

Yeah. I mean, at the beginning of the year, they give you the, it's called Gold Pass. So then you get it for like a discounted price. And that's what I usually do, because it's expensive. Tracking is really expensive.

What's a Gold Pass cost?

You get four events. I think I paid $2,300 for the whole year.

And that's just to go to the event. That doesn't include, you know, the consumables, the brakes, the tires actually go on there, because you trailer your car, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like, it adds up. So probably a whole season probably costs you.

$10,000.

Easy. That is.

That's why I'm taking a year off next year, because I don't think I can afford it anymore.

But you're still going to do like local, like Autocross.

Oh, yeah. I'll be doing like local stuff.

Man, that's really cool. I can see why you're so crazy about GridLife. Okay. So I like, I've heard about it, but like now that I never had like an in-depth understanding of it, that is so cool. It's cheaper than golf too. No, I'm kidding.

Probably not.

No. That is, well, golf is actually, I found out it's not cheap.

No, it's not cheap. Golf's not cheap. Yeah.

Nobody hit me up to buy my golf clubs. I hate all of you. But trying to get rid of those f****** things to buy time.

You chose a bad time, dude. It's ended season.

I know. I'm also going to be selling a smoker here too on Facebook Marketplace.

Oh man.

Who's going to buy a smoker?

You can smoke me in the winter.

Yeah, dude. Dude, honestly, like I'm a big barbecue guy, but the rest of my family really isn't, so we don't really use the smoker. I mean, I could, but then who's going to eat it? You know, it's like when you're smoking, you're doing a ton of meat at the same time. Yeah, dude, it's freaking, dude. I love hobbyists, like people who get really, really deeply involved into something, whether it's golf, smoking meat, other things with meat or track days like you. Like that's, you're obsessed.

I am. I think I am. I think I am. I just, I was having this conversation with my wife last night. I was like, I really think I have track hangover. Like I just went on track last week, but I don't, I want to go back to another track event.

Yep. Us with Rally Hangover. Uh huh. Those few days hurt because you're getting used to normal life. Cause like you're not, you know, doing triple digit speeds and you know, doing challenges and all this stuff. Granted, there wasn't a lot of challenges on this one, but Rally Hangover is real. Is it, does GridLife do the same tracks every year too then?

They try to add like bucket list tracks. So they, this last year, they added Lion Rock Park.

What's that? That's out east?

Yeah, Connecticut.

Yeah.

Then we, they added this year, they added Watkins Glen. So they're doing Laguna in three weeks from now or something like that. Yeah. I would love to go to Laguna. It's just so expensive. The ticket is 1200 bucks.

It's for an individual, right? For an individual ticket?

For a car and two crew passes.

Right. But you would save money if you did like the gold pass, right?

I think the gold pass is 1200 bucks or a thousand bucks or something like that.

That's freaking nuts. That's an expensive season.

And then $4,000 in fuel to get there and back. Plus tires, brakes, oil changes.

Yeah, because how far is the drive to Laguna?

36 hours from here, I think.

Dude, I don't I don't get how people can afford, you know, some of these setups. You know, have you seen like these trucks and trailers that people are hauling? They have like, you know, stack or yeah, I get trailers. Yeah. They got like stacks in them, like double lift, like, you know, they got multiple cars that they're towing and they're literally driving like a semi truck that's like converted into a house on the back half.

Oh, we saw this crazy set up last weekend. So it was this guy in an RV. The RV was real nice, really nice, and had an open stocker trailer with a McLaren 720 in the back and a Viper ACR. And he was taking turns what car to drive each session. It was so cool.

Sounds like something AJ would do because AJ used to have a double stacker. He got rid of, I think, and he would take multiple cars.

Yeah. And it was just me and my friend, Dana, with our open trailer, our trucks, not brand new and just parked in. We're like, yeah, we wonder what these people do for a living because we, me and him, we both can't keep up with the expenses of racing. It's just so much money.

Yeah. And those consumables, they get more expensive too. Like think about what, I mean, to be fair, like 720 probably has carbon ceramics, so that lasts a while.

But like the oil change and just like some of the like, you know, tires too, like those can go for thousands of dollars.

Tires are probably, what would you say your biggest consumable is when it comes to racing?

You got to, you do oil change after every race, right?

Yeah. Before every event, I guess fresh fluids on it. Yeah.

Oil is cheap, especially if you do it yourself.

Yeah, but every event and if you're doing, you know, 10 a year.

I would say I probably went to two sets of tires this year, which is each set is like $900. So that's $1,800.

So what tires do you use? Because obviously you don't use like the best of the best. It just wouldn't make sense.

Club TR is sponsored by Falken tires. So you have to use a Falken tire. So it has to be either a 615K or a 660. And those are the only two tires. And the size that you buy is usually really expensive. 255 is the widest tire we can use. That's $900. And then people buy a fresh set every event. So it's like everybody goes with a brand new sticker set every event. It's just so much money.

And what tread width?

200 tread width tires.

Is that like the regulation or is that just what you prefer?

No, that's the only...

That's all you can use.

If you want to use anything less than that, you have to be in the unlimited class, which is people on hoosiers or like slicks. And then that's what? $2,000 a set of tires, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude. Frickin Mark had the Cup 2Rs on Road America. Those things were ridiculous. How he made it into rain is beyond me.

I know. He made it a lot further than last time we got hit with rain and we drove with him. I feel like this time he just kept going. He pushed through it. But last time, anytime we hit rain, he was like, you know, we got to pull over. We got to stop.

Do we have to wait till it's past? It was a torrential downpour this time. Like it was coming down. One of the funniest moment under rally, one of the funniest at least was when we drove past Matt Coon's photography and they were pulled over in the R8 and it was just downpour. We drive, I s*** you not, like 150 feet, no rain. Like he was like on the edge of this crazy rain cloud just getting drenched. That was hilarious. Got to give him a shout out though. He had, dude, like every rally, and you know, I think you've done, did you only do one with me? I think every rally, you kind of add people to the rally fam. You know, it's like this year we added Jay and Matt. Like they were just down to have a good time. So shout out to those guys. So we'll see who joins us in the future rallies.

Yeah, well, we missed out on a lot of our family too. You know, Chase and Jamie, you know, we got a lot of people that didn't make it this year or so.

Yeah, it's a bummer.

We hope to see you guys soon.

Yeah, next year. Yeah, dude, I feel like everybody has to do at least one rally. If you're involved in the car community, you have to do at least one at some point, whether it's, you know, car community or G-Force or my events or whatever the heck it is, like you have to do at least one. I'm glad you did one. You went the cheapest year.

Yeah, that's the only reason why I did it.

Yeah, because the hotels were on fire sale because of COVID. I struck a deal with PPIR to where I had to pay per person rather than a full rental because we were sharing the track with other track day people, which is probably the most cost effective way to rent a track. But tracks aren't cheap, dude. That one's actually not that expensive. PPIR, if I remember correctly, at least back in 2020, I think they told me like five or six thousand.

That's really cheap. But I mean, that track sucks.

I mean, it's a small track. And it's not very technical.

I mean, there's got some technicality, but I'm just saying that dip in the banking, my friend and I broke a wheel and hit the wall at 120 miles an hour.

So yeah, so what Pierro's talking about is so at PPIR, right? Like you go from like the road course portion onto the bank and you hit that hard because it's like...

No, in the banking, the other side of the... Once you come out of there, there's a straightaway, and there's the bank corner, there's a dip, and if you hit it just right, it moves your car like two feet.

Oh, yeah. I remember them pointing that out and be like, follow this line. If you don't, you're going to hit that dip, and you're going to send your car into the wall.

Yeah, it's not fun. A friend of mine just literally wheel broke from the hub and then spun him around and hit the wall. It was scary. It's scary to watch that.

That was freaking...

What? What is that?

That was my phone ringing. I have it on Do Not Disturb.

That is so loud.

That is the loudest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, Sean, keep talking. Talk track stuff.

All right.

So we went tracking with the 1M.

Speaking of 1Ms.

I did a great job. I had an instructor in the car with me, and he had an M3, like 2006 M3, so he was very familiar with the gearing. So he was able to tell me, okay, you want to be in third here. Okay, you know, be in fourth and hold that throughout the entire, you know, turn. So he really helped me, like, get my time down into the two minutes. And that was like my ultimate goal was to be in the two.

Sub three minutes.

Sub three minutes, exactly. I don't know, like, obviously you said you got a one... 124, four seconds off the lap record. I didn't even know that was possible.

Well, not track record from my class.

Oh, for your class. Right.

There's people that done in...

Indy cars do it in probably like what? Like a minute less?

I don't know. I just know one Ferris Cartoumi. He has a... I don't know if you guys know who that is. 2000 horsepower Corvette time attack car.

What was the name again?

Ferris Cartoumi. He set the fastest production car record at Road America.

And what was that time?

Two minutes, eight seconds or something like that.

Wait, what?

Yeah. Two minutes, eight seconds or something like that. Fastest production car.

Yeah. I was talking... I'm not giving him a shout out again. He's going to love this. Last episode, I was talking about Caleb Eisenberger, who we're going to have on. He said the front of the pack, I think Cup cars or whatever, do like 207 or something like that. Like full blown race cars, I think.

Yeah, probably.

What's the fastest a car has gone around there?

Indy car.

Indy cars are the fastest ones on that track.

Yeah. Well, sorry. First, Kratumi did a 2048.

And that was a production C7?

C6Z. Making 2000 horsepower.

How do you even make that work?

So how would you do a minute 27?

No, I did a two minute 25.

Oh.

Two minute 24.4.

Two 25. I was going to say, a whole minute off.

No, there's no way.

Wow. That's pretty, dude, that's even faster than Mark. He said 229, 230 or whatever.

230 with a theoretical best of 227.

He was so mad, dude, because he had his two best sectors. And then on the third sector, traffic. He was so mad. He was about to smoke that theoretical. But damn, so you're sending some serious times in that Evo.

Yeah, well, that Evo was pretty fast.

Oh, dude, you've raced with Mark and that McLaren, and you were giving them a run for their money.

I think I beat both of them.

You definitely were. If you didn't, I'd be surprised, because you were the only one that was able to keep up and surpass them.

So outside of your GoPro footage, so what do you do to improve your track times? Do you like have an app or anything like that?

Yeah, so I run Aim Solo, which is a track GPS lap timer, but that also records G-Force, that records brake pressure, speeds in different corners, so you can see where you're getting on throttle, where you're getting on the brakes.

Oh, so you hook it into your car?

Yep.

Okay, that's pretty sick.

So it's pretty nice. It's just really hard to understand. I'm not an IT person, but it all means Microsoft Word 2008. That's the latest I learned. I'm not good with computers at all. So me learning that was a whole journey. But yeah, we use that a lot. After every session, we pull data with different people and compare it. Oh, where they're making time, then you. What does a car do? So there's a lot of people that make more power than me. So in the straightaway, they would make it up. And then when I hit the brakes, I hit the brakes really late. That's something I'm really good at. So I use that to my advantage. So we can kind of see where people can hit the brakes or where people are going faster than you. That's what we use.

Does this also give you a visual representation too?

Or no? No, that's the only problem. It does not.

I wonder, you'll have to show me in the future what that data looks like, because I'm sure there might be a way to visualize it.

Pretty sure there is. I mean, once you hook up, there's a smarty cam that they sell from AIM, and that will give you the whole graphic and video of where you're hitting the brakes, and then it will overlap the data for you. So as soon as you plug it into your computer, that's data, video and everything is just all together, which is pretty cool, but it's expensive.

Yeah, what does it cost?

I think the camera is like $1,300.

Oh my God.

And it's a 720p camera.

What the...

Wow, so that whole setup is $1,300 then?

No, the AIM Solo is $1,000.

Okay, oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

So it's an additional cost.

But between those...

So it's like a DLC.

Yeah.

But between those two things, you would take the AIM Solo first, right?

I like AIM Solo more than the Garmin. The Garmin is what gives you video and all the Garmin catalysts or something. It's like a newer thing, but I don't know. I've worked with a professional racing car driver and he said that he prefers AIM better.

That's when you really start getting into it. Man, I wish I had the funding to track as much as you do.

Same, dude. I'm just done for the year.

Because that's all you do throughout the year. You don't even make it out to as much shows. You're just a track rat.

Well, that's where I feel happy.

That's where I feel happiness. After I get out of the car, just this depressing existence. I hate everything.

No, honestly, I feel good. I feel really good at the track. When you get off that lap, you feel like you just drove your car. You don't really feel like that when you pull up to a car show. It's nice to see the cars, but you also want to see what they can do.

Well, when I went to the mile show, I just left my car there and didn't come back until I picked it up. I just saw a couple of cars.

Yeah, I don't know.

I like when people drive their cars.

Exactly.

Your car is meant to do something. Do it. Yes, show cars are awesome. I'm not going to disregard that. People build that. People don't want to track their cars because they're pride and joy. It's just cool. But even if I would have a McLaren or something, I would still try to track it.

That's why I love people that actually do that, too. Like, you know, we were at Road America. A lot of those guys were freaking driving, you know? And it's like, that's why I love people. Again, we'll never have him on the podcast. He likes to keep it low key. But like Mark, he drove the s*** out of his Perfomante. He's done several track days with that thing. And he's smoking cars that are, you know, supposed to be in a league above him, you know? It's just because he's done over 60 road course days. That's a lot of track time. That is ridiculous. And there's just a different appreciation for cars. You know, we mentioned this a million times about Michael Peterson. It's like, you never get to truly experience your car until you take it to a track. I don't care how hard you drive the normal streets, you'll never get your tires warm enough.

Yeah, I love that's one of the biggest takeaways that we got from his episode. You know, it's so true.

Yeah, I'm super excited for that. Actually, since we're only an hour into this right now, I want to say, if people have questions for Michael Peterson, because we are going to do a Vehicle Dynamics special, if there's any topics that we should talk about, hit us up with that too. But do you feel like you've gotten to understand your car a lot more over the years? Is there something that you want to learn more about?

Yeah, I mean, I still feel I need to drive a lot better, you know, because in Minnesota, I'm probably one of the top ten drivers.

Yeah, didn't you get a trophy recently?

Yeah, I think I won an unlimited class of Proving Grounds.

Wow, congrats, dude. That's incredible.

Yeah, well, it's because my car didn't have interior. I think I beat my only competition was a ZL1 on slicks.

Hey, don't put yourself down, though. I mean, first is first, baby.

So that was pretty good. I feel like my lap times are comparable to people that drive 500-600hp cars here. But the thing is, once you go nationwide to GridLife, the real drivers come out, you know, the real fast people.

Yeah, I always say this about like college football or like high school football. It's like, oh, you were the best at your high school. That's cute. All right. Well, what about everybody does the best at their high schools? They go to college and the best colleges, you know, the best people go from there to the NFL. It's like, yeah, you're the best in your local hometown. But when you start playing national, the big leagues, like it's crazy.

So so my friend Ron told me he's like, once you start driving out of state for even small autocross, right? Because the event that we went with Sean in April or whatever it was, I think I won the whole event, right?

Oh, yeah, you smoked everybody.

So that and then when you start going out of state for autocross, you realize that people here are fast, but they're not the fastest. There's people that just keep it low key in their local Wisconsin, because freaking Wisconsin drivers know how to drive really well. Those guys, they drive drive. So once you go to proving grounds, you see people that are really, really fast that you don't see them in your local events.

So that is so freaking. So since you've done stuff across the nation, do you? Who would you say are some of the best drivers like statewide? Do you have enough? Like, do you even?

Would you even be able to answer?

Well, no, like who are the best drivers? Like, what states are the best drivers or even Wisconsin?

Wisconsin, Wisconsin, for sure.

Really?

So my friend Dana Basinski, he just won the Club TR championship last weekend. And he was ahead by everybody else. I only ended up top eight and he ended up four seconds in front of me in this in a car that makes pretty much the same power as me. So that's that dude can wheel.

So how big of a gap is four seconds because I don't think a lot of people understand like, you know, like that time, like that distance.

We can explain that perfectly right now with pure silence. All right. When I stop talking, give it four seconds. That was not four seconds. You did not say Mississippi m***********.

No.

Well, just think about it.

My clock runs fast.

So think about it. We we're in a class that we we're chasing tenths of a second, so I lost to sixth place was four tenths of a second. And he was just four seconds ahead of everybody else.

He was like in his own league.

Yeah. He was just driving. He was chasing down ACRs. He was chasing down McLaren's. He was chasing down like 700 horsepower Subi's like that doesn't in a 200 horsepower K swap BRZ. This is a bit of BRZ. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So he can wheel and then, yeah, you guys got to go to a grid like even if it's not like driving, you guys got to go like figure out like people here are not that fast. And when you go over there, you see people with a bunch of funds, a bunch of sponsors. Like once you see that 2000 horsepower Corvette, like and you hear the thing go on track and 2000 horsepower sequential V8. There's sounds so good, do it.

I can't even imagine like that. Oh, I really would love to see the video for that car. Like just to see like how it because like I've heard like turbo cars don't do as well on track because you know, they have to spool and all that. So I'd really love to know what the heck is like. I love to know more details about that build. That is crazy.

It is. It is a crazy car. I mean the whole car is made out of Kevlar. Now he changed all the body panels Kevlar.

That's bananas.

That's money.

So since now we've been six, seven months since we had you on last time. So what are some of the biggest things you've learned this season?

I feel I learned that racing is really cool, but life continues to move on. So like I can't keep myself trying to fight to make it to an event and just time my budget all the time because it's so expensive. So I think I'm just going to give myself a year to grow as a person because racing is always going to be there. So I'm just going to take a year off and just build my life back. My bank account is kind of dry. Let's just leave it at that. So I think I'm just going to take a year off. Then learning as a driver, I think just like I always say, C-time is the best mod you're going to do to your car. More than putting an LS, more than putting a bigger turbo, just drive your car. Just drive your car. That's the only thing you're going to get better at something. Practice. No, my wife wants me to keep going.

That's amazing.

She's always been my supporter, but I told her, yes, just too complicated trying to save money, trying to move out. The economy is s***.

It's rough out there. But I tell that to people all the time, dude. They're out there. Women that will support, or significant others that will support what you do, they're out there. There's a number of my friends here at the show. It's like, ah, can't go. I can only go to one show a month because of the old ball and chain. It's awesome to have somebody that supports you to do that. Same with Sean's wife. She'll let him go on a rally. She'll never go on a rally with him. I just don't see that happening. The stress is unreal on rallies. But the fact that she's like, hey, yeah, go for a weekend. Enjoy it with the rally fam. They're out there.

It's so hard to find out, though.

Is it, though? Because there's a number of people in the car community that do have that. Like Dan and Mallory, they rally together. They both got supercharged Mustangs. It's like they support each other's craziness and love for cars. It's out there. It's just difficult to find, maybe.

Yeah, and you got away, no one.

See, I'm over here making a great inspirational speech. And then Dickhead over here is like, oh, you're lonely.

No, you just said it's hard. He's like, no, it's easy. Like, OK, where's your race car girl with the Finnish flag? You looking for her at the finish line? Where's that in 50 years from now?

Hey, that's fine. If I find happiness 50 years from now, happiness will come whether it's now or later, man. I ain't stressing.

You're doing great, honestly. So I won't even worry about it.

This is his back pedal.

No, I'm not trying to seem like, oh, you need a woman in your life. You're doing great as a single male. You are flourishing. You're creating a respectful community here.

Agreed.

Well, keep going. I'm liking these ones.

I'm not going to turn the next hour into pumping harris off.

I run out of things to say.

I run out of things to say. That was a quick 20 seconds detour. We should have a segment every episode, just compliment the... Oh, that'd be really funny. Like one episode, I just spent 30 seconds complimenting you. All right, now for the next segment. Let's boost Sean's ego.

So you're talking about, you know, it's become really hard to support this hobby of yours. A lot of people get sponsors.

Yes.

Like, how do you go about getting sponsorship?

I think you got to make a name for yourself, you know?

So you got a number one, you're number one in Minnesota, baby.

Yeah, but it also people, you're not the only one reaching out for this big companies, right? And a lot of times this big companies, they want to sponsor people that have a following, like YouTubers or somebody that has like first place everywhere, you know? That's, I'm not a YouTuber. I don't have a lot of followers on Instagram. So trying to say like, hey, would you want to sponsor me? I only have like 500 followers on my Instagram. They're like, okay, how many of those are actual drivers? So I don't know.

It's kind of hard.

So right now, it doesn't matter how good of a driver you are, how much of a following can you bring?

Do you think in the next year, you know, you're talking about like personal growth. Do you think part of that is going to be like working on that? So when you come back, you can show like, hey, like I've built this following.

I'll try. I'll for sure try. I mean, I was talking to Harris a couple months ago. I was like, hey, I really want to get into the this YouTube thing.

Yeah.

And he was like, you should totally do it.

I'm like, otherwise, do you I mean, like, how possible is it to race, continue racing like this by yourself with no sponsors?

It's really hard.

It seems like it with how much you're doing. How many events are you going every year?

Well, this year, I cut it out to three events, three events.

Oh, wow.

I did three.

I really cut it back.

Yeah. Last year, I did five. And next year, I'm doing none. Out of state.

It's a perfect year for a rally, then.

I'll try. If I co-drive with somebody in a regular streetcar, probably. Yeah.

It's tough, though. But like Brian recently, he talks about his sponsored, what was it, like the OBD2 thing or whatever the heck? You know, he got a big sponsor. They're paying him a good chunk of change. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to disclose it, but it's like because he's built a following. I mean, he's got like, you know, a hundred something thousand on TikTok, which honestly, it's not that difficult. Like you can get a thousand followers a day at some point.

You have to be consistent with it. I think that's where I lack off. Like sometimes I go like, hey, I'm just going to start posting on Instagram because I don't have TikTok three times a week. And then I post once. I'm like, OK, I'll let it die for like three months.

Same.

The tough thing is, is because especially in your position, like you try to live in the moment, right? Like you don't like in the back of my head, like I'm able to hold a conversation and I could be filming with my other hand. Like that's just a skill that I've built over the years.

But it's just an awesome skill to have.

Yeah. You're like the perfect YouTuber. You're like built in a lab.

Well, because I've been doing this 10 years, you know, like, you know, since my first freaking Minecraft channel, it's like I, I've always had a not always, but like I've built these skills kind of like, you know, seat time, you know? So it's just it's something you got to practice, like, oh, being able to talk to people, you know, about how they did on track and then filming their cars going around the track, like, if you were able to spend the rest of the season building up content for next year, that would be huge. Like Mike Johnson, he's a perfect example of this. He's posting clips from like a year and a half ago that he, you know, just 360 footage, and he's, he's got sponsors too. So it's like, if you're able to just get 360 and GoPro footage, throw it on there, at least it's something, then eventually you can just add commentary, like, okay, if you have your GoPro footage with the track, right, if you were able to get commentary after the fact, just record your voice into the phone. Okay, what I'm doing here, send it, send it, send it, send it, break, or show your telemetry. Like, this is stuff that's cool to people like me. I love to see this footage.

You should save this for a master class and charge people $100 for an hour.

You know, maybe one day I will if it's worth it. But like yesterday, I got on the phone with Jamie, Dipworks, who did Dan's Mustang. Amazing Mr. Chrome Mustang. Mr. Chrome, but...

It is Mr. Chrome.

It's Mr. Chrome. It's not real. It's not painted in 1990, whatever the f***. But I got on the phone with him, and I'm like, dude, here's what you can do. Because when you are doing stuff every day, you forget how cool it is what you're doing. That's why I have this podcast. I learned a s*** ton during this episode. I'm going on a really big monologue here. But it's like I learned a lot of cool stuff from our guests, and I'm able to share it. And I think I'd love to help you. I'm helping Dan start their channel too. So just do cool s*** and film it, dude.

Yeah, I guess what I do is cool enough.

Yeah, you know, it's super freaking cool.

Just go on track and just beat the hell living out of my car.

Yeah, and a lot of people were probably like searching like BRZ lap times at this track.

And I mean, I do that.

And a lot of people just I don't know. I don't know about a lot, but I could see like people just looking up like they're, you know, some sort of track and wanting to see like real life footage and like feel like they're experiencing it from like a first person view.

It's all about community, dude. Like, that's the thing. If like you were to get into and Dan gets into it and like, you know, I'm just trying to lead this fight of getting everybody to create cool stuff because like Minnesota slept on we got an amazing car scene here. We got an amazing track two hours up.

You know, you haven't seen anything. Wait till I go to California and show you what's out there.

That's good for them. But nonetheless, like we still want to put ourselves on that too. You know, it's like, yeah, who are the last big Minnesota YouTubers? We had fricking tall guy who left California and Minnesota burns, you know, to go back to the gaming days. It's like, who else have we really had? Oh, young gravy. He's not a YouTuber, but he's a big influencer. That's pretty much it. So do cool s***, dude. You got a lot of GoPro footage in there.

I do, but I delete most of it, because it's too cheap to buy another memory card.

I'll give you a memory card, and I'll buy you a fricking Dropbox subscription. But so, Piero has never had this question before.

No, he was too early. So if you haven't listened to the show before, we like to ask our guests a question that kind of lets us know kind of where they're at with their aspirations for vehicles. So you've listened to this show, so you know what I'm going to ask. Maybe you thought about it, and it's a rough question for some people, but you just got to choose one daily, one track car, one show car, unlimited budget, imagination is your limit.

Okay, I give them this a little bit of thought, but let's just say daily driver, I would really, really like driving a truck. For daily driver, I have a truck, but let's just say new model, GMC Sierra Denali 2500.

Yeah, that's what I've noticed with a lot of people who are a little bit more like track rats and people who actually like take their cars to events like that. They always get a truck. They love them a truck.

I mean, you're just above everybody else, it's comfortable, heated, cool seats. You drive, you live in Minnesota, like you need that stuff. Track car, GT2, RS, club sport, for sure. For sure. Favorite car. Show car, this is something that I always struggle on, because I don't know what, I mean, you just feel like you're building your car for somebody else to like it.

So I see it as, you know, people show up to this show with, you know, cars that I've never even heard of, I've never seen, but it's like their pride and joy. They're happy to bring it. Like, this is what they're happy to share with everybody. It's not for people to enjoy, you know.

So I don't know, I still struggle with this. I'll probably say I built this car for the same reason that I loved Evos always. So I think my show car would be my Evo, but like paint it and not destroy bumpers and stuff like that from tracking all the time.

Yeah, unlimited budget, you could fix it. You have seven of the same car.

Yeah, so that car on air jacks or something cool like that.

So the exact same Evo you have right now.

Yeah, correct.

Anything else that you would change on it?

No.

Nothing. I love that car.

Just clean it up.

Yeah, just clean it up. Just make it look pretty. I think that's kind of been my dream car since I started on cars, you know, little Evo. I was always a little kid. I was wanting an Evo. I got one. I built it the way I wanted.

Yeah, it's a beautiful car. The wheels on there are freaking awesome. That was an amazing choice. You got good taste. Yeah, because sometimes people lose taste, unfortunately. But thankfully, everybody at this table has it except for me. That said, where can people find you?

Instagram, Facebook, Instagram at that one, Evo8. Hopefully soon on the YouTube channel, but we'll see.

We'll see. I'll keep pushing you, Sean. Where do you where can people find you?

All right, everybody, follow me on Instagram. That's at one MN Mopar. Just check it out for hopefully some good content.

Yeah, you're going to be showing the flying pumpkin and the flying blueberry. As for me, you guys are on this channel. So you found me. Minnoxide, literally everything. If you guys want to. How do you like that Jacko, by the way?

That's awesome.

Yeah, the mango. 10% discount. Which flavor you got over there, Sean?

I got watermelon.

Watermelon.

This one's really good. They're all good. I don't know why you're hating on mango.

The mango one is delicious.

I'll have to try it again. I've never tried one cold. That might be what it is. Today, I had what? Sour apple and then I had Tropic Thunder. So I'm very buzzed up right now. What else? Make sure you are signing up for the newsletter. Go to minnoxide.com. Get entered on the newsletter to get weekly updates on the podcast, any potential giveaways, prints, all that fun stuff. What else am I forgetting here, Sean? I think that's pretty much it. See you all next time. Thank you, Pierro, for coming on.

Thank you for having me.

I look forward to our future guests. Sean, thank you very much for existing and being a fantastic co-host.