48. Crashing at Road America, Track Insurance, Talking to Chevy Engineers, GM Life w/ Luan Zeqollari

Well then we'll rock an intro and then we'll just be off to the races. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And this is the show where we go beyond the meat. I'm still getting into a new flow of things without my former beloved co-host as he moves to California to much better weather than this POS state. But nonetheless, we'll just kind of jump right into it. So today I have my guest Luan, right?

Yeah.

Cause I kind of go into like, so it's a very similar name to like a Bosnian name. So it's like, I kind of defaulted out of accent. So I'm like, all right, cool.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a reason for that. So the name is Luan. Last name is, I used to joke around and say, if I got a last name, but I don't know how to pronounce it, like Hector from Fast and Furious. But so last name is Zeqollari. It's easier to say that it looks, when you look at all the jumbled letters together. But it's the Albanian word for lion.

Okay. Well, that makes sense.

Yeah. And then, you know, my background is, or my ethnic heritage, I should say, is Albanian. There's some Macedonian in there.

Yeah.

You know, the former Yugoslav states.

Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah.

Yeah.

We have that in common. Our heritage is from...

The same like Eastern European area. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yep. So I wanted to get you on the podcast. Mostly because you have a lot of experience doing track day stuff. You're a big Chevy or GM guy from the looks of it. A lot of our listeners are in that category, but mostly I was looking at your channel. You do a lot of cool stuff. So like I'm so happy you sent over some links because like I've been trying, now that I'm doing a solo, I need to do a little more research on my guests. So you do a lot of cool, kind of like service tutorial, tutorials. I don't know what, how would you describe it?

You know, the YouTube channel started really with me just doing a bunch of like in-car track videos. Mostly because I wanted to use it as study material. Not because I'm like so into myself, I just had to keep watching myself. But like the in-car camera gives you a great angle of like your steering inputs and what you're doing in the car. So really I just started posting it and you know, there's almost some bragging to it once you start hitting some accolades. But I got a lot of messages through YouTube and through forums and just direct messages or whatever it was on, hey, I noticed you run this kind of brake fluid. Like do you should do like a how-to video on how to change your brake fluid? And I was like, simple enough. There's a million of this content out there. Why don't you just go watch a how to change your brake fluid video? And then like I started looking into it and there wasn't a lot of content that I loved that I could like recommend. Like, hey, watch this one, it's really good. So I'm like, I'll give it a shot. You know, why not? I'll start doing it like a how to series.

And it's super in depth. I'm not sure I didn't go too far back, but I was watching your, what was the oil comparison video you did?

So that one was a big project.

That was big.

That one involved a lot of research. I got some of my friends over at GM involved and they were kind enough to give me more information than I even knew going into it. But yeah, that's the big thing that I pride myself on is there's a lot of opinion videos out there. And when I'm making my content, yeah, I have a little bit of opinion and say, but I want to make sure I'm doing the right research and giving the people that are watching it the right information.

Yeah, you want to give them the facts. Cause at the end of the day, like that video got a good bit of views, but some of your videos get into the thousands of views and that's content that people are seeking out for a reason. You know, like not people, most people aren't going to watch it for fun like I did. They're going to watch it because they're trying to learn something, at least that style of content. So what they see, they're probably going to do. So the fact that you're putting in that extra research and the effort, it goes, like you said, you couldn't find anything before that you would recommend. So that's really, yeah. I loved it because you had like 10, what's the term jugs of oil or whatever?

Yeah, there was a bunch of different quarts of oil. And I wanted to do that video cause the oil recommendation specifically for like the LT1 and LT4 powered cars that GM makes, whether it's the Corvette or the Camaro or anything else you'll find those in, like the CT5V Blackwing or the Escalade V now, which is a b***** ride.

Well, it's just a hair closer, by the way.

Those are all, they all use the same drivetrain, right? Or the powertrain, I should say. And the owner's manual recommendations are all over the place. One will tell you 530, another will say 040. Another one tells you like 1550 when you're tracking. So I just wanted to make sure that I did all the research on why those recommendations were made and why they're written in certain ways and certain year manuals and have been updated and stuff like that. So I'm a big believer of show me. That's how I learned to is hands on and show me. So yeah, I went and I borrowed some of the older oil from a friend of mine. I went and bought some of the other oil that I couldn't get my hands on. And ironically enough, like we were getting ready to do an oil change for my wife's car, which uses the 530. And I had like five quarts of it just sitting there in a jug. So I'm like, oh, perfect. And then, more specifically than just the oil, I dove into like the different bypass of our ratings. Yeah, you have oil filters, which a lot of people don't even know is a thing. And I wanted to explain why that matters.

Yeah, because like you basically said, if I remember correctly, like the one of the other ones that gets subbed out as like, you know, if one of them is out of stock, here's the other one to use. And you're like, oh, this is not a good thing to use unless you're in a pinch. I think you said it was something like along the lines of like not circulating oil enough, I think.

Yeah, so some of them, like depending on the bypass valve rating, it could actually circulate unfiltered oil sooner, which you don't want. It's actually a mobile one. I don't know if we're gonna get into brand names here, but yeah, the mobile one model number for the LT1 and LT4. Yes, it'll physically fit. The threads are the same. It'll filter oil, but the bypass valve rating is really low.

So there's a high risk. 10, I think.

That one was 12 to 15. It was 12 to 15. And I got that number directly from mobile, because you called them. Yeah, I called them. I couldn't find any data. And they're like, well, 12 to 15. I'm like, well, that's a pretty big, right? Three PSI is a pretty decent range. I'm like, can you tell me what it is specifically? And they're like, yeah, 12 to 15. I was like, okay, cool. And when I was talking to my friend Mike over at GM, who's part of the small block development team, so they work on all the small block Chevy engines, not just the LT1 and LT4, but even the LAT truck motor or the new C8-06 engine, all of those that he's the chief assistant engineer on. So he explained to me, okay, this is the safe range for a bypass valve on a filter for these vehicles.

I believe it was 20 to 27, I think.

Yeah, it was like 20 to 27, I think.

Okay, that's a good range.

Yeah, I'll have to go back to the video to check it over, but yeah, 20 to 27. And the AC Delco filter that is recommended, and then Wix makes a great filter. They're both at 22 PSI, which is perfect, right? And there's some others out there, but one of the others is like 30 PSI, and that's way too high, right?

Yeah, so explain why you don't want a high bypass rating, or I guess what's the proper term?

Yeah, no, yeah, you're right. The bypass valve, if the pressure on the bypass valve is set too high, you run the risk of actually swelling the filter, and then it essentially just won't filter, period, right? Or it can expand, it can crack, it can explode, because the pressure gets up there too high. And of course, oil pressure changes, right? So if you're daily driving the car, and it never sees any track use or anything like that, you're probably fine running whatever. Honestly, even that mobile one will probably work just fine. But when you're doing what the car was intended to do, and using it at 6,000 RPM and higher, oil pressure can build up pretty fast. Especially if it's just over and over and over. Even though I live here in Minnesota, and we have Brainerd, I consider Road America my home track. I have over 400 laps there, which it's not, there's people out there with 20,000 laps at Road America. But I have a decent amount of experience there, and that track is so hard. It's so hard on engines, on brakes, on tires, because each lap is over four miles long, and you're just constantly just ringing the s*** out of your engine, and the car, and every piece of body.

Especially when you go into, what is it, turn one? You're coming in hot.

Turn one, yeah. You're going in hot at turn one, so there's three pretty long straights there. So going into turn one, like I have an SS1LE, I'm hitting anywhere between 142 and 148, depending on how good I came off of turn 14. And then from three to five, that's another long, like equally as long, or it's not equally as long, it's almost as long, but it's mostly downhill. So again, you're in that 140 plus range, an SS1LE, right? So a lot of the ZL1s are hitting 160 pretty easy. My buddy Matt used to have a widebody Hellcat, threw me the keys to it, and was doing like 162 on the front straight in those cars. Love them to death, I've had three challengers. They don't handle road courses. They really don't. So yeah, it's really hard. And then there's the back stretch that you're getting up into like the mid 130s or at the high end, like low 140s. It's hard.

It's hard on your car.

Hard on the car, yeah.

Yep. So then if you have... So let's go back to the oil filter then. So if you are at that... If you're wringing the s*** out of your car, then what's the potential problem with that? Then if you have that filter that's not intended for that?

Well, again, you can cause the filter to... If the... Swell and all that. If too much pressure builds up, you can cause the filter itself to swell and crack, and now you've spilled oil halfway down the track or worse.

Yeah, that's a problem for everybody.

Yeah, everybody, right?

Not just you. Because then you got to shut down and clean up.

Yeah.

Dude, I was just at Milwaukee for... I was with Minneapolis Mopar. He was just testing his new automatic setup on the Viper, right? And there was this big old Cummins in the right lane. That thing was cooking for sure. I can't remember. I think it was doing 11s or whatever. But anyways, I think this is a second or third or however many hits, but the truck's like halfway down the track. And then, you know, this thing was, I mean, dude, the sky was black. I should show you a photo later. Like the sky, you could not see the car in the other lane. It was rolling or whatever.

Yeah, rolling cold.

Yeah, right at the beginning. So he's halfway down the track and it's all black smoke and then all white smoke.

Yeah, not a good combo.

It was hilarious. But then, what's it called? As he passes me, I just hear, ting, just metal all over the track. I've got photos of it actually, too. So if you zoom in enough, you can see like the no metal, metal. So it's crazy.

And those those diesels, man, they'll do like, you know, like 400 horsepower, but like 18,000 foot-pounds of torque.

Yeah.

Yeah, they can turn themselves into metal butter really quick.

Dude, when you're playing with that much torque, that's when you start twisting stuff.

I know, I know.

It's ridiculous. I mean, dude, it is cool to see. I really I need to get somebody that's a diesel expert on the show at some point or in the diesel world.

Yeah. That's not me for sure.

No.

Yeah. Yeah, some of those some of those diesel guys or cows, they put down some massive crazy power. Yeah.

Like 1500, 2000 pounds torque, just nuts. So it's like, yeah, at some point I need to get one of those because I'm for this episode 48. Now, I believe that's like, where the diesel people at? I'm not too concerned about the electric people, but I would like to get an expert on. I don't think we really have anybody in Minnesota that does modifying of stuff like that.

I'm sure that you said that you're going to get a bunch of messages like, what are you talking about, man? It's like a whole club. So hopefully they respond and get them on.

That's how it works. You say absurd s*** like that, and then and then they come out of the woodwork because if I'm asking nicely, hey, who's the EV expert? Nope, crickets. But if I say there's absolutely no EV experts in Minnesota, they're all going to be like, wait a second. I am. That's how you do it.

I'm an expert, or no, you got to go see so and so over in Plymouth.

So for your research when you were doing this then, so what were you kind of because you said you had a buddy at GM. So what kind of who are you reaching out to to kind of verify everything?

So I've been fortunate enough to I don't know, man, luck of the draw or whatever it might be or just being in the right place at the right time. But I know quite a few people at both or I did know quite a few people at like FCA, Stellantis, Christ or whatever they are. I think they're Stellantis today.

Yeah, unfortunately.

And I've just gotten to know a lot of folks over at GM and through knowing them, get to call them my close friends, just interact with them almost every day. Like we have a Discord group because they're kind of all over the place, right? And a lot of them are in Michigan still, kind of spread out. So we were talking, I'll give a shout out to my friend Matt here. So Matt had a Camaro, a couple of friends named Matt, they might both come up later. But Matt had a SS-1LE. He upgraded to a CT5V Blackwing. And that's the CT5V Blackwing that Throttle House used in their video where they had the Blackwing. They had the wide body Charger Hellcat and the BMW M5. Yeah, I was going to say it might have been the CS. It was at least an M5 variant. And when they were using that car, his LT4 ate a spark plug, basically. Throttle House took care of it. It was some pretty epic s*** on their end. They had a dealership open their doors late at night to get it fixed. But because of that, we wanted to know why. What happened? How did that come about? And one of our friends who recently retired from GM, his name is Tom. He was the lead aerodynamicist for the C5 and the C6, and the fifth-gen Camaro and the sixth-gen Camaro, and so many more projects at General Motors that I'm really not giving them enough credit for, probably. But he's like, hey, I can get you in touch with the engine team, and let's just talk to them, and let's just tell them what happened. So I was fortunate enough to get on these Zoom calls, or Teams calls, and just learn. That first session was just me listening. And then I started asking some questions, and then I asked, I'm like, hey, can we do this again? But not this problem-specific? Because we touched on his engine with the spark plug, and before that, we actually had a conversation because a buddy, Myron, blew up his engine at Road America, and we wanted to know what did that look like, or why, what caused that. And a lot of times, those guys at GM, they want the engine back. They want to see it. They're like, we want to know what failed.

For the R&D.

Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of goes back into play on why oil viscosity recommendations changed for the LT1 and the LT4. It was like 530 at first and then 040. As the platform grows and they learn more from it, they're like, oh, well, maybe it should be a 48 oil. They've gotten to the point where now in the C806, the factory fill is 5W50, which is not a common viscosity. So just through those conversations, we essentially ended up having three hours worth of conversations. We're like, I came back with notes. I was like, all right, I want to know about this, and I want to know about this. And tell me, I see people putting extra oil in the engine when they go to track days. Like, should we do that on the LT1 or LT4? And he just flat out gave me the answers. He's like, no, but no, and here's why. So there was more to it than just a flat guess.

God, I love those guys that give you a reasoning.

Yeah, I mean, true performance enthusiast and the real engineer, not that there's a fake engineer out there, but almost to the point where he would lose me. And I was like, all right. But then he'd bring it back to layman's terms.

Right. Well, part of that's on you, too, those. If you're an engaged, which you are, if you're an engaged person, you'll be like, all right, you lost me. Can you explain that? That's of course. That's one of the skills that I picked up in this podcast, even. Like, you'll be explaining something. You'll be like, hold on, hold on, Luan, back up. It's like, I'm a dummy, layman's terms. So that sounds like it was a really, I guess, engaging conversation. Did you have any, like, you probably had a million takeaways, but did anything strike you like, oh, s***?

You know, the biggest one, and I still get s*** for this all the time, is there's always somebody in the forums or the groups who's like, what kind of catch can should I buy? Because it's a direct-injection motor. And then you'll get a bunch of people making these recommendations. And I just flat out asked them, I'm like, you know, what kind of, what kind of, like, should you be running an oil catch can or an air oil separator? Like, you know, they're called a couple of different things. But he was like, no, the system has one. It's designed to work as it does. He's like, the only time you'll ever really need one is if you modified the hell out of that car and it's pushing like 1100 horsepower. And even then, if you'd like take the air filter out of the air intake and you see oil pulled up at the bottom, it's like, then you should probably consider one because the factory system isn't doing its job. He's like, the system is designed to recycle that oil through and there's a like a drainage valve and it puts it back into the pan. And he's like, when you put a catch can in, like you're bypassing that. And now, the yeah, you're pulling some of that moisture oil out. He's like, but it's not always a bad thing. Like if you drive the car as intended, if you push that thing to 6,500 RPM, redline, whatever it might be, any of that residual oil that might end up in your on your on your valves and your intake or whatever, it just gets burned off, right? So, like that was one of the big takeaways for me. And to this day, like if somebody asks like, hey, what kind of catch can should I buy? I just say don't. And then you'll get like 35 other people who are like, no, I need a catch can. Look at all this crap that I captured in mine. You're like, well, it's designed to flow back. So you're catching the stuff that's designed to flow back. So you're not letting it get back to that.

Right.

Oil pan.

Okay.

So that was like, that was a I don't know if it was an eye opener, but it was definitely like a light bulb.

And this is for sixth gen Camaros in particular.

Yeah. Sixth gen Camaro, the LT1, the LT4. I mean, really any of the vehicles with those modern Chevys or GM. The Corvette, the Camaro, the Blackwing. So yeah. So that was that was pretty surprising. Let's see. One of the other like, oh, wow moments was like those things can redline without grenading themselves like 7,700 rpm. Like once or twice. Okay, right. Like they the red line from the factory is like 6450 or 6,500 rpm. And through what they've learned, obviously they have to like literally destroy some just to find out what the absolute limits are.

Yeah, nobody tests harder than Koenigsegg though.

No, no, no. No, but also, you know, not too many people are... You're not picking up a Koenigsegg off of a production line either.

No.

Right. If you have a problem with your Koenigsegg, I'm pretty sure Christian himself is going to be like, hey, tell me what happened.

Yeah.

This is a mass-produced vehicle.

Yeah.

It's a Chevy. All right. Let's be honest. There's areas that you'll put it together and it'll run flawlessly and then you'll get some duds here and there. It's a mass-produced vehicle.

There's so much more at stake. But no, I'll only bring that up because one of my favorite videos is watching that conics that go over those crazy bumps. It's one of the best videos ever. And then they just beat the s*** out of this.

I know. Yeah.

But the thing, back to your point, it's mass-produced. So we're talking like every time there's a new generation coming, I would be surprised if they did anything less than a few dozen cars that just get absolutely destroyed.

Yeah. And cars as a whole, absolutely, if not more.

And then individual parts, too.

But like individual parts, the engines themselves, like they are run on engine dynos until they are bright hot red and everything is failing. And they have all the data and measurements that say, okay, here's the part that failed.

But there's something to be said about that. And this is where hopefully, I really hope by the time I'm at episode 100, 200, whatever, I get to speak to people in the space, like when it comes to actual engine design, because like when you go in there and you change, you know, the angle of this thing, that changes how that entire thing performs, you know, so when it comes to actually designing, like obviously I'm sure there's some universal rules, right? Like new engines share a lot of similarities to old ones, but there's some things that you just have to stick to. But I wonder when it comes to R&D, I would love to talk to somebody to see like why they make the decisions they make.

So I'm not sure if you probably didn't get into that too much, but you know, I wanted to ask all the questions, a million and eight, right? But there were, you know, we were time limited. And he was actually going out of his way. Like he was taking these calls like from home, right? And like, he's like, I guess I got, you know, I got to go. I know we're a little over time, but like I got to go make dinner. Like really stepping out and doing a huge favor for all of us, which was really cool.

Well, it sounds like he's he was pretty excited too.

Yeah, yeah.

To work with the local community. Yeah, right.

And he loved, you know, loved talking about it. I mean, you think about it, that's like his baby. Like, hey, this is my creation. It's not just him, obviously.

It's usually teams of like 20 or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. So but for him to be able to talk to the end user on something that he and his team created, like, how cool is that? And vice versa. How cool is it for us to go to the GM small block team and just get this wealth of knowledge? And when I did that, I'm like, I want to get this out, right? Like, how do I talk about the things that, how do I share this? And that's when I decided, you know, I'm going to make this oil comparison video because it's one of the biggest issues that people who track the car, right? So Chevy gives a track warranty on the 1LE vehicles and the Corvettes. What that means is that if you are using the car as intended on track and something fails and something happens that isn't just plain old abuse, right? Like if you money shift fifth to first, that's not covered.

That sounds like something I would do, yes. Yeah.

But there's stories out there where people have money shifted. They went to go three to four and went three to two and sent, they had a rapid, unscheduled disassembly.

I almost said that to Sean's 1M.

Yeah. Sometimes, honestly, it depends on the dealership and what their final say is. Because once you mark a vehicle's warranty void, it's like, it's it. It's void. But they have track warranty coverage. So my friend Patrick, who lives in Florida, who frequently runs Sebring, he went through two engines. The first one, they just bought his car back. And then he ended up getting a 2020 in Rally Green, which is an amazing color. And they only made it for 2020. And he went through that engine, too, and they wanted to buy it back. He's like, no, fix the engine. I want to keep this car.

It's a special car.

The color isn't made anymore. I love the looks. I love the color. And that's what really drove the information for the oil. Because he's like, I don't want to track it. I came from BMWs. And I've been tracking for eight years or 10 years or whatever he said. And he's like, I've never had this issue. Yeah, he's like, I've had maintenance and I've had problems, but they never granated the engine. He's like, I've gone through two engines already with this Camaro. He's like, I love the platform. It's far superior to what I was driving. But I'm not sure I can get back out on the track and trust that I'm not going to smoke another engine. And we wanted to know why. What the hell is going on? And that's where we came. If you look at the owner's manual, they actually have a track addendum that they also give you with the car. It says that they recommend for track use, 15W50. And then when you're done tracking, change it back to like 040. And then that led me to ask more questions. I'm like, well, what about this 550 that you guys just came out with for the 06? And in no uncertain terms, the Mike from GM was like, yeah, that oil's like the magic elixir. He's like, if you're not running the car, if you're not daily driving it, if you don't use it in the winter, like you could totally use that. So that's, I've been running for, I've been running personally the 5W50 that is like, it was formulated with Mobile One for the C8 06. I ran it for just over 4,000 miles with 420 track miles at Road America. Yeah, like 4 hours of track use. And I just sent it off to Blackstone Labs. In fact, they just got it today. So I have all of my oil tested and analyzed because I want to be on top of, one, I'm a data nerd. I like reading that stuff.

Did you get, did you read it today then?

I haven't got it. So no, they like, they, I literally just started changing the oil the other day, sent the sample off, put it in the mail. I just, I looked at the package, like the tracking info. They just received the oil sample today. So I'll probably get the results back in a week or two. But like I, I intentionally left it in as long as I did because I wanted to see how it would hold up. So.

So explain how this like, so is this your first time doing Blackstone Labs? No. So explain how that works. So I've heard about it before, but I'm not familiar with the process or what they do exactly.

Yeah, so Blackstone Labs will analyze your oil and the analysis that they do is like, they'll break it down and see like, how much sulfur is in the oil, if there's copper, aluminum, tungsten, like all the different metals that could be in that oil, if there's evidence of like coolant or gasoline, fuel, diesel, whatever, you know. And then they'll like, they compare it to all of their information that they have done. Like here's, you know, like in my case, the LT1. They take all of the information they have for the LT1 and they compare it. Like, hey, on other LT1s that are similar to what, you know, how many miles you have, that have been track driven, like your numbers are better than average, or your numbers are what we expect to see. Or, hey man, you've got like 800 parts per million of aluminum, you might want to get something checked out. Like, that's not normal, right? So it gives you this, you know, almost like a really fancy Excel sheet.

Yeah, like a bell curve.

All the breakdown of each type of chemical, material and all that stuff. And it just, for me, it's peace of mind, right? Like, oh, hey, everything looks normal. Great, I can continue beating the s*** out of my car on the track, and I don't have to worry about, you know, extra engine wear somewhere along the lines. It was also great when we bought a used Hyundai Kona for my wife, and we did like, I didn't own the car from new, so I didn't know how it was taken care of. So I just did an oil analysis, and it came back normal, right? So I was like, great. And we used to have, showing my parenting dad age here, but like we used to have a Grand Caravan, and at like 70,000 miles, I did an oil analysis on it, and it came back, and it was like, hey, a little, you know, a little bit extra. We see a little bit more fuel than we typically do, but everything else looks good. I was like, all right, cool. I mean, you know, the engine's holding up or whatever. So it's nice, because what you do to go back to the actual process of it is during the oil change, whether you're doing it yourself, or if you have somebody do the oil change for you, you just hand them the, they will send out a kit for free, right? Blackstone, you just go to their website. It's like blackstonelabs.com or net or something. We can get that later. They'll send you a kit for free. And then comes with a little bottle with an oil-absorbing paper that's wrapped around it, a plastic bag, a black container, and then a shipping bag. So they really go the extra mile to make sure that if it does spill, it ends up in a plastic bag with some oil-absorbing material. So it doesn't become like this toxic, a hazardous environment if it breaks or whatever. But during the oil change, you don't want to get it as soon as you get the oil out, and they give you instructions. It's like halfway through as your oil is emptying out, you want to fill it up. So you fill up this bottle. It's, I don't know if I had to guess, maybe five or six ounces worth of oil. Cap it off, put it in the multi-layered packaging, send it off, and then they get you a report within a week or two, depending on how busy they are.

There's no cost to this then?

That's where it comes. So the cost comes in once they receive it, because there's a couple of different options you can check on the paperwork that it comes with. Like, do you want just a basic oil analysis? Do you want, I think it's called like a TBN test where they also check for like additional additives or fillers or whatever. That I don't, I'm not an oil expert in those terms, but that's like an extra $10 or whatever. And it used to be, long, long time ago, it used to be like $25. But you didn't have to pay until you had it analyzed. Now I think it's closer to like 37, because everything's more expensive now.

That's fair.

But yeah, I think it's 35 or $37, and then they'll send you all that info. But to get the kit, you don't have to pay anything up front. You just have to pay once you send it in. So like I have four more kits at home, just waiting for my next oil changes. Like I didn't pay up front for those. So I'll pay once the next oil change comes up.

This sounds like 23 and me, but for cars.

Yeah, actually, that's a great point.

Because they're gonna collect all that data regardless of whether you use it or not. But that's super, I'm guessing they probably get back to the manufacturers probably too.

I don't know if they have any affiliations with the manufacturers. I would probably be smart if they did.

I'd imagine they would make bank off of that.

Yeah, but on the flip side, I'm sure big manufacturers do their own testing for that kind of stuff.

That's fair too. Well, it's interesting, because once it gets to the real world, because I feel like manufacturers, they probably, okay, I'm probably gonna backpedal after I say this, but for example, we'll see Lamborghini, they'll fly their cars in to test in Colorado, they'll go up to Pike's Peak and all that stuff, we always see Camo cars over there. So I feel like manufacturers, they can only do so much real world testing though.

True.

On scale, because once you, I mean, law of large numbers, right? If you go from 100 cars to a million, or not a million, let's say 10,000 cars, that's a big jump in data.

Yeah, and right, you have a bigger slice of the pie overall to compare your data to. So, you're absolutely right. Manufacturers do, they go to Pike's Peak for high elevation testing. They run their cars through the deserts for extreme heat, but on the same token, they might do, I'm making this number up, five or 10, right? You get 10,000 samples, it's a better understanding of how your product is doing overall.

Yeah, that's why year one cars are extremes. Yeah, that's why year one cars are sketchy sometimes of any new model.

That's true. Yeah, the Bronco, that's probably one of the first one that comes to mind with the problems that the new Bronco had. Well, I don't care about that. My wife wanted one, and we ordered one, like an hour after they announced it, and then it got delayed, and then delayed, and then delayed, and then when it finally got built, the dealership was like, well, we might put a $20,000 like adjusted market value on it. And I was like, well, then I might not buy it.

Right.

And then like they confirmed, and I was like, okay, well, there's nothing I can do about it. We didn't have like a signed agreement saying, I would only pay MSRP or whatever, so.

Yeah, that sucks.

It does, it did suck. I know my wife was really bummed out about it. Yeah, I was going to be like her toy. But from what I learned later, like there was a lot of issues with the Broncos. I mean, with the tops, the interior coverings was like flaking away. The engines are like self-grenading. I think somebody recently filed a class action on Ford for that specific engine, and it affects.

It was a weird time during COVID, because a lot of manufacturers, we saw this with some of the Rams, too. Like one of my buddies had a 3500, 2500 or whatever, and manufacturers would basically have to find different suppliers for, like in his instance, it was the rear view camera or whatever, because a lot of those new, like a lot of new cars, their mirrors have cameras.

Yeah, my Camaro has that.

Yeah, yep, so it had some issues with that, and then they found out that it was from a different supplier or whatever, too, so it's like, a lot of, I feel like we might see a number of things as a result of that.

Yeah, it's possible, for sure.

The first cars that come to me, though, I'm so sorry, is the Supras, first of all, which isn't too bad, because they had their own little things going on, but pros and cons, but then also the new Z06. And that's because I saw a lot of articles. So this is kind of where I always wonder, is there truth to it, right? Because some people will be like, oh yeah, the Z06 is phenomenal. And then you see articles like, oh, this one granated or two motors granated in the same week. I almost wonder if there's like an assault campaign sometimes by these like journalists. I don't know, I'm so skeptical in 2023.

Sometimes. And I know you said, sorry, but I'm like, I'm not affiliated with General Motors. I know I have a lot of friends that work there. And I would probably feel a certain type of way of like, you were talking, hey, you're not even talking bad. You're just staying.

It's just what I saw. Yeah.

Stuff that you saw, right? And I was not given any detail, right? But like I remember before that third conversation I had with that team, I wanted to ask stuff about the Z06 engines because I had just heard about that. My friend Marco, he had an orange one. He blew his engine like within a couple of weeks of him owning it. And others that I know that were having some issues, and like I almost had a stipulation, like yeah, we'll have this call, but like just don't ask about the Z06 right now. It's like a sore subject. So out of respect for the people who got me in front of that team, I didn't. Not because they had of anything to hide, but obviously they realized something was going on because they, I mean, they were taking care of those things. Like, oh, you had a Z06 that went down? Yeah, we'll get you a new engine like in a week.

Yeah.

Like it was fast response. So I think there was some type of like failure with mechanical internal parts.

Which I mean, we kind of, again, being, this is where I have respect for Chevy. Chevy and Ford are absolutely crushing it at the moment. I grew up Mopar, but they haven't done anything notable in about a decade since the Viper was gone, or six years, whatever. In my opinion. But Ford and Chevy are crushing it. So that's kind of where I was like, all right, they're trying something entirely new. Regardless of what you think about the C8, it's mid-engine. And the Z06, that's the highest naturally aspirated V8 ever made. So the first year is probably bound to have some issues.

Exactly.

So that's kind of why I'm happy they're pushing the envelope, but that's what happens when you push the envelope. You might get a few duds along the way.

Right, so it's not like every single engine was having an issue, but when you're also charging some of those fully loaded, like a 3LZ with every option under the sun with like the Z07 package and the carbon fiber wheels, like you're talking MSRP around $175,000.

Yeah.

With Corvette, right? That's not big numbers for like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or s***, even like some of the R8s. Yeah. The Corvette's never been in that stratosphere before.

They're kind of filling a gap there. Who was I talking to? We had Travis on the episode aired this previous Monday. We were talking about how they're kind of filling that gap between 100K and 200K, because there was really nothing in that category besides like maybe a Nissan GTR.

Yeah, because the NSX is done. That was also in that.

A failed project. Well, okay, I shouldn't say failed. They really screwed up with their price point. I was really disappointed with that, because the thing is, spend 20, 30K more here in Ferrari Huracan range. At the time, we're not talking about these ridiculous prices now, but they also waited so long to release it. They did a Super Bowl commercial in like what, 2013? Something like that?

Yeah, it was just a long, I mean, the LFA had the same problem, right?

Yeah, by the time it came out.

By the time it came out, it was $400,000, and it was...

Dated?

It was dated, and the performance level wasn't there anymore, and it's still one of the best sounding cars ever made.

One of the best cars, period. It just was a little late to the party.

It was late to the party, right. But you're right, the C806 is definitely filling that gap. But from a general motor standpoint, that's their most expensive vehicle that they've ever made.

That's their halo car, yeah.

Their halo car. So when something goes bad, they're on it. You have a concierge program that takes care of you, which is good to hear.

If I was evil, what I would do, because a big problem during COVID was the resellers, the price gouging and all that stuff, because a lot of people, that's why Chevy did the thing. It's like, if you, what was it, six months or one year, you had to wait before selling the car to keep your warranty.

I think it was six months.

So if you sold the car within six months, I believe it was, the warranty was voided. So if I was Chevy, if I was evil, what I would do is just sprinkle a few duds and articles out there. Make those people keep those cars. Keep that warranty.

Yeah, I don't think that's a good, I don't think that's a good plan.

I said if I was evil.

I know, I know, I was gonna say, there was some weird stuff happening up at the top end of GM, but I don't think intentional motor chaos was one of them.

If I ran the world. Because like, again, that was a problem, too, as we saw. Once those started hitting the streets, a lot of people were just marking up for 100K, which it's a phenomenal car. I would love to drive one. I shot one and I got to hear it. I got to drive the Stingray, which, yeah, deceivingly fast. It was ridiculous.

Yeah, they move out, man. They move out further for the base Corvette, right?

I'm excited for them to continue dropping in value now that we're in a post-COVID era. Because if those get down into the, maybe not 60, maybe in the 70, 80 range, I think they're in the 80s already.

Yeah, I mean, depending on how it's optioned, you can find some early 2020s with, you know, around 10 to 15,000 miles on them for low 70s.

But it's probably like a 1LT. Yeah.

So not a lot of options, but still.

Yeah, if you're a bozo like me, you don't need options. As long as it's got a backup camera and an all right sound system, we're good. I'm usually liking that 2LT category because I remember for a while I was looking at like Stingrays for the C7.

I was, the 2LT was always like everything I wanted was always part of the 2LT package. I don't need a 3LT.

That car sounds, yeah, that car fricking sounds like a bat out of hell too. Like for what it looks like, regardless of what you think of its looks, it really does not sound what it looks like. It looks like it should have a V6 hybrid turbo because of the current era we're in. Like the, for example, like McLaren in there, what is it, the Artura, I think, has the V6 twin turbo. It's like, or hybrid, or whatever it is. It looks like it's a hybrid. Yeah, it looks like it should have that, but instead it has this big thumping V8, so.

I know, I know, and it sounds glorious.

Amazing, yeah. Once you put it in Z mode or whatever. Yeah, I can't wait.

One of the most frequent questions I have on all of like my YouTube track videos is dude, what exhaust is that? I'm like, that's stock. My powertrain is stock. Stock engine, stock air box, stock exhaust.

It sounds so good. I was listening to the video and you got the audio pretty good.

I did an external microphone, that's why. I ran a microphone to the like.

Like a lapel?

Yeah, I ran a little lapel mic and it's like this cheap $30 Amazon microphone that just works. Like my buddy Mike was like, hey, I'm going to try this microphone. And I was like, dude, I spent three times as much on that on the last microphone. I was just blowing it out. Sure enough, this $30 cheap, it's like purple panda or something like that. It's like the most ridiculous thing. It works, it sounds great. It doesn't get blown out from the frequencies that are put out by the exhaust. And I eventually just permanently mounted it right next to my license plate. Just put a little wind muff on it. And that's the stock exhaust. And it sounds fantastic. And people are like, there's no way that car's stock.

You'll have to show me that setup at some point. That sounds really cool. Cause like I actually, so I have two sound setups. So I have my H5N with a super shotgun or whatever, which is what I switched to. I just put a lot of money into that setup. It's great if I'm hanging out of a car, getting video rollers, catches it great. But I also did have the lapel setup, wired it outside of the car. We did a test run on Sean's 1M. It did get blown out a little bit because that car is freaking loud at 6000 RPM or whatever. But it was a little goofy because we had to tape it around through the trunk and all that. So if you forget about it, it looks a little goofy. But it's a sweet setup. You can get it in the right spot to mount it. If you have it above your license plate, that's sick too.

Yeah, I figured, you know what? There's the backup camera over here. I'm like, I'll put the mic. Actually, if you look at the photos that you shot of my car, it's there, it's permanently there. I even left a little wind muff on there and everything. People make fun of me for it, or people don't even notice it, or don't care, or whatever, but.

You'd have to be looking pretty close.

I don't care, but it's there. It's just to the left of the license plate.

So what is it recording into? Or what do you hook it up to?

So when I'm recording my in-car video for track days, it's going to a GoPro. It's not even like the most recent. It's like a GoPro 7. So I don't know, I think they just dropped the 12.

Stay away. I haven't tried the 12 yet, but I've been hearing so many issues with these new GoPros. They're overheating. Like I got the 10, brand new 10 overheats after like, I think it was like 12 minutes. I don't think I was even shooting 4K. No, I definitely wasn't shooting 4K. So I was really annoyed because my 8 will go forever.

Yeah, I heard the same thing on a lot of the newer ones. They're just trying to cram too much tech into the same footprint, right? And I think they just don't have the cooling figured out.

Yeah, Insta is coming on the scene right now because you can get the 360 or whatever, but then you could also get this little like thing that detaches from it. And it's super cool, I want to look into it. Like my buddy Jay has one. He was basically rocking it the whole rally. He's strapped to his forehead like right here. It was the goofiest looking thing, but you know, when he went into a ditch with his R8, it was hilarious because he got it all on camera. It's just this light camera taped to his f****** hat or whatever.

So I've used a cam box before too, which is the like visor cam, like it goes inside the helmet. And it's like a cam box V3 or something. It's not even mine. Again, I have incredible friends and they just let me borrow s*** all the time. Yeah, I haven't broken anything yet. So I guess they trust me with it. But not going to would. Yeah, exactly. That one, the stability is a little off. Like riding in a car on track is not a smooth experience. Right. And that those videos give you direct. Like one of my favorite in like the visor cam videos is me like hunting down and chasing down a Ford GT, like a new Ford GT at Mid-Ohio. And like it took me a couple of laps, but I finally caught it. But that video like can give you motion sickness. Like even if you don't get motion sick, like if you watch it long enough, it's like an old like Blair Witch movie. It's just like constantly shaking because that's what's happening, right? And the stability just wasn't there in that version. I guess they've got a new version. That's better.

Yeah, we're so spoiled with these stability technology things coming out because like five or six years ago, like even my DSLR, like it has stabilization, but it's nowhere near a GoPro.

Right, right. You probably get some weird rolling that happens in the footage if you're using it for like in-car shots, right? Where like it's mounted, right? Because I have mine mounted to my seat. It's like a headrest mount. I noticed I don't even have like the full GoPro stabilization. This is like different levels on my camera. And I did like the just the very basic one because I want a little bit of camera shake. Otherwise, it looks like a video game. That's not an authentic look. And actually, that's a lot of the reason I switched from like 60 frames down to 30. In this last round that I was just there two weekends ago, I wanted to see what like how it looked on the cinematic. So I shot it in 24p. It's okay. Like I think for YouTube content, I think 30 is probably what I'll stick with, like 30 frames a second. We might be losing some of your audience at this point. But also, you mentioned the Insta, right? Hot take. I don't like the Insta 360.

You don't like the 360?

Oh man, let me rephrase that.

Oh, okay. Now it's too late to rephrase.

Well, I don't like the sticking off the back of the car.

Oh, you just mean the 360 cameras in general.

360 cameras in general, where they're like, yeah, no offense Insta, that wasn't directed at you. But like the 360 shot where like you got it on the stick and the stick disappears. It's just not, it looks like, first of all, it has terrible fish eye, right? It gives a weird warping to the back of the car.

That's part of wide angle life. Yeah.

Yeah, right. So maybe if they fix that or can either fix it in post or if there's a different setting, people just aren't using. But there's so much bounce when it's on that long stick that eventually gets edited out.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's cool. The concept is cool. It looks like you've got a chase cam following you. But.

It depends on the, so we have a carbon fiber one that's pretty stiff and rigid. So it's not too bad. I have the GoPro 360, so I use it on my dad's AMG just for, just to test it out or whatever. It wasn't too shabby. And the nice thing is, is when you zoom in, you lose a little bit of the fish eye. Yeah, I'll have to show you because it's, I mean, the fish eye is still there and I'm not gonna get rid of that, but it's interesting. But I do hate when it's bouncy.

Yes.

I think, I feel like if you have a more rigid setup, sure, you might have the stick, but at least it'll be cooler footage, but.

It could be. Yeah, absolutely.

It would suck on a track.

There's a lot of potential for it. If we can get some of the nuances figured out with that video and like the settings, like even my GoPro, I shoot in linear mode. So that there isn't that wide angle. And that's why, you know, it doesn't look like I'm in a fishbowl inside of my car and it doesn't look like my arms are 14 feet long.

Yeah.

It's because I do mess with the settings. I set the white balance. I adjust the aspect ratio. I am messing with frames per second where most people just out of the box, turn it on and they go. Yeah, yeah. So that's another thing. Like one of my most asked questions is, dude, what setup are you using in your car to record?

Which it looks pretty good. It does, that's the thing. If you put the extra effort in, like you said, just dial in the settings, because a lot of people, I don't know if there's any age limit on that. I want to say there is, but there probably isn't. A lot of people are just lazy and just throw it in, hit record, hope for the best. But then, again, I don't like wide too much. I like to be in that somewhat wide to narrow in that range. But going ultra wide is just not for me. I can't see any purpose to possibly use it outside of maybe if you mount it to the back of the car.

But yeah, I mean, that ultra wide, you're shooting outside of a realistic peripheral view.

By a lot.

By a mile. Yeah, so yeah, there's a, but yeah, I'm an AV geek, so I could talk about those kinds of settings all day long. But you know.

I definitely do want to talk about, because you do a lot of track. So if I had to ask, how many track days have you done at Road America or in general, total, if you had to ballpark it?

If I had to ballpark it, I think... It's actually not a lot, believe it or not. It's, I mean, it might be a lot by some standards, but I know there's guys out there and girls out there every weekend.

Yeah.

And that's not me. I just got, I don't live that life. I can't afford that life, because track weekends are expensive. But I'd say I've probably done, I don't know, more than 25 for sure.

Most of which are at Road America.

A lot of them are at Road America, but I've been all over. I've done track days at Road Atlanta. I've done Watkins Glen. I've done, I mentioned Brainerd earlier. I've also done DCTC, which is like really an autocross track on stairways, if you think about it. Mid-Ohio, I've done Autobahn Country Club. I've done the three in Michigan, like the three big ones, Waterford Hills, Gingerman, Cratten. So I don't, I try not to limit myself to one track. Really, I wanna get as much track experience at all the different tracks that I can. But yeah, Road America is such a special place to me for a couple of reasons. One, it's gorgeous. Like if you've never been there, and I know you were there recently, right?

Correct.

The facilities themselves are really there. It's not what you expect from a track.

It's not run down at all.

It's not run down. I mean, there's a reason that they get returned business from places like IndyCar and NASCAR and IMSA. And it's because not only is the track looked after, but the facilities for all of viewership and their participants, not participants, but their patronage, right?

It's great for spectating.

It's fantastic for spectating. Great viewing locations. When you think of public bathrooms, most of the time, they're gross. And Road America has legit buildings for bathrooms, right? So you're using a real toilet. I know this is going way off track here, but the scenery is beautiful, not the toilet, but the track scenery is beautiful. And then the other part for me is that like five, six years ago, seven, I don't know, we started like this annual guys trip. And back then it was like, I still lived in Michigan. I'm originally from like the Metro Detroit area, right? So surrounded by cars my entire life. Half of our friend group was in Michigan. Half of it was in Minnesota. We're like, well, where can we meet like kinda in the middle? Right? And I'm like, well, s***. Road America is like five and a half from where I live and like seven from where I lived in Michigan. So like the Michigan crew drives a little further, but then that became like an annual every year for like doing this thing. And now it's at a point where we rent a condo regularly from this like this couple that rents out stuff on like Verbo. We're not even going to Verbo anymore. We're just going directly to the couple because they trust us. They know us like, like, yeah, we're good with it. And that way you don't have to pay a Verbo fee. We don't have to pay a Verbo fee, et cetera.

Is Verbo like Airbnb?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've never heard of that one.

Yeah, it's like an Airbnb.

Okay, I've never heard of that one before. That's new.

Yeah, it's, I think they're Airbnb's competitor. They've been, it's like Uber and Lyft.

Yeah, yeah.

Same thing. In fact, you could probably find the same place on Airbnb.

Yeah, they usually listen on both places.

Exactly. But that became our annual guys trip. And now our friend group has spread out even further. We've got one that moved to North Carolina, one that, we still got our Michigan group, we got Ohio, and we still come to Road America every year, at least once a year. So that's why Road America is, holds a special place in my heart, I guess.

It's the home track.

It's the home track. And now that I've done like 400 laps there, I feel like I'm finally at one with the track. I get it. And I'm still making mistakes. Like I wish I could have a mistake free lap. Like even on my personal best, which I just hit a couple of weekends ago, if you watch that clip, I have to like let off for a brief second because there's a blue NSX that I had to get a point by from. Because it is a HPDE event, right? High Performance Driver Education event. So it's not like, it's not wheel to wheel racing, right? There's courtesy involved for safety reasons. Like I can't just pass anybody blindly. I have to make sure they know that I'm there and they have to give me a point by. So even on that lap, my personal best, I had an obstacle, like a rolling obstacle, I guess. Those NSX guys. And then like the very next lap, I ran, I was only like 7 tenths slower, but it's because I had to wait for a GT350 to give me a point by. That was Mustang, guys. So I still haven't had the perfect lap there, but I think I'm about as close as I'm going to get to it. And that's taken me a long time, right? 400 laps before I'm like finally really comfortable there. If you watch some of my sessions, I'm having like full on conversations with the passengers, like while I'm doing 140 miles an hour. First year I ever went there, I was like sweating like this.

Yeah, white knuckle.

High speed track, like yeah. Get out, my hands were still in this position. But yeah, I love tracking anywhere and everywhere. And I've got a few bucket list tracks. Kota is one of them. I've been to Kota twice, once for a WEC race. And then last year, my wife surprised me and got me F1 tickets. It was my 40th birthday. So I just turned 41 this year. And we went to Formula One in Austin at Kota, and it was spectacular. And I just, I want to get on track, in my car.

It's a beautiful track, especially going into turn one, what is it, uphill? Yeah, uphill. Dude, where George Russell bombed into signs last year. Yeah, you were at that, right? I was, yeah, I was there. Which turn were you on?

So we had grandstand seats at turn nine. So it's a little further down. Turn 11 is the hairpin that leads onto the back straight. Turn nine, there's a section of the S's, the high speed S's, and then turn nine is just after that. So it's not quite a high speed corner, but it's not low. It was great because the dip at turn nine gave all of the titanium plate sparks. So I had a bunch of pictures of actual, like the sparks coming off the car.

That's super sick.

Yeah, it was really cool.

So I know people could always go watch your video, but I really enjoyed your video talking about track insurance, which is the video where you crashed at Road America. So first of all, before we get into the track insurance side of things, I'm more so curious. So what happened that resulted in that crash?

Yeah, so I've had a couple of years now to kind of reflect, but I think I knew it that day. Like later that day, I knew it. I think I have a totally different mentality now when I go to a track day than I did up until the point that I crashed. And I crashed because I was there to set the fastest lap time I possibly could. It wasn't about having fun. It was about, I'm going to go beat my own best. I'm going to post it to the Camaro forums. Everybody's going to throw me a parade, right? Like not literally, but like that was the mentality I have. It was the first day of a two day weekend, the first session of the day for my run group at the time, and like the second lap, first flying lap. And it ruined my whole weekend. What happened is my brain wasn't on yet. Tires were still cold, brakes were cold. And yeah, I just, I wasn't thinking, right? I was approaching the kink. So I crashed at the kink, for those that don't know, Road America, the kink is one of the most, I don't wanna say the most dangerous, but it's definitely one of the most challenging corners in any of the tracks in the country. It's partially blind. It's like a 45 degree bend, partially blind, off camber, and you're surrounded by concrete walls. There's no runoff. And the fastest that I took that corner this past weekend was 112. And that's moving for a factory vehicle with no hide down forest, right? On that day, I approached the corner at like 124.

I think I saw that on your video.

And by the time I realized and had my oh s*** moment, like I was doing like 112 on the grass, cause I just overshot the corner.

Just came in too hot.

It came in way too hot, way too hot. Didn't scrub enough speed. By the time I hit the grass, I had like a moment of panic, over corrected cause like it spun me to the right.

Yep.

And like I said, you're surrounded by concrete on both sides. So I was looking at a concrete wall saying, oh s***, I don't want to like really seriously get hurt. So I started correcting and I over corrected. So once the car kind of got in shape, it was too far the other way and it snapped around. So now I'm going backwards and I hit the wall on the passenger side at about 90 miles an hour. It was 88 miles an hour, but I didn't go back to the future unfortunately. So the car actually didn't look that bad if you look at the pictures.

No.

I was like, oh, new bumper, bump this quarter panel out. None of the glass broke miraculously. Like that, the airbags didn't go off probably because I hit backwards. I was a little sore. You know, I had my, you know, people say the Hans device doesn't come into play when you're going backwards, but it does play, come into play side to side. So I didn't get like a side whiplash. The biggest thing that hurt was my ego. And then I had a really bad like bone bruise on my foot. My left foot, when I hit the wall, came up and hit the back of the clutch. So like that, you know, it's a steel, steel pedal basically. But yeah, it's hard to see in the video, but as soon as I hit the wall, I actually let go of the wheel because Daniel Ricardo broke his hand this year, not saying that I'm in an F1 car, but that happens all the time. Incidents, people hold on to the wheel and it burns right through their gloves or their skin if they're not wearing gloves. So I let go of the wheel, like just right at the right moment. I took the impact and then later found out that the, like I didn't realize it at the time, but it bent the frame so bad that the driver's side quarter panel was also pushed out. Like creased some of the paint was cracking around the wheel well and stuff like that. So that was, yeah, it was just me being, I rushed into the whole day.

Right, like you probably could have done that, probably could have gone for a personal best, but you just weren't.

I wasn't patient.

Yeah, well, it's like 90 and pay, it's just like you get excited.

Yeah.

It takes your second, that's actually exactly how I hurt my leg at the beginning of the year in January. Like it was literally my second set of the day. I doubled the weight and then all of a sudden just pop. And then, you know, I've been limping around ever since. But it's like, I get that mentality. You're like, oh yeah, let's get after this.

Yeah, yeah. And I just wasn't patient enough. And I had that mentality of, I'm gonna own this whole day. It's gonna be my day. It's gonna be the best day. And it wasn't. But thankfully, luckily, I wasn't really seriously hurt. More importantly, I had all of my friends there. And every single one of them, it was, none of it was like, they were all concerned.

Of course.

Because I had to take an ambulance ride back to the medical facility. Because again, Road America, fantastic facility. They have their own medical building, right? And they wouldn't let me call anybody because they didn't really know my state of thought if I was in shock or whatever. So I couldn't call my wife. I couldn't even call my friends who were in the garages, in the paddock, right? And they watched my car get brought back and put into the garage without me in it. Finally, I was able to call my wife, explain what happened, told the guys that I was okay, and I ended up going back. But all of them were there to support me. And then because I had the GoPro in car, I was able to watch that, not only as soon as I got back into the garage, excuse me, but what we do every night when we go to that weekend is we review cool stuff of the day or just things we could have done different on a television. We watch it. And I got a lot of critical, instant feedback. I'm like, yeah, I think if you didn't overcorrect, you may have actually saved it. Or if you just committed a little more or just backed off even just a hair, you might have actually made that corner. So it was really good. And then the next day, my other friend, Matt, not the same Matt that I talked about earlier with the Blackwing, this is the one. He currently has the ZL1 that you'll see on my YouTube channel, but at the time he had a widebody Hellcat. That's the challenger that I mentioned earlier. The very next morning, he threw me the keys to his car. And he was like, go peel your numbers off of your car, stick them on mine, run my car, because we were in different run groups. I'm like, are you sure, dude? You know I just put my car into a wall yesterday, right? And he was like, dude, if you don't get back on the horse, I'm afraid you're never going to do this again. And I think I owe him big for that, because he's probably right. I don't know that I would have gone back to tracking if he hadn't thrown me the keys. And that was huge for me. I mean, you know this, the car community is such a great community. They'll literally give you your shirt off your back. And it doesn't matter. I mean, there's some real douches out there. But it doesn't matter what you drive, right? I'm a car guy in general. I know we talked about this earlier. Like I've driven everything, German, Japanese, like it all of the American brands. Like it doesn't matter to me if it's a cool car. I like it. I want to be a part of it. Like I enjoy them. So, you know, for the car community in general, I think we're some of the best people around.

So we had a similar story with Piero too, because I don't know if you watched that episode or the highlight of it by chance, but basically like... Yeah, where he hit the s*** out of the FRS or BRZ or whatever, they're all the same. But like, you know, before he had an opportunity to even realize that, you know, to even think about what just happened, his buddies were already reassembling his car.

Yeah, I thought that was cool, and I could relate to that. Because we were literally, while my car was in the grass, like in the Road America graveyard, because there was a couple other cars there, because it's inevitable, it happens every weekend. Somebody hits the wall at the kink. This past weekend happened to two different cars or two weekends ago when I was there. Luckily, not mine. We went and pulled the brake pads out of my car to make sure that... Because the SS1LE and all of the six-piston Challenger and Chargers use the same brake pad. And we're like, wow, if we're going to double stint his Challenger with 717 horsepower and 162 mile an hour front straight, middle straight, back straight, we're going to run out of brake pads quick. So while the car was in shambles, I went and threw a jack under it, got the brake pads out, and we used those brake pads too. Because again, I mentioned earlier, Road America is really hard on the car. It eats brakes like nobody's business. But yeah, when I was in that moment, I had no idea what to do. I bought track insurance, but I didn't know what was happening. So I called the number. Well, it's a weekend, and the people who normally handle that stuff aren't there on the weekend. So I was talking to a call center.

Which was so strange when you pointed it out in your video. It's like most track days are on a weekend. Shouldn't you have a few people working on the weekend that are well-versed?

Yeah, even if they don't have somebody there on the weekend, like they should know... Just have somebody there like, oh, it's a track policy. You won't hear from somebody until Monday. Or whatever it was. And then like my adjuster was like off on Monday. So I didn't hear anything until Tuesday. But the reason I made that video was because while I was sitting there in the garage looking at my car that was in pieces, I was like, all right, what do you do? They're like Googling, like, what do you do when you crash your car at a track? And like there was no real relevant information. So I was like, you know, this is going to be a hard video to make, but I'm going to walk people through my experience and what to expect. And the video has done great. It's got like 35,000 views. And it's sure people come in for the carnage. I know that. But so many of the comments were like, dude, thanks for making this video. I had something similar happen and I didn't know what to do. I was like losing my s***. And this video walked me through like what to expect. And it calmed me down during that. And I'm like, good. That's all I wanted out of that video.

We had a similar sort of situation we were at on the car community rally, right? Because a lot of people, like it was their first time tracking, and they're like, well, what do you do for the track insurance or what have you? Because it's one thing if you go to like DCTC, you're not hitting 140 miles an hour, nowhere near it.

You're lucky if you're hitting triple digits period.

Yeah, exactly. So it's like the damage, like can it be high? Sure, but probably not. Road America, there's a lot more risk associated. Like if your brakes go, I've seen a video of a car's brakes going out on that first turn. It's like just whacking a wall. Or like in your instance, you know, the kink. Like there's, it's a higher risk track. That's just part of it. For sure. So I feel like there's a lot of questions too. And a lot of people just got the track insurance, of course. But if something happened, most of those people would have been clueless as to what actually would be the next steps.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you don't get track insurance, you're, you're SOL. There's not many. In fact, today, I can confidently say there aren't any standard policy carriers that cover even high performance driving education events anymore, because there were a couple. And I believe as of like January or February of 2023, like none of those carriers do that anymore.

Really?

So you are stuck with like a Hagerty, which I use then, or what I've been using recently, because they're a Minnesota based company, and I like supporting local, which is OpenTrack. So OpenTrack is same deal, track insurance. They're located here in Minnesota. They're headquartered out in Minnesota anyway.

So they do national coverage too, though?

Yeah, national coverage. And there's always another underwriter somewhere, like when Hagerty does track insurance, it's underwritten by RLI. OpenTrack, I'm not sure who their underwriter is. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same RLI. But somebody else is covering it. The whole insurance world is like that.

That makes sense.

If you have farmer's insurance or progressive insurance, there's somebody else on the back end with a lot more money backing that policy. And that's what happens with track insurance.

It's like Pizza Hut and Domino's using the same cheese supplier. Yeah, I think it was. I think the big three all use the same cheese supplier. Yeah, probably.

I think that's why Papa John got away with the better pizza, better ingredients thing that they went to court over. I'm totally going on a lot. That's fine. I'm pulling out a topic out of nowhere. He was able to prove that he used a different cheese supplier.

Yeah, man, I need to get a pizza now. I need to get some red subways. That's probably one of my favorites around here.

Yeah, I've had red subways. It's pretty solid.

It's good. Let's figure out dinner after the fact if you're down. I'm just getting hungry. But okay, so you got in contact with your guy then, so continue on that.

Yeah, so Tuesday rolled around when he was finally back in the office.

You're probably just calling like, hey, how's Hawaii? I'm over here in panic.

I'm in a ball crying in the corner. No, it was frustrating because I didn't know. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know what to expect.

That's 72 hours of anxiety.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, because it happened first thing Saturday morning, and I didn't hear anything till like Tuesday afternoon. So yeah, that's one way to put it. You know, I finally heard from them. They said, OK, what we're going to do is we're going to get an adjuster. Like, where's your where's your car? Like I left it at the track. Like I drive my car everywhere. People call me crazy for it because I don't like trailer it. But that's because I'm, you know, like I don't I don't have the budgets that a lot of people who are at tracks do. Like I'll see double stackers and like four car toter homes come into the track. And I'm like that that stacker costs more than my house and all of my car cars combined. Like you'll see people pulling out Porsche 911 Cup cars by the pair. Like, all right, they're at a different level. I'm the guy who like drives to the track on the tires I'm going to use at the track and then drive back home. And I just load all my stuff into the trunk. So I was I just told them, I'm like, I just left it there because I had no other way of getting at home. And like they offer tow truck coverage, but I wasn't sure like how it would get paid. And to tow your car from Elkhart Lake, which is like, for those that don't know, it's not think of like Lake Michigan, right? Where Lake Michigan is, it's like almost to Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. To tow that to like the Twin Cities area.

It's about 400 miles, I think.

Yeah, it's about 400 miles.

Yeah.

So it was going to be like 12 or 1500 dollars to tow it. I'm like, well, I don't like, I know I have like part of that track coverage policy covers towing. And I think the maximum was like 1000 dollars. I'm like, but I legitimately don't have like 1500 dollars to give this guy to get reimbursed on. So I'm like, I'll just leave it at the track. Like I can't drive it anyway. If I have to go back and get it, I'll go back and get it. I'll figure it out later. So they just sent an adjuster to the track. They looked at it on track. And within a couple hours after they scheduled somebody to come out and, you know, assess it or whatever, they called me back. He's like, yeah, we just we stopped counting it like $27,000 with the damage. Total it out. And that crushed me. Because I love that car. I love that car so much. But at least I had an answer at that point.

Right. So because waiting in that, like, lol, like, all right, am I going to fix this car? Am I getting a new one? It's a tough situation to be in.

Right. Right. Because I considered fixing it. But then I found out, like, the frame was damaged to the point where that's the big one did the whole real rear cradle over like several inches. And it caused like the driver side panel to get pushed out. I was like, I don't know that I would ever trust it on track again, which was my bigger problem. Like, sure, I can dump the money in to fix it. But am I ever going to be able to trust it again? You know, so that that was for me, that was the bigger concern because of the frame damage. If it was body panels.

Yeah, who cares?

Who cares? They'll cut it, paint it, send it.

Yeah, nobody will know the difference.

Right. Right.

But when it comes to frame, it's like, that's a whole nother level of safety and all that, that you have to worry about.

And, you know, am I going to have to worry that, you know, the control arm is off like three quarters of an inch on one side that I didn't know. And now all of a sudden, my car's, you know, crab walking on track at 140 miles an hour out of nowhere. And, you know, lose my rear suspension while I'm trying to break heavy. Yeah, that's the it was a can I trust the car again? That was the bigger issue.

Yeah.

So I accepted its fate and made the video.

So yeah, so they totaled it out then. And then was there anything else in the process that I guess you wouldn't want to share? Or is that pretty much it? They just cut you a check?

Yeah, they cut you. They cut a check. Like with Hagerty, I had the option of like, did I want to do 10% deductible or 15% deductible? Because there is a deductible involved and it is a agreed upon value. So like, I was stupid in only covering it for what I owed on it. Because now I had to come out of pocket for the deductible, not to pay off the car, right? Because I had a, you know, I purchased the car. It wasn't paid off by any means. And like that had now when I do it, when I get track insurance, I not only cover what the car is worth, whatever modifications are done to it. And like in my case, it's literally just like brake pads and brake fluid and like cooling ducts and brakes. And that's it. So there's not a whole lot. It's like, you know, race pads are expensive. So I get like $1,000 of coverage for like pads and stuff like that. But I cover it for not only what I owe, but I cover it for what it would cost me to buy another one brand new, less the deductible, right? Because you still have to pay like if they're going to cut you a check, they're keeping 10% of that as the deductible. And that's what I learned the hard way is that I covered it for like at the time, I think I owed like $32,000 on the car. And for those that don't know, like a brand new 2SS, 1LE right now is like $57,000, which is nuts because in 22 when I bought my new one, it was like $53,000 and I thought that was a lot. And I stole that car from the dealership here in Minnesota, man. I got it for $36,650 brand new because they sat on it. They sat on it and I bought it in December. Like I negotiated with them for like three months. They're like, no, we got like 18 buyers. I'm like, no, you don't. I'll come get it right now for this much. And finally, they agreed to it. So it was a big sticker shock going from like a car that was pretty inexpensive for what it was to now it's like over that price. But so now I cover it for what I would have to pay to get one new. You know, plus whatever that deductible cost is. Like with OpenTrack, I do 10%. 10% is the smart play. Hagerty offers you 15. I think OpenTrack might as well. But it costs a little more to insure it for only a 10% deductible. Still, you know, you got to come up with $5,500 or $5,700 out of pocket.

Yeah, right.

And that's at the 10% rate.

And it's a one day track insurance, right?

You can set it for however many days you need to. And I say that because most like there's a lot of track days that are only the tracks only do private rentals on like a Monday or a Friday. And it's just like a one day event. Like when I went to Audubon Country Club, it was a Monday. So you can do a single day or you can do a weekend or you can do like when I do Mid-Ohio, it's a three day event. It's a Friday, Saturday.

So you just ensure for the full three days or ensure for the full three days that it's there.

And then there's like a 12 hour plus minus period in there. You know, if the event ends at noon, you're covered until midnight. Correct. So yeah, so it's it's dependent on the event type, the organizer who's running it and the track itself. So for example, Road America's rates are a little higher because it is a higher risk track, because you're hitting like mid triple digits several times per lap. It's not just like, oh, you might see like 110 miles per hour. And that's like, no, depending on your car, like there's a guy out there in the McLaren, there's a GT2 RS that was hitting damn near 200 miles an hour coming into that turn one quarter. Right. So obviously, based on the car, that adjusts the price. But Road America is a little more expensive. Autobahn Country Club is a little bit less, you know. Brainerd is a little bit less. They're just not as high risk of tracks as Road America.

So in this instance then, so that how much did you pay for that one track day or the weekend or whatever?

So back then, for the $32,000 in coverage that I got, which was really minimal, it was like $380.

For the weekend?

The best $380 I spent. Now granted, I still had to come up with the deductible money because I didn't plan for that.

Correct.

So I still, to pay the car off, I still had to come up with over $3,000 out of pocket. And that's why I say going forward, I would have covered it for maybe $37,000 instead of the $32,000, just to have that extra buffer.

So in this instance then, let's say I want to take the GTI over. So yeah, let's say the value is $20,000 now because the market is finally crashing. So in this instance, the car is worth $20,000. I would want to do that one or two day insurance for let's say $25,000, cover deductible or whatever, maybe get a little bit extra for the pads, tires, whatever, all that stuff. And then that would be like whatever, $300, $400 for the weekend. That would probably be the ideal way to go about it is just add an extra 20% of your car's value.

Yeah, and it's not like you're doing anything illegal or shady or wrong. When you're filling out the forms, there's a section for do you have any modifications. And then they ask you to list them. So if you've got a car with like a full cage and you can spend $5,000 on a carbon fiber seat, list that and it's covered. And then it's an agreed upon value. Correct. So I could insure it for $150,000, but nobody's going to agree to that. You know what I'm saying? They're going to come back and say, no, your car's not worth $150,000. Try again. Or they'll work with you and be like, OK. They'll look at the market adjustment. So like if you have something that has a high adjusted dealer markup or market value increase or whatever, right? Sticking with Camaro's. New ZL1s. Well, the new Camaro, period. They're not making them anymore after like December. It's a short year. It's 24 hours last year for it. The value of even my car has gone up even in like Kelly Blue Book or some of the other aftermarket sales pieces. The market value has gone up. So they'll compare market value as well. So if you do have something that is a little more rare because they don't make it anymore or because it has a specific color or something like that, like if you got a Mystichrome Mustang and you're out there tracking it, they'll cover you for any adjusted market value.

That's fair.

So I could easily insure mine for like 65 or 70, and they would agree to that. Now I'm going to pay for that higher coverage. But if I tried to get like 150 grand in coverage, they're not going to agree to that. Yeah, easy, buddy. You're probably going to drive this into the wall as opposed to having an accident. So yeah, you can pay for as much as you want to on the agreed upon value. And I've yet to have them decline any dollar amount that I've given, but I'm also not asking for more than what I have to get one new for.

Right. In a reasonable range. Is this a conversation that happens after a crash, I'm guessing, or is that before?

No, it's upfront.

Oh, OK.

It's upfront. So you know exactly how much you're paying for, exactly how long you're covered for, and if something happens, how much you're going to get a check for. It's that agreed upon value minus the 10% or 15, depending on the deductible that you chose.

Yeah. Haggerty is legit, dude. I use him to ensure a track event. Well, OK, I should backtrack. So there's a guy down in someone near Milwaukee, I want to say. Kenosha, Wisconsin, I think it is. But anyways, his name is Matt Nelson or whatever. American Insurance, whatever agency. Anyways, the guy is legit. He insures like, he insures s*** in a car, guys. Like, I'm talking three or four times a day, he'll post, oh, check out this Twin Turbo R8 I insured. I saved this person 20%.

I'm gonna say the name sells from there, so I've probably seen something.

Yeah, I highly recommend anybody to reach out to him just because, I really should see what kind of sponsorship do we set up because he, anyways, he took care of me. Yeah, so that's the thing. I want to go more mobile with this, you know, and just, I mean, I can be already mobile. I'm gonna be doing it in SEMA next week. But yeah, we'll see who I get on. But nonetheless, he got my a** out of some hot water because I needed to get, you know, insurance. And it was like, I think a couple of days before an event, you know, and I was renting a track. I was renting Atlanta Motorsports Park down in Atlanta. And...

Oh, so you needed the liability coverage for the track rental.

Correct.

Yeah, that's...

It's tough, dude. The questionnaire that I had to fill out was freaking ridiculous. I wish there was a way to have it preset. Like, all right, which track? Because I had to answer a lot of questions. I didn't know the answer to 1,000%, which, you know, when it comes to insurance, they cross their I's and dot their T's. Yeah.

So if you answer it wrong, oh, no, that policy is void.

Yeah. But nonetheless, he managed to get it super last minute. I think we ended up going through Hagerty or whatever. I filled out like seven insurance forms, like in a panic. But I ended up being like 2,000 bucks to cover it.

Oh my gosh, that's nothing.

Yeah, which, you know, at the time, I was broke as s***. So I was like, oh my God.

I mean, that's how I live my life.

But it was a lot less than I was expecting. I was expecting like, I think I budgeted for five grand.

Which is more in line for like a track day rental.

Right. So it was super legit. So yeah, he got my a** out of a pinch. There was a lot of pinches that happened that year with Whiplash rally. Like my car broke down like a few days beforehand. I was leaking a s*** ton of oil. These guys here, Ratify took care of me.

Awesome.

I didn't trust the car, you know, because I was like, it was literally the day before the rally. I'm like, dude, I'm just going to go ride with someone. I'm not dealing with a breakdown in the middle of the tail of the dragon or something. I really wanted to drive my car on a dragon, which is a bummer. But nonetheless, these guys took care of me. So there was a lot of stuff going on in 2022. But nonetheless, like, yeah, Hagerty's legit.

Yeah, yeah. They're car people. They're genuinely car people.

Have you watched their channel at all? It's super cool. I tried mimicking an editing style they had on there. But dude, it's a legit, it's a cool channel.

It's like their production value is astronomically high. It's amazing.

I like him more than Top Gear sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A lot of the stuff Jason Kamisa has been doing with him, that a lot of his like he'll walk in front of a moving car. Like they freeze frame the thing and he like walks in front of it.

That's what I was talking about.

I'm like, that's b*****. I want to do that, but I'd probably mess it all up, and I'd walk in front of an actual moving car and all this other stuff.

I figured out how that works actually. Did you look into it much or no?

I didn't. We're going to have to talk about that.

I can kind of talk about it on camera because I'm trying to get some more local people to do that as well, because I'm trying to in the next couple years, I'd like to step away from the editing side. As I get more monetized on this, I would like to hire editors, even part time. That's the dream at least. So it's really easy. First of all, I don't know if Apple has their version or whatever, but it's all through Adobe products. So After Effects has this thing called Rotiform, Rotoscope, maybe a little bit of both. So basically, you would film one part. So in this instance, the car is coming by or whatever, and I'm guessing they shoot at a very high frame rate because they have to slo-mo it. Because you're talking about a Lamborghini doing 150, and they slow it down to walking speed. So what I imagine they do is they film it first. Well, I shouldn't say I imagine. I'm 99% confident this is what they do. Because again, I did a little test run with the 1M. I never posted it because it was really bad. It was windy. My hair was a mess.

I'd like to see it.

But anyway, so let's take, for example, the shot of the Lamborghini losing to the CA-06. This is the video I'm talking about. So they have it in slo-mo. They filmed it from the side. So you have that layer, and then you have another layer of, what's his name again?

He's the host.

Walking alongside it. So he's basically talking about, oh, look at this little piece of crap. He's not standing next to the car. He's not going 200 miles an hour. But it's kind of like a masking layer. So you basically mask him over it, but it's super ridiculously good. Like sometimes you have to go frame by frame, but it's super cool. Like it's ultra precise. The technology we have now, like five years ago, what they're doing on that editing would have taken you hours and days instead of minutes.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

And it's a free... It might be a plugin. I don't think it's a plugin. I think it's a part of After Effects. So then do you edit on Premiere, I'm guessing?

You might laugh at me.

Sure, I probably will.

99% of my videos have been done through iMovie on my phone.

That's fine. That does the job for what you're doing.

I know. I know. But like I... So I just... I paid for like Corel Video Studio. I didn't love it. Luckily, it's not a subscription service. So it was like a one-time fee. It's okay. It's really clunky.

Yes.

It's not reliable. It has lots of bugs. I looked into Premier, and I was like, you know, that seems to be like the industry standard, but like that's... Unless you get some like crazy like student discount or anything like that.

I miss my student discount so much.

The yearly subscription. It's... For the level of YouTube videos I do, I don't need it. So I just downloaded DaVinci Resolve 18.6.

I heard that one's good.

I hear really good things about it. I haven't used it yet.

So... Let me know.

Yeah, I will. I'm actually going to like force myself to use it on the next video that I do and see how I like it. But it has premier level of like add-ons and things that you can do with it from what I've gathered.

Yeah, I've heard of that one. Because the thing is, I use Adobe Everything because I edit on Lightroom and Photoshop, and then I use After Effects and all that stuff. And yeah, they're just, again, like you said, the industry standard. And I have the whole cloud subscription. I can't remember how much it is, but it pays for itself given everything that I do.

Exactly, because you're a photographer. And having Photoshop is just a tool in the trade.

Yeah, people forget I'm a photographer. By the way, shoot with me, you bastards.

Yeah, shoot. I shot with Harris a couple months ago. Yeah, a few months ago. May? No, it was after May. It was like June. I don't know.

It was shortly after I was blown away.

His photo skills, photography skill, editing skills, all of it. Awesome, man.

And a sparkling personality.

Personality is top notch. She's incredibly handsome. And if you're not familiar with my car and his work, it was one of the limited prints. So hyper limited. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

But so anyways, but yeah, so that's kind of like the quick like five minute introduction to the editing I think people should be looking into because in Minnesota, there's only a handful of people that do stuff like that. And the reason I started doing that is because I got really, really, really, really mad because somebody who's not a part of the car scene or is just trying to get into the car scene put out a really awesome video. So I had to do a little self analysis of myself. They're like, okay, why am I upset about this? It's not because this is, you know, because I'm all for people coming into the community. I love bringing people up. So I'm like, all right, that's not why I'm upset. I'm upset because I let myself fall off. I stopped learning. I stopped learning a long time ago. You know, so it's like my, I wouldn't say my work got stale, but it wasn't growing anymore. So then I spent the next week or two looking into everything. I'm like, I need to do this video. I need to do it exactly like this. So I figured it all out. The problem is, is that it's very time consuming to actually edit.

It is.

Especially, and then I learned how to use proxies and all that stuff, which again, if you ever get into Adobe, I could show you how to use it. But basically what it does is it, because I shoot in 4K, it makes it possible to edit in 1080p, so you're not using all those resources while you're editing. It's super cool stuff. I can't believe I never knew about it before. I'm sure I have a few listeners that might learn something today. So I highly recommend it. You'll save hours upon hours of time. But so one thing I wanted to ask you about, let me check what we're doing for time here. Yeah, man, we're cooking. We're about an hour 40, dude. That was actually one thing I was really scared about, about losing Sean. This is my second worst break up in my life. Is would I be able to have-

The first one, you just didn't pay me enough. I told you I needed, no, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, we just couldn't come to a contract agreement. I used to tell people that he's coming to the end of his contract. Like, what?

Just stick, just roll with it.

He's a free agent. But I was worried about not being able to hold longer conversations. Like, oh, we'll run out of stuff to talk after 20 minutes. And like we talked before the show, it's like it's a little trickier with introverts, because I got to figure out how to talk to them. But nonetheless, where was I? But yeah, we're cooking. But with the question, yeah, yeah.

You fell off and you started...

No, no, no, I was going to ask you a new topic. I was actually more so curious. What kind of tools do you use for your track days?

Oh, gosh, man, I have a... I'm a checklist guy.

Yeah.

I need checklists for literally everything, or else I'll forget to wear a shirt that day, right? And I know I tried to stay off my phone as much as I could today, but I have a checklist that I make specifically for track days.

Yeah.

And then I don't know what camera is going to pick this up.

Probably none of it.

Probably none of it. But this is everything that I take to the track with me.

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow. And like this, believe it or not, all fits. Have you seen the trunk of a Camaro?

It's not tiny, but it's a little tiny.

The opening is like you can't even shove a small child in there, right? It's okay. It's got the handle for the release. But the trunk space is actually huge.

Yeah.

So between the trunk and like I'll keep my helmet. And I bring a spare helmet with me as well, because one of my favorite things to do at the track is take passengers with me.

Yeah. Which is a crazy experience.

Share that experience with them, because a lot of people have no idea what anybody's car can do, right? Not even their own most of the time at the limit when it's being pushed as hard as being pushed. So I love taking people on rides with me. But so my biggest, like if I had to get rid of half of that list, and I could only take so many things with me, it's a basic set of like hand tools and sockets.

Yeah. I was more so referring to like on track tools, like anything like, because like, for example, like Pierre uses like aim or whatever. Oh, oh, okay. Stuff like that.

I misunderstood. You don't need any tools at all. Well, let me just finish that thought. The biggest thing for me, because I do drive to the track, I don't drive on track pads to the track. So I take everything with me that I need to do a brake pad swap. At minimum, that's what I need. Have to have it. The rest is all like in an emergency situation. If I might need this tool, I have it, right? But that's like my must-have. Everything you need to swap the brake pads out. In-car tools for data logging and stuff like that. So the Camaro, the Corvette, they have the PDR, the Performance Data Recorder. So a lot of people look at it as a really s***** 720p camera that's right up by the mirror, and it's almost like a dash cam shot. And it does the overlay of the track and G-forces and pedal input, right? Throttle and brake. But it's an even more powerful tool on the back end of that. There's software, there's something called... The PDR is made by Cosworth, and it's made for General Motors, for the Corvette and Camaro. They also make them for other... I think I'm probably wrong on this, and I'll probably get called out, but I think they make the Porsche data because they have something similar. And like the GT3 cars, GT4s, all that, I'm sure somebody's going to pull their hair out...

Screaming at the windshield.

Absolutely. But on the other side of that, Cosworth has another software called PI Toolbox, and that'll give you all of the data that your car spits out. I'm talking left rear tire temperature, right front suspension travel, like a full-blown like MoTeC data log. Full-blown MoTeC, yeah, absolutely. And that's all built into the car, which is really cool. But I've had, it uses GPS for signaling and stuff like that. And if it doesn't have the perfect signal, at that point, it just becomes a dash cam. So I do redundancy. So I run, like if you look at those videos, you'll see my phone has a timer going on it. And that's Harry's lap timer. And Harry's lap timer is like a track addict, makes a version of it. And it basically uses the GPS signal from your phone and your phone's accelerometer and stuff like that. And I've compared the data from Harry's lap timer and the built-in PDR made by Cosworth, so it's a quality piece. And they're within a tenth of each other every single lap. So it's not like one is way off and vice versa. So I like to use the Harry's lap timer because it isn't intrusive, but it can expand. So what I mean by that is I also have, I didn't use it this last time, but you can use an external GPS, and it'll pair with Harry's lap timer. And you can, any OBD2 tool, like scan tool, that might give more information, like the one I have is like a MX4 or something, like I can get the exact model info to you or whatever. But you can plug that into your OBD2 port, and Harry's lap timer will sync with that and bring more data into that lap. So before I had my Camaro, I was still tracking, I was tracking challengers, which was always fun. And I would get all of that information, like not the same level of information from like you would get from the PDR, like a built-in system. The AIM systems, very similar. They have their standalone unit, but then they have a lot of like, you can plug into the OBD2, and like the catalyst system, the new Garmin catalyst. That's a great system too, because it's built-in video and it has all the GPS data like built into the unit itself. And I believe they're coming out with a new unit soon that will have a little more data. That's not inside info. I don't know anybody at Garmin for that, but my understanding is that there was some leaked footage of like an updated version of that from somebody who works at Garmin. So I think they're releasing it. It also explains why their price dropped a couple hundred bucks within the last month. But yeah, there's all sorts of... AIM is like the industry standard go-to for track stuff if you don't have a system like a PDR. In fact, a lot of like the PDR is an option. And if your car wasn't like if you just found a Camaro or a Corvette at a dealership and the dealership didn't order like if it was a dealer order car, they didn't order PDR as an option. Like the AIM is the acceptable go-to. Like Racebox is another one that a lot of the big magazines use. But AIM is solid, man. That's a great unit. It's super accurate. But that's what I use. I use the PDR that's built into the car. And then for redundancy purposes, I use the AIM's lap timer, which it's like a $30 app. And you can run it on Apple or Android.

Okay, that's pretty legit. I was just curious about that. Because again, you do a lot of track days. I was just curious. I'm just trying to kind of collect data in my own head. Is everybody using the same sort of thing? Or is everybody using something different?

Yeah, there's some pretty acceptable... The car community accepts certain things, and they know when other things are b*******. A lot of drag racers use the Draggy, whatever that is. When that first came out, there was some... I don't want to say controversy, but some people are like, oh, that thing's not accurate at all. And other people are like, oh, no, it's totally accurate. And then as it grew as a product, it became more and more accurate. Same with AIM, same with Racebox, same with Track Addict, same with Harry's Lap Timer. And AIM has always been at the forefront. I'm probably going to make some people mad here, but they're almost like Apple when it comes to how they do their product marketing, because the AIM doesn't go through a lot of updates. And when they do update, they're like, well, okay, XYZ product already had that. But like AIMS is solid. They've done their own testing with it. They make an AIM Smarty Cam, I think it's what it's called.

Okay.

And to add video, it's like a 720p camera. But stability is on point. The auto exposure is on point, so it's not like washed out windshield and super crisp interior and vice versa. So they're a little behind on the cutting edge technology, but when they do release it, you know it's going to work. And you know it's going to be accurate. So that's where I'm showing a little bit of my Apple fanboyism, but you may not have, like my phone doesn't have USB-C, but the new one does, but that s***'s been out forever. But you know it's going to work reliably going forward.

Yeah, we don't fake the moon.

Yes, we don't fake the moon.

Yeah, so I knew that before they even announced it, by the way. Listen, I came from Android, and that whole lifestyle, they're both great, but when they said, oh, look how crisp of a picture we can get from the moon, I'm like, I immediately was like, b*******, there was AI involved. It's like you're telling me that moonshot is perfect every time. Do you understand how f****** far away the moon is? Yeah, it's at least five miles. We haven't figured out how to get gas station footage to look better than 144p, and you're telling me, it blows my mind. But nonetheless, since we are getting on that two-hour mark, have you listened to the show before?

I have. Not as much as I'd like. I'll be honest, I'm not going to b******* you. I wish I had more time to be able to listen. When I used to work out in the field, I would drive all day long, I would listen to podcasts all day long. Now that I work primarily from home.

Yeah, different story.

It's a different story, but I've watched a couple of episodes on YouTube. I've listened to a couple of episodes as well. I pick and choose the ones that I really like.

From the catalog. That's the goal with everything.

I listen to most of your very first episode. I think you're talking about one of the Corvettes.

Literally the first episode was about that.

Yeah, the first episode.

Yeah, the e-ray. That's when I was released, and then I had a video go viral, get a million views, and I've never been called gay so many times in my life in the comment section. It was wild. I got flamed so much on that video. I pissed off a lot of people with that video. Wow.

I mean, you can't make everybody happy.

Oh, but I was going after it on that one.

Well, that's still. I also listened to and watched a lot of... Oh my gosh, I forgot her name, but from Carzontology.

Oh yeah, Jen.

Because as a hobby and a side gig, I detail cars too.

Yeah, I forgot about that. We didn't even touch on that.

I know. I'm a man of many talents. Yeah, so have I listened to your entire catalog?

No.

No, I have not.

I mean, there's only a handful of people that have. Shout out to Tony Kranz. I think it's Slow Panda or whatever. He literally went through and put together an Excel sheet of the question I'm about to ask you. So for those of you that haven't listened to the show, if this is your first time listening to the show, at the end of every episode, I ask a question. It used to be we, no longer we.

I'm not taking my clothes off again.

But at the end of every episode, we ask a question to kind of get an idea of who you are as a car enthusiast. So the question goes like this. You have an unlimited budget. Let's start with that. You won the Powerball, whatever happened. You have to choose a daily, a show car, and a track car. The only limit is your imagination. You could do whatever swap you want, whatever wheels you want. Hell, I don't care if you get a tank. But the only thing that's limiting you is your imagination. So that's really the test of this, because a lot of people just go with the safe answer.

But you know what I'm going to say for track car, right?

Let's see.

It's going to be a Porsche 911 GT3.

RS?

I don't know. It depends on the model, because as fast as a PDK is, and as ultimate weapon as a PDK is, I'm a save the manuals guy only because I love that physical mechanical connection to a six-speed. So if we're talking the most recent generation, I wouldn't get the RS as much as I want to. I wouldn't get it because I would prefer... I don't care if I'm slower because of it. The natural connection to the car, driving a manual, using three pedals, for me, that stirs up something like a Primal. It's not even, yeah, maybe a little Primal, but there's an emotional connection. There's a physical connection. Your adrenaline, for me, it's an adrenaline-pumping move. For me, it's the ultimate man and machine connection. I guess I need a thesaurus. So for me, it would be a GT3, and only not the RS, because currently you can't get an RS with a manual.

The outgoing generation, that one came in a manual, didn't it? Maybe? I have to get a Porsche expert.

I don't know if it was a 991.2.

Don't even get me started on that.

And yeah, I love Porsches, but even I get a little confused on those. I think it was the 991.1. I'm sure we'll hear about it. But I would get an RS. I would absolutely get... Hell, you could give me a 2016 911 GT3. If that RS came with a manual, yes, I would take the RS. So speaking strictly with 2022, 2023 RS, I wouldn't. I would only get the GT3 because it has the manual.

Which the new GT3s are phenomenal. There was a handful at Road America, and they were awesome to watch run.

Absolutely. All right.

Showcar and daily. Oh, God.

Showcar would be a Pagani.

Okay.

So I'd have to like... Man. Like the Zonda, like the Zonda, even like the Cinque Roadster, was just such a beautiful car.

White with black and with the middle red pinstripe.

Yeah, yeah. They only made like five of them. But I look at Pagani's, they're almost like a work of art. Like interior, everything is like CNC mill, then like everything's just beautifully crafted, right? And that NA, I think it's a NA BMW V12.

Mercedes.

Mercedes, yes, yes. Sorry, sorry to all my German enthusiasts out there. Yes, it was the NA V12 Mercedes that just sounds, it's also one of the best sounding V12s that's out there. I would struggle between the Zonda and the Huayra, only I lean towards the Zonda because of the NA V12, as opposed to the turbo spoolie sounds of the Huayra. But yeah, I think I would do a Zonda for the show car. So Dailey, like a GMC Vandura. No, I'm kidding. For those that don't know, that was like the A-Team van. That was the GMC Vandura.

So for reference, Rat, the owner of Ratified here, he was like, just a truck. I don't care.

What's a truck? Yeah, that's fair.

As long as it can tow.

I mean, that's practical. I've never been a truck guy. I'm eventually going to need to get a truck because I'd like to start towing my car to the track. But for Dailey...

Last episode for reference, Sam said, I think he said GT2RS. For Dailey?

Yeah, I mean, s***.

Some people could do it.

I mean, I haven't even gone into swapping motors or anything like that. But man, my friend Nick is going to be pretty proud of me for this one. I would probably do... After I made sure I had all of the maintenance done on it, the V10 M5.

Nice.

Yeah. Like I said, I love all cars. I've owned a Mercedes before. I had an S2000. I've had plenty of SRT vehicles. But just as a daily, man, V10 M5 with just a... S***, I might even do a straight pipe exhaust. Just make that thing sound like an F1 car all day long.

Insane. It's an amazing sounding motor.

So my friend Nick has one of those. He lives in Michigan, and he said that thing, like when you put it into its M mode, is like this visceral machine. It's like a beast. And when it's not an M mode, it's just like your regular, everyday, comfortable BMW.

So I like it. That's a good three. That's a good three. V10, V12, and then a little...

Flat six.

Nice. Well, first of all, thank you for coming on. I've been wanting to get you on for a number of weeks now, so I'm glad we can make this happen. Yeah, me too.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Super blessed. Super blessed.

Yeah, it was a super blast.

It was a super blast. So where can people find you?

Like, fetch. So, you can find me on Instagram. It's Follow My Line, underscore 17. If you want to search me on Facebook, we can become Facebook buddies. That's fine. It's, my name is Luan Zeqollari. We'll have to get your decoder ring out, and we can spell that out on the screen. And then on YouTube, it's Follow My Line. So that is, I don't want to say my main social media platform, but that is probably where you'll, I mean, that's where you'll find all of my track videos, my how-to videos, my vlogs, stuff like that. Any of the videos that we talked about today. And then Instagram is really kind of where I post pictures of stuff like that. Just my car content and things like that. I have a TikTok. I couldn't tell you what it is. I don't really use that platform much. And I gave threads a shot for like 18 minutes and ditched that and haven't been on Twitter slash X for a couple of years.

So those are pretty much the main fields.

Instagram and YouTube are the main ones, yeah.

Perfect. As for everybody else, you're on the Minnoxide podcast. You found me. We're all good here. How'd you like that, Jaco, by the way?

That was good. I know you said it wasn't one of your favorite versions, but I liked it.

Yeah, that was the watermelon.

That was the watermelon, yeah.

Yep, so that's pretty sweet. Glad you liked that one. And this is the part of the episode where I basically just plug everything. It's like, oh, get 10% off Jaco. Use code Minnoxide10. Same thing with 3D Car Care. I still gotta get the shelves up here. I just got my package today. I cannot wait to try it out, dude. So they have this whole new line. So 3D Car Care was essentially the supplier for shops, kinda. Yeah, I'm familiar, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you go detail. But now they're kinda branching into the end user.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw that. They're doing more consumer-based.

Yep, so I've got one of their, I think they just launched it like two months ago. So I got like a full package of detailing products. So I'm gonna try that out, see how like, because like my car's, it's rough. I'm not a big detail. A lot of people. Yeah, people are meticulous. I'm not one of those people. If I ever get rich, I'm paying somebody else to do it. Like for me, it's like, I'd rather just detail like once or twice a year, get a really nice, and then the rest, I'll just be like, here, somebody else take care of it. But financially, I'm not there yet. And it's a Golf. Now, if I had a-

Nothing wrong with it, by the way.

Yeah. If I had, well, somebody's got to support the detailers. I'll be one of them.

But- Yeah, yeah, that's great, yeah.

And I think that one's also like use code Minnoxide10. Save a nice little 10% in a way to support the show. But nonetheless, if anybody made it this far, thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for joining me.