63. Why It's Hard To Build Tracks, Autocross and Drifting, Crazy Truck Build w/ Michael Morgan

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my co-host, Mr. Dan Deckard, Gunnit Garage, man of, I don't know, any mustache.

Man of Jack of all trades, master of none, is kind of what I like to consider myself.

You get the Jack part, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, this is the show where we kind of go beyond the meat, where we get to meet people within our car community, get to know them in a long form format. It's been really cool. It's been a really fun journey. We're coming up on one year here. I mean, one month for you, but he's been employee of the month.

Hey, there you go.

But nonetheless, I totally stole your intro, but I know that's what I was thinking.

Maybe I'm getting fired. I don't even know about it yet. Yeah.

Christmas bonus? No.

I'll make sure to fire you right before Christmas, like one of the bigs. But anyways, today we got Michael Morgan, the man behind Morgan's Motorplex. Many, many stories now that I think about it. You've done a lot of cool stuff, ranging from the Viper to the drift scene to, I mean, you've done a lot. And quite frankly, we could begin at any place, but I'll just kind of let you just introduce yourself and we'll go from there.

Sure. My name is Michael Morgan. I run Morgan's Motorplex based out of Minnesota. Idea behind that was to build a driving complex in St. Cloud or close to it. I'm still working on that on the back end. But in the meantime, we hosted autocross events, kind of do a karting event every year during the winter to keep everybody kind of interested, you know, give some somewhere, you know, something's better than nothing. So we rent out different venues and offer autocross for that. And then on the other flip side, I also manage US Air Motorsports Raceway in Shawnee, Wisconsin, which has a big drift following. So I get kind of the best of both worlds. I do both autocross over Minnesota and drifting over in Wisconsin. So kind of a mixed bag, which is good.

You do everything except for track racing, it seems like.

It's too simple.

Yeah, why is that? All right, well, there go half our listeners. But no, I really enjoy all the different things that you do because, I mean, again, you recently got into the drifting thing, which it looks like it has been successful. I definitely want to talk about that. But I did your autocross event this year. That's my first time doing autocross. I've only been on a track twice ever, like driving. My first time was in a Huracan at the Vegas rental place or whatever. Five laps, it's fun the first time, but honestly, I would never pay that ever again. And then obviously, your autocross event, which I did a video on earlier this year. I learned a lot about myself in those six laps. I learned that I have a lot of potential, but man, I sucked.

It's a learning curve. You gotta get comfortable, and everybody preaches your biggest upgrade, seat time. And that's what we preach, too. You're gonna get comfortable. You're gonna notice it as you progress, too, as a driver. You're gonna learn tips and tricks, and you're gonna pick up a lot of things as you get more seat time. That's what we wanna do. We just wanna offer the seat time, basically.

Yeah, which I'm really excited for this season. And again, we will get into that as well. I'm just laying the foundation for this episode, because there's a lot of things I wanna talk about. But you were the first Viper that I rode in.

Yes, I remember.

When I was helping Golden Peak Productions. That was really fun. Don't burn yourself on the side exhaust. So I'm curious, because you do a number of road course things, and I know you've done power cruise and all that stuff. Where did the love for track stuff begin?

I would say driving on the back roads, just on cruises. You get five buddies going around, and we'd rip around St. Cloud on the south side, and just, all right, let's go. And we would push it, and then all of a sudden, one of your buddies don't come up over the hill. It's like, all right, what happened? So you turn around and go check it out. But it was driving on back roads, basically, just pushing the envelope, and then it's like, whoa, this would be cool if we could do something around here like this. Well, why don't we start asking? So then we started looking into, all right, what venues do we have available that we could rent? And then it kind of just escalated into what it is now. So that was my passion for road course and autocross. I would say Brainerd, being so close to Brainerd, that had a big influence as well.

Because you're from St. Cloud initially, right?

From St. Cloud, so it's only an hour.

Yeah, an hour, versus for me, it's a two and a half hour trek to get up there.

Yep, yep.

So did you spend a lot of time at Brainerd then?

I would say yes, but more as a participant instead of a spectator. And I noticed how few grassroot events that they held that you could go to. So it was kind of one of those, this is fun, why don't we do this more? And then that's what kind of progressed into, all right, let's go start looking for what we can do. And then we started looking at venues and then kind of escalated into what it is now, yep.

So then for you, I know for a while you were trying to get a track built. I don't know if that's still the case, but you were trying to get one like in that St. Cloud area, right?

Yep, St. Cloud, because of the two and a half hour drives. So we could cater to Brainerd, Alexandria. We could pull from all of those places, but all the money's down in the cities.

Yeah, well, it's very easy for me to, every hour you go further out, it's harder to justify. Like I run into this with rallies all the time. It's like a 14 hour drive home is not too bad. You look at an 18 hour drive, like we did from Niagara Falls, a lot of people were b*******.

It's like flying though, like the Midwest mentality, if it's under 12 hours, you're going to drive it. Cause it's faster to drive it than to fly it.

Yeah.

I found out like a lot of Midwesterns will drive instead of flying. So on the contrary, a lot of Minnesotans don't like leaving Minnesota, whereas people from Chicago, Wisconsin, they'll drive the three hours and not complain about it one bit. Just because that's all they have, right? So I don't know. There's a big difference in between Chicago and going to a drift event for six hours, like driving six hours and doing that compared to driving to power cruise for two and a half. There's a lot of different opinions on that, which I found very different. You would think it would be the same, but it seems like Minnesota people don't like leaving their house whereas Chicago people want to leave.

Well, I always joke around when anybody knows from Illinois that Wisconsin is their state park.

For sure.

That's a thing. They come up here to Snowmobile side by side, go to the lakes, all that stuff, because no offense, Illinois, you don't really have s***.

No.

So, yeah.

We saw that in Indy, too. You're looking, trying to pick up like a discount sled, and you couldn't find one on Facebook.

Oh yeah, you get down even into Northern Illinois, the sleds get a little bit scarce.

Yeah, it's that part of the equator. So then, tell us a little bit about the journey, because I know for years, you were trying to get this track off the ground. I mean, did you run into some struggles and stuff?

So much. Just, it's all politics, and I hate politics. I'm a sales guy in my real life, or for my career, and it's just, I don't beat around the bush. I just say, this is what it's gonna cost. That's it. I don't want to butter it up and say, oh, let me check back, call the banker, do the deal or no deal kind of b*******. It's just straight to the point. So that's what I prefer, but all of the counties, they all view it like a prison. So it's great for tax revenue, but it sucks for everybody else that lives around it. And you can't build it out in the middle of nowhere because it has to have a commercial or industrial zoning. You're not gonna find that out in the middle of nowhere because it's all gonna be agricultural or residential. So there's a conflict there. You go to an industrial park, they don't want it because they don't want to listen to it all day because they're working. And then if you go to a commercial area, everything around you, it's not big enough for you to build on. Plus the price tag for commercial land compared to agricultural is three to four times higher. So we started with the counties. None of the counties want to do it. They all suggest to look into townships. So then we started looking at townships and those small board meetings, they don't get anywhere. I've been to four or five of them, five different areas, South Haven, Foley, Sock Rapids, just to name a few. And they, you know, the board likes it, but they never get further than that. So they don't say, yeah, let's do this. Let's, you know, go through with it. Cause you got to apply for a conditional use permit. And then if one person says no, it's kaput. You can't argue, it's not a debate. It's not a back and forth conversation. It's no, we're not going to approve this. And they won't give you a reason why.

Have you only been looking in your St. Cloud area, or have you tried like around the Metro, all that kind of stuff too?

So I haven't tried the Metro because the price of land is ridiculous compared to what it is in St. Cloud.

Well, I was thinking something like Cottage Grove, right? Like that's just kind of, and that would be an opposite corner of Brainerd, so you wouldn't really be inflicting on.

So Farmington used to have a proposal on their desk. That, gosh, Wolfpack or something like that? Wolfpack, it was a really big thing about four or five years ago, where they were selling like memberships for a hundred grand or something like that. And they haven't even built a complex yet. He was going to build something in Farmington off of 35, I think it is. And that never went through, just because one person said no. Becker was going to have a NASCAR oval. That never got pushed through. They built, I want to say Google, like servers or something like that in place of it, and gave them a tax credit. Yeah, and then that's pretty much it. It's just trying to find land where accounting is going to allow us perform what we want to perform. But until then, we just keep renting venues and stuff like that. So I know there hasn't been a new drag strip built, I want to say, in the last 30 years, except for Vegas.

You notice that when you go to a lot of them, too. It's like an old rundown shack and a couple nice little paved pieces of road.

I think they just built one down in Kansas.

Drag strip?

I think so.

Could've, yeah.

There's some big event that's coming on, like some grand opening coming up in the next few months or whatever. I had to double check on that. It was big. I think Kyle Loftus posted about it on Facebook. I'm not sure if it's new or a reopening or whatever. For example, there was one down in the southeast that was a reopening too that he posted about that's been shut down for however long. Rundown.

Weeds growing through the cracks.

Well, I think you were on Crown the year when they did the half mile airstrip attack, right?

Outside of Illinois.

Yeah, it was fun. People got up some high speeds, but it was a little rundown in parts.

It was sketchy. It was bumpy. And it was fun. I mean, don't get me wrong, but yes, it was it was cracks and you could feel the heaves every time you're going 130 over them. So, yeah.

Who was the fastest? I want to say it was Larry, right?

It was either Larry or there was another gentleman. He had a McLaren 720. Yeah, and he didn't have a co-pilot because he couldn't find anybody. And then he had another vehicle on the rally and he had his attorney go with.

That's right.

And neither one of them had a co-pilot. And I'm just like, that blows my mind. Like, I couldn't even imagine navigating that by myself, let alone.

Dude, that was a tough one to navigate. I was in the SVJ with Savage Garage, and somehow I ended up trying to run in directions for this posse of three. That was nerve-racking.

Was that when they had the checkpoints with people still?

No.

OK.

No, this is eight.

This is eight.

Yeah, I think it was 2019? 18 or 19. Yep. Yeah, that was wild.

That might have been the first one that they did, because the first one I did, they had people at checkpoints, and that was very hard to navigate, because you're like, all right, I get this postcard. Where do we go, you know? So yeah.

It's a mess when your directions go out the window.

Yeah.

But so then, so typically, how long or how big are these committees that shut things down?

So like Sauk Rapids, that one, absolutely, it left a thorn in my side. Contacted them, said, hey, this land's for sale, still for sale. It's zoned as industrial, but there's residential next to it. What it is, is it's land that is part of this township, but it's eventually going to get annexed into the city. So we would like to purchase it, because once that annexation happens, the residential zones go into industrial or commercial. So they can't live on those properties. Their grandfather didn't know, but they can't live in them once it gets annexed. So they're going to lose their homes. They're going to have to remove. But we wanted the land because we wanted that property before that happens. So we went to the town meeting. I called them beforehand and I said, hey, do you want me to tell people that are in support of it to go? Or do you want me to hold off the dogs and basically say, hey, this is all for information. Do you want me to just wait because you guys aren't going to take a vote? Oh, tell them not to go. This is just for information. We weren't even put on, gosh, what do they call it? The town script or whatever. They have an agenda. We weren't even put on the agenda. We were just talking in the open forum for 10 minutes. So I had 10 minutes to say, hey, can we put this on the agenda for next month? And that's the process that they wanted. So I went in, spoke for probably five minutes about what it is, what we're wanting to do. And out of the five minutes that I got, there was a whole line of people behind me that were against it before they even knew what it was for. So they gave me five minutes. They gave everybody else five minutes saying, oh, it's gonna be noisy. It's gonna do this. It's gonna increase traffic. And they just said, all right, let's take a vote. And I'm like, you told me not to. So we had that petition going around on Facebook. I think we got like 1200 signatures or something like that. I'm like, what about those? You're not gonna consider those? And they're like, we're just gonna take a quick. And I'm like, that's not even legal. You have to send out a notice to everybody within a certain mile radius.

So if somebody was for it, they could plan to be there.

Exactly. And I said, you know what? I told everybody not to go because I wanted seats for people that were against it so they could get the information, so they could make an actual decision based off of facts, not rumors. And they just, nope, we don't want to entertain this. And they didn't have to give an answer. That's what burned my a** the most. It was, well, we don't have to give you an answer if we want to put you on the agenda or not tonight. Well, what's the whole point of me coming down here then? You know, like, how hard is it for you guys to step aside and say, should we consider this or not? They didn't want to give an opinion, nothing. So that really left a thorn in my side. And then we started focusing on, all right, let's move ahead with this autocross stuff, and then we'll put the land and track on the back burner. And then the price of asphalt now, it's dollars compared to when it was dimes, you know, back before COVID. So now we're kind of transferred into, all right, let's focus on the autocross. Let's really excel at what we can offer and what we can control. And then on the backside, we'll still look for potential opportunities, so.

That's really frustrating. I hate when people play dirty like that.

Yeah.

It's, again, like you said, it's like you can send out a notice, all the right parties can show up.

My dad had a house in Holton, Wisconsin. Same thing there. All that little like township and all the politics like you're talking about, it is all on like, who scratches who's back, who's pissed off. There could be one Karen that hates it, and everybody is like, we're just not gonna deal with this because she hates it. It just gets to be such a whiny little, it's, I don't know if anybody's watched the news or anything lately, but I'm scared for a lot of our everything these days.

But yeah. Would you say sock, racket, they're not getting a Seder, stupid city. How's this?

Sock, rapid.

Sock, rapid. Okay, simple enough. What was it? Was the entire board against it or whatever, or?

No, it was just, basically it was the, I forget his title. It's one person on the board that we shot emails back and forth, and then he goes, you can show up, but we're not gonna make a decision on it. So I showed up, gave him the information.

Yeah, you trusted that he was not gonna be a, well, it's a roadblock.

A roadblock, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you said it, the whininess. If you're against it, you're gonna be more vocal than you are for it. That's the most difficult part, because people that are for it, they're not gonna say anything. Well, they might, but the percentage of people that are gonna voice their opinion against something they disagree with is a lot higher than it is when they're for it.

Which is crazy, because we saw the effect that car enthusiasts had on Coon Rapids. When we did the Coon Rapids cruise, we would take over that entire strip, and we would patron most businesses. I mean, nobody cared about some of them, but most of them, especially the food places, like I never tried half these food places, and because we're over here on the strip, I feel like you could bring in some good money with the track. I don't know what the economics are in that world. Maybe you could speak to that, but I don't know. I feel like for a small city like that, if you had several events a week, especially this close to the cities, I mean, that'd be, I don't know. Can you speak to the economics of it much or not really?

I came with Shano just because I got like...

Insider information now?

Not even insider, just experience, you know? Just running that for the last year, just learning, hey, this worked, this didn't work. You know, like this year for Shano was R&D. So, hey, let's open up the floodgates. Let's see what works, what doesn't work. If we take a loss on an event, we learn from it. And if we excelled on something, all right, let's focus our attention on that. So like for 2024, we have almost every weekend booked already because we have drift grants, autocross events, private parties. Like we opened that floodgate up where before it was, let's just do two or three events a month. Now we're doing seven to eight, you know, because we're doing it on the weekends. So I think it's profitable as long as you manage it, you know, that's the thing. You can't get too carried away and you have to keep the upkeep. So like when I went over to Shano, I had no idea how to run a track. Like I knew that they knew that I was a event promoter before I was a track manager. So I've been in everybody's shoes that are contacting the track to say, hey, can we do this? Can we do that? And I've been in their shoes, I know usually right from wrong before it happens. So it's being proactive instead of reactive and just open door communication. And it's that non-politic b******* where, hey, if we don't like something, we're gonna change something like instantly. Yeah, if you have a good reason behind it, enforce it, but if you don't, let it go, you know? So it's having that respect. You gotta respect the people that come through the doors and say, you're gonna handle this. And if they can't, then you have to step on it. But don't micromanage their event, because it's their name on it, not yours, if that makes sense. So, yeah.

So I'm curious, is there a level of risk to doing more events than seven instead of three?

You might flood the market. So I've talked with Rick over at Grove Creek. He has that eighth mile drag strip. And I said, how come you don't host more events? Because he only does two a month. And he's like, well, why would I work more to make less? I said, well, what do you mean? And he goes, if I can make, hypothetically, just 100 grand on this weekend, when I only had to work a week beforehand, instead of three events at 25 grand, why would I host three more events when I could make the same amount of money on one event? All right, that makes sense. He goes, I'm not here to work myself to death. Like, let's focus on this and then capitalize on the bigger events. Plus he's got to play with Brainerd and Rock Falls because you're competing for the same fish.

Right.

Yep. So whereas Schano is kind of isolated by itself, you got Drift Indy, which is nine hours away, or you got Fargo, which is seven. So it's kind of, they do have GLD, which is three hours away, but it's a parking lot compared to a road course. So it's kind of apples to oranges.

So, autocross, so like what you do with Morgan's Motorplex, and like what you got going on in Schano, is it, so like what is autocross for people that don't know? Oh, for sure, yeah. And like how big do your courses get laid out? It's something that I've always wanted to do, but I have like a big ol front V8 car, and I've never really thought that it was great for autocross. Something like what Harris has is perfect for that kind of deal. But I don't know if something like what I drive can compete or not.

Size doesn't matter, it's about how you use it.

Yeah, yeah. I saw the wink. So, autocross is, think of it like a time trial. It's basically, you gotta start and then a stop, and it's not a lap, it's getting from one destination to the next without hitting cones. So most autocrosses are set up in a parking lot fashion, and they have cones, and each cone represents either a corner or a wall or a gate, depending on which direction that cone is. So if it's tipped on its side with a cone upright next to it, that's a pointer cone or a turn is what it's supposed to represent. And then you have gates and all that stuff. If you hit a cone, it's a penalty, one second, two second, depends on which organization you go with. So Morgan's Motorplex, we're not SCCA sanctioned, and we don't want to be because we don't want to follow the 120-page rule book. We're very relaxed. We're more of people brought a 12-pack to a tailgate party is what I've been told is the vibe.

We're getting seat time, too.

Seat time, yes. So we allow six runs, and they're timed runs, and it is four season points and trophies and stuff like that. But it is very laid back. We always tell everybody, take your first three runs, figure out the course, so you don't get three DNFs in a row, and then you're frustrated, and then you can't perform for the last three kind of things.

I struggle with performing.

Saw the wink.

Plenty of DNFs for you, too.

So yeah, don't go hot out of the gate. Take your time with it.

I learned that one, too, because I'm front wheel drive, so I would blow my tires off sometimes.

Yeah, so Morgan's Motorplex autocross depends on where we're at. So if we're at the state fairgrounds, it's an autocross, glorified autocross. Usually, autocross has more corners in it than a road course. So you're turning 15 to 25 corners depending on course layout, whereas a road course, you have 10 to 14. So you're turning a lot more. On an autocross, a lot of, I call it hand over fist turnings, where your steering wheel has to go more than your typical road course where it's clocked out one way or another.

Like a switchback situation, right?

Exactly.

Yep.

And then your speeds are a lot lower on an autocross course. Just because you're not supposed to get top speed. So it's not about V8 raw big power. It's more nimble. So it'll cater to nimble cars, but the V8 cars do well.

They have a class in their own, I assume?

At SCCA, they do. On ours, they do as well. But SCCA, if you have an air filter, you're in a different class. If you have DOT, a different brake fluid, you're in a different class, basically. So ours, if you're a V8 and you're, if you're in a Mustang, like GT350, you're in SGT. If you're in a, like a 97 Mustang, you're in GT. So it's very loose for our classing, which we like. We don't want to confuse everybody. So you should be able to walk down the pit road and say, this guy's in this class, and we don't take modifications into account.

Well, yeah, again, it kind of comes down to like, you're not trying to be like this whole, like national sort of thing. You're just trying to, again, get people seat time at a good price. And one of the things that I really love about your events is I don't have to work them. That's a big thing for me. I always yell at Piero, I don't want to f****** work. He's like, well, you could just time people. I'm like, yeah, but I also want to leave. I got stuff to do.

So you could pick your run class. If you want to run first class, first run, you are in and out and under probably an hour and a half. So you show up at eight driver meetings at nine, you could be done by 10 and go to a wedding by noon. So we've had a couple of people show up Saturday with their tuxes in the trunk. All right, we gotta get going. So we cater to people that want to get in, get out and go. So we don't expect you to sit around all day. We don't expect you to work the cones. We got volunteers that do that. So I got a team of probably 10 to 20 volunteers that come out, and they'll do the timing. They'll do registration check-in, and they'll run cones and all that fun stuff.

I really liked your team. They were very supportive of us newbies last year.

Oh, they love it. Yup.

Dude, honestly, I think I even mentioned it in the autocross video I made. You guys got a good setup over there. Everybody just likes to be there. I really like that same cloud location. I hope you're able to keep that this year. I know we talked about the economics of that a little bit. So hopefully, we can get some people involved, whether it be sponsors or whatever, because I personally like that. Otherwise, the other ones in what, Rochester?

So we did one in Rochester. That was essentially, think of like a auditorium, or not even an auditorium. Think of like a concert hall where it's six different parking lots and then the hub of where the college is. So we had six different parking lots, and we set up a different course in each parking lot. So the first course, you went down and back almost like an Arizona or a killer that you would do in gym back in high school. Next one was figure eight or whatever it was in the slalom course. And we kind of just linked all that together. Lot of hazards with curbs and light poles.

I was gonna say, do they have all those like little things and it's probably like a snowplow's nightmare, those little where they got the curbs with the grass and the light poles and all that stuff.

So it's basically just the curbs that isolate the parking lots from each other. That was the biggest thing. So if you spun, you were probably hitting a curb. So not a lot of people pushed it, which was all right. But we got a new location. We got another, I want to say 50% of those people were brand new people that have never been with us before. So that was cool to see. And it kind of catered to the people in the cities. They could drive an hour to a new location instead of keep going to St. Cloud every time. And then, yeah, St. Cloud's fun. It's a...

It's a, I got, I mean, even I got pretty fast.

So that is more of a standing start road course is what I would call it. Standing start event where you're at the start stop line and you go and you complete your one lap and you don't do another, it's not a lap. You complete your segment and then you're done. A lot of people don't understand what standing start is. So we advertise it as an autocross, but you're hitting 130, 150 on the back stretch after the banked corner. So, yeah, you get moving.

Yeah, I think I probably got up to 110, 120, I think. I don't know. I didn't have my GPS working that day, unfortunately. I just know I was cooking and that banked turn.

You can't see it from Google Maps.

It's so freaking awesome. That was my first time on a banked turn like that, too. And it's just feeling like the car wants to get away from you. It was really fun. And you're going right past the trees. I mean, it was...

Yeah.

You had to be awake.

For sure. You had to pay attention. You gotta know how to take a corner. And if you don't know, just ask. We'll walk everybody through it.

People said I actually had decent lines on that one. Obviously, with room for improvement, I'm not...

Right.

I sucked at turn one. Turn one, I would just...

Was that that quick right-hander? Like the hundred and...

No, no, no. Like literally the first turn, from when you would start, I would come in just way too hot. I didn't go wide enough to set... I didn't set myself up well for the apex.

Okay.

So I went into the grass twice.

That'll happen.

Just a little. But I don't think... I never hit a cone. I think I locked up my brakes once.

That just means you're pushing it.

Yeah. Well, and also I'm going to be doing a lot of small adjustments for next year. I actually have my suspensions set up properly because right now it's just low for looks.

Sure. Yeah.

Because I was... I did a lot of things wrong.

Going for show car. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm starting to realize that I'm not into the show car scene as much as I am into the race car stuff, especially after PRI.

Yeah.

What do you need for requirements? So let's say there's somebody listening right now and be like, dude, I know this place is this wide open, paved area. What is the minimum requirement if you're looking for a place to host an autocross event?

Just little to no hazards inside the paved area.

Okay.

It's the biggest thing.

Larger the better, I assume.

Church parking lots where we started are great because they don't have light poles and they are not used on Saturdays.

Jesus takes the wheel.

Exactly. So we were gonna do a autocross circuit where it was churches and strip clubs. It was the Saints and Sinners Tour. There you go. That's good. But yeah, church parking lots are great. We do the state fairgrounds. We did Rochester. We did Brainerd International. And then we do the St. Cloud Highway Research. So this year, 2024, we're gonna be looking into other parking lots. We've got a couple schools. We're gonna look into doing some school stuff because they're closed from June to September. So as long as they're not doing softball games and stuff like that, we'll see what we can do. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

It boggles my mind that these cities, towns, counties, things like that also put up such a fight for this stuff because it's a growing thing, right? Like the automotive enthusiast thing, it's growing. It isn't going anywhere. Cars are only getting faster. They're coming right out the factory with 600, 700 horsepower. And then they don't want you in the street, right? So let's b**** about the street racing, but when it comes time to, I want to go here and do it safely under people who have done the research and set all the stuff up for you, and then now they're going to b**** and complain about that.

It's complain about it, get it off of the street, go to the track, and then they complain that the track is making too much noise.

Yeah.

It's a catch-22.

The noise thing gets so under my skin. So I had a great time at Atlanta Motorsports Park, but we did have a couple of people get black-flagged.

I was black-flagged a couple of times, yeah.

Well, yeah, you're f****** obnoxious.

Was it you yelling out the window or?

No, actually, he was very worried about the Supra when we first got there. They had like a poppin bang tune on it, you know? And he was like, man, I think my car. And then I went up to him, I was like, sir, I think my car might be a problem too. And he's like, oh, you looked at my car. He's like, oh, it's probably gonna be fine. And I was like, do you want me to start it up for you? And he's like, yeah, do it. I started it up. And he was like, holy s***. He's like, okay, you're gonna need to do some short shifting and whatever. So I played nice until we were almost done. And then I let her rip. And then I got blackfagged three times and then kicked off the track.

So typical rental, rent a cart mentality. Yeah, you get three sessions.

Yeah, that was, but, and again, I had an amazing experience with the tractor. I think Crown went there the same year we did. But again, it's like, I think it's like specific corners. You have to short shift. Do you remember which turn it was?

I don't remember. They have a guy sitting in a wooden box up there. And I will say though, they were very cool. Like I think that if it went above the decibels a couple of times, they weren't really gonna complain. People that were really pushing and stuff like that. I will say that that track was, they were super awesome about it. They basically were kind of held down by where they were. They couldn't really do anything about it, but they weren't being a******* about it.

They were a lot stricter via email. That's why I was worried about booking that track. But again, they gotta cover their bases too. And again, if somebody is loud for all of one minute, again, a lot of people got black flagged in the last half hour of the day. I think it's like, all right, we're done. I'm just glad I didn't get fined, because that was one of the potential things that they brought up. It's like, hey, if you keep exceeding this, you're gonna get fined, buckaroo. But nonetheless, it's like, I don't know, it's 2023. Everybody has their stupid AirPods in their ear anyway at night, so it's like, why does it even matter that there's noise? Like, everybody's blasting their televisions. They're not home from work until like 6 p.m. So it's like, most track days are done by that point.

Some people just aren't happy unless other people are miserable.

That's, you got it right there. Some people just wanna watch the world burn. They got nothing going on, so they wanna complain about somebody else doing something. And it's like, go find something productive to do.

A lot of people just look forward to complaining every day, and to be fair, I catch myself time to time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do it.

Just like, you just kinda get down in this rabbit hole of b******* and moaning because you're bored. Like, that's the other thing. Most people are just bored, especially if they're on the board.

Well, buy a car, get on the track. You won't be so bored.

So, in order for us to rent the highway research, I gave the director a ride, you know, and I had the Viper at the time. So, first lap out, I've never been on the track before, so I'm taking it slow, you know, seeing if there's wash off from the dirt and stuff like that, seeing if there's contaminants on the asphalt. So I'm kinda talking to them through what I'm looking for. All right, there's very little runoff here, don't push it here. And he's like, all the things they're saying are exactly what I wanna hear. Because they do police training there, so they look for those things as well, you know? So then second lap, I said, I wanna do three laps with you. First lap, I'll show you, you know, first lap I wanna get a feel for it. Second lap, I'll show you what I'm going to do. And then third lap, I'll show you what we want to do. So, first lap was slow, nice and easy. Second lap was, I don't know, 75%. And he's like, all right. Third lap was just a flyer. And he said it was the fastest he's ever went on that track because they're used to like police training. We hit 160 on that long stretch before we hit that long sweeping right. And he goes, I never wanna go that fast on this track ever again. I'm like, I don't blame you. It was scary as s***, you know, because it's rated for like, they do it to replicate city streets. So it's only two lanes wide, you know. It's not a turn in turn out. There's pain on the track, you know, everything like that. So I slowed down enough for the corner. And he goes, thank you for giving me a ride because I would have never known what it would have felt like from outside. You know, it looks fun from the outside, but going inside of it and actually feeling it is a completely different like rush. So I want to get those board members out there and say, this is what we do. Like show them what we can do, give them a ride, show them what it's about. So then they kind of get hooked on it and then they'll buy into the system that you're preaching. So yeah, it's just trying to get those people into the right seats.

I 100% agree on that. Yeah, it was different being in a cockpit like that. It's, is that what we call it nowadays, a cockpit?

Sure.

On the inside of the car.

I do. It's different when you're riding compared to driving too.

Oh, absolutely.

I can't ride with anybody. I just don't want to.

Dude, I rode with Simon with the yellow Vette. I don't know if you know. Dude, because Derek threw me into his car. He's like, yeah, dude, he'll show you what's up. And he throws me in there. And I mean, I'm just giggling like halfway through. I'm like, holy s***, this guy can wheel, dude. And the thing is, but when we got to the end of it, I asked him like, how much power are you making in this car? Like six, five, 600 wheel. He's like, nah, I think he said like, I want to say like 380 or something. He's only making 40 wheel more than my f****** Volkswagen. And I'm just like, oh, I have so much to learn.

He's quick, though.

What was he like, second place, first place this year?

I think he took first place overall behind Derek. We took second.

That's the two guys that we did the photo shoot with the other day.

Oh. I was giving him s***, cause I went to that go-kart thing. Oh yeah, we got photos of each other. I'm like, that's weird.

Did you see the photos of them laying down on their wings?

I don't think so. I saw the two where they were kind of like facing each other. Yeah.

You think that was great. The one of them just laying. I mean, I don't know how I do it, but I've been doing photoshoots for a long time, and I know how to get the worst out of people. So I managed to get them both to lay down on their wings, looking at each other with their legs up.

Arms underneath their chin.

Yes, exactly.

Just how you would envision it. That's funny.

Yeah, I have a blast doing photoshoots. It was a quiet season for me this year, though.

For photos?

You were busy, too.

Not necessarily. I'm always down to make a little extra coin. And make some cool photos, but yeah. It was a wild, wild season. There's a lot going on. Too much going on. So, I don't know. If you had to guess, what are the odds of you keeping that same cloud facility as of right now, for this year? Probably close to zero. You don't know?

I don't know yet.

I'm curious, do you do a season pre-order thing at all?

With-

Like buying tickets. If I wanted to buy tickets to schedule myself right now for an event.

So we did a membership this year where it was 60 bucks, and then I think it got you like 35 bucks off each run or something like that. And then you were able to run multiple runs, but your second run didn't count. And we did that because we didn't want someone to buy like five or six different runs, and then take your fastest out of the five or six different runs when you get six, you know? You're just buying your trophy at that point. So we didn't want to do that, but we did do memberships. We might do like a season package. The only problem with that is, is if like somebody's car breaks, I'd feel bad, you know? You pre-buy everything, and then first race, oh, my car broke, I don't have another one. Well, you just bought five other races, and what do you, give a refund at that point, you know? So it puts me in a situation. So I don't want to have that situation. So just eliminate it, don't offer it. Just leave it at that, yep.

How far out do most of your people buy their tickets?

So we usually post our schedule. We did it in January last year. I will be honest, I've been slacking. Just taking it easy.

It's December, don't worry.

Busy eye-racing.

Yeah, busy eye-racing, yep, yep. So I've been taking it easy, trying to reach out to venues. I have two of them locked in. So I need four more venues because we want to do one a month. And then I have to check with the volunteer team, see what times work for them. And then there's a lot of background stuff going on before you release the dates.

Yeah, I'm currently wrapping up some stuff for two rallies, so I know how that goes.

Yeah, it's just, yeah. It's waiting for people to answer, and it's, all right, this is the next step, and you can't move on until you get that answer. So there's a lot of idle time.

Yeah, it's annoying. It's so annoying sometimes. But realistically, you could build out an event in a day, but with all that idle time in between, it's just, yeah. And right now, we're in that Christmas zone, so all my emails are just basically getting automatic responses right now.

Yeah, well, we're closed this month. Yeah, exactly.

Well, these guys are closed next week, so that's why I'm doing it, me and Dan are doing a double header today. So right after you, we have a, well, we're gonna take our union lunch break, and then we got another podcast after that. So we probably won't be done until like nine or 10 tonight.

Rough.

Honestly, dude, I love it. I'm just excited to see Dan do his first double header, but he's like, nah, man, I work 20 hours a day, it's fine.

Yeah, I work on the road, so I work like 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. because when I'm on the road, I'm like, what am I gonna do, go sit in a hotel, get done at four?

Well, yeah.

No, no thanks. And watch TV with actual commercials on it? No, not happening.

Yeah, the actual commercials.

I work 40 hours in two or three days and then get back home.

Real quick, f*** YouTube with all this crazy, like, oh my, they're getting too comfortable with these ads, dude.

So mine shut off because I have a pop-up blocker.

Oh, really?

Yeah. And I had the boomer mentality, had to Google how to disable my pop-up blockers so I could watch YouTube f****** videos on my computer.

Like, I got YouTube Premium. I love it. It's amazing. But when I sometimes watch it on a Roku or something, and then there's like, now it's like two 15-second ads. Like, before, you used to be able to skip after three seconds or five seconds. And you had to wait 15 seconds before skipping it. But no, you had to wait for the second one to finish skipping. It's like, dude, come on, go back to normal TV again.

Yeah. There's one that has 90-second commercials. I forget, Peacock, maybe? I don't, Paramount?

Oh, it might be Hulu, if you don't. Yeah, I don't pay for the high-end Hulu, so I watch, I'm like, s***.

Yeah, popcorn break, yep.

Yeah, but people have to, I don't understand, s*** just can't be free, guys. I mean, it happens. We're gonna complain about it, but at the same time, this is how it works.

The thing that annoys me about ads is Facebook. You scroll through, two of the posts are from friends, and the third one's sponsored, like our timeline, and people don't realize it. But if you actually pay attention, it's like every third post is a sponsored ad now. It's like, man, yeah.

It's aggressive.

Yeah.

It's aggressive.

I get it. They gotta pay for stuff. You know, it's a billion dollar company.

I'm sure they paid off their servers a decade ago.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dude, it's actually crazy. So like, I started deleting stuff on my phone a little bit to clear up some space because I don't want to pay extra for storage right now. It's like, at a certain point, you're set to start throwing stuff away. And I'm just sitting here thinking like, dude, how packed are those servers now?

Yeah.

Because nobody deletes s***.

No.

Ever.

Nope.

Like never, ever.

No, we'll just sell you some cloud servers space now too so you can have extra s*** stored.

Yeah, just ridiculous. So then is there much hope to having a track? Okay, I'm curious, what was your plan with Morgan's Motorplex? What kind of track or road course was it gonna be?

Something tight and technical. I didn't want something like Brainerd. I wanted something half the size.

So you didn't want to necessarily compete or step on toes then?

Right, so I didn't want to go after the SCCA stuff, the Trans Am Cup, Formula 4. I didn't want any of that stuff. I wanted something where, if you had a Corvette in your garage, you could come out on Saturday.

So like a mile and a half long course?

Something like that, yeah. Basically the research center. If I could buy that, that would be, yep.

Well, is that something that you're presenting in some of your pitches too? Like if I have a tight and technical course, nobody's really gonna be hitting 7,000 RPM.

As soon as you say racetrack, the general public thinks dirt circle track, because that's what they associate it with. So like everybody, not everybody, but a majority of the people at Socrapids, because we have a dirt circle track close to where that was at. So that location was great, because we have the dirt circle track to the north and an airport to the south. Airports don't have to abide by noise ordinances. So if you could be close to them, you can't really make an argument, you guys are too loud when you got a jet taken off.

Right, can you buy up an old dirt circle track? Would they technically fall under not having to have those rules?

You have to reapply for a conditional use permit when you purchase a new property. So if the city didn't want it, and you go to the dirt track in Soccer Rapids is still dealing with pushback on that. You guys can't host races on Friday or Sunday or something like that. Well, what happened to the last owner that did it for the last 10 years? Oh, they never did that. So they had to bust out like old promotional flyers that they'd mail out to say, these are the events that they hosted, because nobody dates anything anymore. Like you could show the results with the dates on it, but you have to have promotional proof as well. So.

I hope you understand that when this goes live, especially once I get to the highlights, you're going to get the most signatures ever.

You think so? We don't even have that, what do you want to call it? We don't have that, what is it called? Where you sign it, petition. We don't have that petition going on anymore, but it's just, like I've talked to Rick at Grove Creek and he goes, you know, it's not like you could just post the track on Facebook and sell it.

Right.

You know, you're going to have to find somebody that's interested in buying it and looking after it and taking care of it. But like his land that's set up, it's great because it's out in the middle of nowhere in Grove Creek, but the drag strip is literally diagonal across the property lines. So you got a square box, but his track is, so do you build a track to the north and then where do the cars park on the south? Do you do dirt on the south and track on the north? If you did dirt, you got to worry about dust getting on the track. Do you keep the drag strip? Do you scrap it and make it part of the front stretch like Brainerd? So there's a bunch of different combinations. I think our best bet would be to ask the question, who owns the research center and kind of going around that road. So I've asked, it's difficult because the state owns it, but I do have a meeting with them on the fourth to figure out. I just asked them, called them, said, hey, who owns this? Would you guys ever be interested in selling it? And then I got a call back saying, well, let's talk about it. Let's see what you got.

Well, it would be, actually, because what you could do is then still let them use it for their research purposes, right?

Monday through Friday.

Yeah, be like, hey, it's cool. Let's work out a deal.

I'm not interested on that. I want the weekend stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

But the difficult part is they also have politics, so you have to be a government employee in order to oversee who's renting it on the weekend, so we have to have a babysitter. And it's, I want to say it was 250 bucks for every 15 minutes past five you had to stay.

Yes.

So we had to get out of there at like 430, so we didn't even get close to that five. The other thing about it is it's government owned, so it would have to go to auction legally in order for them to sell it. So, yeah.

Red tape.

So much of it.

Politics.

Yeah.

Do you have any idea what that facility would be worth, or what you would have to buy it for?

So I had a meeting with them in November for like our closeout, hey, what worked, what didn't work, what do you want to see for improvements for Morgan's Motorplex towards your event?

How'd that go?

What? Good. They got a new director in there. First time I met him was in March of 2023, and then I met him again in November, because I was over in Wisconsin the whole time. So my volunteer group had to deal with the face-to-face stuff. Super nice guy, super knowledgeable, getting older towards retirement. So they might be looking for a new director again, but I don't know what their future plans are. I'm just speculating, but it went good. I asked a question, how much would it cost if somebody wanted to buy this? And he goes, well, we had an adjuster show up and adjusted everything. And they're saying that we should charge more than what we already charge now for you guys to be able to run on the weekends. I said, I'm out. I can't charge more for this participants, because we're already twice as much as other autocross areas, other autocross clubs in the area. And granted, we don't make it work and stand out there for 12 hours, but I can't justify spending 100 bucks to run six runs and be out. You know what I mean? It's like you pay for a hockey game and they only play one period. Like, would you still go for 20 minutes of entertainment? So it's that, but he said that our rent won't go up, but it's not gonna go any lower. And this year was, I won't say, this year was difficult to break even, because their insurance requirements are two million per occurrence instead of one. So we had to double up our insurance policy. And being the dude. Did you do that through Haggerty?

KNK. KNK, I think that's a local one, right?

No, out of Indiana. It's a nightmare. Yeah, I'm sure. They suck. I just got a bill for an event that we hosted in July of 2022.

Oh, they're slow on bills?

No, they just, here's a past due invoice. And I'm like, well, for what? Like, this is the first notice that I've gotten in a year and a half. Oh, well, we looked through our bank records and you hosted an event on this day. So I had to actually go and look to see if we hosted an event. And I'm like, there's no point in paying this because it's a year and a half past. Granted, it's only 200 bucks, but it's 200 bucks.

That's annoying, so.

Yeah, yep. And their communication back and forth just sucks. And you can't renew it until your renewal. So like, I can't get prices for 2024 until April, which our season starts in April. So I don't know what our insurance costs are gonna be. How do you budget?

That's so lame. Right. It sounds like somebody needs to reach out to Matt Nelson.

He's the one that referred me to KNK.

Oh, really?

Yep, so I reached out to Matt when we first started doing it, and he goes, all of my brokers won't cover autocross, but try KNK. And then he got me in there. My insurance, or my contact there went to a parent company of their last year, and then replacements. It's not just me either, it's-

Well, you're gonna run into that same problem when your research facility guy decides to retire or do whatever. That's gonna be a pain in the a**.

So much red tape. You know, I'm just gonna stick to street racing, guys. How about that, you freaking Karens?

It's cheaper.

How many times do you want to just throw in the towel and say, f*** it?

With looking for land or hosting autocross?

Hosting autocross.

I mean, the background noise, it takes me, it takes a little bit of time, but it's not too difficult. It's the volunteers that really deliver for me. So, I mean, without them, I wouldn't be doing autocross. Yeah, so especially with me being in Wisconsin, so.

Are you gonna be back on this side this year, or are you gonna be back in Wisconsin?

I don't know yet. Well, I know, but we have a meeting after the new year to discuss, because I had some requests to see if I could get those.

Requests for the Wisconsin events and stuff?

Yep, yep. So managing the track, just, hey, can I go home Sunday night and be back Friday so I could spend some time at the house, because this year, kept the house. Amanda and the girls lived in the house, but I got an apartment in Wisconsin, and we lived over there. So I didn't really get to come back. The only time I came back to Minnesota for anything, for an autocross event was Rochester, just because I wanted to make sure that one went good, because they've been at the research center.

Plus, you're not like, that's easier than St. Cloud, right? Like, that should have just been almost a shoot over on 90, wasn't it, to Rochester?

I am on the very east side over by Green Bay, so I just take 29, and that brings me in to 94. So, shout out to Agave, but yeah. Yeah.

Well, next time you're stopping at Agave, you gotta let me know, man, I live in Hudson, so.

Yeah, no, I usually eat that on the way through, so.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I make it a point, so.

Yeah, well, yeah, every time I come back, it's like, it's always at 2 a.m. whenever I come back from out of state, but it's perfect, it's like right there, right? And, you know, if you're really hungry, you can just stop at exit four instead of exit one.

Yeah, yep.

I listened to your episode with Paul's on this podcast, too.

That was a while ago, yeah.

That was a good one.

I didn't see, you know, I gotta confess, I think I've only watched, like, I don't even, I don't even know if I watched any of Paul's, surprisingly.

He had some good ones, yeah.

Yeah, he had some great guests on.

Yeah.

I know I saw that, but again, it's just, I can't remember what I was doing at the time.

You gotta get them out here on this one.

That's the goal, we've been talking about it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't remember what our discussion, I think we're gonna try to get them on in New Year. Oh yeah, we have to, because after Doug, later tonight, these guys are closed all of next week, so then it'll be into the New Year. So that's why we're doing a doubleheader today.

Yeah.

Because apparently people need days off, okay. But yeah, jokes aside then, so I wanna talk more about the drifting stuff. I'm just trying to think what angle I wanna take on this. You could pick up the Corvette too, right?

I did, I got a C6, yep.

Is that gonna be a drift car or what's going on there?

That is a full blown drift car, it is a missile.

You put an angle kit on it, now it's a drift car, right?

Yeah, it's an angle kit. The only thing I don't have is a handbrake, so everything that I'm doing right now is without a handbrake.

Is that a Stemray or what?

Nope, nope, just a base C6, salvage titled, so I can't drive it on the street. It's fun to go to the gas station because the local cops know who I am, so they don't mess with me or anything like that. They just know I'm going to get gas and coming right back.

No, you have a salvage title you should still be able to get.

It's a non-titled, so it's difficult because I live in Minnesota, my driver's license in Minnesota, and the salvage title is in Indiana. But I've never went and checked at the Wisconsin DMV to see if I could do it. I think you have to get an inspection if you go to Wisconsin.

So I happen to know a little bit about this. I just had it done on a GT500 that I have. So I bought it salvaged, right from it went from an auction to the broker to me. And I brought it here to Wisconsin. All you do is you go to apply for your title, they'll give you a title right away, and then you schedule your inspection. Then you can do everything you want to the car. Then you schedule your inspection, which goes out quite a ways. Then you go there, and somebody from the state police will come and inspect your vehicle. It's usually at a service center. They throw it on a lift. They take it up, make sure it's all good and safe for the road. And then they take your title that they gave you. It's like you just borrow a title for a little bit. Just saying that it's in your name, you own the vehicle. They take that title back, and then you get your previously titled, our previous salvage title thing.

It just has a little mark on it.

Is it still salvage? Yeah, it's technically, you have a full-blown title, drive it on the road, do whatever you want, but it'll say in a small print on the bottom, previously salvage in whatever state it came from.

That's the way down in Kiss 4.

Yeah, I wonder if I could do that in Wisconsin or if it's Minnesota.

So that, my experience is, I live in Hudson, so my experience was in Wisconsin. Usually, Minnesota makes everything more difficult. But yeah, otherwise, I think Indiana is one of those title washing states. So you could, maybe, if you went back to Indiana and just titled it there and then brought it back over here, it may just, but yeah.

I don't think it'd pass.

Hold on, hold on, title washing?

So there's some states that, if you have a salvage vehicle, when you title it with them, they don't really give a s***. As long as the car is cool and good and fixed, they don't care if it had previous salvage. So it'll come back to you as a clean title without, now Carfax is a different story because somebody wants to look up the history. Like mine, if you Google the VIN number, it literally shows you all of the pictures from the auction. So you see what the car used to look like. Same thing with that, but you technically get a title back that doesn't say salvage. So if you didn't do your research, your title's been washed.

Interesting, but at the end of the day, it will show up on a Carfax.

Yeah, on a Carfax if it's been- Yeah, and I think it's like Montana. I thought Indiana was one of them. There's a couple of them that do that.

Maybe. I never, I don't have an interest.

Yeah, I mean, if you're doing that, you're kind of a dick, but-

Yeah, I would, I mean, I know what it was. It's gonna stay at the track, essentially. I just drive it on the street to go and get gas and come back. So, yeah.

So then, are you planning to attend a lot of events next year? Are you planning to just run them? Like, hold on, if you're running the actual event, when are you gonna drift it then?

Monday through Friday.

I've seen you out there. There's like nobody around, yeah.

No, that's the thing. Everybody asks, how could we don't drift with us on the weekend? I'm like, I hate waiting in line. What do you mean? And I'm like, Monday night, like after five o'clock, when the track shut down, I could rip as many as I want and not get in line. If I spent out on track, I could drive back on track to the start line and go again. So my seat time has been exponentially better because I don't have to wait in line. I could do it Monday through Friday, as long as everything's taken care of at the track. So-

How are you doing?

I've been, so not to brag, but I've been told, so when I first started, I did the practice pad, you know? So I did some Facebook Lives and I did those so people could comment, hey, do this. And I got a lot of good feedback. Adam Billion, shout out to you, man. I tried doing my first figure eight and he goes, blip the throttle when you transition because it'll shift that weight to the back. So you won't over rotate when you go to drift the second part of your figure eight. So I started doing that and I started to learn how to do that stuff. And then went out to the road course at season closer. Justin from Canada showed up about 2, 2.30 and nobody else was out there. I'm like, hey, hop on the car, let me give you a ride and we'll see how this goes. And I linked intermediate. I've never been on advanced, but I linked intermediate all together. And he goes, your driving ability is now like, if somebody just started out, they're at year three. So I've gained three years of knowledge because I've been able to run out there Monday through Friday. So I have the best playground to learn on. But it's also a handicap or a crutch, too, to learn on one track, because that's all you're going to be used to. So like if you travel a bunch and, you know, say I go to GLD or Drift Indy and stuff like that, Appalachians, I'm going to learn a lot more experience. But for having Chano as a test track is amazing.

I mean, I agree with that, but at the same time, you're picking up skills that are even more crucial.

You're learning how to move the car like it should move.

I'm learning a lot.

Yeah, it's something that really intrigues me, and I'd love to learn drifting because it looks like a good fricking time.

I was against it 100%. I hated it because I knew. So when I get into something, I follow it to the nth degree. Yes. All right. This is what I got to do and I got to see it through, because I need that closer. So drifting, I always did autocross, like the truck with Gramps, figuring that out and seeing what worked, what didn't work and all that fun stuff. And then going into drifting, I still have my autocross background into it. So I gave a couple of people rides and they're like, that's the fastest I've went through while drifting. So it feels like I'm autocrossing, but drifting at the same time. So they're more like a slow, elegant dance, you know, like a square dance almost, where I'm wrestling a tiger while getting pepper sprayed. That's what it feels like. Just trying to go as fast as I possibly can, following the driveline and the apex and all that fun stuff. So I have to learn not to have it so gripped up so I could actually slide a lot better. Because right now, it's 100% throttle or not at all. So, yeah, learning. But a C6-based car is not the car to learn on. So get a 350Z or a 240, something slow. Start with low horsepower and then work your way up, because that way you'll get more comfortable. I started at the C6 just because I got a deal on one, and just kind of go from there.

You see a lot of fox bodies. I heard they're pretty good for that, too.

I want to say there's probably two or three of them. Yeah, there's a lot of C6s, but keep in mind, like US Air, they're more, the events that they host, there's a lot. There's some beginners, but more of them are advanced drivers. Yep. So, yeah. Most people starting out are going to parking lot events and stuff like that, just because there's more runoff. It's more forgiving. So.

I've been practicing in my truck in the winter.

That helped, that honestly, that's where I learned how to, you know, kick it sideways. Yeah. Same mentality, you know, give it some gas, get the rear wheel spinning, and then when you need to straighten out, let off the gas and counter steer. But that angle kit saves me a ton. So that's a lot of.

You say that's a better upgrade over handbrake first then?

Seat. Seat is your biggest upgrade.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've heard that before. Like we had Dylan Pride on early on in the podcast days. I think it was one of the first highlights that we had too. But yeah, that was the biggest thing is like, get a seat. Who cares about all these extra, you know, angles?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Get good first. Like I learned how to drift in my f****** all wheel drive charger in the winter.

That's different. Yeah.

It's very different. I get it. 100% but 1000%.

No, just all wheel drive is like a sidewinder.

Oh yeah.

You know, cause you're looking out the window and you're still going that way, you know?

So it was so, well, it's also, I think it was a 70 30 split on those. And it was never 50 50 like a Subaru, but like when you brought up like blipping the throttle, the transition, I taught that to myself and it just, you know, brought back a core memory. It's like, cause it'll be easier to, you know, transition. Like I was doing everything, man. I missed that fricking charger. I was so stupid, but I missed it.

So first time I slid all wheel drive was a 3000 GT. I hated drifting all wheel drive, just because you let off the gas, it doesn't straighten out. You're just continually going sideways. And it's like, oh God, here we go.

Do you want your diff locked when you're doing, when you're drifting or is limited slip something that you're using normally or?

So mine's a torque tube. So it's locked the whole time.

Okay.

I think you want a full diff lock. Yeah, everybody welds their diff.

Okay. That's what I kind of figured if you're doing that.

Yep. Yep.

Even if you were using limited slip, you would have to get it turning. You would burn that out pretty damn quick anyway.

Yep. So you want both wheels rotating. It's a lot easier to skate. So like the BMW doesn't have. And that's what I was starting with. And I'm like, this isn't working. It works one way, but it doesn't work the other way. That had 130 horsepower in the BMW. So yeah.

I'm excited for you to get into that. It's such a fast growing scene. I guess, are you guys getting enough ticket sales out there?

The mentality, there is such a big gap in between mentality between autocrossers and drifters. So like autocrossing, you'll pay 35 bucks or 70 bucks or whatever. Drifters will pay 175 for the whole day. And somebody like doors your vehicle. They're like, oh yeah, that's awesome. And they'll give each other hugs and high fives. Whereas autocross, if you door somebody, you're fist fighting and kind of, what the hell are you doing? So it's a very different mentality in between those two. At Shano, I don't host any drifting events. So the track is really set up well where a club can come in, rent the track, and run their own event. That's the best part. I don't have to have corner workers. I don't have to have volunteers run anything. I have to have three people, two for registration and one in case something happens. That's it. So that's the bread and butter. That's the easy part.

Is there anything on the horizon of you guys hosting events then?

We did a couple test and tune drifting, where it was kind of just us. We had one guy at grid, and then we'd change the course layout every two, three hours. Just kind of have a fun day. But it was every Thursday, so we get maybe 10 cars out there. Very manageable for three people. You know, so this year, we want to book out with clubs because that's the easier stuff. We might do like an all female day. If we don't have clubs rent all of the weekends, we might do like a one on one day, an all female drift day. It's just stuff like that. So yeah, but we've done a test and tunes. We did an event called Grounds Keepers Nightmare where we change the course every three hours, and then you're driving a different track every time.

Are you reaching out to clubs then, or do clubs reach out to you, or what is it? Are you trying to, did you manage to get any like new clubs involved?

Yes, this year, even last year. So 2023, Adam Billings runs Daily Drift Competition Series. So that is like a Formula D format, top 32, sweet 16, all that stuff. So they practiced from 9 until 1, broke for lunch, and then there was competition from 2 to 5. But he hosted four different events there. We had Track Day Direct host an event called Brew City Banger because the Milwaukee location didn't work for them. So they came out to Shano, and then we had a couple other events come out, different clubs. This year, we got a lot of different clubs reaching out because we just have a flat rate fee. So we charge them a flat rate fee. If you want our insurance, this is what our insurance costs. And then the track will collect the spectators.

Okay, interesting. And then how's that compared to other tracks? Is it based on how many people you have?

So tracks, so when we were reaching out, so like Blackhawk Farms over in Illinois, I think it is, we reached out to them to host an autocross event there. I think it was like 22,000 or so. No, that's Road America. I want to say it was like maybe 10 to 15,000.

That's about right. I think I reached out to them for the rally, too.

Yeah, so they supply the corner workers, and it was just a flat rate fee. Here you go.

But other tracks, typically, so what's the alternative to a flat rate fee? Is it where if you have 20 cars, you pay this, 50 cars, you pay this?

Or more of a driver split. So clubs, say the club charges 200 bucks, the track would take 50 percent, and the club kept 50 percent of their driver registrations. But I don't like doing that because then the track is reliant on the club's promotion. Say they only get five drivers. You're all that. So this is a guarantee, hey, the track's going to be all right. This is a flat rate fee. The club gets to choose how much they want to charge.

Interesting. Are you able to disclose what the cost is to rent? Is it Oshano?

Oshano.

Oshano.

Yeah, Oshano.

Yeah, you listed it on Facebook.

So it's $3,500 for the track. And then that, so $3,500 just covers the track. There's no EMS, there's no tow truck, there's nothing like that, no corner workers. I have one person running registration, and then they sell candy, pop, and deal with wristbands. The track will take the spectator fees, and then you as a club, say you're an event promoter, say you know 50 people are coming. You could charge them $100, so you get $5,000. You made $1,500, right? But if you need our insurance, it's an additional $1,500, so it's $5,000 for the day. So then say you need 75 people at $100. For $7,500, you just made $250.

Which again, like you said, people are willing to pay $1.75. I like it. It's a little bit of a cult. Even Trey was talking about this. Drifting is just so much more chill. There's a lot less drama in that whole scene, it seems like. I don't know if it's vape pens or what.

They just smoke it away.

They're coughing.

It's natural, it's natural.

I don't know what it is, but every drift trip we've had on has been super chill. Even in the comment sections when I post highlights of drift stuff, I occasionally get one or two dicks, but the nice to dick ratio is much better when it comes to the comment sections on my drifting content.

Yeah, I mean, it's emo kids, it's skaters.

It's not a phase.

Yeah, it's a mixed bag, but they all have a respect for each other. So like autocross, they have a respect, but the drifting community is so supportive. I had no idea. Going over to Sean will really open my eyes towards the drifting community, as opposed to being in the drift community and then going to Sean. So I got firsthand experience. Of course, they might treat me different because I'm the operations manager at the track instead of just some schmuck walking around.

I don't know how many people know that, though.

They do.

You think so?

Oh, yeah.

Because I feel like, I mean, there was people on my own f****** rally that did not know who I was.

Really?

You got to be the face, man.

Well, yeah, Braxton was here. Braxton, well, I was the face for 80% of people, but they're like, Braxton's over here. He's like, do I know you?

Oh, yeah, I remember that now, yeah.

And he was on Team Stance Out five years ago. It's like, oh my god, dude. It happens, especially if there's multiple people in charge. I mean, do people see your face at Shano?

Oh, every time they go through the door, yeah.

Really?

So everybody has to come in and get a wristband, and I'm usually in registration.

Okay, that's probably why then, because you're pretty good about that, too.

If they have an issue, they come to me, and I want that. That's my job. So I don't want them going to another employee that get told something different. There was a conflict at one of our autocross events where someone went and asked one of the registration volunteers what to do because he missed his time slot. So he said, go run in three runs back to back to back, which wasn't the right call, because that person now has increased brake temps, tire temps compared to everybody else, and he gets to run them back to back to back, which is an unfair advantage instead of waiting in line. So it's like, what is this guy doing? You know, so it was kind of one of those, the volunteer wasn't in the wrong because he didn't know what the decision should have been, but he made the decision, and then that person went and executed what he was told from a volunteer. You got to have one point of contact. That's my biggest thing, because if, and it can't be a mom and dad situation where you go and ask mom, you didn't like the answer, you go and ask dad, he says the right thing. Right. Yep, there's got to be one person, so.

That was one thing that we ran into when me and Doug did venom rally back in the day. You were doing so good, even out of the coughs. They just started coming at me. I made you laugh too hard. But yeah, that would happen all the time. So that's one of the reasons I liked running the rally on my own, just as a single owner, because again, the calls were do or die, but at least there was one call. There was no confusion for it. So yeah, I completely understand that.

And you don't have to, like, so I did construction management, I still do. You have to make a decision based off of the information you were given at the time. And if you have somebody else making, looking back at your decision, the information you know now wasn't relevant five minutes ago, so you can't judge me on that. That's the biggest thing, and it sounds selfish, but if you wanted to succeed, it's because of you, but if it fails, it's also because of you. You were the only one that's responsible for that. I get that.

Did you ever watch the movie Sully?

Yes, with the plane?

Yes. Have you as well?

Yep.

For people that haven't seen it, basically what it is, is this is the one he landed the plane into Hudson or whatever, and they were doing these court trials or whatever, trying to basically get him on, did he make the right decision? So then they compared it to a simulator or whatever, and they're like, oh, the simulator made the right decision, but the other thing is, they went back, and it's like, well, when did he have the information? So once they implemented, I think it was like what?

Ten minutes.

I thought it was ten minutes, but that was like 30 seconds or something.

I want to say it was ten. No, you're right, you're right.

Yeah, so once they implemented that variable of, hey, well, you have to allot 20, 30 seconds for decision making, the conversations that happen, and once they threw that into the computer, they're like, well, the computer just f****** crashed the plane. Sully didn't because he thought of the right thing. So yeah, that was a super, super cool movie.

Or how many times did they have to do it before they pulled it off? Yes, I think it was 36 times or something like that. Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, I'll have to watch that movie again. It was a really, really good movie. Like you said, it's like just, yeah, you have to have that time for decision making.

100%. Yeah.

So we covered a little bit about your drifting, a little bit about the autocross. I want to talk Gramps. I'm sorry.

I was going to ask you about that too.

He's a Ford guest. We have to talk Gramps.

That's fine. Yeah. What do you want to know?

What the f***?

Is it gone?

It's gone. It's in Oklahoma.

When did it get sold?

April.

April? Was that an auction?

Nope.

No, it was sold, sold.

So I went to Mecham. I flew down to Florida. Mecham. I don't know how bad you want to get into it.

I talked to you about Mecham because I was going to go down there. I was thinking about hauling it.

I was hot. I was livid. And it was just like, oh, you know, you were told one thing and another thing was executed. And it's like, what did I pay for, you know? So let's get into it. Mecham contacted them, said, hey, I got this 100% custom truck kind of listed on there. Yep. Blah, blah, blah. What do you want? And I said, well, I want it to go in front of the biggest audience. So Saturday. All right. We'll give you the catalog special. Blah, blah, blah. All right. It'll go across the block and thrown of thousands of people. Okay. Sounds good. So flew down there just to experience it on my own. Luckily had a couple of people that were down there just randomly that showed up and they're like, Hey, can we sneak over there and join you? I'm like, sure. It's just me down here. So we were there at about four or five o'clock. Some of the custom stuff was going through. We were lot number 274. So they don't tell you your lot number when you sign. And then they assign you a random lot number when you look online. So like that first week, we were in the middle. So I'm like, all right, sweet. It's going to go across maybe noon, one o'clock, two o'clock, whatever. And then they come out with the full catalog. We were fifth to last for Saturday. So I was like, sweet, all right. You know, maybe I hate to be in last because my superstition was if you wanted something, you already purchased it. You wouldn't have any.

Yeah, you're getting towards the end. You blew your wad already. Exactly, yeah.

So unless you were holding out for that, so it's kind of a 22. Do you save the best for last to keep people in their seats? Or do you just put it at the back because you don't think it's going to sell? So you have all the stuff in front of it where people can buy it at prime time. So eight, nine o'clock started rolling around. The truck didn't cross the block until 10 o'clock. It was January in Florida. I think it was 40 degrees, which is freezing for them.

So 10 o'clock p.m. Yep. Holy s***.

Yep. So live coverage was off already. I think they stopped at nine. And then so no live coverage. There was online auction stuff. And then I think there was maybe 50 people in the building at 10 o'clock because the Florida hockey team, I think, was in the playoffs at the time. And they had a game Friday night. So they went to that. Everybody was at the bars watching something. There was 50 people in that building when it crossed.

As opposed to how many were on at noon.

Oh, the place was packed.

I went there just for fun to go hang out. It was crazy.

Yep.

Like thousands of people.

At least.

Yeah.

Yep. The whole thing was packed. So that left a sour taste in my mouth.

So then, were you out of pocket on anything there then?

So I had to pay for the freight, and then I had to pay for the spotlight. So like the buy-in fee or whatever it was. I forgot what it was.

So all set and down a few thousand dollars.

Sure. Yep. I think freight was 3,500 and then the spotlight was 15. So five grand.

All that too, basically. So how does Mecham work?

Mecham takes 10% of what it's sold for from the buyer and 10% from the seller.

Okay.

So it goes for 100 grand, Mecham takes 20. You get 90, buyer pays 110 or something like that.

And then?

I think.

And then so what happened? Did it hit reserve or something?

I had a reserve on it for I think 150. The highest I got was 100 grand.

Okay.

And I said, no, it's not worth it. So brought it home, and then I found out about Shano, and then I knew I was gonna move over there. So I moved over there and then April came by and I'm like, you know what? The truck's just sitting in the garage. The girls are probably nothing against them, but something stupid could happen where they scratch it, whatever. Something gets damaged. It's paperweight right now. So why don't I just reach out to the one person that contacted me saying, hey, would you sell it for this? So I reached out to him, Sam, and said, hey, you know, it didn't sell at Mecham. What would you be in? And he offered I think 95 or something like that. I'm like, all right, let me think about it. Let me sleep on the night. And then the next morning, he said, I'll give you 100 grand for it. I'm like, okay, it's 100 grand that I didn't have. So I sold it. First thing he did was slapped a supercharger on it.

Which was your plan anyway?

No, I just wanted to see time with it.

Interesting. What was it making power-wise before the supercharger?

I want to say 400.

Okay, because it was like-

Just a stock coyote.

You didn't have any tuning or anything like that done? I mean, other than, was it just like your control pack, Ford control pack, all that?

Just that. Interesting.

A lot went into that car, man.

A lot of, yeah.

I mean, it was a great story. So, I mean, funny enough, back when I started this podcast, or just before I started this podcast, I had a list of people that I wanted to have on. I want to say it was about 15 or 20 deep, and then this is a list I put together three or four years ago.

Sure.

You were obviously on that list, and that's when you were in the process of building Gramps.

Oh man, yeah.

So-

Dude, I listened to that episode. I was beating my own head against the wall, listening to all the s*** you had to go through.

With Paul?

No, no, when you were on here.

Oh, yeah.

I think this is where you really went into depth on Gramps, I believe was last time you were on.

We were on the podcast.

Oh, you weren't on here? Maybe it was Paul's then. It was Paul's. Okay, okay.

I was about to say, am I having like a lull in my memory now? I'm like, what's in this jocco?

Podcasts are podcasts, they're all the same, right? Yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, I'm sure a lot of people may have listened to Paul's episode, but for those that haven't, do you want to tell us a little bit about the story of Gramps?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so growing up, I lived probably 300 yards from my grandparents' house, so really good relationship with my grandparents. He always had a 1950 F1 pickup, and then he had a 70 Bronco and a 60 Beetle or something like that. He always had those three vehicles. And then he always had his modern stuff that he would drive around, but he always had those three. Grandma passed away from cancer, and then they were gonna auction off the property, and assets to it, all the cars and stuff. So I said, hey, how much do you want for the blue truck? Because we always chopped wood with it. He'd always take me, and we'd go chop wood for the wood burning stove in the house. And then he's like, I don't know, five grand? Sure. It was running, driving, operational. It was rough. It had rust on it and everything like that. So I bought it, and it stayed in the pull shed for probably two years, because I had a 68 satellite project that I was working on for a little bit.

Do you still have that?

Nope, sold that too. I'm not cool anymore. Like, yeah.

So when did you buy it, Gramps?

Gramps, I bought probably 20, gosh, 2017. 2018. I had the Viper at the time too.

Correct, yes.

So, yes. Bought it then, and then the company I worked for at the time, there is a division in Canada, so I shared a random photo with one of the salespeople up there and said, hey, check this truck out that I found online. And he goes, I could build that. I said, really? He goes, yeah, I got something similar to it. So he sent me his. And I'm like, well, how much would you charge? Well, it'd probably be 40, 50 grand. I'm like, seems like a deal, you know? Like, all right, let's talk about it. So then we came up with this whole, all right, you ship it up here. We'll dismantle it, sandblast it, fix it all up. I'll make it for you for 50 grand. So I shipped it up there, and I gave him $10,000 down, and then it got dismantled in three months. And then things started slowing down progressively, because he was sending me daily reports like once a month. Hey, this is our budget. This is what we spent. This is what's left. And then he kind of just stopped after it got dismantled and sandblasted. I'm like, all right. So a couple months go by, and I reach out to him like, hey, what's going on? And he goes, oh, it's just slowing down. And I'm like, all right, you played that song for like two years. And I'm like, I sent them, he bought a, gosh, he bought a motor kit for it, like the cradle and everything like that to build the frame. He was going to do a custom frame. And then I sent them five grand for that. And then I sent them five grand for something else. I want to say wheels and tires or something like that, the suspension for it. So it could be a rolling chassis at that point. I said, well, let me know when it's a rolling chassis. All right. And a couple months go by. And then I was up in Canada with a truck for work, but I didn't have a trailer. So perfect scenario. And I said, all right, well, let me know when it's a rolling chassis. Oh, it's a chassis. It's a roller. I said, all right, well, I'm going to come and pick it up in a week. Oh, all right. Well, it kind of acted surprised. And I'm like, I'm going to pull the project from you because there hasn't been progress on it the way I wanted to see it for the last two years.

Because at this point it's about 2019 ish.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. So 20, yeah, something like that.

And was it pre-COVID still?

Yes. So the truck was pretty much completed.

We'll get there.

Man. Yeah. It's been a while.

If you're going in and out of Canada at this point, it's pre-COVID.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another story, but yeah.

So you're over there in Canada with a truck. Okay.

I'm over there with a truck, but without a trailer. So I rented a U-Haul trailer and he goes cancel that. I'll give you the car trailer, just the open deck trailer, and then we'll throw this on there and I'll let you keep the trailer as a apology for taking two years. All right. Sounds good. So I pull up just full of stories on, oh, my flight was delayed, blah, blah, blah. So it's Sunday night at about 9.30, I pull up to his house, because that's when he wanted me there, because his flight got in. I pull up and then he starts carrying out the frame, like in pieces. Like there's no rolling chassis, there's no suspension, there's no wheels, there's no tires, there's nothing. And it's like, where is all this stuff? Well, if you would have gave me another week or two, I would have had it done. And I'm like, you've had two years to get this done, like whatever. So we get everything done, and I'm like, where are the body panels? Oh, it's at my uncle's. Where's your uncle's? 45 minutes away. Let's go. I'm taking this whole thing from you. Well, it's locked in a padlock in a airplane hanger. I'm like, get a grinder. I don't care. He goes, if you're gonna play this game, I have the title with me, and I'll call RCMP and I'll report it's stolen. I know where it's at. Here's the title. It'll match the VIN that's on the dash on the truck. All right, so he gets in his truck, and we go down, and I was on a group chat with about 10 guys, and I said, if I don't reply back every 15 minutes, this is my location. Call the cops. Because I have no idea. At this point, it's 11 o'clock, and we're going down a dirt road one way kind of thing.

You're in a foreign country. It is Canada, but you're still in a foreign country.

I have a passport, and that's about it. Yeah, you can't have pistols in Canada. Yeah, so we go there, load it up, and then I brought it all the way home. Literally drove straight to the auto body shop, and I said, how much would you value? I showed him a picture of it. What would you charge from this to this? And each one of them said like three, four grand. So I messaged him, and I'm like, hey, there's a discrepancy of like 16 grand in between what I paid you and what services I got. What do you want to do? He goes, I ain't paying you. I'm not paying you anything. Took him to court, ended up settling for I think 17 grand. So he ended up paying that over the course of a year. And then I brought it to Patients Mental Fab. They said, you know, came up with a budget. And then of course, budgets go overboard when you order three piece Rotiform wheels and all that fun stuff. So it got built from them. Took them, I think a year and a half, maybe two might be over. I can't remember at this point, but yeah, got done. Took it on Crown Rally East from Chicago to Tail the Dragon after driving it around Minnesota for 500 miles, just to see, hey, let's put it to the test, see if it works. That was great because you know how Crown is. They got all the McLarens and Ferraris and Lambos, and everybody's like, what are you driving? I'm like, oh, I got that Ford. Oh, that one, you know? Didn't matter what color it was. They knew exactly what it was. That was fun to go on. And then parked it for the winter. And then the next spring, we autocrossed it for a year, and then sold it the following year.

So how was that experience with Patience then?

Awesome. I mean, just, we would get to a point, and it would say, all right, this is option one, two, and three. What do you want to go with? And it was just every little detail, not every little detail. They knew what kind of look that I wanted, but the mind that Gary and I both have was on the same page. So it wasn't like, well, why did you do that? You know, kind of thing. It was like, yup, that's similar to what I would have done.

That was a good call, yeah.

Yeah, yup. So like when Coy crashed his Lambo up in Brainerd, well, do you want to put a cage in it? And I'm like, I'd look silly if I didn't put a cage in it, you know, at this point. So let's just put a cage in it. And then they came up with that design where they tabbed in the interior panels to the cage so you didn't see the full bar. You only saw a quarter of it. So that was pretty cool to see. So I would recommend patience. Yup, you get what you pay for. I mean, they charge for what they do, but they will not disappoint you.

Do you want to disclose what you think you were with all the headaches aside, what you were all into it at?

Keep in mind, I had full body wrap on it, full paint. I was close to around 230, 240. And that's including like toes to and from and all the little s*** like that.

Oh yeah, okay, the menial stuff too.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you probably were telling that thing weekly.

Well, I mean, it had to go here. It had to go here, you know, and it had to be enclosed because obviously for, you know, for obvious reasons.

Right.

But yeah, that team over there is really good at what they do. So they are pretty much a project management team. If they can't do it, they know the people that can, and they'll get you on the contact for them.

That's one of the things I love about the shops around here is that they collaborate.

Yes.

Like for example, like, I won't say who, but they'll work with them, and they'll go back and forth on this for like huge projects and whatever. So yeah, it's super cool to see that. And Patience is kind of like one of the go-tos. I think there's only like one or two really good places to take your stuff for cages around here.

Yeah, yep. So they, I mean, they're a chassis shop too. So first thing, they're like, we could build you a chassis, or you could just order this one from Roger's shop, and it'd probably be the same price, but they can do the work when we don't have the time right now. So as a chassis shop saying, hey, why don't you just purchase this one instead of us making it, that speaks volumes to me. Plus I didn't have to pay taxes on it because it wasn't business to business.

Right. That shows that they have your best interest in mind.

Yep, 100%. So they do a really good job over there.

I went there with Mo, boosted Minneapolis, who I'm wearing his freaking shirt. We went over there and I saw that truck in person, and it was really sweet, dude. Yeah. So, and then ultimately, what was the driving force in getting rid of it then?

Money, and if something broke, I had to bring it to patients. I couldn't just say, hey, I got a 1950, I need this kind of thing. So I wanted, like, that was a big reason why I chose the Viper, because I lived 10 minutes from a Viper dealership, well, not a Viper dealership, but a Dodge dealership that had a Viper tech. That was a big reason why I bought those instead of like a Porsche. So it was, that's ease of accessibility, and I want something where I could just go into the garage, turn the key, and just drive off with it, not worrying about it.

Yeah. So where did you source your drivetrain from for Gramps? Remember?

LMC truck, maybe? No, it was Powerhouse Motorsports, I think.

Oh, was it a crate one, or did you pull out of it?

It was a crate motor.

Okay.

And then, yeah, I want to say Powerhouse Motorsports or something like that for the drivetrain.

Did you do 6R80, was it automatic?

It was a PCM 4R70 trans.

Okay.

So it was a four-speed, but it had a push-button gear select, paddle shifters.

Oh, cool.

Yep. It was cool.

Yeah, I had seen pictures of it. I never got to see it in person.

Yeah, no, it was cool. It was loud. It had the side-exhaust and the cab. Just little throwbacks to the Viper kind of thing. Same wheel sizes. Yep. So.

Yeah, that was, I think it was, what was your favorite aspect of that car then? Or aspects? The color was freaking phenomenal.

Yeah.

Yeah, Illusion Blueberry by Prism Powder Coating. That was a good one. The orange roll bar was a fly by the seat of your pants. Hey, what do you want to do? It was either that or lime green, but I didn't want it to be like a monster theme kind of thing.

Right.

So, yeah. I was worried people were going to associate it with the Denver Broncos.

I was thinking Blippi, but I have some girl kids.

Blue and orange. I'd say my favorite aspect about it was just the conversations that started from it.

That was cool. I mean, it's an open wheel truck. Which is really cool.

Rock chips were my nightmare.

Yeah. Well, you had a PPF and all that stuff too though, right?

You can't do it on the hinges.

Oh yeah, I suppose. What'd you end up doing for a suspension on there?

Yeah, I had a Watts link and a four link for the rear. Yep. And then I had strange coil overs.

Okay.

Yep, so.

Yeah, I think it was rowdy. I think we all kind of miss it. Do you, or are you just kind of-

I miss the Viper more than the Shrek.

Really?

Yeah, I'll be honest, that thing was my favorite toy.

Why is that?

Just-

Like, why would you take the Viper over to truck? I mean, you put so much into that fricking truck.

The Viper, I mean, just, it had a lot more grip than the truck did. I was very fast on the Viper. I enjoyed driving it, and I enjoyed giving people rides in it. Whereas the truck, I didn't want to push it past the envelope, because I didn't want to have something break. Whereas the Viper, if it broke, I knew I'd be all right, you know? Whereas the truck, it's like, holy s***, you just totaled this thing, so.

True, there was a lot more at stake.

Yeah, money-wise. I mean, it was three, four times as much as what the Viper cost, so.

Well, because everything's custom.

Yep, yeah, yep.

Well, I did the same thing with my GT500. I bought a rebuilt title car, because I was like, I won't be scared to beat on this car. I didn't want a $110,000 car that I'd be super scared to f****** drive.

That's why I got the C6 for a drift missile. Like, salvage title, if I stuff it into the wall, I'm not wrecking a decent one.

Well, nobody's buying a new car from the lot to take it drifting. I don't know, you, I can't imagine there's many of them out there.

But if I, yeah, I think I'll get back into the Viper game, eventually, if prices come down realistic.

Would you go into gen five or go back to gen four?

I like four.

That ACR was something. What do those ACRs go for now? Something absurd?

120, like twice as much as what I bought mine for.

I was gonna say, I'm trying to do the math of when you're talking about you're doing all this stuff when you had to Viper or not. You probably picked that Viper up and probably, did you make some money on it?

No, cause I blew the motor on it at Power Groups, yep.

Oh, that's right.

That'll bring the value down.

When I had it sold, yeah.

Oh no.

So I had the Viper and then I bought it for 60. So I was looking at one at 70. It was white and black. It had a lot less miles on it. And I'm like, well, my price range is around 60. Do you got anything? He goes, I just took a trade in. The person that owned it was from Illinois, like a Verizon tech or something like that. He had two of them and he traded two of them in for a Gen 5. So he goes, I don't even have it listed yet, but I'll sell it to you for 60. It's got 32,000 miles on it, which is high for a Viper. I said, all right. So I bought that and never rolled in one before. Didn't know where the window switches was on the console instead of the door. So like, jeep style, baby. Yeah, exactly. Like, why are we locking me in my car right now? Yeah, so I bought it and then drove it literally everywhere. I put so many miles on it. I think I had 58,000 or something like that when the motor finally let go.

Wow.

Yeah.

So what happened?

I was up at Power Cruise and I was next to a Mustang, and I did a second gear pull down the stretch, and I'm like, man, that exhaust sounds nasty on that Mustang. Like, super raspy. And then I got on the gas again, and the ticking started escalating with the gas, and I'm like, oh my god, it's me, you know? So I quick shut it off, and yeah, coasted to where I coasted, and then they towed me off, and then we tried to start it, wouldn't start on its own, so we had to jump it, and it sounded like a John Deere tractor, so I ended up spinning like two rod bearings.

They already sound like a John Deere tractor.

Well, it was like a tapper on a John Deere tractor. It was bad, and I'm like, all right. So then it's like, what do we do? Do we put a new motor into it? Got a couple pull-ups, it was 22 grand for a new motor. Yeah, so it's like.

Maybe just spun a couple rod bearings. That's not, like, if the block's okay, I mean, you could go rebuild is not.

You would think. But the dealership wanted to drop a new motor into it, so it was 22 grand. It's like, I don't wanna stick a third of the car into something that I put a third of the miles back onto it. So I ended up selling it for 41. So I drove it for two, three years, and then sold it for, what is that, 19 grand less than what I bought it for.

That's not bad, though, if you consider the fact that you blew up a $20,000 motor in it.

And you also got to enjoy it, I mean, 20,000 miles.

I took the piss out of it.

You did, you did.

It was a lot of hard miles on it, so, yeah.

Interesting, well, you kind of do a, like I mentioned earlier in the episode, you kind of do everything, from autocross to road course to now drifting. Do you see yourself getting more and more into drifting? Would you like to have a road course car back? Would you actually, I mean, would you hold off on the Viper for a while?

See, I've thought about selling the Corvette now, and just opening like a simulator cafe. Just generating revenue during the winter. Cause right now, I'm at this point in life where it's like, my car hobbies are only good for seven months. I got five months of this paperweight sitting in the garage. What am I going to do with it? Kind of thing. So, I don't know, I'll wait. I'll wait a little bit. Drifting is fun, but I don't see myself like, doing it year after year after year. So, I want to get back on grip driving.

Does Shano do any winter events?

No, because we are skeptical on what happens through the track. So, Road America does winter events, but they only do it in their parking lot. Our concern is that if you do winter events on the track, water is going to run off of the track and go underneath the track and then freeze again. And then it's going to blister the asphalt.

Is it an asphalt track?

Yep. So, I don't want to run the risk of that happening. Because if that happens, then it's, you know, waiting for asphalt.

I'm curious, what does it cost to, so I'm sure you looked into this, like if you ended up doing a one and a half mile road course in St. Cloud or whatever, what would it have cost to build a track? Like if you got millions?

Millions.

Like we're talking like one to two or three?

Yeah, three to five.

Again, I'm gonna get mixed up stuff here probably, but you were originally, you were thinking just do dirt track or something to start with?

Yep, so we were gonna start with dirt track, just get the name out there, get the noise, get the approval, and then dirt is obviously cheaper than asphalt, so we'd run dirt like side by side. Everybody bought side by sides during COVID, so it'd be cool to have side by side races like ERX Park does, but on a much smaller scale, so you could just show up, pay 100 bucks, go run however long you want to run on time, just go have fun kind of thing. Then we could tap into beater cross and rec fest stuff, just the fun stuff. And then that would compact the soil underneath where the asphalt track would go.

Interesting, okay.

And it would generate revenue while having the land.

Yeah.

Interesting. So then at that point, all you would have to do is pretty much purchase the land, right?

We would purchase the land, and then you would have to do the dirt.

Yeah, the peonies while you're working on that too.

Yep, the laboratory.

Yep, so my golden ticket would be a lobby that you could walk into. You would have simulators, you would have a restaurant seating area, and you would have decent bathrooms and showers for the drivers. Because like, Shano, if we got a new bathroom facility, that's what it's missing right now, is a decent bathroom facility. Everybody complains about the ones up in Brainerd being nasty and stuff like that. So, it's a creature comforts. Obviously, it doesn't generate revenue though.

Right, yeah, fair enough.

That's the biggest thing, you know?

So like, Showers would be a big thing too?

Showers are nice because we have people spend the night.

We have back and back. Especially if you're gonna do a dirt track, like people are gonna be caked.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Yep.

Oh yeah, fair enough.

Yep. So.

Interesting, okay. And then, so what were your plans to fund it then?

So we would start with doing like, what I wanna do now, knowing that the zoning, I wanna do it like a country club style. You buy a membership, you get a sticker like a tab on your car, and then you can use that facility. We would use that fund of the memberships to go and start doing upgrades, and that would basically fund itself once we got the dirt track going.

And what was the idea of like a cost to have that tab?

So if we bought the land, oh, for a membership, we'd have to see how much of the land, if you bought 100 acres, it's obviously gonna be 800,000 compared to 27 at 240. So it all depended on how much land we bought with it. Yep.

Yeah, because I know a lot of, or some tracks do like country memberships. I recently found out that there's one over on the West Coast where it's like, I think like 100 grand a year or something ridiculous like that.

What's the one in Illinois, Audubon Country Club?

Yeah, what does that cost?

35, I think for the initial, and I think it's 15 for every year after that.

But you can spend all the time you want to spend pretty much over there.

Yeah, it comes with a garage, I think, and everything like that. I think.

We were looking at one in Tennessee, they were at PRI Advertising, and they were like 100 grand or something like that. But I think you actually get like a condo with a garage and stuff like that, like a small living quarters type thing. That would be fricking awesome.

Wolf Creek down on that proposal on 35, they were gonna do, that's how they were gonna generate their startup, was memberships. And then same thing with Mankato. They had a driving complex proposal over there because they lost a Viking Stadium. That one also didn't go through.

So you're looking at, again, on the high side for land, like 800 grand, right?

It all depends.

That's what I was looking at at the time.

That can be so many factors.

Yeah, so, so many factors, of course. Yeah, but like just little Mickey Mouse math over here.

Sure.

So you're looking at the land would be a big part of cost. So what's the next biggest cost involved in that?

Equipment.

Equipment being?

You would have to get like a backhoe, not a backhoe, but like a...

I know about hoes. I don't.

I would say like a skid loader to form all the dirt, a dozer, and then you would have to get your dirt track. So you could subcontract all that out. So you don't have to purchase all that stuff, but you have to do the upkeep as well. So it would be that. I have a whole like business proposal basically that I built three years ago with SCSU.

And that's just to get it to a dirt track, correct?

That's just dirt track. Yeah, so I want to say it was right around two mil.

Just for a dirt track. Wow, holy s***.

Circle?

No, road course.

Road course, okay.

Interesting. That still would have been like, again, roughly a mile and a half.

Yeah, yep. So the proposal that I did it on was in South Haven. It was right on the other side of the city, which was unfortunate, but you could do so much for sound mitigation now, but everybody wants to know sound barriers and stuff like that for desk load readings.

What goes into the sound mitigation for a racetrack?

I would say you would use a wall or noise deflection because you can't do elimination, right? You're not going to put silencers on everybody's car. That's unrealistic. So you could do noise deflection where you could do like down the highway, you could put those walls that keeps the noise within the highway instead of going into the...

Like the big wooden walls that they have?

Yep. Yep.

Interesting. And then when you're pitching that to the city, like, are you able to show like, this is how much noise you can reduce with these sorts of walls?

100%. So, and Minnesota doesn't have like a noise decibel, like a limit. So it's kind of free rain.

Is it by city then?

Yeah.

Okay. Interesting. And it's basically just like them being like, ah, that's loud.

Yeah. So like the proposal that we did in Sauk Rapids, it's right off of Highway 23, which is close to the Knife River. And they have heavy haulers, like 18 wheeler dirt trucks going down that road. We were four decibels louder than what that truck would have been going down the highway. Wow.

And when you say four decibels louder, what was four decibels louder?

I want to say we were at 84, and a semi truck was at 80.

In what car though?

Ah, Jesus. We did a couple testings. We took an average. So we tested everybody in one run group and wrote down what their decibel was, and then we took the average of that. So we had people with Civics, S2000s, Viper, like whatever was in that run group that was at one of the Morgan's Motorplex, and we took it at 50 feet away.

Oh, okay, that was an SNS. And the truck was also 50 feet away, correct?

Yep, based on the study. So the paperwork that I found, and I showed them everything, like this is a photo of where we took it from, this is what we had. And we had a couple board members come out, and they said, this is not what we thought it was gonna be.

It's not an NHRA dragster.

No, and that's what everybody associates a racetrack with. That or oval, with an open header until 11, 12 o'clock.

Yeah. Well, again, when you have a certain lunatic with a 5.0 Mustang, that's basically a straight pipe. I get it why people would be against the track.

Don't do a lot of dirt track stuff, though, with mine.

But again, what's the main primary concern is just disturbing the piece, I guess, but most of the time people are, especially when you get to townships like that, people are far enough away.

You would think.

And decibel readings, I think it's like, I can't remember if it was, I think it goes down exponentially, I believe, by every foot. Or I think it was like, whatever. I can't remember what the equation was, but it goes down significantly, like every 10 feet.

100%.

So that's my frustrating thing about it, too. It's like, because you have this big plot of land, if you put in the noise restrict. Dude, I get so heated when I talk about this with you every single time, because I.

It's a money-making idea that is supportive of the community.

Well, especially if you do it in a modern way, right? So like, again, to bring up Atlanta Motorsports Park again. So I hit up the track, whatever organizer or operations manager over there, and I asked, like, hey, we want to rent the track, but also, what else do you have here? She's like, oh, we got 10 sim rigs over here that are loaded with iRacing. We have these garages here, all this, all this stuff you can rent. And if you incorporate, you know, again, like a sim cafe at a track or whatever, you know, it's just all these different aspects go into being a revenue generator.

Right.

And even then, if, for example, because we're f****** Minnesota, we have winter six months of the year, it's like the locals could come on, use the sim racing cafe or whatever. It's like, wouldn't that be a better hobby than, you know, people getting s******** on the weekends? It's like, yeah, I don't know. I just feel like there's just so many ways to generate revenue, especially in a small city like that.

People are looking for stuff to do.

Yeah. Well, in the track part of it doesn't generate a s*** ton of revenue, right? Like they don't or do they? Can they? What do you mean? So like your your concessions, your the other stuff like that, is that bring in?

We're so like, Sean, I always hated it when you went to a sporting event, had to pay 10 bucks for a beer.

Yeah.

When you could buy a bottle, you know, you buy a six pack for 15. Like, we don't gouge people for that. So like bottles of water were a buck. We were super reasonable. And we still made a profit off of what you're not obviously going to lose money on concessions.

But right.

Yeah.

Especially if you have 10,000 people come over the course of a weekend.

Yeah. Yeah.

Or actually, I'm curious, how many people do come for these events out there?

Our biggest event is Final Bout. I want to say we had like maybe six or seven different countries represented. So we had people from like fluent from Dublin, Australia, Japan. We had 5,000 people between Friday and Sunday. Yeah. So.

And all those people got a bottle of water, you know, but yeah. But underlies like that, again, that's revenue. And then, you know, seven, eight events a month, you know, it's something. And of course, it covers, you know, costs. I'm curious, actually, when you build a track, I'm guessing it's like a multi-year loan.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Is that typically like a five or a 10 year or what?

30? You could do a five. So I broke everything out into a five year because I wanted to do the five year transition between dirt and asphalt. I figured five years we would be able to generate enough revenue to pay off the initial loan in the first five years. And then we would take that second loan out for the asphalt.

Right. That makes sense. Yeah, I was looking at doing that when I when I was in college. Like I was like, all right, do I take all the money out upfront? No, you never want to do that.

You're paying interest on all of it.

If the interest was like triple over the course of like however many years, it's like, oh, it goes from this number to this number.

Borrow what you need to get your initial cost out.

Exactly. Just borrow by semester or whatever. I learned that one real quick when I went to Wells Fargo.

Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. So you basically just need a big money backer to get into it. And then at a certain point, you start seeing ROI.

Yeah. Yeah. It would take a little bit, but yeah.

What other things are able to use those tracks for? Like we've seen police training, like semi truck driving training, maybe.

So the research center does EMS. They do EVOC training for firefighters, EMS. They do police training. And they also have a dirt section that they rent out for the semi truck drivers. So that's how they generate their revenue. And then they have clubs come in on the weekend that rent out the track. So you could cater to all those things. You could go with carts, you could go with bikes, side by sides, snowmobiles, dirt bikes. You could do all those things if you wanted to. On dirt and then asphalt, I don't know if you'd want to run in the winter during asphalt just because of that popping situation. Yeah. But it would be cool to have a dirt course in when it's winter.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Because everybody in the winter circuit is waiting for the lakes to freeze. So they can't do anything from October to January, unless they're crazy and ice fishing right now.

I have got some friends that are out there.

Yeah, see.

That's crazy.

It'll be 50 degrees on Sunday.

Yeah, I know.

So maybe not. But have you thought about opening a carting facility? Cause I know we have Stockholm. It's fricking amazing. It's amazing. If you're in Minnesota, you need to go to Stockholm. I don't care about pro cart, but unfortunately that's all we have this time of year. But have you thought about opening a go-karting facility?

I have.

And?

I don't know. It just, I don't know. I don't see the appeal on it. The thing that scares me is MB2 went under.

Yeah.

That was in the cities. So if I opened up something in St. Cloud, there's no, it's a catch-22 because St. Cloud really doesn't have any entertainment besides bars. So it's a big college town.

You got some great bars though.

We do have great bars, and the nightlife is great, but that's it, and that's what makes it great, is because there's nothing else to do.

Right.

So if you opened up something like that, plus every college kid is broke, so your population increases between September and May, but the revenue or your average income drops because they're not making income because they're college students. So I don't know if it would survive if it was in St. Cloud being a go-kart facility and pairing it with that, but I have thought about doing an outdoor go-kart facility and then transferring it. That's how Shano started.

Yeah.

It was a go-kart facility that turned into a... Really?

You would never see me in St. Cloud, by the way. I'll go out for autocross, but for go-karting, it's tough to make it out to Stockholm. It's hard to convince people to get a group there.

It's hard to plan because of the weather.

That too, yeah.

I remember you had that one that had to cancel or reschedule like three times because it was raining.

Yeah, well, I had to cancel go-karting on my South Rally, which financially worked out for me, but thankfully, otherwise, I'd have another year to pay off on my Amex. But yeah, that's the tough part, because I got the call from the track at 8 a.m. in the morning, and they're like, hey, there's no wind. The clouds are still here. It's gonna be a whole day for this f***** to dry out.

Oh, it was already wet, yeah.

Oh, it was soaked. It just wasn't gonna happen. If there was sun and wind, then yeah, maybe we had a chance to be there by the time I got there.

But yeah, the most fun I've ever had karting was during the rain.

Oh, I bet that's...

Who the hell let you do that?

Sean-O.

Wisconsin, man. Y'all know how to live.

We had a group. I told them we usually don't let karts go out when it's raining. But if you start and it rains, I can't offer you a refund. But if you don't start before it rains, I could offer you a refund. But if you start and then it rains, I can't offer you a refund. So... Take it for what it's worth. We do a practice lap because there's so many course configurations on that track, so everybody knows what the course is. And then we did the parade lap, and then we got everybody to start stop line and just downpour like cats and dogs, like tsunami rain. It's like, holy crap. Well, you guys are in the carts, they're already running. What do you guys want to do? We'll go out. And I said, one of you goes off, we're done. And they ran around, and literally like you're sitting on top of the drain plug for the seat, so you're just sitting in a pool of water, and they were soaked head to toe, even if they had a rain suit on, they were still soaked. But it teaches you a lot about cart control and shifting your weight because you have to steer with the gas and the brake because they're full slicks. So yeah, but they're shooting rooster tails five feet in the air. So it's fun. There's no lights on them or nothing, you know? So it's starting to get dark out and yeah. All right, let's call it a day. All right, that was the most fun we've ever had. So that's cool.

That's awesome. Do you have any photo or video from that?

No, no, no. I left my phone in the scoring tower just because I didn't want to get it wet, but I was soaked head to toe because I was just out there in T-shirt and shorts.

But that is, that sounds like it's hilarious.

Yeah, yeah. Crown, when we went to Autobahn, Jacob was out there and gosh, I forget his other guy's names out there. But we went to the go-kart track after the big track, and we were out there and it started like sprinkling. And you could tell like, all right, it's starting to get a little slick. So you go and take that sharp left after the long straight, three of them go straight off, you know, and the other two in the back, you know, lock them up, all right, like, you know, baby it around this corner. So it's fun. If you could get out and rain during the, or race during the rain, I highly suggest it. So it's a good time.

If anything helps you hone your drifting skills.

Right? Yeah, teaches a lot about cart management, basically. So I have thought about it, but we also have Summerland and St. Cloud. Those are kind of kiddie carts, but they are gonna get a fast track put in, I think, this year. So it'd be competition, basically.

Is insurance for something like that a nightmare?

For carts?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, that's what I figured. So when you're doing, you're renting out a track to people that technically have to bring their own insurance, you can offer a policy, but that policy is probably better than if you have a cart, because you're not asking each individual to come in with insurance.

Right, it's an umbrella. Yeah. Like the event promoter should be able to cover his event with his insurance.

Right.

So.

But that's not the case with carts.

Carts, it's, so carts you could get, so like, Shano has an umbrella policy for motor sports in general. So it covers carts, cars, bikes, everything like that. Carts, there's NKA, they charge per wristband that you sell for their insurance. So say you get a bundle of 100 and you only send back 20, you have to pay insurance for those 80 drivers that you had. It's kind of tricky. Yeah. Just little things like that.

Interesting. Learned a lot about track stuff today. That was our goal.

Yeah.

We wanted to talk a lot of track stuff.

Yeah.

Before we pop the usual three, do you have anything that you wanted to touch on while you're on here? I know a lot of people, I want people to sign up for Morgan's Motorplex events this year. Really, really enjoyed your autocross. You will see me assuming that I'm not financially f*****.

I just want to be able to go to the dinner.

Oh, that's a good time.

Yeah, it looks like a good time. You just got to attend once, right? To get invited to the-

The banquet.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have a good time at the banquet. Drinks and food provided. Yeah, we have a good time. Do some fun awards and do some serious stuff as well. We got two locations locked in right now. We got Rochester, and we have Black River Motorsports Park in Superior, which is an oval, so we'll see how that goes. They host autocross there as well, so we're going to go up there and kind of-

Is that like an oval like the one that we did at Niagara Falls?

Yep. Yeah, and butt tighter.

Oh, wow. But you would still set it up as like an autocross course?

It's different, yeah. So it's two laps. The way they set it up is first lap, you'd go on a certain set of cones, and then the second lap, you'd go around a second set of cones. So it's a different course every time you go around the oval.

I'm hitting those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just straight through, yeah.

That one's as far as going to St. Cloud for me, so I might check that one out.

That one's, yeah. So we got those two locations. I got a meeting on the fourth. I'm anxious to see what that is about. So that's why I haven't really booked anything until after that meeting to see where that goes.

Yeah, I'm really excited for this next season. There's just so much I want to do, assuming a lot of things go my way.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see what happens. Hopefully, this is a big motorsport year for us. Me and Dan were talking about maybe doing grid life, one event, because we just... Seems like all our friends have a lot of fun with it. But then we talked to Piero, and for me in particular, he's like, yeah, you should probably do a HPDE event. Get familiar with that, because I've never done a road course where I've been with other people on the track yet. Obviously, you need to learn how to do that.

Go to Bernard.

Yeah, exactly. Well, the nice thing is, so I'm actually talking to Michael Peterson about who we've had on this podcast before. I'm hoping to have some conversations with Brainerd here soon, just get familiar with the leadership up there.

Good luck.

Well, some things have changed. Yeah, and I'll talk about that a little bit more out there, but I like to get familiar with people, do some coaching up there, because Michael is a certified instructor or whatever up there. So point being is we want to do a lot more track stuff, and we're hoping to do some podcasts up there somewhat soon-ish beginning of season. But nonetheless, your boys gotta learn.

Yeah, yep. I would say if you could sign up for the high performance driving school, or whatever they call it up there, I learned so much, because I grew up on Gran Turismo. That's what got me into Roll Course, that game. But I learned so much from just taking that high performance school that you can't transfer from carts, because I'd always go into the corner and then brake while I'm cornering, whereas you want to come into the corner, brake while you're straight, and then hard turn in, let off of the brake, let that car roll around the corner.

Unless you're a pro and you get into trail breaking. Which is me.

I'll let Priero talk about that.

Yeah.

Good Life is at Road America this year, so that's a close one for you guys.

Yeah, we'll see what happens. I mean, Dan will be far more likely to be able to do it than I have, just because he has a lot more.

I signed up for the SCCA. I just did a membership. I think I said that right, for, I'm thinking about doing the Optima one at Road America.

Oh boy. Have fun.

Yeah.

Ellsworths, I don't know if you know who those guys are, the Viper guys.

They were out at Autocross when that was the day I won.

And they were at PRI, yeah. Those would be a good ones to hook up with while you're out there.

Yeah?

Yep, very knowledgeable.

Cool.

Those guys know how to drive.

Well, a driving school is on for the beginning of this season. I'm definitely gonna hit that up.

Yep, you'll learn a lot.

Yeah.

Yep, just take it all in.

Yeah, I just wanna get gutter.

Yeah.

Sweet dude, you wanna pop to the final three?

Sure. That I can do that part of my job hasn't been taken.

Sure, yeah, we'll see. I haven't reached out to the agency yet.

It's on the help line today.

Yeah, I wanna be like Sean, a free agent here pretty soon.

You're gonna join Sean in the unemployment line?

All right, at the end of every episode here, we like to ask our guest a question. We want three cars from you. You have unlimited budget, swaps, builds, whatever. You're obviously know that field also. So we want a track car, a daily driver, and a show car.

Unlimited imagination, don't f*** that up.

So I thought about this for like the last four days. And like track car, I would love ACR Viper, like a Gen 4 or Gen 5.

So choose one.

I would say Gen 4, just cause it's familiar, right? Show car, I always liked the old Continentals on bags with the suicide doors, like all murdered out, right?

I actually am mad that I didn't pick that last time I was here too. I thought about it afterwards. I'm like, that is one of my all time, I want one of those real bad.

That's what I want. So that would be my show car.

Convertible or hard top?

Hard top. I hate convert, I don't have the hair for it. So yeah, I'll be honest. They're probably cheaper convertible, but I'll go hard top. And then daily, my knowledge of dailies is very little. Honestly, I've had the BMW for the last seven or eight years. So I don't have a computer screen in my car. You know, it's, I would say, gosh, almost like an Austin Martin, like just because it's cool, classy, hand-built, you know, it's kind of, it's not a Viper, so it's not high performance, but it's still hand-built. So I would go with, I would go with like a DB9 or 11. I got to ride an 11 one time, so.

Like a newer one?

Yep. Yep.

Okay.

So interesting.

That's the same as the AMG GTs, you know, take the Aston instead.

I didn't even think of that, yeah.

Cause like, you know, my dad's GTR.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, that would almost be like a track car though.

The GTR? Yeah, it'd be more towards that. I mean, it's great. It's a great cruiser.

You've ridden them both. How was that comparable? I've heard those are like the new Vipers, like a modern Viper.

Oh yeah. They share some similarities for sure. It's the German Viper. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that the thing is, is that, okay. So the AMG GTRs, they have a hot V setup, basically the turbos right there. So there's no turbo lag. I mean, it's almost, it's almost like it's naturally aspirated. I mean, it isn't, but like, there's like no lag. So, and same thing with the Vipers, they're naturally aspirated, so there's no turbo lag. I don't know, I'd have to drive a Viper to get a feel for it. I have driven a Viper to park it. That was AJ's Gen 5 ACR. Yeah, I had to take off my shoes to f****** drive that one.

Hit his rear defrost next time.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, he'd have a panic attack, right? But yeah, I don't know, I'd have to drive one to fully understand it, but yeah, it's a monster, it's a track monster. So I don't know, I don't know. But so yeah, back to the question, would you take an AMG GT or an Aston?

I'd probably take the AMG. Yeah, I would do that. If I could meet one builder, it would be Christian Konasek. They had a hyper car. I think it was on Netflix or something like that, but just like everything he said was, yeah, I would like to meet him or Zach Brown from McLaren.

Interesting, okay.

Yeah.

That's actually what I was gonna ask you, you're a McLaren guy then?

I just, I had the hat because the girls bought it for Christmas last year. So it was a rough start to the Formula One season this year for-

Oh yeah, it was.

But they turned it around in second half.

Dude, how about that? I mean, Piestri, I think he got Rookie of the Year.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And Norris, like he was competing with Norris, and Norris has been in that seat for how long? Yeah.

Piestri's good, I love his personality. Yeah, he's great, he's great. I'm excited, just a few more months till we're back in the Formula One season.

Yeah, I saw Max interviewing Alonso, just asking him questions back and forth.

I didn't see that yet.

Somebody commented, like the winner of the Grand Prix should interview all of the other drivers. I thought that'd be a fun little segment, but of course you're gonna have different personalities.

Dude, I would love to see Max and Alonso together, because they were talking about, I can't remember which one of them said it, they would love to be with the other for, was it LeMans, I think?

Yeah, it was Alonso, Alonso with Max. And Max is a big sim racer too.

Oh, really?

Huge.

I think after he won the driver championship, like it was three hours after the last race, he was in a sim racin.

Always, he's always in a sim, like it's ridiculous. I actually saw a really funny meme today of him on a sim, and then he has his champion title or whatever in the background, like the trophy or whatever, like in the background, and it's used to hold up Christmas cards. And people are like, oh, he's disrespecting it. It's like, well, and then somebody commented, I'm not sure if there's any merit to this, but like the real trophy is like in a museum, like that's just a knockoff one. And then he has the little Red Bull mini fridge in the back. It looks like a college dorm, dude.

I like how they play the Dutch national anthem before the race even starts. And he's like, stop it. Like he's getting annoyed with it.

Dude, they play that anthem so much. I know it by heart now.

Well, Camille was talking about, they have some circuits now where they race on the track, and then they come off and then they race in a sim.

I heard about that.

Yeah.

That would be sweet to do.

That would be friggin awesome. I can't remember exactly what I have to go back and listen. I think he talks about it in the...

Yeah, there's a series out there where they race actual cars on track, and then part of the series is they have to go and race in a sim. Yep. That was cool. I heard about that.

That's super cool.

Yeah.

So then, to recap then, so Viper track car?

I would do the Viper track car.

Gen 4 ACR, correct?

Yep, Gen 4 ACR.

Okay.

Twin turbo, built by Enforo.

Oh, you would do a twin turbo.

I would do that.

There is, I think there's maybe like a handful of Gen 4 twin turbos out there.

Full disclosure, if I knew what Gramps was gonna cost, I would have did twin turbo Gen 4 ACR instead of building Gramps. But hindsight's 2020.

Yeah, there's a lot of similarities between a Gen 4 and Gen 5s, so it would not have been as expensive as many people would think.

There was one for sale before I built Gramps, and I so wish I would have. It was the same color scheme that I had. James Spock, like Sherlock or something like that on Facebook owned it, and he wanted 200 grand for it. I should have had it, yep. hindsight, but yeah.

The Continental, and then, so back to the daily, you're locking in AMG GT?

Yep. Yep, I would go with that.

Well, perfect, on that note, where can people find you?

Everywhere, St. Cloud. They can find me on- Yeah, they can find me on Facebook, Michael Morgan or Morgan's Motorplex. I also manage US Air Motorsports Raceway, so if you see some memes, that's probably me poking fun at you guys. That's been fun to manage in that, just because it's all drifters, so we can give each other s***, and they know where it's coming from. But yeah, find me on Facebook, otherwise we got our web pages, Morgan's motorplex.com. We haven't released anything for 2024 yet. I just got confirmation on the way up here that we're gonna host that karting event on the 20th of January. So, yeah, pro kart, it will grow.

Sweet.

That'll be a fun time. So we get about 60 drivers up there. Everybody runs five minutes. You run a lap time, and then we sort everybody in that group of 50 or however many show up, top to bottom, and then the bottom eight race against each other, next eight. So the field is very comparable while you're out there. So it's competitive. So, yeah.

Yeah, skill-based matchmaking.

Exactly. Your eye rating's not gonna go down, so. Yeah.

Is there a weight class?

I wish. I so wish, yeah. We've been talking about that. We were talking.

You have a scale before you get in.

So, like, anybody under 170 would go into one class, and everybody above 170 would go to another. Like, we would weigh everybody, and then find out where that split would be, and then that class would compete. Yeah.

I'd be down for that.

We talked about it. It just takes a little bit.

It's what makes it not as fun for me, being a big guy, but, you know, it's-

I choose food over being fast in go-karts. Yep, so.

It's still fun, no matter what.

Yep, 100%.

I don't know, being the last is rough.

I'm trying to get that free Southwest seat next to- I'm just kidding.

Yeah, that one got people heated. That one got people heated.

That's all right, they're focused on the flag now, so.

Yeah.

What can people find you, Dan?

Gunna Garage, we're there. Come check us out, two N's.

Instagram, Facebook, CarMunity, all that fun stuff, TikTok. As for me, you guys found me. Hopefully, you know who you're listening to at this point, the Minnoxide Podcast. For those of you that have been listening for a long time, share the show, it really helps us out, helps us keep growing. Oh, finally dropped that after two hours.

Yeah.

So yeah, sign up for the newsletter. Actually, the new Minnoxide hoodies are live finally. I finally dropped them.

Dude, they're b*****.

Yeah, they are.

Oh, so awesome.

For some reason, I haven't seen an order from you on Shopify yet.

That's weird. I told Mal, I was like, we gotta get one ordered, so.

Yeah, dude, I've been holding off for years on doing merch because I hate it. I hate it so much because it's difficult, right? Like, because if you sell five, it's pretty spendy.

Yep.

But if, but at the same time, I've gotten so much support on this, and my big thing was putting together something that's actually comfortable. I actually copied the MotionAuto TV hoodies that I got because first thing I got is, anytime I get new swag or merch, I look at the labels, I wanna see what the blend is.

What the brand is. Yeah, oh, blend. Okay, I look at the brand, so like I looked at the shirts downstairs, the NL. That's been taken over.

Exactly, there's a reason it's the best. So for me, it's like my Minnoxide hoodie, I only made three. So my yellow one, my black one, and I think one other person bought one back in a day. So it wasn't necessarily a drop or anything. And it lasts me five years. It didn't shrink, it's a good fit. Oh, that's what I care about. But whereas opposed to my Sissyo hoodie, which was my favorite one after Texas 2K, f***** shrunk immediately. Now, is that user error? Yes, but user error happens. And I expect that with car enthusiasts. That's why I didn't want to do a white one. I did a cream one because it hides stains better. I get mustard on my hoodies, bro. But no, anyway, so I got this MotionAutoTV one. I'm like, this is it. This is perfect. I can literally put my headphones in the hoodie. It's going to last. So that's why I copied all that stuff. I hit up Charles, I talked to him. So I'm like, yeah, I want to do quality. I don't care. If people could spend $70 on a f****** Nike hoodie, they can spend 65 on mine, which is going to last for five years.

The same argument. You want 50 bucks for this? You're going to drop 70 on a Carhartt.

Listen, I saw what you bastard spent on Black Friday. Don't you f******, don't you get after me. So that's the rare self-plug, because I'm really happy for those. I'm excited for those. And I think I need a Morgan the Motorplex shirt next season. So we'll talk about that. Anyways, guys, thanks for listening to my rant about hoodies. Michael, thank you for coming on. It was awesome to talk track stuff. I've been wanting to do this for, I'm not even kidding, three years.

Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah.

So it's about time.