87. BIR Performance Driving School - Special Episode

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast, the podcast where we go beyond the meat. And I'm here with my co-host, my half-decent driving co-host, Mr. Gunnar Garage.

Yeah, yeah, we've got a couple co-hosts here right now.

Yeah, well, one of them got fired.

Yeah.

So, this is a unique, very unique episode. Today, we are up at Brainerd International Raceway. As you know, we guys, we guys, us guys just got back from Power Cruise, and now we're enjoying this Performance Driving School that they host up here. It's a very, very unique opportunity that we have to record right outside the track, so you may hear quite a bit of exhaust noises and fun stuff. Hopefully no screeching tires and wax, though. That said, today we got Sean, my former co-host, the OG of the Minnoxide co-host podcast. Sorry, it's been a long day out here on the track.

It's been a long week, man. You said we were back here after Power Cruiser. We never freaking left, man. We've been stuck here for days.

Yeah, we've been camping out here. And by the way, the camping grounds here are pretty cool. Yes. Honestly, it's been a fantastic set of events. And then today, of course, we had a driving school, which we collaborated with on Brainard. Yep. And so we have varying experiences here. So we obviously have Sean, who spent some time with an instructor, and then you both have done track days. We all did, I shouldn't say we, I didn't do it. You guys did Road America earlier this year. You have a ton of practice. But of course, having an instructor in the passenger seat does help a lot.

Absolutely. Well, I hope so. I think so. I don't know, I haven't got a chance to get one yet. Yep.

So you're on the agenda here. Cause like you also, you're in the intermediate class. Sean signed up for the novice class because he's like, yeah, I want to get some more instructing. But you, Mr. I'm too good for it.

Sean bumped up right away.

Yeah, I was definitely put in the wrong class. I misjudged my experience.

Which I mean, that's also part of it. That's one of the things that some people have had concerns about too, right? It's like, oh, if I would get put in a novice class, am I just stuck in it all day? That's not the case. You were able to bump up immediately.

Yeah, I know there's room to like grow through the day. I was just worried, you know, the varying levels that if I went into intermediate, I was immediately just going to be punching outside of my weight class. So, but obviously, the novice was a little bit too fresh for me.

I think that's a fair evaluation. But I so we'll talk about your experience with the instructor here in a second. But what were your initial thoughts going into this, right? Because again, you have done track days before you've done autocross. But this is your first time doing the short course here at Brainerd?

In my 1M, yeah.

Okay, and then you've done it before in the Challenger?

Yeah, I did that like over three, four years ago. So I'm a little rusty, out of practice for this track.

And a completely different car, too.

Oh, way different car.

And you were also a novice at that time as well.

Very much. I think that was actually one of my first track days that I've ever done. It was kind of like my... Like this track is like my start to tracking cars and getting more hands-on with my vehicles.

So what was your overall goal to sign up for this driving school?

Just shake the rust off, you know, after sitting for six months and not really driving the car. You know, you get rusty and your skills are a little bit, you know, like slower. You know, your reaction times aren't quite like they were. You're kind of in this like always like driving on the street, spirited, you know, maybe at the most. But, you know, when you come to a track, you're full blown focused and racing. And that's what I want.

Well, I think that's one of the great things about this driving school, especially like, you know, we talked about with Michael Peterson, you know, when we did our hour and a half expectations kind of top 10 list. But one of the things that, you know, some people are nervous about is like, Oh, is there going to be an instructor in my car the whole time? And you were able, you've been this whole day without one. You just kind of like a little bit of following.

But other than that, yeah, I'm like in that in between. I need somebody to kind of show me what to do. But I think I have enough experience to not go out. They were going really slow this morning. Like, yeah, I could tell when you were in there. I'm like, your car is I bet you didn't even leave second gear hardly.

I literally didn't even I didn't use my brakes. I didn't warm up my tires. Nothing got warmed up on the car.

It looked like Parade Lab.

So, yeah, I felt like, yeah, I was on a sightseeing tour.

But that just goes to show you like sign up. Come here. They have every level. There's expert level. There's people out there. I got passed by a C8 vet with active arrow. That thing was fricking cooking, man.

That guy. So fun fact. So we just released a Patience episode, which is probably five episodes ago now based on one of this layer. But yeah, that's the one that we saw at Patience Metal Fab. But yeah, no, to this point, there's a wide variety of skill sets here. So that Parade Lab was really good for me because, again, this is my first road course experience because I did go to Vegas, however many years ago. But the point of those cars is they're trying to get that car back in one piece, not use up too much tread. Like they're having a break early, accelerate slow. That was a little bit different here. So I actually got to ride along with Alex, who was also on this podcast. And tell me if this is the same experience you had with your, what's it called, instructor. Because Alex got in there and his coaching was phenomenal. Like he told me exactly all the information I needed to hear, which is one of the things I worry about whenever anybody's coaching me is, stop talking. Let me do what I tell me what I need to do. And then let's do it. And then we'll come back to it later. Is that a similar experience to what you had?

It was kind of difficult being in the driver's seat. And like, I'm trying to show him that I have good lines, that I have good braking points, and that I can get on the gas after like exiting the apex. You know, so a lot of times, you know, he's talking to me in the middle of me in an apex. And, you know, I'm just taking in little bits and pieces. He, you know, if he says like, that was really good, okay, I try to replicate that again on the next lap. And if there's a turn that I didn't take very well, he was, you know, very like, I could hear him like giving me notes, but it's hard to take it all in. And by the time he's done talking, I'm already on the next turn.

Right.

Yep.

And I think that's one of the things that it may vary as well. But it also takes several laps to get it. Like Alex told me the same thing, like four laps in a row. He's like, all right, do this. And then every lap, I progressively got better or I'm thinking about it more. But especially if it's a brand new track, or you're trying to take it in a brand new way, you might not process it all that well.

I'm a visual and physical learner. That's how I like learned to do everything. I can't just see it and then replicate it. I have to see it and then I have to do it. And that's what coming out here practicing makes perfect. I'm not just going to get good by watching YouTube videos and applying it while I'm on a sim rig or whatever. I have to come out here and you got to do lap after lap and figure out what works.

One thing I might... What would be a bad idea for today is maybe get two different instructors and see how their styles compare. Because I think I really want to see you with Michael Peterson here at some point for your run, but I bet you it's a different style than Alex's or your guy.

Well, Alex drives for Porsche, and my guy, I think, races a Supra. So two totally different cars, different styles of racing. And especially if neither of them have experience in a BMW, I mean, it's just going to be a little bit different. When I was at Road America, my instructor had an E46 M3, so he knew very well what the BMWs were capable of. Our cars were very similar.

That's actually an interesting point, because when Alex took me on the GT500, he's already had experience in GT500s. He drove one or two before, and him at 70% is me at 150%. I really did not get on it out there. I guess I should probably interview myself. I'm a novice, right? As novice as it gets at this table. But definitely, especially comparing to sim racing, which I'm familiar with, I always had to bring it back to that. It felt a lot bigger. I felt like I had more space to maneuver.

You've seen me on the sim rig. You saw how many times I would crash out. Even in Miata, there's just something that I know if I practice, if I kept driving on the sim rig, I'd probably get really good and I wouldn't crash out. But when I'm out on the track, I feel so confident. I feel everything from the braking to accelerating to steering.

One thing that surprised me was how little I could hear the tire noise. When I did autocross, I could hear my tire squealing. I'm only going 30, 40 miles an hour. GTI is not that loud. But when you're cooking at 90, 100, whatever it was over here, by the way, I actually did not end up paying attention to my speedometer.

You'd be surprised at what you don't look at. You're concentrating so hard on the track and your technique that you don't even... What gauges?

Piero asked me, so how fast were you going on turn 13? I couldn't tell you, dude.

I noticed even on the Simrig, I stopped looking at the speedometer, but I definitely have more mental capacity to do it there. That mental capacity is gone here. You aren't looking at the speedometer whatsoever. That was interesting for me.

I'm in the same camp as you, though. These guys all make fun of me when we go simracing and stuff, but I'm just there to chit chat and do it. But I suck at it. But I feel like I'm fairly decent out here. It's a totally different experience. I keep saying this, but if you come from sim to track, I think it's way better than if you've had more seat time on a real track and then you sit into the sim. It's just hard to adjust, I think.

I think there is a lot that you can learn from sim racing, and then you can apply that to the track. But it's harder to go from the track into a sim rig because you lose a lot of your senses.

I think having that instructor... If I were to go from sim rig to a track day by myself, I could probably figure it out. But working with Alex, really supercharged. I immediately knew, all right, I want to go roll. He was having me go over curbs, really nailing those apexes. And I was only going maybe seven... There was only a handful of times I was full throttle on that car, just because there was somebody in front of me, and I didn't want to...

Well, you can, really. There's only a handful of times I can go full throttle on the track. I mean, you only got so long before you're into another turn.

This is a very... I do enjoy how technical this was.

This was great. I love this. It just really reminds me how much I love driving my cars.

Yeah. I am going to leave here today with a hunger, because I'm going to get the... I have some maintenance things to handle on the GTI. Quite a few. Boy, I wish I had some sponsors for that. RaceCar Minnow. But I definitely have more of a desire... I had a lot of fun after doing autocross last year, but this is... I don't want to say next level, but it feels like... The thing is, you can't knock an autocross either, though. It's definitely very...

But it's great for certain cars, but when you want to take a GT500 to go autocrossing, you can't really use any of the power.

Yeah, it depends on the track layout. But yeah, you're right. Cornering capabilities will help you, but you're not as nimble as a GTI would be.

A shorter wheelbase that makes less power is going to go just as fast.

Oh, they'll wipe a GT500 for sure. There's so many different styles of racing. You just got to find what you really like to do. This is where I land, you know? So I don't know how it is for you. You've done autocross too, haven't you?

I have done autocross in my 1M.

Yeah, you've done some drag racing in your... Probably the Hellcat was pretty good for that.

Yeah, I wouldn't take that for autocross, but the 1M does do really well because it isn't as huge as a Hellcat or Mustang.

That's another thing, by the way. We do see a lot of variety of cars here. We have, for example, that 06, the CA 06 with the active aero, the GT 500, your 1M. I saw a Mark 8 Golf over there. Just a number of things. Even power crews this weekend, we saw a Bronco on track and a number of trucks. I think you can learn or improve your driving in anything, and that's why I really want to bring the GTI up here because this track would be perfect for it, especially at my power level.

Well, look at Piero's out there in a 200 horsepower FRS.

Less than 200.

Less than 200? Yeah.

Really?

He went from 160 to 190.

In our first time off the track, everybody off. He had lower times us by a lot.

Yeah, he got 144.

By the way, that's another thing. Power doesn't matter on a track like this. There is the straight. Yes, you could probably shave a little bit of time off there, but the amount of time you save in the corners, I mean, you know, especially again, I always relate this to the sim. You don't have that green bar in real life telling you how much you're shaving off for a corner, but you're probably in some corners, you're losing half a second to a second. I mean, you were timing yourself a little bit. So, what were some improvements in particular or notes that the instructor gave you that kind of helped? Or more so showing the track?

Definitely. He told me my braking was really good. He said I was very consistent with hitting my braking point and putting my brake down where a lot of people are very light on it, or they're not aggressive enough because they're still in that, you know, I'm on the street, I'm not trying to slam on my brakes. You got to use all your brakes. Use them. But you're trying to find that sweet spot where you're not using your ABS and you're not using too little of it. So he said my braking was really good. So I've just been, you know, hitting my brakes, you know, as aggressive as I have been. And just that helps a lot, too, because you're carrying a lot of speed into the corner, you know.

What about you, Dan? Did you touch your ABS at all?

I haven't, but my car, I've skidded a couple of times. So that would be me.

I almost went off the track in your car.

The coming past the pits, that one, that one turn there, that one gets me every time because that's one little straight. I punch it through there, and I'm like, okay, I try and pick my breaking point on those numbers there, and that one comes in, and then you have to turn real sharp. It's almost back on itself a little bit. And yeah, I almost slid off right there.

I really like that turn. That's probably one of my favorite turns on the track. I enjoy it because it allows me to, one, punch it, but it also allows me to slam on it, like just break hard. No, where did I go? Almost go off. I should say almost go off. It was still within control, but I broke really late.

Is it that one fast turn? There's one where you come in and it's like a 90 to the right.

I'll pull up the map. I don't memorize turns. Like, Piero memorizes these turns. Crazy, dude. That dude's got seat time more than all of us.

He's been here plenty of times.

That's the other thing. I think I kind of alluded to this earlier. You can just use this as a track day. You don't necessarily need to worry about the instructor side of things or anything like that. You can just think of it as a track day.

Yeah, we basically, I have been.

Think about how much time you have out here, right? Like you only have 20 people here, and I'm sure a really busy event. You know, you probably see a lot more, but you guys are about to go out for your next session here. You want to probably like three more minutes, probably before you have to run back to the car.

Yeah, probably. I mean, we don't need to get out there right away.

That's fair. And yeah, but so breaking all your consistency, was there anything else that you kind of touched on or is it just, again, getting that second opinion?

And it's also using all the track. He's my instructor, let me know. He really liked that I was using the rumble strips, you know, when I should be. And that what I need to work on is hitting the apex. You know, a lot of times you have to wait pretty late for this track to make your turn. There are like almost no early apexes, except for the carousel. At least for me, the instructor told me, you know, that would probably be work best for you.

The turning points are definitely, that's probably my toughest challenge.

So yeah, exactly. You know, you feel like you need to be making a turn earlier, but all that does is, you know, throw you in the wrong spot.

Especially the double apex.

Yeah. So that was something that I just really worked on last session, was just getting my breaks, being aggressive and waiting until I hit that turn in cone, and then letting off the brakes and turning, and then hitting that apex. I think I really improved last time.

What was that?

I don't know. I think it's one of those...

Spec cars?

Yeah, they have these spec cars out here. Now, obviously, I don't think any of us rented these, but yeah, that's...

Yeah, if you don't want to run your own car, you can drive one of these.

That's true, too. I can't remember what the upcharge was.

It was a spendy.

Yeah, you're driving their car.

It was like $1,200 or something like that, I thought. Yeah, it was... Don't quote me on that. Please go check the website.

Yeah.

Check it out. You also can bring any car you want. There's a Miata out there, a new, totally stock Miata. Yeah.

Well, they also, like this lady is renting... They have their Miata here. You might be confusing it. It's not a totally new one. It's a little older.

Well, yeah, whatever that white one is.

Like 5, 10 years. Yeah, so that has like a cage in there. It's like a spec Miata or whatever, and she's getting some coaching in that. So it's basically the same stuff that we race in iRacing, just a couple years older. But yeah, you have a lot of options. Bring your own car. You could take their stuff. Pretty cool. Is there anything that you're looking for when you go back out there?

Is there anything that you want to ask your instructor? Yeah, I think I probably need the same advice that Sean was getting. I need to know when. So I'm not actually going into the rumble strips. I'm just flirting with them. And then I don't know if my braking is right or not. I don't know. I feel like I'm not giving the GT500 all the brakes it can get. But when you give the GT500 all the brakes it can get, you come to an absolutely complete stop suddenly. So I'm getting into them. I feel pretty hard. But I don't know. I think maybe when we go back over there right now, I'll see if I can grab Michael Peterson and toss him in the car and do that.

Good idea.

How about you? Any more other goals for later today, or do you just kind of keep shaving time off?

I just want to shave some time off and leave with my car running. That's the most important thing.

Was there any other valuable advice that you kind of got, or does that pretty much sum it up?

That sums it up.

Yeah, I mean, it really is, you know, and maybe I'm trying to overcomplicate it, too. It really is simple. Like, if you think about it, stop, go, turn.

Yeah, and that's where you start at, and then as you get more experience, you add more to that list.

Correct. You start optimizing it and all that fun stuff. So I think that covers, I think, most, a good part of your experience. We'll have you on as an official guest here at some point. I know it's a little weird to have you on, you know, just for a quick 20 minutes.

Sean teaser.

Sean teaser. Well, perfect. I think we're going to move on to the next guest here.

All right. Sounds good.

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Well, as I said, it was great. I went out with Mike. We had three sessions that I did. First one, I followed him and another student. Second session, he was in my car giving me, you know, live updates, live pointers. And then the third session, I followed him. And I think that the third one was, it was a game changer for me because I could see where he went, why he went. He kept on telling me, get over. You need to get over. You need to, you know, more on your left, more on your right.

Yeah, he told me that too. It didn't work out well for me.

Hey, I'm coming here with four straight wheels.

He didn't mean that far over?

Off the track. To the right.

So I didn't listen as good as you did.

Yes.

So I'm leaving.

I'm an overachiever.

That's right. But, you know, coming in cold from this, I was nervous when I was driving up here. You know, saying, oh, man, I'm going to be here with all these guys that are going to be, you know, picking things apart and say, oh, well, you're not doing this right. You're not doing that right. And coming in here, it's like, okay, everyone's cool. There's no pressure. You're not going to impress anybody.

No high-strung energy. No.

No. And it was great. It was just relaxing. It was actually more relaxing on the track than driving up here.

Oh, I'm sure. Because you spend all this time thinking of every possibility, and then you kind of just get sucked into reality. It's like, all right, just kind of what we said in our episode with Sean. It's just you have three things to worry about. Go, stop, turn. Once you simple it down to that much, it's a lot easier to get started.

You do get a lot of... I can guarantee you, there's a lot of people out there that want to go to the track and are either probably too freaked out to do it. They're intimidated by it. And I preach this all the time when we talk to track people. It is one of the most... It's a great experience, and I have never felt like I shouldn't be here or anybody thought they were better than me or anything like that. I've always had a great experience at whatever experience level you have.

I'm glad you bring that up, because this is an intervention. You shouldn't be here.

I think it's analogous, if anybody out there golfs, I think golf has a lot of similarities to driving in many ways. If you've ever had a chance to golf with a caddy, a professional caddy, you go to an ice course and they go, you have to have a caddy. The first time somebody forced me to bring a caddy, I thought, I was mortified, right? Because now I have to have this person watching me the entire time play poor golf. I thought, oh, this is going to be terrible. And then after the first hole, you realize that he doesn't care what score you shoot. He doesn't care if you're a good golfer. He's just there to give you a few tips and carry your clubs and tell a few jokes. And it actually is more enjoyable with him. But the first hole with that caddy, I'm like, this is not what I want to be. I'm fine by myself. And I think you find the same thing at the track. Nobody cares how fast you are or how slow you are. Everybody starts out at the same point. We're all beginners. Everybody just thinks more of you that you're out here doing it versus just driving a fast car and never leaving the street.

That's a great point. So then, what are some of the things that you kind of picked up on today? After you kind of settled in and started relaxing on the track, what was next?

Mike was preaching this, smoothness. And I'm kind of just a hammer fist. Everything's a hammer. So when Mike was saying, okay, smooth in, smooth out, I found that I was a little bit smoother than I thought I would be just because I'm not a I'm not gas pedal down, break down. It's more of just kind of a I'm gentle on my machinery. Yeah, like some. And just because I don't want to pay for something. And I think what I what I really felt here was, okay, the car is not going to break. You know, it's meant for this. And it wants to just, you know, get on it hard and stop hard.

And that's a great car, by the way. I've driven the Jag F-Type. That's an R, right?

Yep.

They're a fantastic car.

Is it?

Oh, it's all wheel drive, too.

Nope, nope. This is a rear wheel. They made the rears in 15.

So they didn't come in rear.

Yep.

That's a blast of a car. I've only driven the all wheel drive version, but it's they're fun.

I've never had. I've never driven the all wheel drive, but I like this one just because it's it's kind of that raw. Well, like me. It was great.

I was following you for a little bit when I went out there in the 500 out there. Dan's car that I did in total. Good job me.

If anybody's going to break it, I'm glad it was me.

There you go.

I took it easy. You know, I really did not. I did not use the full power of that car by any means. And I'm sure you did. You have a similar experience.

Definitely. Yeah, I did not put it to the floor at all. I did not. I wasn't jumping on the brakes that hard. I, you know, probably too tentative at points. And I don't, I think this is just in my head, you know, I'm not a go-getter. I'm not somebody who's just going to go in 100 percent. And I think just even getting on the brakes, I didn't want to hit them hard because I don't know what's going to happen.

You're not accustomed to going 120 miles an hour and then riding the brakes to, you know, to 30 miles an hour. It doesn't happen in the real world.

You're on the street. You're on the street. You're maybe three-tenths on the street at any time. And even out here, you know, seven-tenths was a lot for me. I'm tired right now. I was only out there three sessions. And it did wore me out. It really did. But I think what I took out of this was it's going to be fun doing this again.

So when's the next time you're going to be out here?

I don't know. Are you guys going to have another track day or a session out here?

So I know that the Performance Driving School here at BIR, they do it, I say, bi-weekly, almost every other week. Every other week. Something like that. This is just kind of our collaboration, because we wanted to document this, right, just to kind of help with their social, because I think everybody should get out and drive. And I've been holding off forever. I'm going to come back with my car next time once I get a few maintenance things taken care of, because I want to be track ready, too. I don't want to come up here and be like, all right, I'm broken after half a session. But yeah, I mean, I would love to come up here as frequently as possible. More coaching is always good. What was your favorite thing you learned today that just kind of clicked? Anything?

I think using the whole track. I mean, I didn't come close to the whole track, but I think that's what Mike was really drilling in a lot was, okay, you know, go over on the side, go all the way over the other side. I get lazy. It's like, well, why am I going to go over here? That might be the racing line, but I'm just going to go this way.

Well, sometimes you think the shortest distance, right, is just cut this corner like this, but that's not how your car naturally wants to do it. So you can do that, and it technically probably is shorter, but it's not faster.

So I want to bring my son here. He wanted to come today, but I go, no, Jack, just let me do it this time, and then let me see how it works, and then I know when I get home, he's going to grill me. I'm like, okay, I've already gotten the text. How's it going? What did you do? How is it?

I think it's a great father-son sort of experience, too.

Definitely.

You know, just kind of go out there, share one car or whatever, you know, it's just one of those things that you can practice. Practice, practice, practice.

Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's half the fun of it.

How about you as an instructor? So what about the student, like, I mean, as novice as it gets, right? How did the experience go?

You're just normal novices. I mean, everybody kind of starts at the same point.

Correct, yep, because I started at the same point as you. I've been on a track once, and that was, it was, you know, just one of those BS parade lab sort of experiences. So this is like really being on track. So what are some kind of quick feedback things you can have in a minute or two?

I just think that, I think everybody's, you realize everybody kind of starts at the same point where it's just so overwhelming. You're full of angst and nervousness, and you're not quite sure to be even, you don't even know what you should be focusing on. And it's somewhat overwhelming. And because of that, people get out there and they're going, they're not smooth, they're not thoughtful, they don't even see the flag corners. We always have in every session or two, we call them runners. People don't leave the track when they're supposed to, because they're so focused on the track, they don't see the flags on the side. And so part of it is just getting comfortable with it and learning to smooth yourself out and actually focus on the line and focus on what the car is doing. I think the part that most people are surprised, and you guys tell me if you see this otherwise, how hard can it be to drive around a racetrack? It shouldn't be that hard, right? I've been driving for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. This should be easy stuff, right? I've been doing it forever. You get on the track and you go, Oh my God, there's a lot of stuff happening very quickly. You made a comment to me in the car. You're like, Yeah, I screwed up that line. So then I screwed up the next four corners as well. I'm thinking about it. Because I got one off and it screwed me up for the other half way around the track. There's a lot of things happen simultaneously. So part of it is just managing your mental focus of focus on what you're focusing on. And I think you get to this point where you get over the nervousness, and then you get to the excitement level of like, Oh, I'm doing this and I'm pretty good. I'm going to do this better. I'm going to do this better. And you start to focus on the analytical side of it. And that's where it starts to become very good. The thing I find with a lot of folks on the track is they can become good. I mean, good enough in a day. You can see a lot of improvements. Danny, I watched you from like session one to session three. You're like two different drivers out there. I'm a pro now. You're a pro now. But you do improve a lot in the course of a day. And you can take that stuff back to the street with you as well.

From session or from day one to, for example, one, the gentleman that was with us here today, he has about 45 track days under his belt. Lots and lots of practice. But by the time you get to your 10th day, it's going to be night and day. You'll shave off a minute or whatever, 30 seconds, whatever it is. Now, obviously, for the sake of time, I do have one question. This is an important question.

All right.

If you were to tell yourself whether it's four or five hours ago or a week ago, whenever you signed up, what is some advice you'd give to your past self right now? Besides, don't sweat the small stuff or something like that.

I'm not going to go there. I would say it's kind of in that same vein, don't sweat the small stuff, but just do it. I mean, like I was saying, on the way, driving up here, I was really nervous. Just thinking about, oh man, Mike's going to be here, I haven't seen him forever, I'm going to be in front of all these new people, I'm going to be driving my car. Don't worry about it. There's going to be guys out there that are 10 times faster than you. There's going to be guys out there that are slower than you. And nobody cares.

Absolutely nobody cares.

Everybody's smiling, that's all I can tell you.

You look pretty angry coming into that room.

I'm actually pretty good. I told Mike, I was like, out of all the things I broke, this is pretty minor.

And you can talk to anybody in the pit. I mean, somebody you'd never talk to, just in passing, you might say, hey, how you doing? You could just shoot the s*** about whatever, the folks from North Dakota. Talking with their son about BMX and snowmobiling and riding motorcycles and stuff like that. It's like, when are you going to do that?

We're all like-minded people here, you know? That's why we're all here.

Well, the cool part about Minnoxide, I don't think you guys know this, is Donnie and I went to high school together. So we've known each other for 50 years, 50 plus maybe years. And so we see each other maybe once every five years, just kind of in passing. But once you decided to host this and you were doing some advertising, Donnie saw it, so he signed up right away. And so the fact that we're together today was actually because you guys, because of the Minnoxide podcast. So we just had a great day together because we haven't seen each other in a long time. So it was fun.

Valentine's Day was about three months ago. Glad I could play Cupid.

So you brought us together.

Well, sweet. On that note, we're going to keep on plucking along. But thank you so much for coming on, by the way, because it's not often that somebody's super willing to jump on to a camera, microphone and just talk about, again, something they're brand new at. You know, all three of those things are difficult. So thank you very much for hopping on. Mike, thanks for making better drivers out there. Perfect. Onto the next.

Thanks for hosting us.

Sounds good. A lot of you guys know Ratified Motorsport for their RS3, TTRS, 1000 horsepower hairdresser car builds, but they are so much more than that. From basic maintenance on an R35 GTR to, you know, cute little Volkswagen GTIs like mine, they're able to do a little bit of everything, whether it's your basic maintenance or an intake in a tune or even a full-blown build, be sure to go to ratifiedmotorsport.com to get yourself booked today, and I hope to see you guys at the shop. All right, so now we got a trio back here. So we got Josh, John, and Chung, and you guys have very different roles in this part of the episode. So we'll start with you, Chung. So you are an instructor up here at Brainerd, is that correct? Yes. Perfect. And then, John, you are... I guess what's a good way to describe you?

Driver?

Driver.

Love driving the track.

Driver with many, many, many track days, I'm assuming. And then, Josh, I guess what's the official terminology to describe what you do?

Visual Performance Specialist.

Yeah, so we just wrapped up kind of my demo of that. So before we get into the coaching side and everything, could you just give a quick overview of what we just did in that room 50 feet away?

Yeah, yeah. I like to always just start by saying, you know, the tools we use to do a job are going to affect how well we can do that job. So if you mod out your car, it's going to be faster, better suspension. And our eyes and our vision drive most decisions we make on the track or in another sport. And most people aren't aware, but there's way more to the visual system than just whether or not we need glasses. And the visual system can be trained, improved through exercises for the muscles that control eye movement coordination, as well as the brain to enhance peripheral awareness, speed of changing focus at different distance, reaction time, decision making, et cetera.

Yeah, I mean, so I guess in another way that could be like to make a little more sense of that is our eyes are kind of, they're muscles, right? Is that a good way?

Controlled by muscles.

Right, so it's like one of those things that we kind of forget that there's things that we can train beyond just going doing biceps and quads at the gym. At least that's how I saw it. Just after our 10, 15 minute session in that room back there, I immediately saw the value and like, all right, this is something that I could train, whether it's on track. So this is a difficulty for me is when I'm interviewing a guest for a podcast, sometimes all of a sudden I just lose focus. It's just like, all right, then I'm like, all right, where's the bridge there? No, I wasn't trying to dial it in. On the track today, I'm a novice as well. This is my first time getting some actual training on the track and just on a road course in general. And I could definitely tell that my eyes were not moving fast enough. There's some training that could be done on that front. So now you've been working with these two for some time now, and I initially found out about, I don't know, is it a service you offer? I'm not exactly sure what's a good way to describe it. Is it the training you offer?

Yeah, so we start with the assessment, and then there's a full training program that brings all your visual skills up to the elite level, and they should stay there if you finish the program, which is more akin to muscle memory than it is strength.

Yep, so I found out about all that through Chong, who called me a few weeks ago, just gave me a little breakdown. So do you want to kind of explain the relationship of, A, how you work with Josh here, but also how does that transfer to your driving and then also John's driving?

Yeah, absolutely. So back in the day when I was very active in motorsport, I was hitting a plateau, and I felt like I was pretty fast. But I realized that my limiting factor was how fast I was able to track things, cognitively process what I was seeing. And so I got to a point where I was just reacting, reacting not fast enough, and I saw that I was putting myself in a lot of danger. And so back then, the resources that Josh offers was not readily available. It was only available to professionals. So I seeked, and I guess I would use the word manifest, right? Because we crossed paths, and like, bing, like, I need to go talk to Josh. And at first, it was like, I just needed to like figure out how to make my eyes faster. That's as much as I knew. And lo and behold, I worked with Josh, and hey, Josh, I'm a driver. You know, here's what I want to do. Do you work with any other drivers? No. Well, why don't we work together? You know, you develop my visual skills, then I help kind of feed you information, maybe develop a program for drivers, you know? Well, anyway, I tried to bring it to the community. People just aren't ready, right? And I'm not trying to throw the community in the bus. We just think we know how to breathe, we know how to walk, we don't use our eyes. But the reality is, when you're in a high-stress situation, breathing, they forget to breathe. Walking, I don't know how to heel-toe, I don't even know how to use the brake properly. And then your eyes are like, I can't see anything because it's just too much. I'm learning that my eyes just cannot track and cognitively process things quick enough. Anyway, long story short, I worked with Josh and then I was seeking a resource like Josh for my coaching business. And being so visual, I developed, I guess, I call it four tiers of visual IQ. You know, the first two is just physical ability to just track things, move things fast, and then cognitively identify what it is that you are approaching, what's coming to you. It could be from another car. It could be you hitting your markers, whatever, right? Because you need to be able to see in depth the different colors, like watching a really good movie, because that gives you the depth perception. But for us, because we are always in motion, the fear is I can't interpret how fast I am approaching something because I can't see the shades, right? And so that's the first two. And then so that helps you time everything, because the space sensing, the distance, and so on and so forth. And then you move into like a level three where now all of a sudden, you can come out of the physical state and see from the angles, because you see the patterns of I know where I'm at, right? And I know what I need to do before I even get there. So that lead time allows you to be more confident, right? And then it gives you that comfort so you can be in a more relaxed state. So you're not constantly hyperreacting, especially if you go to a very competitive track that is engineered to scare you like Ozark, because everything is blind, everything is off-camber, over hills, down hills. And so that's three. Four, level four is that's where it gets into a surreal state, where I can get into a place where I can see and animate everything. I can feel it, I can smell it, I can taste it, I can experience it. And there's something that I worked with John for many years, where we go to a new track, and his favorite track is Road to America. The last thing I want to do is scare John into a corner, like, oh my god, every time we push a corner, I don't want to do that. Whereas I teach John to visualize this, and we go through there successfully, give him such a good experience, because we focus on the things that he did right, going backwards. Every time we go there, he's like, yeah, I want more of that. And it could be the scariest corner, and he just flies through there. And so a good example is, one of the funniest stories I love about John is that, he's always like, hey, Chong, I want you to teach me how to go through turn one on the old track flat out. I'm like, what? Are you sure? It's kind of early, right? Like, no, I want to do it. And so we go through the first three times, and his foot comes off. John, I'll tell you what to do here. He's like, yeah, I hear you, but my body isn't listening. And then about the fourth time, now this is where your fight and flight kicks in, right? And so he finally stuck through it, right? But it was because his visual IQ broadened, and I told him exactly what to focus on, what to visualize, what to feel. And so that allowed him to be successful. And so John, we were working for many years. John's like one of my favorite stories, because not to throw John out of the bus, but he's just like a regular person. But John is extremely coachable, right? And he's had other coaches in other arenas, but he is so receptive. We've had opportunities where John's like, no way I'm going to learn to left foot break, right, John? But lo and behold, he's like, I'm going to put it in, because putting the word, because my coach says there's value. And so the left foot breaking, not to throw curve ball here, but it's a whole another layer, another dimension in his craft. But if you cannot have that visual IQ, then you can't add another advanced technique, because it changes the whole dynamic of the car. Because when we talk about creating grip, most drivers, when they talk about going fast, they wait for the car to set, and then they go. Whereas we do something totally different. We go in hot, and we create the grip as we go. So I kind of pause there, because I kind of give you a lot, and maybe, you know.

So how did you guys end up working together? Who reached out to who? Or did you guys meet somewhere?

John could share that story.

So certainly in my coaching experience with Chong, I learned about the fact that he was seeing Josh as an eye coach, and Chong put the two of us together to actually have me work with Josh to improve my sensory abilities. My eyesight, which is obviously a key sensory item for driving on the track, and all your senses are crucially important on the track. It's a lot to absorb, a lot coming at you very, very fast. But predominantly, it is that eyesight piece that is so crucial to be able to handle all the information and process what's going on around you at incredible speeds.

So then, you said this was about, what, four or five years ago you guys met up? Oh, longer. Longer?

Yeah, it was maybe seven years ago, Josh, when I was working with you. Yeah. Yeah, it was a number of years ago, yeah.

So now you don't have to necessarily give the keys to the kingdom or anything like that, but what does that process look like? Because right now we kind of do like a, would you call that like a base evaluation?

Yeah, an assessment, yeah. So at our home office, we're in Edina, Minnesota. We would do an assessment where we quantify all these visual skills. How well do my eyes turn inward as a team? How do they relax outward for peripheral awareness? You know, how well do you change focus at different distances? We look a lot at eye movements. And so the discipline was created for kids with reading issues. So in extreme cases, we'll see kids where they're trying to follow a line of text and their eyes are just a ping, a lottery ball, just bouncing around. With elite athletes, we had an NFL quarterback where when his eyes moved left to right, no issues. Every single time his eyes moved from far right to far left, they would hitch and take a little pause in the middle, which at the speed he needs to make his checks and decisions, that's significant and it matters. Just like race car drivers, right? So we would find areas if the eyes don't like to be there or if they skip rather than moving smoothly. And from there, our optometrists do additional testing, and they're our top experts. They're going to put together a roadmap. So the finish line is the same for all of our participants. It's just which path, which track do we take to get there? What's the proportion of this skill versus this skill? Is there a left-right imbalance? And it takes, on average, about 40 sessions. It takes a little time for the brain to get used to the training. Then we correct the imbalances, and then we let the dogs off the leash till we're at the highest on everything. And then we reinforce it, not just able to do the hardest exercises, but to do them instantly, repeatedly, hundreds of times, because it's not just, you know, if you have to exert effort to make something happen, it's not fast enough for sport, especially something as fast as racing.

Right. Yeah, we just did that in there. For example, it takes me several seconds to focus on something, and if that's on the track and you're trying to focus quickly, that doesn't work when you're going 120 miles an hour. So you're saying something like that is trainable, then?

Yes. And it's cool for the user that it's more... The results are more akin to muscle memory than they are hypertrophy or muscle growth or strength, where we all know if you stop working out, you got to start over. And so I've done this over 18 years, and no one's needed to go through it twice. The exception would be someone who has a concussion. So that's a whole other facet of this for general population or athletes, and obviously that's an issue that drivers face. Because depending on the metric they use, I've seen as high as 80, 90% of concussions yield some drop in visual performance. And I went through that myself. I was rear-ended, very hard concussion, and my scores, which had been the same for over a decade at the highest levels, they dropped very much. My eye movements were not good, and I had to retrain myself. And so research is the approach of shifting to concussion recovery, where it used to be just passive, sit in a dark room and wait, to more of a proactive approach to rehabilitate the visual system, first and foremost, to feel better. And then if you're competing to get back out there. And there's something that going back to talking about going to a new track or, you know, limiting factors. You know, I learned very quickly, driving my own car on the track today, where my car's limits are because, yeah, my car tapped out pretty quickly, right? But, you know, so there's the hardware of our car that has its limits. But so I work with, in Minneapolis, one of the world's top strength and conditioning specialists. And, you know, he's lined me up with a lot of our NHL, NFL clients, and we're always just having cool conversations. And he came to me recently and he said, he was looking into cheetahs versus greyhounds. And he said, anatomically, greyhounds should have the capacity to be faster, but the visual system of a cheetah is far superior. And so if you're running at a high speed, you cannot run faster than how quickly you can process what's in front of you. Do I need to avoid this on the ground? Do I need to go around that? And can I can my eyes keep up with the speed of my legs? Fascinating conversation. But I think it ties very well into this, where if I'm going to a track, I've got my sweet car, and I've got a great coach. But if I can't process things fast enough, I can't go fast or it's not safe.

That makes a lot of sense. By the way, I'm a slow runner because of that. That's what I blame it on. There you go. It's your eyes. It's your eyes. Well, that's just something I've noticed. I mean, granted, I have glasses, right? I've always known that that was a limitation of mine. But nonetheless, I'm not... I think that was proof in the pudding that there's something there that could use some more work. Like, maybe my eyes were faster when I used to be a video gamer. Not as much nowadays. And I'm curious, basically, in your profession, for example, we're always looking this way, into a computer all day long. Does that have an effect on those skillsets?

Yes. So, in terms of research, the primary thing that they've looked at is as schools shift from books to iPads, they are seeing an effect on the focusing system. Some of that is screen-based, some of it's just more, a higher proportion of near activity versus far. But one of the novice drivers approached me today and said, what's one thing I can do if you gave me one drill? And my answer to that is always just kind of range of motion things, right? Like, if you think of your body, if all you ever do is sit in a chair, your body is going to be tight, right? And most people who take things seriously in their sport, they're going to prepare their body, right? You're going to warm up your body so your body is ready for intense activity. But we don't do that for our eyes, where if I have people, I'll just say, look as far as you can to the left, and then as far as you can to the right, like as far as you possibly can. And for most people, there's going to be some discomfort, because we don't do that in day-to-day life. And so, you know, just simple range of motion things, you know, from point A to point B, changing from close to far, just keeping your visual system active beyond day-to-day life, which is, you're right, it's straight in front of us. And just keeping them loose, kind of yoga for the eyes, you know. Figure eight with your thumb, that type of thing. Just simple things like that, just making sure that your eyes are, on a daily basis, do one minute. Just one minute of keeping those, keeping the visual system pliable. Because once you're on the track, you're asking a lot of it. And you may have warmed up your body, but the eyes should be included.

So then, speaking of track then, so what does that relationship look like between you two? And you could chime in as well. What does that training look like? How does that improve, you know, your track times or overall experience? Can you speak to that much?

For me, it helped with my peripheral vision and my ability to absorb what was going on immediately around me without having to focus on that. And so it's so crucially important on the track to be looking ahead. Not where you are, but you've got to be looking ahead at the next turn, not the current turn you're in. But still, there's a lot going on in the turn you're in that you've got to be timing things correctly. And when you're breaking and when you're turning in and all of that. But you can't necessarily be focused on that. You have to be looking to that next turn that you're going to be coming up to. So it's trying to absorb both of those at the same time. And so I think I was able to improve my peripheral vision. I feel like I still got a long way to go with that. And continue to focus on that to get better at that. But dealing with both of that and all that information that your eye is taking at incredible speeds.

From a coaching standpoint and from someone who's traveled the country, driven on many different tracks, different cars, having to learn fast, right? What you realize real quick is physics is physics. And a lot of these tracks are engineered with very similar patterns. We just call it patterns because the elements are similar. The only difference is the elevation and the setting, because the setting could be high altitude, low altitude, forest versus desert, but the arcs are very similar. No, your car is going to be your car, but the speeds, the grips, everything is very similar. But where you deviate is the quality of your visual IQ. If I can see a picture that's a thousand times better than everybody, guess what? My ability, all the physical nuances that I have, my depth of skill and my tool set gives me a huge advantage because I'm no longer limited by the first quality, which is my visual IQ. And that's where I think a lot of guys and gals suffer from, because my ability to set up a situation or corner is so far ahead. And like I joke about this with some of my friends, is like I have to remind myself to not be the idiot instructor and drive it with one hand, because there could be multiple turns, and they feel like he's not turning. He's not turning. And the car just goes through the corners, because I can align everything and get the car loaded and do everything in a way where most people are like, oh crap, turn one, turn two. It was like, no, boom, boom, boom. And so the thing is, for me, it's always been about safety. If I can position myself, my drivers, my community in a way where you can see as much as you're physically, neurologically, I guess for me also spiritually able, it changes everything. Because you're able to drive in a much better state of mind, comfort in that now you can process everything timely. And the experience is just millions of times better. Right, John? Because when I started working, you've changed a lot over the years. And before, the limiting factor was the driver, and then you felt like, man, this car is just so much. And then over time, it's like now the machine, the machine is the limiting factor. You see? And to me, as a driver, as an enthusiast, it's like, man, that is the best addiction. Because why do we do this? It's just so we can get to that utopia, whatever that is, is being in a state of flow. And when you have the visual IQ, it's like all of a sudden, like, whoa. Whoa, that makes sense. That's what this is all about.

Because when we did that exercise earlier, I had to do a lot of thinking about how I'm doing it. But if it becomes second nature, it's a lot easier to get into that flow state. And that's kind of what we're all ultimately seeking, is that flow state just feeling like it's second nature ripping around the track. That makes sense.

Because when I was touring the country, people always wondered, so they buy a package, and they could buy all 12 cars. And they're like, hey, can you tell me what the difference between a Ferrari or a Porsche Lamborghini? Well, I always look at it from an artist's standpoint. The engineering, yeah, I can tell you every ounce of why it's different, but the experience is why the Ferrari's heritage is different from a Porsche. And the artist can give you that sensation, because all of a sudden, the physics stimulates you differently. But the only way you can be in a state of comfort and get them that experience is you have to be able to see. And to them, it's scary, it's exciting, it's thrilling, but to me, it's like, this is not a big deal, because I'm in a state where this is safe. The things that we're doing, it's just pure entertainment.

So obviously, we're limited on time, given the craziness of this day. This is a very new thing that we're trying here. We had this conversation about a few months ago to come up here and just kind of document this experience. But my question to all three of you is, and maybe you both can speak to this best, how does this become a regular thing? Because this sounds like something you guys want to push, not necessarily onto novices, but to be more of a regular thing in this industry. So what does that look like, and how do you accomplish this sort of training for...

The visual IQ?

Correct, yep.

That's a great question, because my thinking doesn't very quickly go to that. So you're right, how do you get people to think about your vision and how that's affecting your ability to perform on the track or perform at anything that you're trying to excel at? Great question.

I would say between the two...

Oh, you're losing your voice. It's been a long day.

I would say between the two of us, I would improve the hardware of the visual system. Chong is the software, if that's fair to say, where our training is going to improve the visual tools you're using. Like I said, you modded your car to the max, the tools you're using. And vision is not the only thing. If you can't last through a race, you need to do physical conditioning. And then with that, we're going to get someone to elite level visual abilities. Now what you do with those, I'm less the guy. Chong is going to help you take advantage, make the most out of those. Just like regardless of what car you show up, he's going to help you get the most out of that car and what to do with those skills.

I think for me, because we're in a state of AI, and we're in a turning point in augmented reality, for me, it's always been about relationships and experience. What kind of experience do you want? What are the relationship with you and your reality and your friends and your community? And so with anything, you could go buy a fancy car, a bike, whatever it is you're into, but you cannot experience it with vivid quality. I mean, why buy a old TV when you can buy a K and then have sound, have vibration, have all the kinsects and so forth, and even a smell if you want, right? That to me is everything. And it starts with the eyes. The quality of your visual will stimulate everything else. Because without that, I have people that come to me and they want me to hire them and drive their car, whatever, and they never achieve that because they never understood where to start. You know, because if you have just a small breath of understanding, all of a sudden, your world changes. Because when you can see things better, you can interpret things better.

Yeah, and I think, well, I guess, kind of elaborate on how can we get the, is the goal to get this into more driving schools?

So for us here, it's definitely to get everybody safer, right? Everybody wants to go fast, and you can go buy a car off the show floor 600, 800 horsepower, thousand pounds of torque. We're talking about the Tesla, right?

Who's got the skills for that?

But yeah, if we can elevate the awareness for one, for safety, and two, it's coachable, and then three, improve the experience, right? But for me, visual goes across the board. Like we're talking, we're joking about this, that on the track, yeah, it's a big deal. But on the street, it's even a bigger deal.

And I think this, by the way, you live in my neck of the woods. I'm not sure if you're down to it. Are you closer to the cities by chance? I think there's maybe a, I definitely, there's a lot, lot, lot more here that we can only squeeze into, you know, the day we have here. But this is a conversation to, I would like to do and elaborate on in the future. Because like most of my episodes, right, they're like one and a half, two hours, right? Like you can get really in-depth, and I just, I feel like we're doing a disservice to, we're kind of hitting the surface level here. And I think definitely, one thing I would like to tell the listeners is look forward to a future episode on this. But with that said, is there any other kind of final things each of you wanted to add to this? Any little tidbits, maybe advice, like, hey, you know, don't stare at the refrigerator too long at night or, I don't know.

Listen to it. The old gremlins don't feed them after midnight. Yeah, I think so the term for what we're doing, I mean, vision therapy. So I just think everyone would benefit from an assessment where you learn what you're dealing with, right? Some people are going to go in there and have a great visual system. Not me. Most people are going to have room for improvement, and some people are going to find out they have a pretty significant deficiency. And if you're going to pour hundreds of hours into your craft, and then beyond that, if it's affecting your quality of life, it's just find out. And then as far as the training goes, people that live in the city can do it in person, but there's remote options too.

And I'm going to go down the line here as well, but where can people find you in particular, and what's an initial session kind of look like? I'm guessing there's a cost associated to that, or a website where people can check you out or something.

Yeah, so the company is True Focus Vision, website, truefocusvision.com, we're in Edina, Minnesota. And the assessment's 90 minutes, the cost is $150, and you'll find out a great deal of information on the spot. And then in addition to the work on the eye muscles, we do a great deal of eye hand coordination training. And so we expose people to a little bit of that in the initial assessment. We didn't really dive into that. Training the visual system directly is the most impactful, but I know if you go on YouTube, you see drivers doing the boards with the lights and everything, and we've got all that. And those are effective, great things to do. They are way cooler and make better Instagram posts than the stuff I'm referring to, which is, you know, do the work, repeat, do the work, repeat. And so that stuff's a little further up the pyramid. Usually we introduce that more, and once the visual system, we know it's balanced and set, because otherwise there are compensations that happen, where if my eyes skip to the left, I'm going to be turning my head, which ideally we're not going to reinforce that. We're going to get your tools all set first. But step one, and from an investment standpoint, I know you compare that to the costs of this hobby or profession. $150 is you're going to get a lot of valuable information in that time.

And then as for you, John, anything you'd like to add on top of that?

You just said every time I'm thinking about how I can improve as a driver on the track, my thoughts always go to improving my sensory abilities, that if I could get better at that, I would have a better understanding of exactly what the car is doing. And there is no more important of a sensory skill than my eyesight when I'm on the track and to be able to absorb all that's coming at me. So it's just crucially important in finding ways to improve upon how I'm using my eyes.

That's great.

Very important.

That's a great way to put it. Today has been a very eye-opening day, no pun intended. And then let's wrap up with you, Trang.

Yeah, in an era of abundance of information, if you want to get really good at anything, seek really good help, very targeted experts. I get that you can be very general, which is cool, but if you're trying to pursue something, that's going to require a lot of risk and a lot of danger, but also a lot of high rewards. Really understand what you're up against and work with people who really understand their craft so they can teach you the way that you learn. Because working with John, I teach John the way that he learns the way he does things at his pace. I don't cookie cutter because you're really putting the both of us at risk. I'm not going to ride with John if he's not going to listen to me, right? If he's not going to do the work. And so that relationship is incredible. So you don't want to just work with somebody, just do this, you know? But yeah, to me, that's safety first. Safe is fast.

I like today's interviews. It's just kind of covered every aspect of this. So I definitely appreciate all three of you for hopping on. I've never had three guests in one go, by the way, like this. This is super. Flying by the seat of my seat.

The stars align today.

Yeah, no, it just worked out. But no, thank you to each of you, to Chong, John, Josh. Getting better at these names. So I appreciate you guys for your time. And thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

I think we are finally here to the closing remarks. Today has been quite, or just the last four days have been quite interesting between Power Cruise and Out of Driving School. I think we've been here since 8 o'clock this morning. We're wrapping up here at 6 at night. But we're finishing up here. We got Joe. Yeah, I should have asked your last name. I always do this every episode.

It's Deon.

Perfect. Well, we got Joe Deon here, who is the Director of Operations here of the driving school. And I think it only makes sense to close out with you because, well, it's guys like you that make things like this possible. Between you and everybody involved, from the marshals to the staff, all that, a lot goes into running a track day like this. It's certainly not easy. And plus, we have to talk a little bit about the radical. He just took me on a ride in because that was a life-changing experience. But real quick, so what's kind of your background in, I guess, in driving?

I usually keep it short on the introductions when you come to the school. So I have about 15 years of driving experience, starting out in carts and moving into shifter carts, and then some various clubs. I was with the Porsche Club for a while, where I drove a Porsche and kind of learned on the track, and then I wanted to get into instructing at that point. And so through the Porsche Club, I was recommended to the BIR Driving School by one of the instructors there. And so I've been with the driver's school for about eight years now, and this is my first season as the director.

So how much track time do you have over those 15 years? I mean, you've probably been on dozens and dozens of tracks.

Not a great deal of tracks. I usually don't go out of the area much. It's mostly racing in Minnesota. So a lot down at Stockholm, and before Stockholm, the go-karts raced up here, and the Porsches up here. I have been a long-time racing fan as far as I have a... My dad was in the military, so my first exposure to racing was a Formula One race at the Nurburgring. And not knowing it at the time, but I'm watching people go by, and there's Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill and people like that. And so not, like I said...

So what's that, in the 70s?

That was the late 60s.

60s, okay. What an era, by the way. So I rant about this all the time, but I've been going down these rabbit holes of old Formula One cars, just educating myself more about cars. What an era. Especially watching, especially the 70s. That was the start of the turbo era, I think.

It was the 80s. I think it might have been in the 80s. The thing I liked about it as a kid, I was a kid back then in the 70s, but the thing that was very nice is the cars all looked very different and they sounded different. If you went to a race, the 12-cylinder Ferrari sounded completely different than a turbocharged 4-cylinder or the big V8s or something like that. And the sound for me was my first exposure to the sport, and so that's a big part of it. So I have a little trouble with the electric vehicles in that sense because it just doesn't have that sound thrill for me.

Well, especially with Formula E now, which is, to be fair, it's really interesting how those cars race. They have to slip, drift through the corners and stuff. It's a rabbit hole. But nonetheless, so you've been here... How long have you been here now?

Probably eight years.

Eight years? Or I mean, as a director of operations here at the school?

Six months.

Six months? Yep. So the goal is to... I guess what's the ultimate goal? Get more driving school attendants and such?

Yeah, they want, you know, up the numbers and try and work on that to grow the school in any way I can. The numbers have kind of plateaued or have been on a decline for a while as far as getting people out here. And whether you're bringing your own car out here, renting a car can be expensive. It's a chore to get the cars here, and you've been out on the track, and so it's a little bit of work. So you've got to want it.

It really is a commitment, of course, but I think that's also how you package and market it. So part of it is, for us, it's right after power cruise weekend. We just stayed an extra day.

Sorry we did make you wear a helmet, though, unlike the power cruise guy.

No, I was fine with that. I can also see why they don't make you do a helmet for power cruise. It's really nothing all that crazy. Just a straight. But regardless, I think that's one of the things I want to tell people going forward. If you're going to do a driving school, try to package it right after an event. For example, we got the North Star Speed Summit coming up here. I feel like maybe I'll consider bringing it to my car, because I drove Dan's GT500 today. That was a lot.

That's a lot of car to jump into.

It's a lot of car, especially when it's someone else's car, but I would love to come bring my own car here and get some instruction. You have some great instructors here, by the way. I spent some time talking with Chong. Alex, who was in the... I don't believe he's an instructor here full-time anymore, but nonetheless, you know...

Nobody's really full-time other than me in that sense. The schools are during the week, and so it's when people can do it, and then it also depends on the number of students we have or how many instructors we need, and so it's kind of a lottery.

It's nice having that second perspective though, because when you're constantly locked in, it's hard to figure out what you're doing wrong while you're doing it. So you've been an instructor for how long, you said now? Eight years. So I guess what are some things that you can give to novices for somebody who may be looking to expand their track experience? I mean, is there anything... Because there's a little bit of a stigma and some fears around like, I'm going to go hurt my car out there, or sometimes people think they're better than they are. I mean, what are some things you've seen over the years, good or bad, that you could share with the audience?

Well, I know Mike Peterson has mentioned in the past, a lot of people don't realize how much braking capability their car has. But what we try and stress at the school is more accelerating through the corner and out of the corner. So we actually try and focus a little bit less on braking. I use the line that, don't think about how can I get on the brakes later, think on how can I get on the accelerator earlier.

I heard you say that earlier today.

So to try and come out of the corner. And like we said, those things, they apply to your daily driving when you're on an on ramp or something like that. But we do talk about trying to open up your vision so that you can collect, we call it collecting data points. And with these points, then you imagine a curve through those points, and you try and put the car on that curve. And so then just you're looking down the road because you're collecting the next data point to continue your curve, if you're going in a straight line, not a curve at that point, but just for the next curve coming up. But as far as new people, the amount of braking they have is something that they're usually not aware of. And also the driving line is very different. If you notice, we have turn-in cones to help people to let you know when you should turn into the corner. That's generally much later than people expect.

That threw me for a loop today, by the way, because you guys have these turn-in cones, and I'm like, that's late. It's a lot later than I expected. I mean, it's one thing to do it on a Sim, but when you're actually, again, I had a little higher level of risk driving someone else's car and all that fun stuff, especially a car that arguably far, far exceeds my capability. I don't think even the owner, he's not going to get anywhere near the full potential of that car.

It's a different balance, too. I don't have a lot of experience with high horsepower cars, either. And it's a balance that I'm a little uncomfortable with, to have that much horsepower compared to the braking and cornering capability of it. And so what I like about the smaller, less horsepower cars, for me, it feels like it's the balance that I'm comfortable with as far as the horsepower to braking and cornering capability.

That thing could stop on a dime, that 500. I mean, the acceleration was somewhat impressive. There's no doubt about it. But the braking potential, I don't think I've ever felt that before. So that was fun. But nonetheless, to your point, the turn-in points were very late. That was probably the biggest surprise for me. What's another surprise you see novices... What surprises novices besides that and braking? Is there anything else?

Well, we talk about throttling through and out of the corner. A lot of people have difficulty using all of the road on the exit. So it'll be missing these points. They'll turn in earlier than they should. They'll miss the apex, and then they won't use all the track out, if you will, all of the pavement that they're used for. And on the racetrack, I think the narrowest parts of our track are probably four or five car-widths wide. And so for someone, if you're used to driving on the street, where you're used to staying in a 10-foot or 11-foot lane or whatever they are, all of a sudden, you've got 40 feet to deal with, and they're not quite sure where to go or where they should be at those times. So we help them out with those as far as when to brake, how hard to brake, their turn-in points, and then getting on the accelerator. They usually don't get on the accelerator as soon as they can, so we'll tell them you can start. If I'm riding in the car with you, I can say, start accelerating now, and then the accelerator will help you unwind the wheel. But we try and work on all those little fine things when we're in the car. Sometimes we switch seats, too, which is nice to have to, you know, like if I were to drive your car, and obviously, you know, we would back it off a little bit. It's more to demonstrate the line, but sometimes that's very nice that you don't have the sensory overload, where you can just sit there comfortably in your car and see a little bit of its capabilities. There's a lot of value in that.

There's so many little things that I picked up on today. I had a darn question. I was going to go with that.

And since you figure them out, they change. The tires get hotter or the pavement gets hotter. Or something will change, too, so you're constantly adjusting. It's a constant balance of compromises.

That's one thing that Michael Peterson brought up as well. He's like, most people have never even got their tires hot. I remember my first experience was doing that on autocross. I got my tires toasty by the second, third lap, and it changes the entire car. I mean, just ridiculous.

In my car, too, the optimum tire pressure that you're looking for is about 28 pounds, 26 or 28 pounds.

And the radical, you mean?

Yeah, and so I set them at 20 or 21, depending upon the temperature outside. And it takes a couple laps, but they go up 6 or 7 pounds to get the optimum pressure, and you can feel the difference in braking and cornering.

That was one of the things like you, you know, when we were in the radical, you told me to give you a thumbs up if I'm okay with it, because I mean, to be fair, I'm sure some people get really spooked by that stuff. And I was really wondering, like, all right, is this going to get crazier? You know, and we talked about it a little bit after here, but it was, it's interesting being in an open wheel car like that, or open cockpit, sorry, long day, sorry. But it just handles so different. I could not believe how fast you were taking us on those corners. And again, you could probably take me in faster without me in there, but also the worry of rain.

Yeah, we had a little rain. So yeah, yeah, you can you back it off a little bit. You want to want you to give the get you a taste of it. So you'll come back.

Yes. Yep. So what's what's a taste that you can give to, I guess, listeners? What's something that they should look forward to if they were to sign up for a track day in the future? Do you have like a small list of things like, I guess, I guess marketing points? I don't know.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I have yet to find anybody who hasn't had fun. They enjoy joy to different levels. And it depends on and we and we personalize the instruction with people as far as what they're looking for. We try and find out, you know, there's some people because we'll geek out on the driving line and all kinds of techniques, techniques all day long. But some people just have an idea that they want to they've never pushed the accelerator the floor in their car. So they love when they can go on the long track down the down the straightway. Or maybe they've got a number that they want to see on the speedometer. Although we discourage you looking at the speedometer, but we know you look at the speedometer.

I noticed that today and we mentioned earlier in this episode. I didn't look at the speedometer like once to see how fast I was going. You just can't. You're just too focused on actually driving.

As you get more comfortable with it too, you can relax and you can take in more and more. You know, right now, people jump in the car and their vision just goes right down to that and they can't see anything. But then as you relax and I think I mentioned this morning, I'm not real comfortable talking in front of the group when we do the presentations in the morning. And I was setting up a couple of things and I could not wait to get in a car just so I could relax out on the racetrack, which sounds kind of, oops, counterintuitive at that point. But the other thing we like to stress too is that these are handling techniques, you know, characteristics that you're learning about your car. So you're learning your car's potential and what you're comfortable with too. And I apply these things every day in my driving. So I had mentioned, you know, on ramps or something like that where you're trying to go around a corner, but you need to speed up to merge with traffic. And so, you know, if you don't take the corner right at the point where you need to merge, you aren't going the right speed and then you need to kind of jump on the gas. And so if you apply these techniques, you can come faster out of the corner and then merging is easier. So you can enjoy that part of it too.

It makes you less scared of your car.

Well, you know, we do a kids program here, which isn't about racing, if I could talk about that for a second. But it's a nice open area here, so you don't have to worry about traffic or dogs or anything like that, anything running out in front of you, and you can just practice these skills. And it's amazing to see these young people, usually 15 years old or something like that, and they're in their own cars. And so they get to learn, you know, but they've never pressed the brake pedal hard enough to feel the ABS. And they've never turned the steering wheel hard enough to go through a slalom course. And then they also like it, too, because we step up the speeds on these things as we go through them. You learn the skill first, and then we step the speeds up before we move on to the next skill. And I know a couple of times I've been with some young people, and they're like, well, that was pretty good, but let's do it again, but a little faster. And they just kind of, their jaw drops, like nobody's ever asked me to go a little faster before. You know, the parents are always telling them to slow down or something like that. So in these exercises, we get to do that. And so, and it's amazing to see the transition through the day as far as, you know, Tim, a driver that arrives in the morning and much more confident when they when they leave.

We saw that today with some of the novices we chatted with as well. Like, I mean, they like, I believe his name was Donnie, 89% sure. But he said, you know, the drive itself was more stressful than getting on the track. Getting up here was just like, you know, nerves, you know, but finally getting on there was...

In a controlled environment, too, where you've got corner workers here that are helping out, so they're alerting you to anything that may be up ahead of you. Everybody's going the same direction. Everybody knows what the racing line is. And so everybody's kind of on the same page. And I tell friends of mine, I said, I'm much more comfortable going 100 miles an hour down the straightaway at BAR than 70 miles an hour on 371 with all the traffic where you don't know what's going to happen. So you can just focus on your driving. I mean, I don't want to say it's a Zen thing, but it's a comfortable place that I like to be, and I'm comfortable just driving the car and just pounding out some laps.

So as we wrap up here, what are some upcoming plans for you or the driving school or anything that people should know about? Or is it just a matter of just come on out?

More so just come on out, and we want to get the word out to people about how much fun that they can have, and that it is more than you don't have to have aspirations to be a race car driver to get a lot of benefit from this. And so, like I said, and I've told stories before where people leave here with a greater appreciation of their car and its capabilities, so they like their purchase better. And so there's a lot more. But also some people just like to tick the box to say that I've driven a real race car on a real racetrack, and they like that element of it. As far as the school, just trying to continue to get the word out there and try and get the numbers up and expose people. And thank you for this opportunity to get out to your audience, so that we can hopefully invite them to come out here and they'll enjoy it well. And like I said, you'll enjoy your car better afterwards. No big plans necessarily changing for the school right now. Still new to my position, so getting my feet underneath me as far as that, as far as things. But always looking for suggestions from people or improvements that we can do to make it a better experience for people.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to come up here.

Thank you for coming.

This was awesome. Michael Peterson wasn't here for the closing remarks, but obviously he connected to both of us, and I'm really glad that he did that, because this whole day was an awesome experience. So I really, really hope to see some more people signing up here in the near future, because I'm definitely going to do it again, and I want to try to get my pops up here, maybe my brother, and we'll see what we can do.

This was new to both of us. I think we weren't sure how the day was going to go, and so I'm glad you got what you wanted out of it, because we certainly did. And so hopefully, I'm glad to hear you want to come back. That's what I was hoping for, is that we want people to come back.

And then where can people find you? Is it birmn.com? Yeah.

And then I'm listed under the Driver School, and available at email for people who have questions. Perfect. joe at brainerraceway.com will get you to me.

Well, thank you very much for making this happen and coming on the podcast, and we hope to have some more conversations here in the near future.

I look forward to it.

Awesome, thank you. All right.