92. Bowen Built, Roush Motorsports, Building Mustangs for Autocross/Road Course, Optima Challenge

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And today, I'm here with my cohost, Dan, Mr. Gunna Garage.

Yep, here I am. We're never gonna get this intro stuff nailed down, so it is what it is.

You would think by 100 episodes, we'll have it figured out. We still got eight more to go. But today, we have one returning guest and one new guest. So we have Jarrett Bowen, who we had on episode, I think it was 65, or 62, or three. I don't know.

Somewhere in the 60s.

And then we got Mike Roush as well. So we thought it made sense to get you guys on since we just did the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge. Did I get it, Dan?

Yep.

Oh, I got it this time. It's just a tongue twister. We figured it was a good idea to get you guys on because obviously you had a really good weekend. You brought your, how many horsepower Mustang out there to compete with? We'll round down.

About 400.

400, so it's stocked. I'll just say that for now. But nonetheless, having you guys on together makes sense because obviously you built the car, right?

Correct.

All right, so make sure to double check in. And then you raced the car and you had a fantastic weekend. You guys will be going out to Vegas for the Optima Challenge there. You're going with him, right?

I will be.

All right, so you won.

Gotta have some arm candy.

Yeah.

And you won, what was it? Is it called the Spirit of the Optima or what is it?

Spirit of the Event Award.

Spirit of the Event Award? Why is that?

Did you not see him there?

Apparently people like me.

Cause you've been competing there for what, a decade almost?

Six, I think this is number six. Six year there at Road America. Okay.

I've been on for four.

Okay, you've been out there for four? Okay.

We built the engine four years ago and then that's pretty much when I started doing the Optima with him.

And so for those listening, I kind of want to describe what the Optima event is and I'm going to delegate that to you, Dan.

Well, it's the search for the Ultimate Street Car, right? It's been going on for a long time, right? Cause we were talking to our very young friend, Tim DeCesaro, and he remembers when they were kind of starting it up. So he's been in automotive business for a long time. Of many years. So do you know how many years they've been at Road America? Any of you guys?

I think all but the first year or two. And if I wanna, I could be wrong on this, but 2013 I think was the starting year.

Okay.

Something around in there.

Okay. So I mean, they've been, they travel all over from track to track to track, searching for the ultimate street car, right?

Get this over just like three inches, but what's it called? So yeah, basically it's a matter of you do road course, autocross.

What else is there?

You had the stop box.

Yeah, stop box. Dude, the stop box challenge is probably the most fun one for me to watch, because whenever somebody sends a cone.

See the car sliding through sideways. Yeah.

Well, he sent the cone flying like 15, 20 feet, which is hilarious. We talked about this on the last episode with Jay, which just aired today, but yeah, it literally is just the hunt for the ultimate street car. You have a certain set of regulations. It's not like you can go full race car and call it a street car.

Well, you can, but they put you in the outlaw group.

What's the outlaw group or what's that consist of?

It's kind of an open category that the aero is unlimited in that group. You can have a stripped out version of a car versus a lot of us who run full interiors and stuff like that. But the rules kind of go to the wayside in that class.

But then it doesn't, their points don't count into the normal standings though, right?

They do except for the D&E portion.

Okay.

And that's why if you read one OUSCI, the Invitational in Vegas, in big bold letters, it says D&E does not contribute in the Outlaw Group to the overall championship.

Okay.

So because they don't qualify for the D&E portion of the event.

Which is, can be a huge part of your score. So it pretty much knocks you down to the bottom of the line anyway.

It makes it so you can never win the Invitational.

Yeah, okay.

So.

And for anybody listening, what D&E is is Design and Engineering. So it's what you've put into the car. You have, is it two or three minutes?

Four minutes.

You have four minutes to explain your entire build of what you've done to the car, how you got to where you're at and everything else.

Which sounds like, I thought at first, I was like, man, four minutes, I'm gonna, this is gonna be hard to do. But like, I'm pretty sure the bell rung before I was all the way done.

Yeah, so.

I was watching you the whole time and like, I think they cut you off, like right as you were at, like kind of the bumper, but it looks like you were just getting warmed up.

Well, they did ask me a follow up, like you had said. They were kind of fishing for something else because I had skipped a category, I think. They were like, ask me about the exhaust.

Oh, gotcha.

Which I have a pretty stock-ish car, so it was hard. And one other guy had said that too. He's like, yeah, I got this, stock. I got this, stock. So it's kind of hard to do your build when you haven't really done anything to it.

Exactly.

I will give you a pointer. Avoid that word when you're doing D&E.

Stock, yeah.

Stock or factory.

Okay.

They highlight what's not.

Okay.

And avoid what is, if that makes sense.

Yep.

I've been told that multiple times because the first year I did it and I pointed out literally everything top to bottom and they're like, avoid anything that's stock or factory and just don't even bring it up.

I did, I was gonna really highlight the rap because that was the coolest thing about it, but and I totally, I don't even think I said the word Mystic Chrome, which after I drove away, I'm like, idiot, I know. It is what it is, it was next year, right?

Exactly.

Raps are becoming a big theme in D&E and I would focus highly on that.

Okay.

Like make them stand at one angle, hey, look, the car's purple. And then make them stand over here, hey, look, the car's green now.

Yeah. All right.

So what'd you tell them? Oh, it's orange and then you just kind of left it at stock.

We detuned it.

It is a more of a rare orange. It's not just orange. It's a limited run, limited years. Only did the competition orange.

Yep. So yeah. 2004.

Yep.

15. And I don't know if there was a carry over into 16.

There was.

There was a carry over into 16. It changed slightly. I guess there's a little difference between the 15 and 16. I think the 16 got a little bit better. It got a little lighter.

I wonder if they changed primers.

Yeah. Base coats probably.

Probably, yeah. Cause yeah, the big, the competition orange is one of the rarest that Ford put out. But I think the other one is the Oxford White is one of the other hardest colors. Is it Oxford White? Is that the name of it?

Either Oxford or Wimbledon.

Wimbledon sounds.

Wimbledon is the one they really only did in the 50th anniversary.

It might be the Wimbledon White then.

Or in the anniversary cars I think is the only one.

It could be that one.

Wimbledon White.

Yeah.

I saw an competition orange Explorer Sport Track the other day, which would have been an 04 probably.

Were those, you could get that in something other than a Mustang? I thought that was kind of a.

No, I think you could.

I never really paid attention to that.

I haven't either. My other question is why?

It's a good little truck.

My mom had an 03 back in the day when they first came out, yeah.

Or if you get the adrenaline sport track.

What? I don't even think I know about that one.

Those were kind of neat looking.

They had the aviator engine.

Oh really? S***. This is turning into a brought to you by early 2004.

There's somebody out there that's loving this. I'm not even kidding though. Like get yours like way, cause you're talking like.

What's happening?

Away from the mic.

Oh.

Yeah, you turn your head in. It's like, all right, I'm over here now.

I've literally never been scolded for my mic placement. I know.

It's always been perfect.

Like over this way.

Yeah, there you go. I'm so sorry. You've always had been perfect.

That people want to hear you, Dan.

I know. Well, I think I've got people on either side of me now, so that's part of the problem.

Then you just angle it to the mic.

No, you know, yeah, it's okay. You're just the A plus student.

I'm just going to get Mr. Hollywood over here.

Yeah, right.

I totally botched it up the first podcast. So I'm like, I'm going to pay attention this time.

That's why I'm sitting over here.

No, you were good the first time around. I do want to ask though, right? What goes into what you guys did for this car? Cause obviously it was doing really well. What did you say at Road America this past weekend? What were you doing for times?

Well, unfortunately I never had a full clean session, but first session with some traffic, I ran a 239 out. Second session, finally got a clean lap and ended up coming into a caution in Canada corner cause the car went off the end and ran a 238. So my goal was 235 or sub that. Without the caution, I don't know if I would have been able to achieve it. Possibly.

That would put you in some really good company, right? Cause for example, who won? I think it was the Ellsworth Viper, I think. Or they were up there. I think they were doing like 230s.

The fastest car of the day was Dave and he ran in the 220s. 220 like eight, nine sort of deal.

I want to say it was mid 220s.

Really?

Which car was that?

22 Camaro, like a burnt orange color.

The one who won the entire event. Oh, okay. He got like a hundred in almost every category, I think, or in every category.

Oh, I know which one you're talking about. The one that was scraping on autocross every single turn. That thing was wicked. But nonetheless, you're still going pretty quick considering you have no aero on your car. I mean, you have that cute little thing back there, but that's pretty much it.

That little cute little thing keeps it planted on the track. This thing doesn't move at, and we run over 170 miles an hour down the front stretch. Yeah, that's moving. The only thing that makes me nervous in this is watching the ripples in the hood. Like, as long as I come down into the, I'll start seeing five, four, and then I start breaking at about three and a half on the markers on the side. As long as I see the three marker comment and the hood's still down, it's a good day, and then we're back into turn one again.

Holy s***.

Now, these numbers, too, by the way, if anybody follows any of the times that you can get in certain cars at Road America, this is with the bend or the bus stop or whatever you wanna call it, which I just gotta add at least a few seconds, four seconds.

It's gotta be four.

Yeah, at least. I'd say that's pretty accurate, because you're coming in hard to a too quick, too quick, almost 90, 90 turn.

Yep, yes.

And then coming back out where, versus 140 into the kink. If you don't, you're just blasting through the kink. Yep.

If you're hitting 140 into kink, you're gonna be in the grass real quick, I imagine.

I'm sorry, that's what I was doing on iRacing in the GT3, 135-ish.

You can, I mean, especially the IMSA cars are blowing through their way.

The GT3 cars, for example, I think they run like two tens, give or take five seconds or something like that. But the Trans Am car, the Challenger that got second place, he was running 202 and qualifying, which is flying.

That's flying.

Think about it, that's 30 seconds faster than you, I guess.

Did you see that guy coming around the track though? Yeah. He was moving. Yeah. And it looked and sounded awesome.

That guy was 16.

But they run the kink.

The driver was 16?

The driver was 16. He got his, I was doing a little bit of research on like the car, right? And I just stumbled upon like his like driver profile. He got his first, I think, win or championship or something like that with TA2, sort of tier below, when he was 14 years old. And then he's in this series. So that was his first win in a Trans Am car, like the top tier. And those things are making like 830 horsepower. I'm not sure if that's crank or wheel, but I don't know how race car people do it, but.

Probably not a lot of loss in a car like that.

That's true. That thing probably weighs 2,900, I bet.

Because they're all sequential. I mean, you ain't losing much. Everything is hard.

Sequential gear box and yeah.

Have you done any builds with dog boxes?

I have not.

Not yet? Yeah, we were kind of looking into that, right? Cause like me and Dan were just like, we had a misunderstanding of what it was.

I still don't even know if I know what a dog box is.

It's about $40,000. It's like, I don't know.

Then I don't care what it is.

Do you know who Brandon Clementson is? Runs a Falcon?

No.

That car has a dog box in it.

Okay.

So he would come out to DCTC with us a few times and he would play around a little bit. That's a full blown race car at that and that, but it's, when you get to low speeds, they're hard to shift. Like, cause you can, you can see them struggling coming into the pit and in the grid and stuff like that. So square cut gears and they're really jerky. Like you can see them in there doing this at low speeds. Like it's painful sometimes.

So they need to be driven hard and fast.

Yeah. You're meant to be on the gas.

But it's like upper 20s to 40s for a dog box.

Yeah. It's, it's ridiculous. That's full blown race car stuff. So what's all done to this?

Right?

The Bowen Built Mustang.

Are we allowed to disclose?

Yeah. No, it's not a big deal. Where do you want to start?

Suspension, maybe?

Fully built short block. So four years ago, burnt up four pistons. So rebuilt, so full manly, forged low end. Blueprint balanced, everything. Jay Anderson went through and kind of just made sure all the heads were good to go, valve job, and then put the engine back together, fully ARP. The transmission went out last year on Sunday. The last run on the big track, and welded up the planetary coming down on five. So we yanked that out.

I gotta add one thing in about that. Have you ever seen needle bearings get oozed out like Play-Doh before? Because that happened. And it was sucky and cool all at the same time.

If I were to plan this out, I have a planetary on the shelf over here.

I'll show you later.

But it was crazy. I mean, the planetary is in oval now. It's not even circular. So our great friend Dan here sourced us a transmission out of an F-150. The only difference is the case, really. And then the clutches actually have an extra clutch and steel in the direct drive, so they just handle more payload for the trucks. And put that in, that thing is, it's been pretty awesome so far. So he's seen like 50, 60 degrees lower temps and quicker shifts.

Yeah, and you're definitely a guide. If you want some R&D on where the limits are of something, I would definitely put it in Mike's car.

He will definitely push the limits on the vehicle. So he's, this engine now, I mean, Mike's shifting at like 8,300. Just plowing through the RPMs.

Which compared to what is stock?

High sixes, I think.

I think 68 is stock rev limit. But usually even just like oil pump gears, the guy will bump the RPMs to like 72. So another 1,000 RPMs or that.

That's actually a pretty surprisingly high-revving engine then.

Oh yeah.

It is.

It's still making power. It'll keep going.

It's pulling all day.

So there's no shortage. I mean, the blower is good to 1,1100.

Whipple?

It's a Whipple. Whipple 29. 29, stage two, gen three. Had to make sure I got all that right.

And they're in what generation now? Was it six?

Well, five, sixes are just kind of now coming out.

Six is now coming out. You can do an upgraded gen six housing.

And I have a 2.9 liter on my orange car, but it's a gen four. It technically has like a different rotor in it. But other than that, everything else is the same.

And then you did the brakes and the shocks. The coilovers.

It's got KW double adjustable coilovers all the way around. And then BMR adjustable sway bars, BMR lockouts on the rear. I'm trying to think of what else I'm forgetting that's underneath there.

But you do a lot of track support for him, right? So you're doing, you're helping with the adjustments and stuff. Were you doing anything on the suspension side of things this last event or not really?

We did make a couple of adjustments when it came to the autocross, just to kind of change stuff up. And then we did loosen things up a little bit for the big track. So kind of made the, add a little compression to it for the autocross to kind of stiffen it up. And then for the big track, made it a little more movable.

Is there any reason you loosened it up for the big track? Like what's the intent behind that?

Cause at 170, if your suspension is super stiff, I just didn't want it to have accidentally washboard off the track because it just has no give to follow the track around.

If it bounces once in a braking zone, you're along for the ride now.

You transfer more weight to the front than on the brakes and stuff too, I suppose, when you're, when you give it a little roll.

Yep. Let it transfer weight back and forth, but I don't want, I want the wheels to be able to adjust for divots or any cracks or anything in the road to follow around, but an autocross, you're not going fast enough really to.

Right, that makes sense. Next if you hit a bump, like you said, as you're going into a braking zone at 170 and it's super stiff, yeah, you're going along for the ride. That makes sense. Okay. What else were you doing there? Is there anything else you were kind of adjusting with on the fly there or not really?

There's really not tire pressures, always adjusting tire pressures. That's like the one thing that it's like every single lap on the autocross, you're adjusting tire pressures just from heat. You can set everything. So on the big track in the pit, we'd set his tire pressures at 27, 28, 29 psi. And then coming off the track, they're at 37. So it's heat generates a lot of pressure.

Yeah, I was just looking at the Viper form. I want to say this morning or yesterday, like somebody was asking about the various, or it might have been the AMG form, talking about tire pressures and saying, they want them to be cold at 26 psi before they even get on the track. And then where did you find the sweet spot was for you?

So through some friends and stuff last year, and this is my second year running on Falken's. We came from the RE71Rs last year, who like to run colder. They shared some stuff with me about these tires, and these ones like to run more air in them. So last year we upped about four psi in the fronts and two or three in the rears. And we shaved off half a second instantly, just because the car was just biting harder in the corners. So we've been kind of tinkering around with that more and more.

So is it just a matter of feeling around like when it starts gripping more? Like, oh, it's sliding around, let's take two, three psi out of it basically?

Yeah, well, once we find a happy spot for the tires, then it comes down to suspension. I mean, if the car is starting to get loose and we start changing rebound and compression and stuff a little bit, you know, and trying to settle the car down a little bit from being so upset all the time. The double adjustable game is a hard game to learn. And so we're working on that part.

Well, what have you done? I think you mentioned the last time you were on here that you were doing some even like triple adjustables. Were you or am I thinking of someone else? Maybe someone else. Yeah, because that's a whole nother.

Throw another factor in there. Yeah, no thanks.

What's that third aspect? I forgot what it was. What's the third thing you're adjusting? Why am I blanking on it?

Compression, rebound.

Just compression and rebound on a shock.

Okay.

And then the other from there is just alignment. You know how much camber caster you're putting in and changing that stuff up.

That was the other thing that I was going to look at on my car before we went out, because it has the adjustable plates on it. I was like, should I throw more into this or whatever? But I don't know. I feel like I really hit my groove this last time. So finally decided that I think I'm out running. I'm out driving the tires that I have.

You are 100% out driving. Yeah, because I wasn't sport four on the road.

Oh, you're not a fan either.

They're not. They're great street tires. Not a track tire.

Well, Harris always saw the Swiss Army Knife, right? The Swiss Army Knife of tires. They do everything good, not any one thing great.

100%.

If you would have been on track Friday night during the monsoon, you would out ran all of us.

Yes, that was the... I guess I did hear rain, so I was thinking I was going to be all right on that front. Although I think I would have still been too scared to push it in the rain.

We've ran in the rain there before. It's interesting.

A little bit of pucker fest?

A couple spots, yeah. But we were still... I think I was still reaching speeds over 140 in the rain down the front stretch, but you got to know when to back off kind of thing. Because it's... I mean, especially in that place, it takes a split second and there's a cement wall. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Some of the videos I've seen at Road America are pretty scary. There was one video I saw somebody losing their brakes going into turn one. They could not at all. They went straight into the wall, like about a buck sixty. And you're dazed and confused, and the car started on fire like two, three seconds later. And I was like, holy s***. So that track, it definitely, it can punish you.

Turn one, turn five, turn twelve.

Which is the turn? My one that always sneaks up on me is you come out of the kink, and it's kind of a straight, you ask in between those walls. Canada corner. Yeah, is that Canada corner?

That's Canada corner.

Because I'm like, oh, you're whipping through there, and you're trying to pay attention. All of a sudden you're like, oh s***, there's a ninety degree to the right here.

I think it's almost, it's more than ninety almost.

Is it?

You're almost coming back a little ways going through Canada corner. That's where the Camaro went off.

Yep.

Slid off in front of him, causing the slow down because he went just straight through.

Dude, he got so close to the wall.

Yeah.

I watched that. I heard tires lock up as I was leaving, and I'm like, oh, Camaro. I was like, oh no. And then he almost clipped the wall.

Yeah, it just looked like there was too much rear bias in the brakes, and it locked it up and spun the car completely sideways. And that's how we went straight off down into the gravel.

So how were you able to identify that behind them? Like, what was the first thing that you noticed?

The black marks on the road. Those black marks were too dark to be from front brakes. It was that simple. And then you can see where they turn.

OK.

And then it just went straight back, from what I can tell. But yeah, he was parked completely sideways, where we were coming into Canada Corner, and you're looking right at his driver's door. And he was like, he was nosed against the wall.

Yeah, I got like a four second video of just facing that direction. Yeah, and then I ended up talking to the owner of the company. I was like, hey, everything all right? He's like, yeah, it's fine. Just a couple, you know, I think something was just mildly, I think they only lost the splitter on that. OK. It's better than the alternative.

It's more damage on the ego than it is anything. Yeah. Because there's no getting out of there. They have to come fishing for you with the tow truck, and that's the only way to get out kind of thing.

There was a number of cars that got busted up that weekend. It was all in that last session, I think, because there was the Supra missing a bumper.

I felt real bad for Sam on that one. That car is so nice.

Yeah, I felt bad for that guy. I was like, yeah, that was a tough one to see, because I saw it on the tow truck.

Never want to see a mid-90s Supra bash into a wall.

No, no, no, you don't. Unless it's a Bollywood movie, did you see that video?

I did not.

No, there was a video going around, and there was like, they literally blew up a 90s Supra or whatever. I was like, jeez, that's just a high production value. It might have been a fake one, but never know. Yeah, fingers crossed.

Wasn't there some s***** versions of that car, too? There's trim levels, right? There's some that are cheap-ish.

They've got a generic motor in them, and then they've got the non-turbo 2JZ motor, and then they have the turbo 2JZ motor. And I'm sure that there's much more than that. That's my knowledge of them. But even the non-turbo 2JZs are supposed to be worth something. But I think the base model is, if you're looking for a cheaper Supra just to have a Supra, which I kind of want one of those, honestly. But just for a cruiser car, I mean...

I think everybody our age wants a mid-90s Supra.

And I don't want it because of all the movies that are outed about it. I just want them because I like the way they sound and I like the way they look and the way the interior is almost like kind of a cockpit in a way.

The interior is awesome in those.

And I wouldn't do anything stupid to get wheels and tires. A 600 wheel and you're good to go.

That's kind of a sweet spot. Like 600 wheel for like a classic. I mean, depending on like, for example, like I know a lot of guys are like Sylvio's, like they'll do like 500 wheel. That's kind of a sweet spot. And then you get the occasional guy that just builds it to the gills. But those older nineties cars, five, six hundred, they're happy campers because they weigh nothing too. Right. Because it was this way in it.

The orange car?

Yeah.

That one's 3926 full of fuel without me in it.

3926.

It's heavy. Yeah.

Yeah. They're heavy pigs.

4200 pounds for a carbon fiber track pack GT 500. That's crazy. I did not think that it would be heavier than a GT.

That's Hellcat territory. Almost.

Hellcats are 44 inch change, I believe. Yeah. Right around in there. But the only bad thing about the Hellcats are is there's no wheel well inside of them. So you can't put a wide tire unless you do the fender clip fair or fender flare wide body kit deal.

You mean the wide body Hellcats is basically just a little flare glued onto the fender?

Yeah. But that's the only way you can get a wide tire under them. Because I think the big number everybody is kind of maxing out is 275, 295. And everybody wants it.

For the stock, like the non-wide version, yeah. So the Hellcats come at a 275 stock. And then, yeah, you can only get maybe up to a 295. And then you start looking weird.

And then you start getting the rubbing issues on them. But then that's when they started going into the wide body or the fender flare thing or whatever. So people get into 315s and stuff like that.

I think it can come 315s or 305 stock on those, if I remember correctly.

Which, by the way, you can just put one of them bad boys right on a Mustang and go like crazy.

325s.

325s, yep.

You guys fit 325s?

S550s will run a 325.

I had 335s on the rear when I first bought this and still had room on both sides.

That's crazy.

So what is it? The wide body S550s are running a 345.

They have wide bodies? Like stock?

Shelby has a wide body.

Yeah.

Shelby has a wide body kit.

I don't know if that's necessarily stock.

I just had a 21 GT500KR wide body.

Is that the one you were telling me about? What is it, like a silver one?

Silver one.

They only built like 70 some of those though, right? Not even that.

I didn't think it was even that.

Might have been across all years of the S550 GT500. Maybe each year they did a few. Anyway, they're pretty freaking b*****.

They are.

You spend your entire day under mostly these cars, right? What, 90% Ford?

90 at least.

At least 90?

If not more.

So what is it about the geometry under there that allows such a big tire? Is there anything?

Deep wheel well and with these, with the independent, you know, all the arms are kind of like tucked in. So it just allows for that. The only thing that really sticks out is the brakes. And then the arms, control arms come in pretty far, pretty far back. And they have deep wheel wells, like Mike was saying. So.

Have you done any 10 speeds recently?

Not a lot.

Not a lot? Yeah, that's a crazy platform.

I leave building the transmissions to the transmission gurus.

Yeah. None of those cars come through here for any power mods or anything like that?

Oh yeah.

There's a kit right there getting ready to go on a 20, you said?

2020.

2020, yeah.

Yep.

That's a big box.

The big supercharger. What all comes inside that? That's a Gen 3, or a Gen 5 Whipple 3 liter.

And then in that little package over there, so what comes all in that little box?

That right there is what lets you turn your rev limiter up to the eight grand mark.

The little box on top, that's a boundary oil pump gear set. Cranks bracket. That's like the weak point. That's all.

It's $400 worth of parts that could save you a complete engine rebuild.

$400 bucks, that'll save you tens of thousands. Yeah.

We took that.

Coyotes are not cheap to rebuild. They're not cheap to rebuild.

Are you kidding me? This guy goes through them like once a week.

Well, and you can find them used.

It's kind of like Skittles over here.

I need new Skittles then.

And it's not the fact that the factory ones are that bad. They are, but it's the load and the RPMs. So that's pretty much the reason why the RPMs are limited from factories because the harmonics of the engine, once you get up over 7,000 RPMs, the harmonics, those things just shatter in a heartbeat.

For reference, I took my factory oil pump gears and I stood, just normal, and I held it right next to me at arm's length and I dropped it and it hit the floor in broken half.

You said that's the stock one?

The stock one, yeah. Minor billet, but...

There's plenty of guys that will go a long time on there, but they're not bouncing off the rev limiter. It's kind of, that's also one of those things where you can start a real discussion in an S550 page or a Coyote page that people will swear up and down that you don't need them. Depends on how far you want to take your car to the edge, really. I mean, you can get by a long time without it. You can also get by with an MT82 for quite a while until you grab third gear real hard.

You're on borrowed time in a boosting car.

I am totally sold on the fact that it's the shifter. It's the sloppy shifter on the MT82s that just eat up third gear shift forks. You're just deadheading that shifter as you ram it forward. And, you know, MGW shifters is kind of the way to go. The biggest recommendation for any MT82 is an MGW shifter.

Do the MGWs, do they have set screws for stops? Like, is that helping or do they not?

The only thing they have is a guide pin for first and second. Because the shifter reverse, it's a push down over and over. So they have a guide pin that has to be set. Too many people will not set those correctly, and then the shifter doesn't like to work.

Yeah. So on our drive over here, because I played Uber today, I just kind of picked up a side job, I suppose. You were kind of telling me a little bit about your car history, right? So you've gone through the DSM world, another world which you are welcome to discuss as well. But kind of take us through your kind of sport car slash building car history.

It probably started, I was about eight years old. My dad and my uncle bought Dirt Track Superstock. So getting the tinker around with that stuff. Then we got up into A-Mods. And then I got away from Dirt Track stuff. 16 years old, I got into imports, had some Hondas, built a 91 Talinol wheel drive, Super 16, Super 16G turbo. It was fully built. That car was, it was fun, a lot of fun.

You're telling me you made how much?

High 400s.

High 400s, which is, to anybody that's listening, if you don't understand, DSMs are a f****** absurd platform. Like when they work, obviously, because I've heard stories that...

They're broken more than they run.

That's what I've been hearing. I think I've only had like one or two DSM guys on this podcast. But still, that for an all wheel drive, I'm guessing it was manual. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't beat it back then. I mean, you're making 400 to the wheels. Like that's ridiculous. In a car that weighs 2800, maybe.

Probably the funnest part of that would go into an open parking lot and just grab second gear and dump the clutch and start doing cyclones just drifting across the parking lot in a big smoke show. I would literally have to stop because I was so dizzy I was going to puke.

Really?

It's just you start spinning so quick in an all wheel drive car though. At some point, you got to give. You just can't keep going and it literally would make me sick.

I wonder if Tim Roman looked into that all wheel drive platform at all when he came across his studies.

I feel like he probably went through every option I would assume.

I'm curious what kind of all wheel drive system was in there, but do you know if it was a variable torque split or anything like that? I have no idea to be honest.

It was so long ago.

Yeah, that's one that was like, all right, now see, I might be Googling this later.

We're old now. We're old now. Our memory doesn't go back that far.

I heard you guys talking about those 2002s, 2003s, those old Fords real easily.

Ford knowledge. See, what happens is you got to get rid of some s*** to keep some stuff. And I keep all the Ford stuff in there, logged, part numbers, everything.

Oh, man.

Yep. That's why I noticed how you steered us off because we were about to get on a little Ford tangent there. And I like how you directed it back towards Mike. That was perfect.

Well, just because I know he had a colorful history. So back to...

Dan's Rolodex is in there going, yep, yep, yep, nope, got to go.

Yeah. Well, especially if you get Jarrett and I going on something, it'll be a problem.

So then, OK, so you had that... What came after the Talon?

So I had four or five cars at one point, a couple of Civics, the Talon, my SRT4 that I bought new and then built that up. But I also got a... It was either an 89 or a 91. They're the same body. Civic SI Hatch. And ran that at Elko in the Super Hornets class. And that was just fun, so much fun. Then I had the SRT, and that car was simple bolt-ons that had a set of slicks on it, a wastegate controller, a boost controller, and that car ran 12.0s all day long.

And SRT what?

SRT4, the little Neon.

Oh, SRT4, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that car was stupid consistent. We used to run at Rock Falls all the time, and I would go every chance I got, and I would come home with the check almost every time. That was living the dream back in the day. I was coming home with money for a race.

How reliable was that platform?

It never had a single issue with it. Nothing ever broke on that car.

At what power level?

That one I think made 3, 43, 50 ish to the tires.

We had one go on a rally with us. This is the first, I think this is the inaugural run of the Venom Rally. You remember that one, Dan? That was making like 550 to the wheels.

He had to carry one of those crank pump rolling gas caddy things. He had that in his trunk to E85. So he was like, fill up the tank, fill up this tank.

Two miles of the gallon.

Dude, that thing could scoot. That guy actually hit me up recently. He's been hosting drag events really far up north. Like two or three hours north of Brainerd North. Something like that. There's gotta be a track somewhere up there, right?

I don't know. All four cars might show up to it. He invited us.

I'm like, oh, I'm already at the Speed Summit, which we will be going to in September unless we end up at another event. But yeah, that's crazy. You guys should come out to that one. You guys have a lot of fun competing at the Speed Summit at Brainerd.

When's that one?

That would be September 6th through 8th, I believe it was. First weekend of September. So triple track showdown. So drag, autocross and road course on the competition course. That was a really fun track.

So you're ready to get all the haters now? Out of all the tracks I've raced at throughout the country, I've never been to Brainerd.

Which is bananas.

Yeah, it is bananas.

Ten minutes for me.

Yeah, I've raced in so many states and so many different tracks, and I've never been to the home one.

I'm going to stop you right there. What's been your favorite track?

It'd have to be Road America.

Really?

I do like that.

It's its own city. People just don't get it until you've been there. You can try to explain it to somebody, but until you drive through the tunnel under the track and you're in it, they have their own campgrounds. It's beautiful. They have their own beach. They have their own restaurants. They have their own gift shop. They have their own gas station. It's literally a town.

To be fair, since you've never been to Brainerd, it's not as classy, I would say. Don't get me wrong, Brainerd's great. Don't throw me under the bus. But it is. You go through the front gate and they've got their own campground. You're in it. They've got a bar, restaurant, all that stuff.

It is pretty freaking sweet. It is awesome. But Road America does feel more like a country club.

Yes, it is.

There is a different feel. I've been to a bunch of races at Brainerd, but I never raced on Brainerd. I've worked corners for CRA.

Corner girl, eh?

Bike races. Well, in one of my other lives, I was a fireman, so I volunteered for working corners for EMS for CRA races a couple times.

You retired last year from that, I believe, right?

Just this spring.

Just this spring, okay.

Born real life, like a few months ago.

But I ended about 15 years, and now I'm good. But no, but the track, but yeah, the difference between Road America and Brainerd, it's like Road America is a no-brainer.

Yes.

It's such a beautiful track. The history, just the history behind Road America, like he's saying, like when you pull in through the gate and go on through that tunnel, it's like, ah.

Dude, that under tunnel, I remember my first time at Road America was last year on a rally that we attended. And I was like, this is cool. And it's even better when you have a golf card slash Vespa to hitch a ride on, because I was walking the whole track and that's a four mile track. I think it's 4.01 or something like that, right? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, but spread out over how many acres is that? It's huge.

It's huge. If you had to walk from the tunnel to the beach, mile and a half at least to get back there.

You're walking for a while.

That little Ford think has been my saving grace.

That thing is sweet.

I know. It's been one of the best things I've ever got.

I do like my Vespa riding around the track just because it goes anywhere.

The only thing sweeter would be if the parking break in it worked.

That would be sweeter, but it is a Ford, right? Something's got to be broken. I just thought I'd throw that in here because somebody's going to do it.

It was not to work, then the e-brake.

Yeah.

But I took the shoes out.

It's got stupid drum brakes on. I had the drums off. I don't know. Maybe it needs to come to Bowen Built just so you can get your hands on every Ford they've ever freaking made, right?

We can do that. All right. I'll fix the e-brake.

It's electric though. I'm sure you want to dabble in that world.

I'm just kidding.

It's a golf cart.

It's a golf cart. They're all electric now.

So, but you've, you said you, you da. There's a nice stutter coming there. I might be over caffeinated now. You said you've been to a lot of different tracks, right? So, Road America, obviously it's nice, close, fun, amazing track. Is there any of the other ones that you've attended that are just more technical or just really fun to drive? Anything come to mind? How far out have you ventured?

Texas, Nashville.

So, Coda? Is that the one you did in Texas or?

No, Eagles Canyon.

Okay.

So, and that track is beautiful. We got to go to that one. Just, God, it couldn't have been the track. The entire place was rebuilt, resurfaced, everything, and we were there just a couple months later. Like, it just felt like you were out for a cruise. It was so smooth. It's kind of like Road America now, because Road America was all redone. But it's just, you just drive. You just get to go out and cruise. I mean, other than the fact I posted Fastest Time of the Day at Eagles Canyon, that's...

Oh, OK, so that's not your favorite.

No, it's hilly, and you would come down this hard hill and have to make a sharp right and go back up the hill. I mean, this is just different. You don't get to see a lot of road courses that are like that. And it was so much fun.

With elevation changes and such. Dude, AMP is freaking awesome. The one I rented down in Atlanta Motorsports Park.

That's a good one, too.

Not Road Atlanta. Very different. But, dude, when Kenny, or not Kenny, Gary took me for a ride in his GT500. It's like, you're looking up at this hill. Like, that's a really cool track over there. I mean, would you agree?

Yes. I would actually say that, so you have your favorites and stuff, but I don't think I've ever been on a track that I haven't had a good time. Or, you know, once you get bit by that bug, as long as, like you said, you get to drive, who gives a s*** where you're at?

Yeah.

It's a lot of fun.

Most people are like, you know, like, don't you get nervous going out on that track? And I was like, most people are, like, anxious and, like, all that stuff. Me, that's all my nerves go away. Like, that's my calmest I ever get.

Dude, I sound like a sociopath. Like, when I get behind a car, I feel a lot more dialed in. Like, I am a nervous wreck in every aspect of my life. But whenever, like, I'm behind the wheel, it's like, all right, don't die, we're good. And that's it. Like, you're just zoned in. I don't know. I've never heard somebody else describe it that way. Because some people are just, like you said, a bundle of nerves. But I feel like some people just zone in.

Yeah, it's just, it's calming for me. Like I said, the caffeine does the opposite for me, and racing's the same way. As soon as I click my belts on, it's like, I'm good.

The adrenaline hits you, it just calms you out.

Yeah, I don't know. It's just like, now I get to do what I love.

I used to race autocross a lot back in the day.

What'd you race?

I had a 95 Thunderbird. But I built a 4 valve, 4.6 Cobra motor for it. So it moved. It was a fun car. So I would go out and beat up on a lot of unsuspecting cars and a 95 Thunderbird.

Independent rear suspension in that, which it was unheard of for that time.

The T-Birds were awesome.

The T-Birds were awesome. That's it.

I'm trying not to get into it. We can go through the whole history.

I'm a Thunderbird guy, so let's go.

I always forget that I had one. I had a 97 the last year they made it with the GT.

You guys do this, I'll be right back. That was my favorite thing. I'd say most of our guests are probably leaning towards your age and you're about 15 years older to me. You guys just go through this down reminiscing thing. It's the funniest thing ever. I'm like, all right, cool. I'll just sit back here and learn a thing or two.

I'll let you guys roll.

The 87, 88 Turbo Coupe was probably one of the coolest cars a Ford ever made, I think. But yeah, we're getting into Thunderbird stuff.

Should I set my Facebook marketplace for that as well?

Sure. You're going to be sadly disappointed in its performance nowadays.

I love doing this to Dan. I'm searching for stuff on Facebook marketplace for him.

There is a blown big block, 86 T-Bird for sale.

See, I want the 87, 88. I want the Aero Nose version. I want to put a 2.3 EcoBoost setup in one so I can keep it 2.3 Turbo. But it needs something other than that original 2.3 Turbo. That thing's not that great.

No.

Anyway, that's another episode, a different deal.

You got anything unique you're working on at the moment or as of recently?

A couple of fun little projects. I got a twin turbo F150 going down right now.

Single cab or?

Yep. I might probably see it in the background of the video on the hoist right now. And then I got a 2011 GT500 that I'm trying to find some bugs on. And then a big wiring build for a crazy kit car, which is right behind you there. So it's a RCR SLC kit. So it looks like an LMP car, bubble cockpit, two-seater. That's kind of fun.

That looks like it's going to be fun to drive.

That thing is going to be a crazy build. Crazy build.

Have you worked on any kit cars?

Beyond Factory 5 stuff, do a bunch of Factory 5, the AC Cobra kits.

Those are pretty sweet.

They're pretty awesome.

Have you ever built one? Because I know those things are good.

Not a full build. Not a full build for anybody, but more or less setting them up after somebody has put them together. Just dial it in. Yeah. Dialing in suspension, figuring out some issues that they had come across, wiring stuff, or just I can't get the cooling system to work right, kind of a deal. Certain aspects of it, doing that route. So.

I would say that we've had a discussion too about like Rat from Ratified. There are people that when it comes to diagnosis stuff, they just like, I'm picturing like you just seeing numbers and things going like some kind of savant thing, but you are for diagnosis stuff is, I'm very impressed. I had that, my friend Magler, who I had sent to you, he's like, nobody can figure this s*** out. I was going to all these different shops. I was like, well, if you want to figure that out, you got to take it to Jarrett. I don't know what else to tell you.

So yeah, that's all in your expedition.

Yeah, that too. Yeah.

Diagnosis over the phone.

Well, I thought I was going to be doing an engine. So I really greatly appreciate that. Yeah, it's some people can just see the whole picture. And that's that's where you come in.

You know, big thing shout out to the past life, you know, working in a dealership for a long time and just seeing all that random stuff that comes through. I was kind of the gremlin guy at the dealership. So if there was a car that that just couldn't get figured out, they'd end up in my stall. And then I would figure them out. And then the, you know, the FSCs would come in and explain what we did to fix it. Or they would come in and work with them to fix the issues. And then we'd make TSBs and SSMs.

So never pour water on Jarrett.

We don't want anymore.

We're going to see who's going to get that one.

One Jarrett's good enough. But no, I like a challenge. I like having fun with just getting into something that I don't know about.

What's something you've been kind of like wanting to get into? Anything come to mind? That you're just like, I need to sink my teeth into it?

Really want to get into the super form and stuff. The continuation GT40s and AC Cobras and the Daytonas that are coming out now. Well, they've been around for a while, but I want to get into helping them with those.

What's it called again?

The company is called Superformance or Downforce Motorsports.

There's a guy in Carolina that has a bunch of those. What's his name? Ben Giggs or something like that? You follow him on Instagram, probably.

Yep.

Ben Giggs, he's got a... I think he has a GT40 and he had a Daytona. But I believe he sold the Daytona.

Yeah. He's currently trying to get a GTD.

He is trying to get... He is hell bent on the GTD. I don't understand why anybody that could actually afford it would not be hell bent on getting a GTD.

Yeah.

They are just insane.

Yeah. It kind of frustrates me that some people are like, well, it's just a Mustang. I would never pay three... You remember people were all up in arms when the GT500 was a hundred grand.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, the first year that it came out, it was over here. I smoked a McLaren 675LT over at the track that we were at. It's like, dude, that thing is like a supercar and a Mustang body. And now the GTD, I think...

They're track weapons. And the GTD is light years above the 500.

So, what makes it... Because now it has something called... What is it? Is it called a transaxle? Is that what they call it? Where they move everything back on those or on the GTD? Because it's a specific... I don't know what it's called. Am I blanking on it?

All I know...

It's the same thing that the Corvettes got.

Yeah, it's kind of like the Corvette, just for weight distribution.

Don't Vettes have like... Isn't it a torque tube thing?

Torque tube, yeah.

Oh, our friend knows all about that.

It's going to be a similar layout. I don't know if that changes what it's named or not, but yeah, they're moving the DCT.

I mean, it would be a transaxle, because the axle shafts come right off of the transmission. So the differential is built into the transmission. It's virtually like a GT supercar transmission.

I think the technical term should be power tunnel thingy.

That's what I'm going to call it.

For the trans... It is a transaxle. So it's like the old, like the T5, like the ZFs, in the Panteras, in the 4 GT supercars, well, the old 506, I suppose. Yeah. The newer ones too, but that's the 35.

Yeah.

So is that mostly just for weight distribution purposes?

Yeah.

That's pretty much it. Nothing else special about it?

It has that whole... They've got a cool little clear window in the back for that suspension setup that they've got. Yeah, I don't know what...

The push rod, coil over setup. So it's a Multimatic partnership again. So it's like the 16 and up, 4 GT supercars. We're partnered with Multimatic. Now the GTD, it's kind of the same thing. You know, just ridiculous suspension, ridiculous frame.

So it's going to look like a Mustang, but handle like a Ford GT. Drive like one slightly, yeah, better.

It's what the Ford GT should have been, the new generation.

The new GT is pretty awesome, and they are killing it with track records, with the GT2, with the Mark 2.

I saw something on Facebook about that, yeah.

But I have a feeling once the GTD gets on the track more, and guys that are really good at driving get it behind the wheel, I hope they are going to start crushing some records.

Well, it's still the same Predator set up right in the front, I believe. This Predator motor is just insane. So, I've seen some guys are taking a Raptor R, which by the way has a size or two smaller pulley, and they are just swapping that on to the GT2. So, that's kind of neat.

Which is just hilarious. Yeah, I should go see if I can go snag one off my buddies.

Yeah, we should have taken... Is it still sitting there?

I'm sure it is. I'll shoot him a text after this. We'll see if we can snag it off of his. Because I know he was thinking about maybe turning into like a tube chassis sort of Baja truck. I'm going to put out an article about this here soon. I posted photos like a month or two ago. This thing hit a bus, like at 50 miles an hour. The bus spun around twice because the bus ran a stop sign. So, yeah. Pretty gnarly.

Ouch.

Yeah, so yeah, we'll see if he still has any parts for you.

I talked to him shortly after that.

Okay, so you know what I'm talking about.

I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, that thing's going to be crazy. Do you know how big of a blower they have in that GTD? By chance?

Off cuff?

Probably not.

I think it's the same one that's on the Predator. I can't remember the leaders on it though.

I don't know.

If it's a 2650, it would usually be a 26. Isn't that how they label them? Because the 2300 blowers were all 2.3 liters.

Probably, that checks out.

Don't look at me. I'm not going to want to save you.

We'll tell you all day long about the old s***.

I'll have to dig into that.

But no, it's making 800 horsepower and they're testing it at the ring right now. I'm surprised they haven't released any times yet. That's either a really, really good thing, or a, oh damn, we talked a lot of s*** and can't back it up thing.

It could be both.

Yeah. No, it's going to be, I mean, it sounds like a bad out of hell. It's going to be sweet. It looks really good in black.

It does.

I really hope that Vin Giggs guy gets it though.

It looks really good in red. They released the first full production one. Really?

I saw that too.

I can't remember what the name of it is, but it looks like a deep ruby red.

Yeah, with like the carbon on the hood or whatever. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. If he gets that, I think he's gonna go on a nationwide tour.

Orange's car.

Yeah, which is gonna be pretty sweet. So, blanked on that one.

I did look at if they make the wing like it for these cars yet.

Like an aftermarket one to pick up.

To put on the back window.

Or would you, you'd have to cut apart the pillar.

I was thinking, so the orange car, which my dad bought that he doesn't know, that's our R&D car, so I would put it on that car first.

I'll have to shoot him a message on Facebook after this. Be like, hey, you know what your son's about to do? About to cut up the whole thing.

I sold that car to my dad, but I'm still in charge of making sure it's running right and doing all the stuff to it. So, he's like, oh, this seems wonky. You need to figure this out. I'm like, all right, fine.

At least it drives straight down the road now.

Yes, it does. I have never done an alignment on it. I brought it here and Jarrett's like, holy s***.

How did you even get here from Wisconsin? This alignment is so far off.

It took a lot of rights. Yeah.

The car has been apart a few times.

Yeah.

What's next for your car then? Just keep it as is? Or did you notice you have some new upgrades today?

So, we're going to start with the rear end. We're going to change out the gear set. I've been noticing in some autocross stuff. I'm in this weird spot to where it's too much for first gear, but it's not enough for full on second. And once second starts getting under power and boost starts getting made, it's too much. Because then it just brings it in and all. It'll roast the tires, and then you're just going too fast at that point. So, we're going to go up a little bit in gear and see if we can shorten up first and bring second down a little bit and so that I can run a little bit more in second and it's a little more manageable.

Yeah. Because the one-two shift is deadly.

It's violent in this car.

As soon as you click second, you lose the back end of the car. Yeah, really? So, for him, being able to stay in second and ride a little bit higher RPM in there to be able to just stay at speed in the power band and not have to push the back end out.

If I had another 10 miles an hour in first gear, this wouldn't be a problem.

Right.

But I don't.

What is on an auto car? Are they 355s or 373s?

315.

313? Holy crap.

It's low.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there's four options. There's the 373s, the 355s, the 331s and the 315s.

You know, I took 331s out of my car. I'm laying around. How far up are you going to go?

355s, okay.

That's what I went with and I like it.

Yeah.

But the manual is different.

Yeah, so we'll... There's only one way to find out.

Yeah.

Exactly.

There you go.

But he wants to do a full on second pumpkin. So I'm just swapping it out.

Oh, yeah.

I'm not rebuilding this rear end, just taking this one out, building a totally separate differential and installing it.

That's what I did, too.

Because we can track swap rear ends if we have to, if something goofy happens or, you know... But the more and more...

I'm just kidding.

So I have no issue working on the car at all, but at Road America, he's like...

If it comes to swapping the rear end, Mike will be pulling suspension apart as I'm pulling the bottom.

But he has to type, he's like, just move over, I got this. Do your thing and stuff.

Well, it takes you 20 minutes.

It doesn't take that long.

I've had this car apart so many times, I could probably do it in my sleep now, but yeah.

That's one of the appealing things about, I guess, most domestics, right? They're pretty simple. Even though this is newer, what did you say, 16, 17 for this?

For the year? 15. It's the first year of this.

Because you said they only did this color, it was. 15, 16, 17, right?

15, 16.

15, 16.

Two years. I'm gonna catch it up, don't worry, we'll get there. But no, that's one of the appealing things. You can work on them. Whereas you open it up, I remember he opened up my GTI. He's like, I don't know what the f*** I'm looking at. It's German. Turn it into a pumpkin, you know? But yeah, I don't know. I think that's just one of the appealing parts.

There's a lot of weird things with some of the German. I don't like when you take the wheels off, the fact that there's no lugs on the thing anymore.

No, you take the bolts off.

The studs? Yeah. The bolts off?

Which makes absolutely impossible to put it back on. You're like, line that up right and do this while holding the wheel. That's a pain in the a**.

That's so you get more billable service hours.

When he orders his oil change kit every time, you have to throw away the drain plug and put a new one of those in too. I'm like, that seems cool.

You don't do that for every car anyways?

I spent a short time of my life at Motorworks BMW. You need that.

What were some of the weird quirky BMW things you worked on? Anything come to mind?

Nothing super quirky. I wasn't there long enough to really do. I was there for like 10, 11 months.

It was my entire career.

But BMW is such a different world. I don't even want to get too far into it. But I mean, BMW, the history of it is crazy. If you want to know how anything was R&D and made for any other car in the world, BMW probably made it. They designed the world as far as cars. And then they keep it. And then 10, 15 years later, they're like, OK, now you guys can do this to your cars. Like push button start. Everyone's like, waging out that in the 2020s, all of a sudden, all these cars have push button start when BMW's have push button start since the 80s. Well, there's certain cars that they've had for forever, decades with this stuff that everyone else has now.

Something interesting about BMW stuff. So there is a car that runs an Optima series with us. It is a third gen Camaro that they run a BMW transmission and have paddle shifters. And it all bolts up and hooks up right into an LS.

Really?

I was a little bit...

You just said a lot of things. You said Mustang, LS and BMW all in one car?

No, there's no Mustang in there.

Oh, I'm sorry.

The third gen Camaro.

He hears Blue Oval and he freaks the f*** out.

Sorry.

There wasn't even no Blue Oval in there.

When I see a Camaro, I want it to be a Mustang. That's what it is. That's what it is.

So they're running BMW transmissions in them so they can run paddle shifters. S***.

That is ridiculous.

I just found that out two weeks ago.

What car was that?

It's a third gen Camaro. I don't know if I want to open up just in case things are kind of...

No, it didn't. Okay.

Hush, hush.

No talking.

It was pretty cool to hear that. That's what I heard. I'm like, what?

We'll let it die there.

The fact that it bolts up is pretty sweet.

Don't know. If you need to know about the history of VW, we'll let you know. We'll go way back. There we go again.

Dark history there. I kept going back, back, back, and then I went, oh, yeah.

Back in high school, there was the rage. Everybody wanted VW stuff. I had a really good buddy in high school that had rabbits, multiple rabbits, and then he hand built a bug. And just cool cars. I love the old VW stuff.

My cousin was big into Chiracos.

Yes.

And he had a couple of them. He might even still have one to this day. I'm not 100% sure.

And they didn't burn down?

I didn't physically see one burn down.

No, we're not talking about Pintos.

Those have wiring issues.

Same thing.

Same forges.

Same rear-ended. Yeah. To be fair, though, Volkswagen saved from the Pinto to the Fox body. We're going back to Volkswagen again here because they inspired the Fox body. That's kind of what Ford was going for, that Euro look. And the previous generation was basically a Pinto. Fun stuff.

Yeah. So other decisions on this car, right? For example, when it comes to Fords, you can go on whatever website. What's your guys' main website where you order s***? For me, if I need anything from my VW, I go to FCP Euro. Is there a main thing you guys order stuff for?

Lethal performance is kind of a bigger one.

There's two lethal performances too.

They have a lot of stuff. I'm kind of all over the board when it comes to beefcake racing. That's a big one. Terry's awesome. And MMR.

But Jarrett over at whatever gets pissed off because he rips off a lot of stuff from lethal performance.

Yeah, lethal performance and they don't get along. But I go back and forth because sometimes you get better prices for one than the other.

But CJ Polanyi Parts has another big one. I've bought a few things from them guys in the past.

And the reason I bring that up is you have so much variety of things you can choose. Is there any reason you want with KW coilovers or not really?

Because they were free. I went to pick up a buddy's car in Wisconsin for him that he bought. And the guy had Steeda adjustables in the car. And it had the factory shocks in a box. And it had KWs in a box. The KWs, the fronts had bad seals in them. So I looked up to see if it was worth rebuilding them and all that stuff because I wanted to get into the double adjustable world and coil overs, more adjustability. And I reached out and the price was worth rebuilding them. So I shipped them out to California. And they ended up calling me and saying, we need cores of this generation for an extra 20 or 40 bucks. I don't remember how much it was. We'll send you brand new ones. Are you okay with this? I was like, this is a terrible deal. So they ended up, they sent me brand new shocks. So it was, I ended up getting, basically I have a brand new set of KW double adjustables and I have less than 500 bucks into the whole set. Lots of steel. Yeah. And I think they're north of 3,500 for this kit. So it was kind of hard to argue.

Yeah. You can go all over the board with coilovers.

Yeah.

That's all.

And you're happy with these set here?

Yes. There's a lot of adjustability in them and we're still learning that.

Yeah.

So it's, I need some, I need a better understanding of that world than I know. So that's what I've been working on lately.

What have you, is there anything that you've learned about? Like, granted you have a lot more to learn, but is there anything that you've picked up on so far?

A couple clicks can screw you up real fast.

Yeah.

Minor adjustments can be big changes.

Interesting.

So it's very, most people, when they just do a single, like a Kona Yellow is a big single adjustable shock. There's so much stuff. And it's very different from just going to one shock that has a compression adjustable to where you can start messing with rebound now. And I mean, rebound is where you start picking tires up in corners, or you can start getting the car hopping in a brake zone because it's not releasing fast enough. And like it's quite a game changer. Like you can get yourself in trouble driving if you don't do it right. Noted.

I'm only 40 clicks away from where I was before. That's sketchy. Did you run into any issues like that then, or you've been pretty subtle with your changes to where there hasn't been any oh s*** moments?

We've been pretty subtle. He got click happy on the autocross and he's like, we're turning these things up. I was like, well, we're only on the autocross. The first thing that's happened, I'm going to go in the grass.

Yeah.

I was like, turn them up. Let's see how it goes.

Cone after cone after cone.

Oh, I was hungry for cones apparently on this event.

It's a large car.

It has no problem, leaves the marks on the car anyways. Usually, autocross and speed stopper, I'm usually pretty strong in those. I was demolishing cones left and right. I just don't know what it was, but the car was just like your mind, one after another.

A couple of those, especially when you got to the top of the hill over there, that was a tough part where it's like a fast left, right, left.

Oh, yeah.

I thought I could maybe just squeeze through there. I tried to like just even up in between and just do a barely it. No, I nailed a cone on that one.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think I might have a video of that actually. It was fun recording you, dude.

A lot of guys plowed through that third cone on those two sections on the autocross.

Dude, that big... What was it? A blazer? The...

The K5 blazer?

The yellow cream colored one?

Yeah. Did any of you guys see when I did a full 360 at the top of the hill there?

I did not see that.

If you go back there...

I saw him doing the 180 in the stop box.

Oh, I didn't see that one. Yeah, at the top of the hill. I wish I got a video of that. I got a video of him getting back onto the track. But yeah, you can see a full 360 mark of tires at the top of the hill there. That thing was ridiculous, though. I can't remember what I was running on the full track, but I know that Jay was behind him.

He was mid 240s.

Yeah, okay.

244, 245.

But he's on, I mean, his, that thing's making north of 800 horsepower.

That's what I heard.

Because down low, he would pull away from me a little bit.

Yeah.

And then I'd reel him in up top. But that's, I believe, SpeedTech is the whole chassis suspension underneath those. So they're basically a race car with a K5 on top of it.

Gotcha. Dude, what was your favorite car out there? I'll start with you. Have any favorites out of anybody there? Like if you had to get rid of this today.

That's hard.

There's a lot of nice cars that come to this place.

I mean, there was that fricking, what was that Lambo?

Oh, Schwartz's Lambo.

Yeah. The SVL.

The green STL. I think that's pretty cool. I really liked that, what was it? A Camaro? The one that kind of looked like that grabber blue color.

Oh, that's Schmidty's car.

Split bumper.

Yeah. That's Schmidty's car.

Yeah, that thing is cool.

That's pretty sweet. I really like the Javelin.

The Javelin or that?

The Javelin or the 70 Mustang.

Yeah, that like burgundy one.

70 or 71.

That was a clean build. That one looked just nice.

Gorgeous car.

I think the Javelin actually won the People's Choice Award, the Ender Composites Choice Award or whatever it was for like their favorite car they would like to have. I think he won it. But yeah, those two cars were, they were up there for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you want to pop the usual three? I have a feeling we'll do a Minnesota goodbye after though.

Sure. I have a quick Optima one. So you said you've been to those other tracks that you've been to. Were those all for the Optima series?

I've actually only done Road America with Optima.

Really? Okay.

So Jimmy, who owns FM3, who is the parent company above all this stuff, he does Cars and Colons, which is a charity benefit. And it's a week long. You get to go to different cities, different states, different venues, and they do shop tours and all that stuff. And then we get to go do a different autocross, like different states, different venues and stuff. So a lot of that's through there. And I've been doing that for years.

You have any out of all the Optima touring, do you have a goal track to go run Optima at or just always like I always think of Laguna Seca, right? Like I want to get out there, but that's one hell of a haul.

Laguna would be awesome. Willow Springs would be cool, but I'm drawing a blank on the name. It's in the southern tip of Florida. It's big in the lake. We'll wait. I can't remember the name.

Daytona?

No, it's south of there. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the track. It's a very, very well known track too.

Somebody's just screaming at their windshield right now. It will come to mind. Have you ever thought about doing Gridlife?

I have actually.

You have done it or you've thought about doing it?

I've thought about doing it. I just haven't.

I know that they're always at Gingerman. Have you been to Gingerman yet?

I haven't. I have a bunch of friends who go to Gingerman for different events. Gingerman is in Michigan, right? Yep. They've tried to get me on there on a few different occasions. And it's scheduling hasn't worked out. So I'd like to definitely like to try that place out.

Yeah.

Would you say you're road course over autocross and anything else? Preference?

I'm starting to get that way, yes.

Were you an autocross guy before?

I did. I was autocross all the time, like something I was always good at. And it's just something I enjoyed. It was fun. And you just get to go do a run and you come relax. And it's so much more work to do road course stuff, like just maintenance wise, you know, on prep and all that. But when you get a car that's got power and you get to open it up and just let it go, it's kind of a different game.

Interesting.

That long straight at Road America is a feeling that is second to none. That is amazing.

Yeah, it is.

That track lead breaks though.

Yeah, it will. And they say it too, like this track will find any weak spot you have in anything you got going on with your car, for sure. Like I'm surprised you went out there with a plug in your tire. Like that was freaking...

If it would have been anywhere except for where it was, I wouldn't have. But the fact that it was dead center, center bar and that thick, like I wasn't that worried about it. So...

Yeah. It held up.

Yeah. And it would have kicked off all kinds of lights in the car anyways, as soon as it would have lost, if it would have started losing pressure or something like that. And then I just, that would have been done. So like I've, I had some like nannies just watching over me just in case. But yeah, I wasn't going out there and it was in the back of my mind. It was something that I thought about, you know, and I purposely went out and drove on the road a little bit after we stopped out the rear brakes. Yeah, you took me out for a rip. Oh yeah.

It's like, Hey, I'll kill this guy real quick. Go melt this plug in a little bit.

And so we did.

We did.

I saw Harris grab both sides of the seat for a second. I was like, Don't worry, I'm not a typical Mustang driver.

He's a dope crowd today.

He's mid-sentence. I'm not a typical driver and he's swerving side to side. I'm like, Oh, that's a tree. Oh no, we're looking at that tree now. That was a good time. Yeah, almost roasted them close to it.

Yeah, it is. There's no problem getting moving. Like it'll.

No, it was a blast. I don't think I've actually been in a 5.0 with that much power. I think the fastest 5.0 I've been in was making seven.

Okay.

To the wheels.

We've had plenty of people on here that have built cars and done stuff and be like, I would do this different or I want this or I would do this car instead. I don't know very many S550 boosted people we've had on that aren't absolutely just in love with what they've got going on.

Well, besides you.

Well, I didn't say I didn't love it. I didn't. A lot of my stuff was my own.

We said different things you would have done differently.

Yes, that's true. To the same car.

Honestly, the S550 boosted is they love it. The cars love it. The drivers love it.

The handling of it for a heavy car.

What's the compression ratio on these stock?

11 to 1.

The ones that's relevant.

Pretty much 11 to 1.

What about the other generations? What are they usually at?

The earlier was 10. And I think Gen 3 is up to 12 now.

And then you can throw a freaking supercharger on it at 11 to 1 compression too is just nuts. Also on top of that.

That's crazy. I mean, yes, besides the oil pump gears, you can throw a blower on a Coyote motor, push a thousand horsepower out of it, and it's fine.

That's something you can say about every single car. Well, besides the, every single car has that. Find me one car that's perfect. I dare you. It's not going to happen.

I'm going to say, like Dan was saying, you don't even have to do oil pump gears, and you can make a thousand horsepower. I'm not saying it's going to handle that for a very long time, but it'll do it.

Depends on if you're the occasional, I'm on the highway, I'm going to punch it, ooh, or if you're driving.

Redlining every shift.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And honestly, so I've had, I've had clients and I've had other people like, oh, do I, they'll call me and they'll ask, do I really need to do oil pump gears? Because it's a lot of, it's pretty labor intensive. You're really tearing the motor down to do oil pump gears. I'm like, all depends on the use that you want out of the car. You know, and then there's guys like, you know what, I think I'll be fine. And then three months later, I probably should have had you put oil pump gears because now my motor is exposed.

That's the first thing I tell people too. And like, I'll get people who are like, oh, you know, I'm just going to throw a blower on it. And I was like, all right, you're spending, you know, eight to 10 grand on a blower. You're going to take half the motor, half the top end of the motor apart. Just do it. I was like, because that, you know, a couple hundred dollars plus X amount of labor, I don't know what the labor bill rate is on it or whatever, but it's a lot cheaper than thousands and thousands of dollars to rebuild the motor. You know, it could never be a problem or it could be a week away. But I mean, when you're spending that much money, just do it right the first time.

It's probably just under a couple of grand, I would assume, to do oil pump gears. But if you're already doing a supercharger, like you see, you have some of it ripped apart. It's probably a little less than that.

I mean, supercharger with install, you're looking at $14, $15 grand. If you're going big whipple.

With gears, right?

Yeah, with gears. So it's not a huge jump. I mean, you're adding like 12 hours later.

So throw me into your engine bay here, right? Okay, let's say you just...

We can try.

Okay, take me through the process, right? So let's say you just had to do oil pump gears, right? That's the only thing that a car is coming in for. What's everything that you have to get out of the way in order to work on that? What's the to-do list?

You're pretty much pulling everything off except for the cylinder heads. So valve intake manifold, valve covers, timing cover. Well, I suppose not really intake manifold if you're just doing the oil pump gears, but valve covers, front cover, so all the accessory drive, and then you're pulling all the chains off. So you got to pull the timing chains off.

And action.

So valve covers, timing cover, you got to pull the oil pan down because the oil pickup tube is molded into the plastic pan. And even if it's not, then you got to disconnect anyway, depending on the years. But the pickup tube is molded to the oil pump. So the oil pan has to drop down, and then you pull the pump off from there.

Oh, okay, okay, we're there. So that was a long journey there. So when you have all that taken off then, then you start suggesting, let's say you're some, you get a customer that's power hungry, all right? You already took all this apart. What are your options for upgrades? F****** everything?

Not a lot. The world.

Well, if you want to go full MMR.

MMR timing components. You can do phasers, lockouts, camshafts. One thing I always recommend is the inversion plate. For some reason, on the driver side head, the tensioners that are on there from factory, the tensioner is tensioning on the wrong side. The tensioner is actually pushing up on the tension side, not the slack side. You pull the tensioner out, flip it over, shove it back up the bottom side of the body, and then put a plate that slides over the top of the tensioner to hold it in place. And then put the new guide on top. So then it's tensioning on the bottom, which is technically the slack side, on the driver's side head.

But to be fair, that's one of those things, though, that a lot of people don't touch any of that stuff. I mean, to be fair, the timing components on it aren't really that. I mean, you can...

You don't have to.

No. The inversion thing I agree with while you're in there real quick, but the MMR thing is also a thing where people get real...

That's when you really want to go crazy with it. And you're worried about... When you're making like 15, 1600 horsepower, then the game kind of changes from there.

Yeah.

1200, though.

Yeah. If you're just making four digits, it's not a big deal. But the lower difference, the low difference between 1000 to 1500 is crazy.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like every time, like for whatever reason, like a thousand horsepower build, it's not too crazy for most platforms. Like, you know, we hear this all the time. Downpipe and a tune for some platforms.

Fuel pump and a pulley.

Yeah.

That's it. It'll make four digits.

That's not too shabby at all, right? But then you started looking at that 1500 horse. It's like, oh, this just got way more expensive.

Yeah.

You see that kind of regularly.

All right.

Do you want to pop the usual three?

We better. We got Jarrett out of here. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests, you know, to pick three cars. You have an unlimited budget. Swaps are cool. Whatever you can imagine. But we need a track car, a daily driver, and a show car. What are you picking?

Track car probably would be a Kona Seg 1-to-1, just because I want to drive one.

He understood on your unlimited budget. It's good to have someone with one of those.

A daily. Oh, a daily and a show car could kind of be similar. I want to do a, like kind of a modded 55 Chev post, but on modern chassis. So like 600 horse, NA motor, something you can just turn and roll the windows up, you know, and just cruise in. And so, but those cars can be like show cars. Like, so it's a daily or show car? You got to pick one. Unlimited budget, that'd be a daily. Just because I would want that scene all the time. And a show car? A show car? Almost back in maybe the 20s, Model T, Model A era, but something that's stupidly awesome. Not something you'd expect, almost like a modern version of a Model T.

What the hell does that even look like?

You needed unlimited budget to make a Model T look like a Model T.

Dude, on Facebook, today I saw an article that there is a registered Model T, I think in Michigan, that's still driving around on the roads.

Really?

Like a 1927 or whatever. They had a picture of it driving on the shoulder because it only does f****** 30 miles an hour.

But to take one and just modernize it a little bit, but still keep the Model T.

Would you still keep the skinny wheels?

Yes, but in a modern wheel size. Somehow take the wooden spoke wheels.

Not the modern size wheels. The size of those now. Isn't that 20, 22, like normal?

Weren't some of the, well.

I don't know what the model is.

I thought some of those were like really big, like thirties, like, you know the ones with the, kind of like the big wagon wheel style ones. But somehow turn that into like, like an aluminum wheel, but it's like brushed to look wooden in a way. I don't know. I just, I've never seen anything like it. And I've always been curious still about what it could be. And if you ever-

So you're saying to put like some camber on and make it a stancy car?

No. Hell no.

It would be cool to get like a, like a 10 spoke wheel and have it hydro dipped in a wood grain. Yeah, put that on there. Yeah.

But if you pulled up into a car show with a modern, like a modern, like actual, not like, you know, a retro mod, like a bucket or something like that, but a full on model T that looked like a model T, but was all modern.

How would he swap?

That would turn some heads, I think.

What would you even do for a motor in it?

I haven't got that far amount of money.

I worked on a 33, I worked on a 33 Ford that had a two, three, you could boost swap in it. Huh.

Would that give you any ideas?

It had 33 suspension and that thing was sketchy.

Oh, that's wicked.

It was crazy fast. But once you get up there and speed, it was sketchy.

I think I seen that car here.

Green one?

Yep, that was pretty cool.

That's crazy.

Pretty awesome. You'll have to check out my Instagram page.

I'll have to take a look at that. Do you only did like a swap in it or what?

Nope, just kind of changed a couple of things and then Casey and I tuned it.

Okay.

Cause it didn't.

So it was just a motor swap?

It was just, no, there was a lot of other stuff. Okay. But for the most part, it was a motor swap and then full interior on it. Gorgeous car, absolutely gorgeous car. But you would have never expected how fast that thing was.

It was probably making like 300 or 400 horse.

At least.

Yeah.

And something that weighs no s***, probably a thousand, maybe 1500 pounds.

With old school wheels, old school suspension.

That is a trap.

And that's why we love what we do.

I didn't know the differentials and those could go that fast. But it worked out.

All right. So we're doing Jarrett now again too, right?

Yeah. Let's hear it.

So a track.

Show daily.

Track show daily. I'm gonna have to scoot the track one last. So show car. Still, I really want a 56 F100. Big window. But I go back and forth on just a raw 460 push rod, crazy engine. Or if I want to do something, you know, Predator, Coyote. But something that's four wheel, like independent suspension all the way around. Pro touring type of thing. Just crazy paint job. That'd be my show car.

That Rat Fink green?

It would be Rat Fink green. Candy apple green with a plum crazy purple kind of accent somewhere.

And like eight pounds of metallic flake in it.

At least.

Sparkling like the night.

Of course, metal flake though. Daily, I'm loving my excursion. So for a daily, I would want a Godzilla swapped excursion four wheel drive that was lowered and then I wanna dually it. I've seen a couple of, I've seen a couple out there, but a dually excursion that was lowered with a Godzilla in it.

You wouldn't go power stroke at that point?

He's got a good start.

I'm not a diesel guy, I'm not a diesel guy.

I've been trying to push that on him and he just ain't budging.

I'm a gas edging guy, so yeah, no.

I was until I got a diesel.

You know, a Godzilla can make seven, 800 horse. Yeah. For no reason, for no reason. And then I guess track car. Oh man, I'm gonna have to like kind of go on my son's route right now and he's big into Porsches, like a GT3, like just a crazy, you know, those purpose built GT3 track cars. Like a Cup car? Yeah, like a Cup car.

Like a 992 Cup car.

When I watch them on the track or seeing those on TV and stuff, just the way they handle and the way they sound, just insanity.

That's crazy. He'd be on a Mustang GT3.

I mean, I want to drive one of those too. I test drove a GT3 RS and only in a parking lot. Yeah, but still dude, sitting in one and even just like listening to it and driving it just that short distance. Like I'm like, okay, let's get this out on the road. Let's get it on the track.

And to your point of me not picking a Mustang, you know, for most people, for most people that know me, not the biggest Mustang guy. Even though I work on thousands of them, not the biggest Mustang guy. If I would pick a different one, it would be a Thunderbird. I was a Thunderbird guy from the start. An 88 Thunderbird V6 and I bought a 96 that I out across for a long, long time. Then I bought a buddy's parents 95. And that's one that kind of just got built up because I bought a crashed Mark 8 from my old tech school instructor and built up a four valve and a Thunderbird and it was the best thing ever.

That is a good combo.

Do you have any other tidbits or fun facts to drop on us before we wrap up? I just feel like you're full of them like all the time. Like you just have done such a wide variety of things.

Nothing that comes to my mind right now.

All right. Well, in that instance, do you have, where can people find you or not find you?

Instagram. Can't find me here. You gotta, you have to get that from me. But Instagram, Facebook, Bowen Built, LLC. I have a website, bowenbuiltright.com, but it is, there's nothing on it. Yeah, look at that. It'll lead you to Instagram or Facebook. So Instagram or Facebook, Bowen Built, LLC.

Basically, if you want to afford Built Right. That's a good way of putting it.

All right.

Do you have any socials? I can't remember if you do.

I do. So I've got Roush Motorsports on Facebook and Instagram and then Mike Roush on Facebook.

Cool, that checks out. Dan?

And because you're gonna get a bunch of questions. No, no, no.

I'll take the comments. No, it's fine.

Go for it. No, I didn't know if we wanna touch on the Roush thing or we just leave people.

Nobody puts a baby in the corner.

Do we wanna touch on the Roush thing or do we wanna just let people think, have them wonder?

Well, it's up to you to decide.

That doesn't matter to me. I tread on my own name, but it is distant relation.

Distant, distant relation.

Far distant, but it might be something in the blood there. The passion for racing is.

It is blood relation. I will say that much, but yes.

And in case you don't know what we're talking about, he's related to Steve Salin.

It has been a benefit once or twice. I will say that much, but yeah, I don't.

It's not like you've trained with him or anything. So yes, you have built your own name.

Yep. Yeah. That's what I'm working to do. So yep, I don't want, I'm not riding the coattails of anybody else.

Well, you say that you're building to do what? Like motorsport wise or what do you, what was the grand ambition here?

To do this for a living.

Okay.

Just race.

Okay.

That's, I mean, that's everybody's goal. I think in this is to get paid to do this.

Well, we'll get you one of those Trans Am cars.

He was drooling every time I was standing next to him when they were ripping by.

Anyone drools. Those cars sound so amazing.

Dude, like, especially when you compare like, again, it's a completely different caliber of money, motorsport and all that. But like when you compare the sound of those to an F1 car, the modern F1 car, we're not talking about the glory days, the V10 era. Right, if you go back to that, that won the sound game. But right now, you would be hard pressed to find something that sounds better than those Trans Am cars. Especially if you got like a flat plane V8, which is, that has to be what was in that Challenger. It had to have been a flat plane.

I don't know, but that car had a different sound than any other car on the track. And I was in love. That car almost sounded like an Indy car going up the hill. Like it literally, just the way it revved out and stuff. And like, those are things that just make you melt inside. Like, I love this.

It was definitely comparable to a flat plane. Like it does a high revving flat plane engine.

And nobody knows this but us, but that car was in 500 pieces, eight hours.

400,000 pieces. It was literally in a half.

It was nothing but the chassis, like sitting there.

Yeah, and they built it overnight.

The midnight when we went to bed, it was all apart.

They were still working on that.

I got up at like 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom. And so I hopped out of the trailer and I looked over it and they were over there working on it.

They're still working on it.

They worked on it all night. I think they worked like, I don't think they stopped.

Yeah, I think they could have.

But then he ran second place that entire race. I think I watched.

Yep, and then he got first because what happened at the beginning of the race was that Menard car bumped into one of the other cars that was in first or whatever. It was like a weird overtake or something like that. So that guy actually ended up getting damn near, I think he got dead last or damn near it. So the Menard car got a five second penalty and that challenger was just enough within that limit to get bumped into first.

It must have been close because first to second place were stretched out like.

That Menard car was fast.

And then like from second to third, like there had to have been like a fifth of a track distance between first and second and then it's the same between seconds. Yeah.

It was interesting how they were running like two different series at the same time.

Richest guy in Wisconsin.

Oh yeah, you would see lap cars coming around and they'd just blow their doors off going up the hill on the front stretch and stuff. And that's, yeah, that's awesome.

It's just the difference between a fast car and a really fast car.

It basically comes out to who's got deeper pockets.

Yeah. Checks out.

John Menard.

Well, on that note, good thing he's not in the electric business, would have shut down the podcast on us at the last episode. Well, thank you guys for coming on Mike, Jarrett.

Thank you again.

Yeah, I think it was a good time to have you on. Dan, thanks for existing and we'll see y'all next time.

We'll see you guys in SEMA. Maybe we can fire.

Oh, hold on, stop the outro. What's the point of SEMA?

We're going.

We're going to SEMA.

Where's the road course for that?

Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

And that's not connected to a convention center, is it?

No.

But the rest of the Optima stuff happens right in front of everything.

Yep, so the parking lot that they do, it's.

The drifting and all that stuff, I think.

Yeah, so they'll set up the speed stop there one day, the set up the autocross there another day and all that stuff and.

Gotcha.

So can so this is only invite to this one, correct?

Correct.

Nobody could have been like, here's my $600. I'm coming for the weekend.

You have to get invited to this event.

Sweet.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like, man, if you get invited, you just got to go.

Absolutely. Those people were turning it down left and right. I'm like, holy crap.

Well, like I know James turned his down. He's been there a couple of times already, and he's got other stuff going on. So but like for me, this is my first invite. And I don't care if I have to street drive and sleep in this thing. It will be there. Yeah.

You guys are going to trailer it out there probably?

Yeah.

Yeah. OK. We'll have a good time in Vegas. We're planning to go back out there. We had a great time at SEMA last year, and we'll also be a PRI. PRI is like a non-negotiable for me now. It's really cool, especially given this podcast. It's fun to learn about all the up and coming stuff in our industry.

So the goal is to get to PRI this year.

Yeah.

Me and Janderson are talking about going out together.

So well, let us know. We did a big Airbnb Airbnb last time, so we can do something.

Sounds good.

Yeah, we'll talk about that. Well, all right. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jarrett. Dan, thanks for existing. And talk to you guys next time.