Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / A view from the Mountain, meet: Mountain Man Dan

Transcript

A view from the Mountain, meet: Mountain Man Dan · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
0:04
but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
0:08
want to share our stories with you.
0:10
Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
0:13
together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
0:17
through our podcast, Brake Fix.
0:22
Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here, and with me today is special guest The man,
0:26
the myth, the legend, the one, the only my brother from another mother, mountain
0:31
man, Dan, from our mountain region of GTN, this interview is going to be a great
0:36
opportunity for you to get to know one of your fellow members of GTM a lot better.
0:40
How did you get started in motor sports and with cars?
0:43
How about you talk me through that?
0:45
All right.
0:45
Well, that goes back to when I was a wee little type running around.
0:49
And for me, my stepfather was big into drag racing as a kid.
0:54
So I spent a lot of time going down to Mason Dixon Dragway
0:59
back when it was still open.
1:01
It's been a lot of time down there at Maryland International Raceway,
1:05
just going to the drag strips.
1:06
And when we weren't at the drag strip, we were at the house turning wrenches in the
1:09
garage, and I took people all the time.
1:11
For me, math Turned out over time to become my strong suit.
1:17
But for when I was young, I had issues with trying to learn fractions and
1:21
honestly, sockets, like being a tool, go for grabbing sockets and physically seeing
1:26
the different sizes in the fraction sizes for standard sockets was how I learned.
1:31
You know, my fractions, do you measure your beard with sockets now?
1:34
Is that how that works?
1:36
I haven't, but we might have to do that.
1:38
Are we going with a shallower deep well sockets?
1:40
Cause I'm sure I've definitely a couple of deep well sockets in life.
1:43
Early on, you got influenced by drag racing and that's, you know, just one of
1:47
the multiple disciplines of motor sports.
1:50
Do you have a favorite discipline?
1:52
Is it still drag racing or did you evolve into road racing, rally
1:56
motorcycles, autocross, karting?
1:57
Like what's your favorite?
1:59
I would have to say that probably my motocross is my favorite.
2:04
The reason why is I think motocross takes a lot more guts
2:08
than many other disciplines.
2:10
As you experienced recently at the Off Redden event at my house, that it's a
2:13
lot more of your body getting abused than many of the other disciplines.
2:18
My body doesn't hold up to it as well as it used to when I was younger.
2:21
Other than that, just the feel of going, you know, 20, 25 feet in the air.
2:25
And then that feeling of like, just floating, I always enjoyed that.
2:30
Did you do motocross competitively or more of just for fun?
2:33
It was more just for fun, but I did ride with a couple of guys
2:37
that did ride competitively.
2:39
When I was stationed in the military, especially when I was stationed down in
2:43
Georgia, I got to know a couple of guys.
2:46
And one of the guys, he was.
2:48
Typically a podium position finisher there in the southeast
2:52
region, and he had a track at his place and a couple of through him.
2:56
I'm not a couple other guys had tracks at their houses, and so we'd go out,
3:00
you know, ride for a couple hours, get done, drink some beer, grill
3:04
up some burgers and just hang out.
3:07
And we always had a really good time.
3:08
And other than that, if it wasn't, you motocross track, I've been riding
3:13
in the woods since I was a kid.
3:15
When my mom and stepfather got divorced, I spent a lot of
3:20
time at my grandparents house.
3:21
There's quite a bit of woods around their house, and as kids, we always tend to go
3:26
hide out back in the woods, make trails for our bicycles and stuff, and then I
3:31
remember my first dirt bike that I ever bought on my own was more of originally
3:36
like an Enduro, which was a Suzuki TS 185, and I bought it for 300 bucks.
3:42
And that was the first one I bought myself.
3:45
I was probably about over 13 years old at the time.
3:49
From there, I, I bought it, had it for about six, eight months.
3:53
And then that winter, it was a.
3:54
Pretty long winter, so I was like, you know what, down in my grandparents
3:57
basement, I took it apart, cleaned up the frame, repainted it all,
4:00
put it all back together, resealed a bunch of stuff on the engine.
4:04
And then, that bike I actually taught my little brother to ride on.
4:07
It, uh, wound up in his possession for a while.
4:10
Where I grew up at, it was known for floods occasionally.
4:14
And unfortunately, I didn't make it out during one of the floods, so it
4:17
wound up with a bunch of water in it.
4:18
Whatever happened to it, I don't know.
4:20
Yeah, we moved on to bigger and better bikes.
4:22
We wound up with a Yamaha 402 Stroke at one point, which was a beast.
4:26
A brother had actually started working at a machine shop that a family
4:31
friend had owned, and he decided he wanted to build it for more power.
4:36
So He built it, boarded it out to the max and everything, and it was a hot
4:40
running engine after that, uh, temperature wise, but it had a lot of power and
4:45
compression as well, and our brother not letting me know how much compression it
4:49
had, uh, taking mine off, I might have weighed 110 pounds soaking wet at this
4:53
time, and could barely hold the bike up.
4:56
And he brought it home from the machine shop and I kicked down on a first
5:01
kick and it had so much compression.
5:02
It threw me back up over the handlebars and I landed on my back in front of the
5:05
bike and enjoying the fact that I looked like a fool flying through the air.
5:12
There you go.
5:12
Yeah.
5:13
Even this weekend, I mean, I saw you riding your Banshee, which is
5:16
a, you know, more race prepared ATV.
5:18
And I mean, I could definitely tell you've got a lot of experience off roading, but
5:22
knowing you later in your life, you've got experience in other disciplines as well.
5:27
And you've just recently got into road racing.
5:28
We've gone carting together and a lot of other things.
5:32
I know you have a big competitive side in you, but I got to ask you this question.
5:35
Who is, in your opinion, The greatest motorsport driver,
5:40
pilot, or rider of all time.
5:41
If you had to pick one, I had to pick one.
5:44
That's difficult because I don't know that there is just one.
5:49
Cause there's so many different, you know, you think about like for
5:51
motocross as a kid growing up, seeing Jeremy McGrath ride, he was phenomenal.
5:56
But then you look now modern day.
5:59
Not so much now because he's gotten out of it and got into freestyle,
6:01
but like Travis Pastrana was amazing.
6:04
All these guys keep coming up through the ranks and the guys that we grew up
6:07
with that we thought were phenomenal don't hold a candle to these new guys.
6:12
Exactly.
6:12
And I think it's the same with all, you know, aspects of racing.
6:16
So I'll ask you this then I'll try to whittle it down for you.
6:19
If you could meet one motorsports legend dead or alive.
6:23
Who would that be?
6:24
I honestly never thought about that, so I can't give a good answer.
6:28
I'm gonna twist it a little bit.
6:29
I'll say I've been fortunate and have met a few guys who are icons in the industry.
6:34
That I've told you the story about multiple times was Big Daddy Don Garlitz.
6:39
Nowned in the drag racing industry for advancements he made to
6:43
his, his rail and everything.
6:45
All kinds of different things that he was testing and
6:47
experimenting with at that time.
6:49
And unfortunately, I never got to see him race because other than in videos,
6:53
but I never got to see him racing live because by the time I met him,
6:57
after he'd had pulled a shoot and the negative G forces on his body actually
7:02
separated his retinas from his cornea and his eyes, if I recall correctly.
7:06
And because of that, it caused problems with his vision.
7:09
But it makes you think that if you're going that fast and you pull a shoot
7:12
and it's yanking you forward that hard, you're moving pretty quick.
7:15
There's some overlap history there with Garlits and, you know, we
7:19
recently we've gone to AutoFab several times over in Elkridge and
7:22
the old Coleman Brothers Racing Shop.
7:23
There's some overlap there between, you know, your hero and one of our sponsors.
7:27
So I always find that's really cool.
7:30
Yeah, it's and that was one thing that's cool going down
7:32
there and, you know, they've had.
7:33
Got a couple little pictures here and there of older stuff that I've seen,
7:37
and it's always interesting, like, as a kid, I never would have known
7:40
any of that work was done locally.
7:42
It's an amazing thing to realize that I'm able to walk through the shop or
7:47
some of the innovative things that We're done on his cars may have occurred.
7:53
And that's, I think that's an awesome aspect of history that some people
7:56
might not appreciate, but maybe in a gear head, I love that sort of stuff.
8:00
What are some of the challenges you faced either in the racing that you've done
8:04
or the racing that you're getting into?
8:06
In part, maybe some wisdom there to say, what advice would you give to
8:09
someone starting out in, you know, motocross or in road racing or time
8:14
trials or whatever it might be, kind of partner those two together.
8:17
Other than the drag racing stuff where I grew up around everything
8:21
and the motocross that I got into, I did do like some basic kart racing.
8:25
I had an opportunity when I was younger to do some dirt track racing.
8:30
For me, having multiple disciplines in my background, I think increases
8:36
A driver's bag of skills, if that, if that would make sense.
8:40
And other than that, for me, I've spoke to people like coming to road
8:44
course racing, which has only been in the past couple of years and doing
8:48
time trials and things like that.
8:50
With motocross being the fact that it's the more of the, I would say
8:53
kamikaze of the sports for the driver, because when you get into a situation,
8:59
you have to go into it knowing I may wreck and hurt myself and you have
9:04
to wipe that fear out of your mind.
9:06
So when I get out onto a road course, because I'm in a.
9:10
You know, a big can that's going to protect me a lot more than being
9:13
on my bike or my four wheeler, then I tend to have more, I
9:19
guess, courage than many drivers.
9:21
Good example of that would be a year and a half ago when I put my car into a wall
9:25
chasing down a V8 SS, because on a dry day, I would have never been able to even
9:30
stand a chance, but it was raining pretty heavy and I was willing to push my car to
9:33
its limits and nature got the best of me.
9:36
So we talked about this in another episode with Brad and about fun wheel drive.
9:41
He calls it, I mean, it's the one great equalizer we have as front
9:45
wheel drive enthusiasts is the rain.
9:48
I mean, obviously the Quattro guys and the Subarus have even more fun than
9:51
we do, but it is fun to beat up on those rear wheel drive guys when the
9:55
weather conditions are not optimal.
9:57
Well, and other than that, I think a lot of comes down to I knew that the guy
9:59
driving the car that I was chasing down on track was not a senior of a driver.
10:05
Like I said, it was one of those things he definitely did not want to take a
10:07
chance of taking his car off track.
10:09
So he was having more to decide a caution than I was.
10:12
My philosophy always has been, you know, I believe it was an F1 driver may have
10:19
said it the fact that the that really thin line between control and chaos when
10:23
you're driving and the best drivers know how to get to that point and maintain it
10:28
without going into the chaos side of it.
10:30
I've always tried no matter what I'm driving to go to that level to where
10:34
especially like when I was doing motocross and stuff, when I would hit
10:38
big jumps and stuff, and I've had my share of spills that wound up hurting
10:41
me pretty good afterwards, but when I took that chance and succeeded,
10:46
the thrill afterwards was amazing.
10:49
I guess you could say it's a thrill junkie type thing to where that
10:53
thrill, it's definitely worth.
10:56
Danger of wrecking.
10:58
So as long as you don't wind up with a, uh, concussion and blackout
11:02
and don't remember what happened.
11:03
So I've had that happen, which wasn't good.
11:05
So let's, let's focus maybe a little bit on like your current discipline, you
11:09
know, looking at the road racing, the DE, the time trials and that kind of stuff.
11:13
If you had to give some advice to somebody that was getting started, and I
11:16
know you've written some articles about this and if you should, if anybody's.
11:19
On our website right now, search for, I think like bargain hunting and Jedidiah.
11:25
There's a couple of keywords you can pull up there where you've written
11:27
articles about how you can do a lot of this on the cheap, but I don't
11:30
want to dive on the deep end of that.
11:31
I really am looking for maybe some advice you would give
11:34
somebody that's starting out.
11:36
Each different style of racing has its own aspects of starting out.
11:39
And, but for the purpose of what we're going with, we'll go with the
11:42
road course racing, since that's what, uh, you've managed to drag me
11:45
into over the past couple of years.
11:47
So to, I, I tell people all the time when it comes to the fact
11:51
of, you know, the club itself.
11:53
And when I'm, especially since I've stepped up, become a region chief.
11:57
And when I go out and give my sales pitch to people of what we are, who
12:00
we are and what we're about, I tell people all the time that originally.
12:05
The way I wound up in the club after you guys created it, I was like, my club
12:09
member number is eight, but I didn't make it out to a physical event track
12:13
side with everybody till like two and a half, three years into the club existing.
12:18
I made it to plenty of the barbecues and hangouts and stuff,
12:20
but I never made it to track.
12:24
I think part of it was the fact that at that time, I was kind of leery with
12:28
the road course aspect because I've seen after working on a couple of you
12:32
guys cars and stuff, it can get pricey.
12:34
Yeah, it's true.
12:36
The bigger the mistake, the more it costs.
12:38
Yeah.
12:40
So.
12:41
For me, it was always, I've always been that more, I would say I'm the cheap skate
12:46
on the scale of the way I spend things.
12:48
And other than that, I've always been to where instead of taking it somewhere, I'll
12:51
do it myself or learn how to do it myself so I don't have to pay somebody to do it.
12:55
When it came to Summer Bash, we made it out and hung out and
12:59
went out for a few ride alongs.
13:00
And at that point, I'd already went out and bought a car, took
13:04
that up for the road course.
13:07
But I was not able to have it prepped to take out.
13:12
It was a car that needed an engine swap done on it.
13:14
So I get out there, and we get to talking, and I'm observing how different
13:17
cars are set up, and realized the car that I bought was not the most ideal.
13:21
But it definitely fired the light inside with the desire to get out there.
13:26
And I think, I don't know if it was the fact that I just wanted
13:28
to be out there, or just the fact that I wanted to be competitive.
13:30
And especially when you and I have been karting a couple times,
13:33
you and I tend to have a very competitive, Street with each other.
13:37
Absolutely.
13:37
And I, I really enjoy that.
13:39
The one time in the car, we were putting down very similar times,
13:41
but we drive different lines.
13:43
And it's one of those things where you and I tend to have that brotherly,
13:49
you know, arguments with each other being like, I'm the one that's right.
13:53
Do it this way.
13:54
And it's funny that we both managed to do things differently
13:57
and achieve very similar outcomes.
13:59
So I tell people that there's more than one way to skin a horse as the old saying
14:02
is that is very true It's very true.
14:04
I mean, you know, we debate that a lot as coaches, uh, you know There's
14:08
there's quote unquote the line and then there's what works for your car Which
14:12
is very very different or your vehicle in this case to your point even about
14:16
carting Just to kind of throw some color on that I mean, I prefer to sit
14:20
as far back as I can get the Get the rear end of those things to rotate.
14:23
It reminds me of driving an old nine 11, right?
14:26
I want it to have lift throttle oversteer.
14:28
I want it to drift.
14:29
A lot of other guys are like, you know, how can I maximize my momentum and my exit
14:33
speed, much like they're driving a Miata.
14:35
I will say though, when we get out and we do our showdown events and
14:38
we get out with guys that really do know how to drive, it is incredible.
14:42
Just the, the competition, you're just waiting for somebody to mess up and
14:46
then they're not, it's, it's, it's.
14:48
Physically exhausting and also it's a mental game.
14:51
I always enjoy the back and forth that you and I have.
14:53
I mean we joke all the time.
14:54
It's like Batman and the Joker.
14:55
You got all the fancy gizmos though.
14:58
I think a lot of good stuff here and I think if people take the opportunity to
15:01
go to the website and look at some of the articles you've written and thank You
15:04
again for being part of our writing team and putting that stuff together I think
15:07
there's some good information out there Especially if you're looking to get in
15:09
and do this on the cheap, but let's talk and this is this is a loaded question But
15:14
let's talk about, you know, some specific builds that you have going on, something
15:18
that people might be interested in.
15:19
We all know, well, maybe they don't because they're just
15:22
listening for the first time.
15:23
You have a farm's worth of cars up at the mountain.
15:27
I know you're mostly a bow tie guy.
15:29
That's a Chevy GM.
15:31
You've kind of come to the dark side with the rest of the mark four mafia
15:34
and have invested in that as well.
15:35
But I know you've got some other special projects you're working on.
15:38
So how about sharing some of that?
15:39
My latest.
15:40
Project that's been on the back burner for probably about four
15:44
years to those that don't know.
15:46
I'm a Major square body Chevy enthusiast.
15:49
And I have a bit of a collection of them and I plan to eventually have one
15:52
from every year from 1980 up to 91.
15:55
And right now I've got most of them covered.
15:58
There's like, I think three years that I don't have yet.
16:02
That's just one part of the collection And I also have some outside of that
16:07
year range that i've bought for other purposes But those are the ones that
16:11
I really wanted and one of those that i'm building I'm been wanting to do a
16:16
diesel swap one with either Cummins, which is very common for the 12 valve or
16:21
even a 24 valve with P pump swap on it.
16:24
But I wanted to try to keep true to the GM aspect and i've been looking Rather
16:28
regularly for a duramax that you know was out of a wreck truck So I have a
16:33
91 square body crew cab, which was the last year they made them in that body
16:37
style And has a utility bed with little boxes on it that I plan to set up as a
16:42
track slash shop truck Nice be able to go do like road calls and stuff like
16:47
that for my Personal automotive stuff.
16:50
I've been very fortunate that one of our sponsors, I gotta say the name
16:53
out there for Chaz's, because they've, uh, come through for me time and time
16:57
again, and just by chance they found me a Duramax that I'm gonna be able
17:00
to take all of what I want out of it.
17:03
And so that'll be my tow rig slash, you know, really looking
17:06
forward to getting started on that here in the next couple months.
17:09
And, but then for track wise, I'll say my daily tracker, I guess you
17:13
would say for my mark for Volkswagen, which one of the biggest reasons
17:21
I got was because it was cheap.
17:23
Plenty of the guys in the club have it.
17:24
Parts are plentiful.
17:25
I've always been a hand me down kind of individual, so I'm all for hand me downs
17:29
and luckily the clubs treated me well and gave me plenty of hand me downs for parts.
17:33
And there's a lot of, Oh, we don't need this here.
17:35
You can have it.
17:36
You can use something, you know, I can repurpose it or something.
17:39
Every Volkswagen has a name.
17:40
It's just part of our culture.
17:42
What's yours called again?
17:43
Jedediah.
17:44
Aptly named.
17:47
Everybody, you know, was calling me Jedidiah due to the fact of my Amish
17:51
look, I guess you would say, and living up in the mountain, in the woods, so
17:57
aptly everybody called me Jedidiah when I would show up at events and I figured
18:00
why not have a Jeddah named Jeddah Diah.
18:04
Exactly.
18:04
It's perfect.
18:05
It's perfect.
18:05
Hence the name Ford.
18:07
But through one of our crew chiefs, Crutch, he had an E36 BMW that
18:13
he was building for the track and decided to go a different route.
18:16
And I worked out a deal and I picked that up.
18:18
And as much as I despise BMWs and don't care for them, I know i'm
18:22
hurting many feelings when I say that.
18:24
We're gonna have a whole episode on boat ownership and BMWs at a later date.
18:29
I've owned a few over the years when I was in the military and stuff like that
18:32
and I'll give BMW credit where it's due for the fact they're great at making
18:36
power on naturally aspirated engines.
18:38
Agreed.
18:39
I do not like their engineering aspects for the fact they make things
18:42
more difficult than they have too many times and price for parts and
18:47
specialty tools I find obnoxious.
18:50
The car itself in the U.
18:51
S.
18:52
is a status quo type thing when over in Europe it's the equivalent, you
18:56
know, a 3 Series here over there is equivalent, but well, not even that,
19:01
they're driving Mercedes Benz for cabs over there, you know, 3 Series is
19:05
the equivalent of a Ford Escort here.
19:06
Nobody wants to be seen in one.
19:08
It's one of those things where I don't care for him, but then, uh, worked out
19:11
the deal with Grudge for the E36, and I decided, you know what, because he already
19:14
pulled the engine and trans out of it for his other E36, I said, I decided I'm gonna
19:19
go ahead and, uh, go GM powertrain in it.
19:21
Initially, I'm just You're LS swapping that thing, right?
19:24
Actually, not initially.
19:26
And the reason why is the inline six motor that came out of it.
19:29
I wanted something in there, similar power, just so I could see how to perform
19:33
against other close to stock E36s.
19:35
So just by chance, I haven't had to spare laying around 4.
19:40
3 V6 GM engines.
19:43
350 with two cylinders missing off of them.
19:46
And I said, I've got them sitting there.
19:48
Why not do something with them?
19:49
4.
19:50
3 had a couple more horsepower than the inline six out of the car originally,
19:55
but the inline six pushed out a little bit more torque than the four three.
19:59
So comparably the average of the two was close to the same for power wise.
20:04
So I'm interested in seeing how it's going to do.
20:06
And I know the big thing is going to help me.
20:08
With on track is the fact that the gear ratio is going to help
20:12
me for top end speed with the gm Transmission compared to the bmw one.
20:16
I know that's something you and I tend to debate about is gear ratio stuff quite
20:19
often and the great thing is If I don't like the lack of power that it has I
20:24
can pull it out and because the engine mounts be in the same Spot as the ls or
20:28
v8 that'll go in its place Best sounding engine in your opinion Um, I would say,
20:39
you know, I love the, uh, motocross stuff.
20:43
I love the sound of a two-stroke over a four stroke any day of the week.
20:46
I would not have guessed that.
20:48
I figured you were gonna say, big block, 4 54 blown Chevy , the
20:52
roots blow the size of your house.
20:55
. I, I will say I do love the sound of any American muscle
20:58
engine, but at the same time.
21:01
I think, and I hate to admit this, I think one of the best sounding, and I'm
21:04
going with my lifespan of up till now, one of the best sounding engines, I will
21:09
say the newer Dodges during that first 20, 30 seconds of the fire up, they have
21:14
that like raspy crackle to the exhaust, which is amazing sounding, uh, during
21:19
the nineties, I think one of the best sounding, and I hate to admit it was the
21:22
Fox body Mustang, the H pipe they put in there, just put that, it just equalized
21:26
the back pressure on both sides of the exhaust and gave it a phenomenal sound.
21:30
Yeah.
21:30
I think a lot of us agree.
21:32
Uh, we're probably going to see this theme come up again.
21:34
I mean, Sam preaches all the goodness of the Fox body constantly,
21:38
but I think a lot of us agree.
21:39
The five Oh Mustang from back in those days is one of the
21:43
only things Ford got, right.
21:45
It is a phenomenal sounding engine.
21:46
And the funny thing is it wasn't so much the engine, it was the exhaust.
21:51
They were one of the first ones from the factory to put an H
21:53
pipe in and that H pipe just, it made night and day difference.
21:58
Because if you don't have that H pipe, you got It's, it's almost in stereo
22:02
sound where it's back and forth, you know, but with that age pipe, it was
22:05
just constant sound through both sides.
22:07
And of course me being, uh, you know, a bike guy as well.
22:10
And when it comes to bikes, you gotta love the sound of an old Harley.
22:14
You know, you can't beat that.
22:16
Sounded an old harley.
22:17
It's not cammed up, but it sure sounds like it when they're running Loping
22:21
away like they got 800 or something.
22:23
So did you just have to take like anti allergy medication?
22:27
Talking about fords for this long.
22:28
I mean, I know how you are with your bow ties See, here's the thing.
22:31
I tell people all the time.
22:32
I'm not a ford guy, but I come from a ford family my grandfather owned
22:37
internationals before fords And all the way up till i'd say probably about
22:42
eight nine years before his death.
22:44
He bought Nothing but Fords.
22:46
His entire, you know, life of me growing up, it was either an
22:50
international or a Ford that he owned.
22:52
I used to give him a hard time all the time for the fact that
22:54
somehow I went down the path of GM.
22:56
But I've said, I've always been a bit of a black sheep in my family, or my side.
23:01
I take that with pride because there's a lot of things I do differently,
23:04
but that makes me who I am.
23:05
And I went the GM route, which I'll explain here shortly, but so
23:09
with my grandfather's joke with him all the time, because he went out
23:13
and wound up picking up a Tahoe.
23:16
It was him and my grandmother went and bought an Explorer, but it
23:19
didn't have enough space in it.
23:20
So he went and upgraded it to a Tahoe.
23:22
I came home from the military and saw this GM sitting driving.
23:25
I'm like, Who's Tahoe?
23:26
And my grandpa was like, Oh, it's ours.
23:29
I was like, really?
23:29
I was like, see, watch stuff, a bowtie back, huh?
23:32
And of course he wouldn't, it was like pulling teeth, trying to get
23:34
him to admit that he liked it.
23:36
And he would not admit that he liked it.
23:39
And he always kept his Ford pickup truck.
23:42
So then they wound up eventually upgrading to a Suburban and I used
23:46
to give him a hard time all the time because his, his Ford pickup wound
23:49
up staying parked most of the time.
23:50
And they took the Suburban in its place and even got to where they
23:53
were coming with it because I have the same capabilities as his truck.
23:56
So I give him a hard time, but like, you know, I was like, I was like, you
23:59
like that, you like that Chevy there.
24:00
Don't you, Pat?
24:01
And he's like, I like my Ford and I'm like, then why does it
24:04
stay in park all the time, Pat?
24:05
You know, I blame you a hundred percent for the reason why
24:08
I bought an SS trailblazer.
24:10
And I will openly admit both my wife and I regret getting rid of that truck.
24:15
It was absolutely amazing.
24:17
I mean, it's so odd.
24:19
I mean, it's a box on wheels, like everything else I've ever driven in
24:21
my lifetime, but Oh God, that, that LS motor was absolutely incredible.
24:25
I'll actually want to take a step back because you, you mentioned
24:27
something really important and this is something special.
24:30
It's special to you, but it's also indicative of a lot of the members in
24:34
our group and you mentioned the military a couple of times and you did some
24:36
stints overseas and I don't want to lead you on here, but that's actually
24:40
where you get a lot of your mechanical background and your mechanic skills
24:44
is through your time in the military.
24:45
So you want to talk about that a little bit.
24:47
So I have to correct you that most of my mechanics, mechanical skills, honestly,
24:51
didn't come from the military, but my mechanical skills I had before going in
24:55
the military, but the military expanded my knowledge of different forms of,
25:01
I would say engines is working on an aircraft engine is way different than a.
25:07
Automotive engine and like when I was going through tech school learning and
25:11
everything, I was thinking, you know, because everybody says, you know, working
25:14
on aircraft, you got to be a bit of a rocket scientist, so to say, to work
25:17
on jet engines and stuff like that.
25:19
So everyone knows her background.
25:20
I worked on C one thirties and helicopters as an engine specialist.
25:24
And when I was going through tech school, because I knew automobiles so well, I
25:29
was trying to compare aircraft engines.
25:33
To a car engine and a car set up.
25:36
So it would make sense to me.
25:38
And unfortunately, that one instructor was not in any way knowledgeable for cars.
25:43
So he had no mechanical understanding of cars other than, you know, you drive it.
25:48
But gas.
25:50
So every time I would compare stuff.
25:52
So as an example, the T56 Allison engine on the one thirties.
25:57
Not to be confused with the 1056 Tremec transmission, because
26:00
it gets a little weird there, right, with all those acronyms.
26:03
That's why I threw Allison out there, because Allison, although Allison does
26:06
make transmissions for GM, they make the, uh, Allison's a big proprietor,
26:11
and I think they also teamed with Rolls Royce for a while making those engines.
26:15
The engine itself is a basically a jet engine that's mounted to a gearbox and
26:22
the gearbox has propeller mounted to it.
26:25
So I was trying to compare it to the fact of the engine transmission and
26:30
the prop being the back tire spinning.
26:32
And.
26:33
My instructor, he was like, no, it's nothing like that.
26:35
It's nothing like that because he's telling me it wasn't anything like that.
26:38
It took me a while to grasp how this concept was working.
26:41
And then finally, and I was struggling and text because I think
26:45
it was like six different blocks of training and I was barely squeaking
26:48
by him until like the fifth block.
26:51
And then they said that one piece of information that clicked.
26:54
For me in my mind, and I'm like, Oh, this is cake.
26:56
I was like, this is nothing.
26:57
I was like, the concept is so much more simplistic than that of
27:01
an engine, a car engine for me.
27:03
Because luckily there was less moving parts.
27:06
There was no cams and things like that.
27:08
You were working on a turbine, right?
27:10
It's a turbine engine that, you know, like I said, has a PTO shaft
27:13
basically goes out to a gearbox.
27:16
And it's funny to this day, I can still remember the
27:19
gearbox reduction ratio is 13.
27:21
5, four to one.
27:23
I remember that of all the random things that I should have remembered.
27:26
I don't know, but that always sticks out in my mind that, you know, the
27:30
gearbox on a C one thirties, at least a J's and stuff like that.
27:34
Prior to the new age models was 13.
27:37
5, four to one.
27:38
And I will say I was a dash 15 engine, not a dash seven engine.
27:41
So I'll throw that out there too.
27:42
We will go too far in the weeds.
27:44
It was interesting being able to travel the world the way I
27:46
did and do the things I did.
27:48
And I got to see a lot of various places that were.
27:52
Not exactly the most luxurious places in the world, but it allowed me to
27:57
appreciate what we have here in the U S.
27:59
And I wish people could understand how great we had
28:00
with all the chaos in the world.
28:02
We had a way better than many other countries ever dreamed to have.
28:05
And that's why America is the land of free and I'm a brave
28:09
and people dream to come here.
28:11
And we thank you for your service.
28:13
Knowing some of your backstory, you spent a lot of time in England, which gave you
28:17
an appreciation for the mini Coopers and a lot of Cooper minis rather, and a lot of
28:22
other vehicles over there, but you, and we will save this for a BMW tribute episode.
28:26
You did have a BMW daily.
28:28
I think it was an E30, if I remember correctly.
28:30
If I recall, you grew into the British cars by being over there.
28:34
You're kind of almost forced to in a way.
28:36
Yeah.
28:37
So because of the strict import rules and things like that, that I was told
28:43
about taking an American car overseas with you was difficult, getting it
28:46
through customs and things like that.
28:48
Now taking them on my car that I owned at that time, which I still
28:51
to this day own was my 83 Pontiac.
28:54
Grand Prix LJ being a V8 car, you know, and prior to me modifying
28:59
that from automatic to a manual, I was getting, I think, 14 miles a
29:03
gallon out of it, which for an old eighties model V8, that's not hateful.
29:08
But when you go to England and fuel prices are four to five times as much, then yeah,
29:13
that gets to be, you know, not so good.
29:15
And, or England in particular, being smaller and not having
29:18
many as many highways, it's more side roads, a lot more traffic.
29:22
We're not, you know, hitting those top end speeds as well to where you're
29:25
going to want to suck on more gas.
29:26
It would have been more like city driving mileage, which I think in
29:29
that car before the swap, the manual was like eight, nine miles a gallon.
29:34
But onto the fact of, as you mentioned, I've owned a couple
29:37
of the old school minis and to this day, I still own half a one.
29:43
Was there a Sawzall involved because you know how I like that.
29:46
I'm going to say it was more grinder than Sawzall, but yes,
29:49
there was a cutoff wheel involved.
29:52
When I first got over there, a lot of the American guys fell in love with
29:55
these little mini Coopers, whether it was Austin or Leland, you know,
29:59
whichever company owned the trade at that time, they'd made the basically same
30:04
car, but had their name on the badge.
30:06
By chance, one of my guys in my squadron had bought one and it was nice, had like a
30:11
little body kit on it and stuff like that.
30:13
It was upgraded to 12 inch wheels, you know, because they came in with 10s
30:16
originally and the largest you could fit was 13s, but you had to cut the wheel
30:21
wells and stuff like that to make 13s fit.
30:23
But so his was upgraded had the 12s on it, which were nice looking
30:26
wheels had a little body kit on it.
30:28
And it was just 998 engine, which was basically what they considered 1000 cc.
30:32
It's very close to what Matt has in his, uh, Lotus seven, I believe, because
30:37
he's got a series motor in there.
30:39
Yeah, basically the exact same engine, which English.
30:42
And to use that engine across many different spectrums of cars, you know,
30:46
the Austin metros were very key one that all the many guys would find
30:51
that were wrecked and pull the engine out of because it was the same engine
30:53
that came with 12 75, which was the biggest generation of that engine.
30:57
Most of the many that came with 12 75s.
31:00
Earlier years were like the Cooper cars, you know, so if you wanted
31:04
a Cooper car, it was 1, 275.
31:06
First one I wound up picking up, I want to say I paid like 800
31:09
for it, if I remember correctly.
31:11
This is a growing trend with you, I know, these sub thousand dollar cars.
31:16
So I'm seriously thinking about getting it.
31:18
Mike Finnegan from Finnegan's garage and also known from a road kill has the
31:22
shirt that says I flocked beaters and I may wind up buying one of those shirts.
31:26
The many's I picked the first one up for like 800 knowing that
31:30
the engine wasn't running great because the guy who owned it, lo and
31:34
behold, they're not very big cars.
31:36
He had four full sized men in it and they went out one night.
31:40
Thank you.
31:40
Ran a little bit low on coolant and wound up, you know, frying the head.
31:44
I think it overheated and.
31:46
Pride the rings a little bit.
31:47
So when I got it, it was running on like one and a half cylinders out of four.
31:50
So, I mean, it would move, but it was struggling.
31:53
You had to keep your foot on the gas.
31:54
So I took it.
31:55
And then by chance, I found a guy who had one with the 1275 engine in it.
32:00
The cancer had gotten to it so bad.
32:02
And when I purchased it off of them, the entire rear subframe section had rusted in
32:07
half to where driving it from the one side of base over to the hobby shop on base.
32:12
The car was actually riding on the tires in the wheel well, there was no
32:16
suspension holding it up, it was just tires in the wheel well, and I had a nice
32:19
cloud of smoke following me around the base as I was doing that because of the
32:22
friction from the tire and the wheel well.
32:24
So I got it there, used that one for parts, put the 1275 over
32:28
into the first one I bought.
32:30
And I had that one all the way up and was actually planning
32:33
to ship it back here to the U.
32:34
S.
32:34
But unfortunately, a co worker and friend of mine at that time
32:39
managed to not get it shipped over here to me after I came stateside.
32:42
So, not sure whatever happened to the car, but I do know in its final iteration of
32:47
me having it, it Clubman front end on it.
32:50
Many of the people that are familiar with the MW ones, the Clubman for the
32:55
old minis was a boxy front end compared to the round front end, and that's, I
33:00
think, I don't remember if I mentioned it in the um, article I wrote regarding
33:04
them, but my biggest bone to pick up BMW taking over the naming was the fact
33:08
they didn't keep true to the naming for the Clubman being the boxy front end.
33:13
You know, the countrymen being the wagon, you know, things like that.
33:16
They kind of mixed them up a little bit.
33:18
They put it into a cup shook it up and threw it out like Yahtzee and
33:21
was like, this is what we're doing.
33:22
Since you spent a bunch of time in England, Clarkson, Hammond, or May?
33:26
I think Clarkson's a little more of the obnoxious one for me.
33:28
I could see him and I butting heads a lot.
33:31
I think me and Hammond would probably be the ones to get along
33:35
the best, but then I think me and May would have the best conversations.
33:40
May was always more of the analytical thinking of the three.
33:45
And I think he and I would probably have the best conversations.
33:49
But I think, I think that's how we'll go with those three.
33:51
Nice.
33:52
If you had to pick a spectator sport, which would you say is your favorite?
33:56
Formula One, WRC, IndyCar, NASCAR, you know, Red Bull, Flutog, I mean, what, what
34:01
do you watch on TV when there's a race on?
34:03
So I hate to admit the fact that I don't watch much motor sports on TV.
34:08
Although I do have the country background, most people would think I'm
34:11
in a NASCAR, but NASCAR just bores me.
34:14
To no end and to all you NASCAR lovers out there, I apologize, but
34:18
I just can't cheer on turning left.
34:20
I need something that's more exciting, but I do love the roots where NASCAR
34:25
came from at the dirt track and I do enjoy going to dirt track races.
34:29
I was just at one this past weekend to support one of our club members
34:33
who was out there because he's getting back into dirt track driving and.
34:38
The environment at the dirt track is more, you know, down home, grassroots
34:43
type of environment compared to most race events you go to.
34:46
There is no dress code.
34:48
There is no, you know, you have to be quiet at this time.
34:51
Everybody's out there hooting, hollering, just having a great time.
34:54
And it's a BYOB event at most of them.
34:56
So you'll see plenty of coolers around.
34:59
And people cracking up a cold one and offer them to you when you come by.
35:02
So it's always nice to hang out with like minded individuals.
35:06
And I think a big reason that I like that.
35:08
And when I do watch stuff on TV, most Thomas motorcross, because I
35:13
think the reason why is maybe it's my short attention span, I guess.
35:17
NASCAR is too long of a race to watch the same thing for
35:21
me, motocross and dirt track.
35:23
They'll do heat races where, you know, it might only be 2025 laps.
35:27
So from the time that green flag drops to the checker flag,
35:30
it's a short period of time.
35:32
So those guys are out there pushing as hard as they can and then pushing
35:37
that much harder in shorter period of time, a lot of times will lead to the
35:42
possibility of more chaos happening.
35:44
So for example, this past weekend, there was a car come around.
35:48
Turn four and hit a rut and rolled.
35:50
Unfortunately, it happened before I got there.
35:51
Luckily, to my knowledge, the driver was fine, didn't get hurt because you
35:55
never want to see someone get hurt in other sports to see something like that.
35:59
And it's, you know, you're sitting there for probably 15, 20 minutes watching the
36:03
heat race, and then that builds on to, you know, your final event of the night.
36:08
A lot more action packed in a shorter period of time.
36:10
I think it keeps you drawn in a lot more.
36:13
My short attention span is because growing up at the drag strip
36:15
where, you know, if you can turn, you're not going fast enough.
36:19
You know, we're talking 10 seconds, you know, from start to finish.
36:22
A lot of them guys are hitting a hundred plus mile an hour in a matter
36:25
of, you know, a couple hundred feet.
36:27
It's, it's amazing seeing cars accelerate that quick.
36:30
Well, if that bird is any indication of the time that we have left
36:34
in our, our interview here, I do have one question left for you.
36:38
You know, you're getting the full mountain experience here, guys.
36:40
I mean, he, he is outdoors.
36:42
If you see the video version of this, you can see beautiful
36:44
background there he's got going on.
36:46
The final question, as you mentioned, you're member number
36:48
eight, so you're part of the OG.
36:50
You came on in the first year of the club.
36:52
You know, we're six years in now.
36:53
You've seen it grow.
36:54
You've seen it change.
36:55
You know, we went from that horrible Google groups, email thing to, you
36:59
know, everything that we have today.
37:01
I mean, it's been a huge evolution and you know, we don't
37:04
do any of that by ourselves.
37:05
And, and I appreciate all the work you've done as a writer, stepping
37:08
up as a region chief, you know, all those kinds of things, because
37:11
it helps move the ball forward.
37:13
And as Brad has said many times without members like you.
37:17
None of this would be possible.
37:18
Tell us a little bit about your experience with GTM.
37:20
Just kind of fill people in because you're, you've been here a long time
37:23
and what it means to you and where you think things are going, especially now
37:27
that you're, you're part of the board.
37:29
So I tell people all the time that as GTM as a whole, I originally became
37:34
a member of Guilty Threw Association type thing, you know, helping you work
37:38
on the toad at my house, at my old house before I bought where I'm at now,
37:42
that's gotten it there in the driveway.
37:43
And Welding and braces and things like that.
37:46
It just constantly evolved.
37:47
And because that was before the club even existed and any of the guys in
37:51
the club had issues with cars, you know, if it was something you thought
37:54
I'd know, I'd get the phone call, Hey, what do you know about this?
37:57
You have this tool, things like that.
37:58
And so I got brought in.
38:01
Not so much like the guy on track, but the guy behind the scenes turning the
38:04
wrenches and you guys where it could and I was always, I'm the original
38:09
pit crew of a GTM, I guess that being said, it was always really good
38:14
hanging out with those individuals that were the original members.
38:18
Whenever we'd have barbecues at your house or the picnics and things
38:21
like that, that I'd make it out to, it's always been a great group of
38:24
people to talk to being a veteran.
38:28
I tell people that at least for me, my experience as a veteran, you become
38:32
real close knit with people you're around and it's a feeling of family.
38:38
You know, even though they're not blood families of a strong feeling of family and
38:42
the level of trust with people and this club as a whole, I see has that very much.
38:47
And for me as a veteran and issues that I've had dealing with civilian
38:51
life, it's it's kind of that fallback for me that helps me out
38:55
in more ways than you guys realize.
38:57
Military people in general, I would say, have a different way of humor.
39:00
It's much darker than the average bear.
39:02
Bunch of trolls.
39:05
No, we only have one troll.
39:06
And I I don't fall for You get to claim him.
39:11
No, I go anti troll.
39:13
So What need be, we do well at trolling if we have to.
39:19
But we do like to throw those one liner jabs out there to people.
39:23
And that's the way we do it.
39:24
And, but it's, it's one of the things that where we will give someone a
39:28
hard time, but when it comes down to it, it's, it's that sibling rivalry
39:33
to where you'll pick on a sibling, but it's like, I can pick on, but you
39:38
can't, if you don't know him type thing.
39:39
And that's what this club is.
39:41
And the fact that this club bends over backwards to help fellow club members,
39:46
even guys that they've never met yet, guys will go out of their way to help them out.
39:50
And that is the great thing about our club is we are more of a family
39:54
than your normal show up at a.
39:56
Grocery store parking lot and look at how my wheels are offset.
39:59
And I got stance bro and nothing against those guys, but I'm not there
40:03
to show off the way my car sits.
40:06
Anybody in the club knows I'm not the least bit worried
40:08
about how my stuff looks.
40:09
Yeah.
40:09
I'm worried about how that engine under the hood runs and people know that
40:13
a lot of my stuff isn't pretty, but.
40:16
It'll run.
40:17
I've never been flashy one.
40:19
So I would say our club as a whole has grown a lot,
40:23
continually trying to grow it.
40:25
I know I'm not near the salesman that you are for the sales pitch of our club, and
40:29
you are definitely the original salesman.
40:31
As of currently, we don't charge a membership for our club.
40:34
Not many clubs are like that.
40:36
Our club, in my opinion, is well worth an annual fee because of the added benefits
40:40
of everybody in it and how we help each other out, and it's more family.
40:43
And I'm hoping as time grows and we grow, we'll be able to stay away
40:47
from membership fees, but you know, logistics get in the way and we're
40:51
probably going to have to eventually.
40:53
Guys that are in different regions, you know, if you're passing through
40:56
one of the other guys region, you'll reach out to them, especially now,
40:59
since we've moved to Slack away from the Google meetings, it's a lot easier to
41:04
where you can ping somebody on Slack.
41:07
It'll be like, Hey, I'm coming through your region.
41:09
You know, I got a flat.
41:10
Is anybody in the area around that could help me out or point me in the direction
41:13
of where I should go in this area?
41:15
And within a matter of seconds, someone would respond.
41:18
It truly is more of a family environment than your typical car club.
41:23
And I remember as a kid, car clubs, we were part of, you know, like the
41:27
Sunday, Sunday night drive in type.
41:29
Meetings and stuff.
41:30
And it was cool.
41:31
People go hang out and everything.
41:33
But the rest of the week, you know, you wouldn't see them guys.
41:35
You don't see him during the car club day.
41:38
Our club.
41:38
We do things outside of that.
41:39
We have family gatherings.
41:41
We have birthday parties and it's, you know, all kinds of stuff to where
41:45
we're always helping each other out.
41:47
We're always, you know, involved with each other's families.
41:49
You know, the wives and Children are friends for the wives that
41:53
aren't on track, but there are a handful that are and yeah.
41:56
I'm hoping we can get more of them on track and my daughter herself, I'm looking
41:59
to get her on track because when she turns 16, she wants to be in a car on
42:03
a road track, but luckily I'm hoping as of right now because she's 14 and the
42:08
drag strip allows them to run at 14.
42:10
So does the dirt track so.
42:12
I may wind up buying a dirt track car, who knows?
42:15
Oh boy, that's, that's, that's an episode for another day.
42:19
Everything you've said, it resonates with things that other people
42:22
have said about our organization.
42:23
And I appreciate the kind words.
42:25
And again, I can't thank you enough for spending all this time devoting, you
42:28
know, six years to, to this organization.
42:30
The sky really is the limit.
42:32
I, we have a lot of very imaginative, very creative people in the organization.
42:36
And as you said, it's not even just the helping out is they're always
42:39
willing to help with something.
42:41
And we come up with crazy ideas and I've said this before, we
42:43
either win it or we kill it.
42:45
But, but it's usually, you know, full send always forward.
42:49
We're always looking at what we can do next.
42:51
And we're not repeating things for the sake of repeating things, right?
42:54
When it comes to events and things like that, we do have our traditional events
42:56
and you've taken over summer bash now It's now part of the mountain region.
43:00
You guys have a decent number of people I don't remember off the top of my head But
43:03
I think you're in the teens if I because we redistricted some things But you have
43:07
a good number of members out in your area and your area is very large Is there
43:10
anything you want to talk about just?
43:11
specific about your region and some of the things you're
43:14
looking doing within your region.
43:16
So my region became a region, I would say forcefully on me with you, uh, you
43:22
know, nagging in my ear for years to step up and take a bigger role to help
43:25
grow the club and I've always been very hesitant and procrastinatic when it comes
43:31
to, you know, doing stuff like that.
43:33
So, finally, I agreed that I would step up, so I started writing some
43:37
articles, and then you guys surprised me with creating the Mountain Region
43:42
and putting me as the Region Chief of it, which I was And you're not alone.
43:45
You shared that with Matt Wood.
43:47
You have a co chief there.
43:49
Yes.
43:50
So, originally it was Brad and I, and then Brad decided to step onto another
43:55
role in the club, and Matt Graciously stepped up and especially for a young
43:59
member of the club to step up and take on that sort of responsibility was big
44:03
kudos to him for doing that because I've been involved in the club since day one.
44:06
And it took me quite a lot of be willing to do that.
44:09
So it was one of the things where you guys throwing me into that
44:13
position was a factor of all.
44:16
You know, I was amazed you guys trust me enough to step up to that
44:19
level and As you and I have spoke for years, the big thing for the mountain
44:23
region is we're more spread out.
44:25
We're not as densely compact as a lot of the DMV region is.
44:30
And because of that, a lot of what we have out here is not
44:33
so much road course racing.
44:35
And I know a lot of the guys that do drag racing, motocross, dirt track,
44:39
a lot of the founding members were all road course guys, you know, and
44:42
I've been trying to expand that out.
44:44
And we do have a handful of members that do other styles of riding and
44:48
off roading and things like that.
44:50
And There's clicks, so you would say, and there's the, you know, the road course
44:54
click, there's the drag race click, there's the dirt track click, and a lot
44:57
of them clicks don't ever intermingle.
44:59
My goal, at least within my region, is to get a lot of those guys that have
45:02
only ever went to the drag race, come out to the road course, check it out.
45:05
Those guys that have been at the road course, hey, come out to the drag
45:08
strip, you know, and I was hoping prior to all of the epidemic stuff
45:12
with COVID and everything, I was hoping to try to set up a track night at
45:16
the drag strip here for us to go to.
45:18
And I was just going to do it during a test on Tune Night so we didn't have to
45:21
rent the track out and it would cut down on cost for us and we'd go out there
45:24
and get a couple of passes in and just have fun going on a straight line and
45:27
see what the guys would think of it.
45:30
Absolutely.
45:30
And you and I have talked about this before, every discipline
45:35
of motorsport, whether it's drag racing, rally, road racing, boating,
45:39
airplanes, whatever, anything with a motor and a way to steer it, right?
45:43
They all bring something to the table and, you know, my first time.
45:47
More seriously off roading with you guys this weekend, instantly, some things
45:51
gelled and I was like, Oh, I can carry this over from other experience, but
45:53
then there were new things to learn too.
45:55
So there is, there's a blend.
45:57
And once you get the foundations down, you know, and that's why I joke anything
45:59
with a motor and a steering wheel, right.
46:01
Of some sort, that's the base principle of all of them.
46:03
But at the end of the day, they all bring their own uniqueness and
46:06
their own specialty and their own specialness, uh, to, to use that word.
46:10
There's a lot to be learned.
46:11
And that's why my personal ideology is I won't turn my nose down to.
46:16
a new discipline or even a discipline I've done before because at the
46:19
end of the day, I want to get that thrill that you talked about that
46:22
excitement from that discipline, right?
46:24
Going off road and going auto crossing, carting, whatever it is.
46:28
And so that's what makes it fun doing the same thing over and over again, you
46:32
know, going to summit point for 80 events.
46:34
Yeah, that just gets boring.
46:36
You know, it's good to mix things up.
46:38
And so I think, I think you're, you're hitting the nail right on the head
46:40
and you are bringing a lot of that in.
46:42
I know this year has been really tough to schedule with COVID.
46:45
Uh, we had some things planned in your region.
46:47
Uh, summer bash is, is delayed.
46:49
We're still doing that.
46:50
And there's, They become fall bash before it's over with.
46:54
Yeah.
46:54
Right, right next to animal house for the Northeast region,
46:57
the Barbara Frischey classic.
46:58
We had some other things.
46:59
Plan drag strip night, et cetera.
47:01
So I'm really glad you guys have really taken to the front of the
47:04
spear in this case, the start of 2020, when we had our planning meeting.
47:08
So we're going to do this.
47:08
We're going to do that and do the other thing.
47:10
And that's like, wow, that's really cool.
47:12
So I'm really looking forward to some good things coming out of your guys region.
47:15
And I hope everybody that's listening pays attention to the calendar.
47:19
And if you have questions about what's going on, reach out to Dan, reach out to
47:22
Matt Wood and say, Hey, how can I help?
47:24
How can I get involved?
47:25
You know, when are you doing this event?
47:26
Hey, I got a great idea.
47:28
Have you.
47:28
Thought about X, right?
47:29
We're very open to new things and we want to try new stuff.
47:32
Again, I can't thank you enough.
47:34
This has been a real pleasure.
47:35
And I think everybody at home is going to get to know you a lot better if they
47:38
have, if they don't know you already, because you're a big personality in
47:42
GTM at the end of the day, I think this was really good and I really appreciate
47:45
the time you spent with us today.
47:47
Oh, gladly.
47:48
And, um, I'm hoping everybody doesn't mind hearing me ramble on in the
47:51
future because I do enjoy talking about topics that interest me.
47:55
Yeah, we're going to definitely have you on in some other episodes.
47:58
So with that, I'm going to let you go and, uh, we'll reconvene soon.
48:03
Definitely.
48:04
All right, my friend.
48:05
Talk to you later.
48:10
If you like what you heard and want to learn more about GTM,
48:13
be sure to check us out at www.
48:15
gtmotorsports.
48:17
org.
48:17
You can also find us on Instagram at grandtouringmotorsports.
48:21
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can
48:24
call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
48:32
org.
48:32
We'd love to hear from you.
48:33
Hey, listeners, crew Chief Erick here.
48:35
Do you like what you've seen, heard, and read from GTM?
48:39
Great.
48:39
So do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it, but please remember, we're
48:43
fueled by volunteers and remain a no annual fee organization, but we still
48:47
need help to keep the momentum going.
48:49
So that we can continue to record, write, edit, and broadcast
48:52
all of your favorite content.
48:54
So be sure to visit www.
48:55
patreon.
48:56
com forward slash gtmotorsports or visit our website and click in the
49:01
top right corner on the support and donate to learn how you can help.