Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / What do you mean by Break/Fix? #fellowship

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What do you mean by Break/Fix? #fellowship · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
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but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
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want to share our stories with you.
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Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
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together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
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through our podcast, Brake Fix.
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What's going on, everybody?
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This is Brad, your host here, and I'm with crew chief Eric.
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We've got a couple other people on the line.
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Today's topic is about the origins of why we're called break fix before we
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get into why we're called break fix.
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We're going to explain we have to understand what fellowship means.
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And Merriam Webster's dictionary defines fellowship is a community of interest,
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activity, feeling or experience.
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A company of equals or friends.
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We are proud to say that GTM as a whole epitomizes this sentiment.
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And over the years, we have definitely banded together in times of need.
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So what that really means is, we've had a lot of things happen here at GTM.
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Mostly good things, but some bad.
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Cars breaking, because we all go out on track and everything.
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But we all get together as a community, as a circle of friends, to help, in
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a nutshell, while we're break fixed.
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But we're going to get into more detail with that now.
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So Eric, take us off.
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Yeah.
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So with us tonight is also, uh, our special guest region for chief mountain
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man, Dan, and he has a lot to say about fellowship and the way this
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group bands together and whatever.
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So I'm actually going to turn the torch over to him and let him, you know,
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share his sentiment and his feelings.
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And before Dan kicks in, he has a lot to say about a lot of things.
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He's got, he's just got a lot to say.
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And so now we'd like to hear what he has to say.
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Well, that being said, I am a plethora of useless knowledge.
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I've always been a firm believer, you know, talking is always a great thing.
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So that's how you get to know people and everything.
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And that's one of the great things about this club in the fellowship aspect is
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everybody gets together, they talk.
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And it's not just cars that we talk about.
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We talk about family things.
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We talk about our history, you know, you know, for myself being a veteran
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and the other guys in the club that are veterans and that tight knit
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feeling of that camaraderie, that military people, when we transition
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to civilian life, it's hard to find.
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And as I've spoke with Eric about previously, that camaradership
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and family feeling is a hard thing to find for me as a veteran.
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But this club has given me that sense of that again that I used to have when
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I was in the military with guys that I would go out on trips with and stuff.
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So that is a great thing.
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And unlike most clubs, we actually will go out of our way to help
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each other because some clubs, it's just like a status quo type thing.
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But our guys, if you're in need for something, whether
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it be just simple knowledge.
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Or you need a part or, you know, a toe, if you don't have it, you call someone
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in the club and they're quick to respond.
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And that's, that's one of the greatest things about this club.
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So let's take a trip down memory lane here.
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I'll, I'll read off some, some things that have transpired over the years that
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maybe some of the guys that are sitting in listening to the podcast will remember.
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At the event where I met the Crutchfields.
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And I had a major break failure in turn five at some point where
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I had a line rupture and I went straight off into the grass and, you
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know, things are catching fire, all sorts of nasty stuff is going on.
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And Mike, who I had just met not long before that, you know, came
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to my rescue, came to help out.
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And with our other good friend, Matthew got the car basically to a
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point where we could put it somewhere and I could work on it later.
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And, you know, I was in a position then where I wasn't really towing the car yet.
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I had this funky dolly and we weren't getting it up on there
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and it was an absolute disaster.
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And it was so nice of those guys to go out of their way to help me out.
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And, you know, especially Mike, we had one of our members in a Miata.
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Rob, he went off backwards at turn 10 at, uh, Watkins Glen and put
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the car, put his Miata on the wall.
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And I remember me and, and a bunch of other guys that were there and
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my wife, we all ran to Rob's rescue.
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And, and next thing you know, we're in the paddock with, you know, baseball
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bats and, and, and hammers and, and wrenches and stuff, trying to
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pull the Miata back straight again.
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And we got him in a position where he could, you know, drive that car
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back home because he was in an, he was in also in the position where
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he didn't have a trailer either.
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How many times have I broken axles or, or I broken axles or somebody
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else's broken an axle on my car trying to do something stupid on a
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skid pad, various things like that.
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I mean, I've, yeah, my car has been down several times at the track and
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Eric is always the first one among others to jump in and have it fixed.
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My, one of my favorite times was, it wasn't even a track event.
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It was an autocross.
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And we, we showed up to the autocross.
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I can't remember if you brought your car or not, but
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we were there at the autocross.
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We were, we're helping out with Corvette club.
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It was a Corvette club autocross.
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And I think I signed up for the morning sessions.
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I get out there for my first heat, break an axle right off the line.
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Car doesn't even move.
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I moved 10 feet and I break an axle.
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I warned you though, that start was uphill.
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And I said, man, this is going to be an axle breaker.
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And you just looked at me and were like, Oh, I'll take it easy.
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It'll be fine.
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Well, uh, about two hours later and we went to the store, got some lunch,
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got another axle, put it in the car.
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Uh, and then went to start off again and didn't we break another axle?
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I think we, we broke, broken at this time.
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It was a different axle.
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It was, it was the other side.
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And I happen to have a spare in the truck left over from the
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previous track event weekend.
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And, uh, what we did three axle changes in, I don't know, the course of an hour.
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I'll never forget Pat Rooney from the Corvette club comes up and
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they were, they were shocked.
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They were like, you guys are going at it again.
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And Pat Rooney turns to, you know, his Corvette club buddies, he goes.
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Yeah, don't worry about those track guys man.
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They're going to rebuild the engine between the next run I mean that was
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that's probably my most memorable is as far as something that actually
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Happened to me And then there's always the viking line, you know things where
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I had a brake failure at vir and I took the shortest line Uh between two points
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to get to oak tree I just cut the rest of the track, cut what, four turns
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out, just to go straight to Oak Tree?
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Yeah, that's, this is why, listeners, we have the Viking Off
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Road Adventurer Award, which, which Dan has also been a recipient of.
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Would you, would you care to talk about that particular situation?
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If I must, but before I get onto that subject, I will say Brad
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may have broken some axles, but I think Judd holds the highest
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number of axles broken in the club.
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That just seems to be something.
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It's a cloud that hangs over his head so badly.
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And I feel bad for him because he's another guy without a trailer.
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So hopefully this season that's going to be rectified.
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Uh, I'll be seeing him tomorrow and hopefully we'll
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resolve that issue for him.
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Speaking of Judd, and before you get into your story, I must say that Daniel.
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Is the epitome of fellowship.
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And I'm gonna explain why, because last year in October, it's cold as hell
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outside, Judd drove five hours, six hours from his house in Northern Virginia.
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All the way to Watkins Glen broke his axle on the first with
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the second day it was Saturday.
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Right?
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He broke his axle of a three day event of a three day event.
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He's ho humming around trying to figure out how to get the car home.
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Daniel, who was out there with his daughter.
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I don't even think he had his car with him.
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Daniel, did you have your car with you?
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No, I didn't have my car because it had, uh, unfortunately died and the engine
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was no good at that time at that point.
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Yeah.
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But you, you, you were up there, you had your truck with you and you
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said, you know what, Judd, I will go home, get a trailer, come back.
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Get your car and take it back home.
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So you did what 17 hours or 15 hours in one night?
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Oh, it felt that way, but luckily instead of having to come back to Maryland
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to get one from New York, uh, luckily one of the guys in the club, Harry.
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So, hey, he's like, just use mine and take him home and then
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you can bring my trailer back.
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So I can have more.
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So luckily we went ahead and uh, we did a retrieval because
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Judd didn't break down at track.
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He was actually on his way home about maybe 10 minutes away from
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track when the axle decided to die on him and he didn't have a spare.
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And prior to that, We called around, none of the parts stores had any
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in stock within a 45 minute radius.
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I called various different, uh, junkyards that I could get a hold of that were open.
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No one had any that were available.
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And then to, before Harry offered his trailer, we were actually
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calling around trying to find a rental trailer from U Haul.
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They didn't have any within like a two hour radius.
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And then I even went on to like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace trying to find
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car dollies and trailers that we could buy for cheap just to get them home.
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Didn't you, didn't you do something similar for Kerwin, uh, at Pit
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Race where you met him like halfway or something like that?
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That I did after he hit the wall, yes.
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No.
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But we're talking about trailer swapping here and it's funny you bring
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that up because I see Mike, you know, listening in the wings and here's
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a story I'm sure he'll never forget because I know it sat with him maybe
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a little sideways, but we were at V.
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I.
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R.
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and my student money shifted this day.
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TTRS that he had, you know, flames.
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And what a story that was, right?
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That was the day I learned that VIR has a volunteer fire department.
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Uh, it's the instructor's job to put out the fire in the vehicle.
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Uh, I will never forget that.
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But that being said, Brad had volunteered my trailer to take home
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some guy's BMW that had exploded.
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And then I don't remember how it all worked out and then it was like,
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Mike, you ended up taking home the TT and then there was all this big car
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shuffle and all sorts of craziness.
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Do you remember how that played out?
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I came back from being on track and another car was now on my
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trailer that I had to tow home.
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So we'll blame Chris for that.
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Oh, it gets better.
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And you and all had left, but put the car too far forward on my trailer.
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I forgot about that.
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So I'm driving home and my truck's trying to lose control.
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And so I actually had to pull over and use the ratchet straps to
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reposition the car on my trailer.
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So that could actually make it home.
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And then the part you guys probably didn't know about, I didn't want
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Chrissy driving home cause she was tired as hell, but she's driving the
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bug home and she had a little Dukes of Hazzard moment going over a median.
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Because we were turning on to back onto a dark road after filling up and you
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actually couldn't see the median And so she actually went through the grass
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and jumped off the curb behind me.
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So that was a that was an adventure So what you're telling me Mike is no good
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deed goes unturned Oh, yeah, that was a that was a bit of a punishment there And
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I think that was the year I had the BMW so somebody drove the car home because I
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had tags on it or whatever But you know again, we're going out of our way to
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make sure that Even people outside of our organization are safe and they get home.
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Okay.
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And, and, and whatever, we're always looking out for the little
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guy, as, as Brad said, at the beginning, God conversation.
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Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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We got to let Daniel tell his story.
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Now.
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I, I take them, took us down this tangent.
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Oh, that's true.
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But we gotta get, we gotta get back to Daniel and, and wrecking.
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NJMP with my wheels on his car.
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Tell us more about that, Daniel.
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He thought we were going to forget.
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Good point there, Brad.
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Let's go back to that.
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You're never going to let me live this up, are you, Brad?
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Nope.
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Okay, so we're up in NJMP.
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The backstory of the car is I actually bought it from a used car lot in D.
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C., picked it up for 1, 000, drug it to Jersey, unloaded it, Wound up
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having just street tires on it, and Brad wasn't at that event, so Eric
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was like, Hey, I got Brad's other wheels on the front of my trailer.
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Let's throw them on here.
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I'm like, okay, cool.
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So.
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Needs to say for the rest of that season, Brad's wheels and tires.
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Yes, Nankang season.
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Brad's wheels and tires were on my car.
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Hands down, surprisingly, those tires did well and they treated me great for the
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amount of time that I put them on track.
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And so they didn't.
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Well, or you back up behind a wall with Mike and his BMW on the same tires.
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Even after putting me in the wall, they still lasted for,
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I think, two more events.
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But the event in question, it was when the hurricane was coming up the
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coast and it was torrential rains.
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The water was running across different parts of the track and I would start
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on the inside of a line and wind up on the outside of the track because I'd
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hydroplane to the outside of the track.
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But I was compensating for that on those where I would normally hold the middle or
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outside of the track before going into it.
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As the water conditions, I was purposely shooting to the inside so I wouldn't
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go off track by the exit of that turn.
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My ego was getting the best of me and I was chasing down a Chevy SS, which on a
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dry day I would have never had a chance to even keep up with in a parking spot.
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I'm chasing him down, chasing him down, and one of our club members, Gordon, was
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the coach for the guy I'm chasing down.
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We're coming up right before you go under the bridge, and the water
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had made its way out on track farther than it had previous laps.
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And I went from straight to sideways in a matter of seconds and slid into
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the tire wall and did a 180 degree spin and stopped underneath the bridge.
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One of the first thoughts I had, because I had Brad's wheels on there, that were
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not easily accessible wheels that are, you know, a couple month wait period to get.
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First thought in my mind was, please Tell me the wheels are okay.
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That's how that happened.
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But, you know, that's not the only car that NJMP has collected over the years.
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I mean, I remember vividly when Shane with his green 911, you know, he had a tragic
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transmission failure and it whipped that car around and put him off backwards and
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basically crushed the rear end of it.
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And, you know, we had to figure out how to get.
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him home and that kind of stuff.
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And, you know, he spent the better part of the rest of the season, you know,
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trying to get that car back in shape and, you know, it's, it's all been
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taken care of, but, you know, that was another instance where it's like, Hey,
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you know, one of our guys is in trouble also reminds me of, you know, Sam at
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Lime Rock where he swiped left turn and on tires with 10 pounds of air in them.
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And, you know, we spent the day trying to get him straightened
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out and stuff like that.
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But, you know, I don't know those moments, they're scary, right?
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And I feel for the guys on our team and in our group and you
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see something like that happen.
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And for me, I end up dropping everything and I'm, you know, full
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bore running across the paddock.
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You know, how, how can I get in there?
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And I'm usually not the only one.
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I got guys right behind me doing the same thing and, and they're
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scary, but you know, we, we band together and we pull out of it.
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And.
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But I'll leave it there.
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But Dan, you know, that's not the first time we've had to help you with a Jetta.
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If I recall, you hit the back of a landscape truck and we had to rebuild
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one of your Jettas in a weekend while somebody was asleep on the couch.
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I don't recollect the events from that question.
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No, so speaking of the Jetta you're speaking of it, it was actually a
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Durango that I caught the back end of.
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Oh, the story changes now years later.
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No, it was a Durango originally, but, uh, that was actually your old track car TDI.
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I'd wound up, uh, getting that off of you and we converted it back to
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road use and became my daily driver.
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You see people?
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I told you in the last episode that that TDI makes a comeback.
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I was heading home on the GW Parkway and the guys out doing the landscaping,
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one of them was on a zero turn and shot out into the passing lane and
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multiple cars in front of me jammed their brakes on and I did as well.
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and wound up tagging the rear end of the Durango and it's sitting higher.
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It crumpled up the hood, buckled the, uh, passenger fender back and everything.
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So I got out and didn't realize until later someone had actually tagged
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the back corner of the car as well.
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So I may have been pushed a little bit into the Durango.
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I actually drove that car home with it all mangled like that.
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Chose to fix it myself instead of taking it to a shop because they Determined
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it was gonna be totaled through them.
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So I bought it back, rebuilt it, and put it back on the road.
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But Brad and Eric came up and graciously decided to help me.
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And against my wishes, Eric superseded, uh, and out ruled my decision.
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It's called a veto there, my friend.
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A veto.
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Yeah.
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Well, as you know, for the sake of expediency, because the other option was
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a Harlequin Jetta and you weren't too, you weren't a big fan of that, but it would
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have been two panels, different color.
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But that being said, I just, I, you know, with Mike here with us,
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it reminded me of another story.
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Didn't you end up like taking, doing something with Jasper?
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He blew up his, his Subaru or something like that.
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Yeah, he, um.
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Well, he's blown up his Subaru like three times.
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At least one of those times I towed him back to Rockville from
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Summit Point and then came back to the track for the next day.
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Wasn't that after he had just got the motor fixed?
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It was like, pop, boom, done?
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Uh, yeah, but I think that time it was because someone from the
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shop had stolen his new parts and put used parts on his new motor.
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Dirty.
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So he got a replacement motor for that for free.
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But that's, that's not the only time we've done engine swaps.
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I mean, you guys came to Kenny's rescue with that, uh, god awful fusion
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engine he tried to put in the Miata.
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How did that go down?
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Well, we learned that you need to do a Miata engine swap on a lift because
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the engine must come out the bottom.
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It gives birth.
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It doesn't upchuck.
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It took us 12 hours to get the motor out the top of a Miata, I think,
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because we kept also just missing one wire and then one more wire and then
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eventually it was just the ground wire was still holding the motor in.
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Luckily, Eric wasn't involved because a Sawzall would have gotten
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it out of the top much quicker.
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You mean like when we took off the front of a Bronco, we just, we
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couldn't figure out how to get the front end off, so we just cut it off.
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Dude, that was one of my That was the best day of my life.
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Do you know how much enjoyment I get cutting a car apart with a sawzall?
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Like, it's just a guilty pleasure.
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It's, I don't know.
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That was like unleashing a demon right there.
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But that was, that was another event too.
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Like, you know, Matt called us up and he goes, I need help, right?
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And we all know.
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Well, I guess the listeners don't know, but you know, Matt's not in
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the greatest of health, health these days, and he does need a lot more
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help and, and things like that.
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But when he bought that Bronco, I mean, what he bought two of them,
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much like his two, two Land Rovers making one good one out of those.
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But you know, there was like, what, 10 or 12 of us over there trying to extract.
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That engine and drive train, because that was going into a Fox body Mustang that
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had just suffered a catastrophic failure.
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So there's a lot of that paying it forward and there are good
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stories and there are a lot of fun.
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And sometimes, I mean, sign me up.
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If it's something new to work on, I'm, I'm interested in
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learning to turn wrenches on it.
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Frustration for that part is I think I was the only guy there that
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was familiar with domestic cars.
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So I turned into the connoisseur of knowing what should be
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taken out in what order.
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And the fact that the undercarriage that was as rusted as it was, I think I
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wound up wearing more rust out of there than the truck had on to begin with.
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Rule number one is to make sure your Sawzall is charged.
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So you, you brought up the, uh, behind the wall incident at Watkins Glen.
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One of my favorites.
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I do, I do have to defend myself there.
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I got grip!
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I got grip!
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Well, one, you almost didn't make it to that weekend.
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It's true.
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Because we had to fix your E36 before we let it hit the road.
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And then we got up to Watkins Glen and uh, it was the first track event
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since they had repaved the track.
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So they were being very specific.
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If you are dropping fluids, you must get off the track or you're
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going to get hit with a big fine.
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Yada, yada, yada.
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So we're out on track and we're going down the front stretch and turn into
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turn one and it's wet and a giant plume of smokes coming out the back of my car.
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And all I'm thinking about is, Oh my God, what kind of bill am
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I going to get from Watkins Glen?
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And so there's car, there's traffic behind me and outside of turn one,
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Watkins Glen is a massive paved area.
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And you know, if you're watching a NASCAR race, they're all over it.
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They're way out there.
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I took the car all the way out there, but there's not a.
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really safe spot to stop, except there's one spot where
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you can back behind the wall.
20:11
So I hop over the curb, pull out wide, and then, yeah, without saying anything to
20:16
me, I'm like, what the hell are we doing?
20:19
I pop out.
20:20
We're going for a snuggle.
20:24
I slam on the brakes, throw it in reverse and back behind the wall.
20:27
And Eric's like.
20:28
What the hell is going on?
20:31
Uh, fortunately the flagger corner worker said the same thing.
20:34
Cause he's looking at us and I'm looking at him and everybody's
20:36
confused except for you.
20:40
So eventually the, the session ends, they let us we're safe.
20:43
So they let us sit there the entire session and right across from
20:47
us across the track was a fence.
20:50
So a tow truck came through the fence, came over to us and
20:53
they're like, so what's going on?
20:54
Like, I thought I was dropping fluid.
20:57
So I wanted to get off the track and they actually said,
20:58
okay, thank you for doing that.
21:00
They look down at the car, you're like, Oh, you're fine.
21:02
Just drive back up this way.
21:04
So we hit the car into the paddock, I look underneath, and
21:06
the muffler is coated in grease.
21:08
And I'm trying to figure out where the hell this came from, and it was
21:10
actually the, the seal on the output shaft of the differential was failing.
21:15
And so every time the suspension compressed, it pulled the axle out just
21:19
a little bit, and was spraying hot, uh, differential grease right on the muffler.
21:24
And so that was what those giant plumes of smoke were for.
21:26
And that might have, so the solution, the solution to that
21:28
was to cut the muffler off, right?
21:29
I think that's where we went.
21:30
No . Nah, I just parked it.
21:32
And now that might've contributed to the lack of grip in turn seven,
21:36
uh, in the wet on the ANGs as well.
21:38
Just a little bit.
21:39
Yeah.
21:40
Hey, you didn't hit the wall.
21:41
You were, you were up close to the wall, but you, you were ex you were extremely
21:44
confident, you know, no worries there.
21:48
But, uh, you know, and that goes along with the.
21:50
You know, and everything that we're talking about, there's this trust factor,
21:52
right, that it's kind of unspoken.
21:55
We've all grown together in this organization, in this club, and
21:59
there's, there's some unsaid things.
22:01
And it just, you just know that, for lack of a better way to put
22:05
it, when the shit hits the fan.
22:07
You've got people behind you, right?
22:08
And I go to those events and I joke, you know, today's a good day to die, you
22:12
know, the whole Klingon battle cry, but I know there's a team of people behind me.
22:16
There's a team of people behind all of us.
22:18
And it's happened to countless people.
22:20
I mean, another example that comes to mind.
22:23
Hashtag I used to track, uh, Doug and his Mitsubishi when he, when he went off in
22:28
the rain and, you know, I know, I know it rattled him and everything like that.
22:31
He doesn't like to admit it.
22:32
I'm going to admit it for him.
22:33
It's okay.
22:34
But you know, they're all, you know, as soon as he came in, there were six
22:37
or eight of us on top of that car, making sure that a, he was okay first.
22:41
And then that, you know, it didn't spoil his weekend.
22:43
Despite the fact that it started to snow and we got that car back in ship shape.
22:48
So he could get out there and, you know, enjoy himself and do stuff like that.
22:52
I was just going to say, I just think as a club, maybe Watkins
22:55
Glen is best not to go to.
22:58
We had seems to collect some cars, Gordo with, uh, his massive coolant spill.
23:04
There was me when my brake line ruptured in a breaking zone on the bug.
23:07
It's true.
23:07
I forgot about that.
23:08
Uh, that was, that was a fun day.
23:10
This is why I carry spare brake lines now, just in case.
23:13
Uh, God, who else?
23:16
Uh, quite the list of, of people who have had less than stellar ends
23:20
to their weekend at Watkins Glen.
23:21
It's true.
23:22
And that's not to detract anybody from going, because believe me, Watkins
23:25
Glen is an experience and a half.
23:26
And we're going to talk about that in another episode.
23:29
It's definitely worth going.
23:30
Just respect it.
23:31
That's, that's what I'm going to, that's what I'm saying.
23:33
Come prepared.
23:34
You're far enough away that you need to bring, spare everything.
23:36
The blue shrubbery is not forgiving a hundred percent.
23:41
I mean, let's talk about cursed cars, right?
23:44
I mean, could the wades have any worse luck with that mini Cooper, right?
23:49
We've seen fire, we've seen flood, we've seen Hornets.
23:53
I mean, soon he's going to have to sacrifice a lamb or something
23:57
to get the curse off of that car.
23:59
But I mean, I'll never forget when he came in at the time we
24:02
were competing in the time trial.
24:04
And I think Mike, you were there too.
24:05
And he comes in and we're like.
24:07
Steve, the car's on fire.
24:08
He said, well, what do you mean?
24:09
And that was the second time that I've been on fire because I was in
24:12
it coaching John at Watkins Glen and there's this fire pouring out
24:16
from underneath of it when the, when the power steering caught on fire.
24:19
And that's a known defect of the car.
24:20
It's not a fault of the track, but the second time when it Chernobyl, the
24:23
engine, I mean, how many of us were there ready prepared with fire extinguishers,
24:27
making sure a, he got the hell out of it.
24:29
Cause he didn't realize he was on the flames were coming out of the
24:32
wheel wells, but you know, Holy cow.
24:34
Well, the, the flood was, uh, the overnight flood was impressive too.
24:38
That was, that was a sad thing to watch is the car actually was floating at
24:42
about a 45 degree angle because the ass end had just floated up in the water and
24:47
it turned on all the lights on the car.
24:50
It was, uh, it was a sad thing to watch.
24:52
Well, we were talking about, you know, on track with fluid
24:55
spills and things like that.
24:56
Uh, Eric decided to go for a ride along with me up at the summit and it was
25:03
one or two events after when I'd Put the car in the wall in Jersey and I was
25:08
back out on track and running the main kings and uh, so we're coming around
25:14
one of the turns and we start to go in and of course we had the chatterbox on.
25:18
So Eric and I could talk and I'm like, Eric, I was like, I got no steering.
25:22
He's like, what do you mean?
25:23
You got no steering.
25:23
I'm like, I have no steering because like the apparently the from the impact at
25:29
jersey, I didn't realize it had shifted the power steering line up against the
25:32
fan and it was slowly cutting through the through the belt for the power steering
25:37
and I'm trying to go into the turn.
25:39
The steering got extremely heavy where I could barely turn the tire and so we
25:43
managed to get through that turn without going off track and I slowed down and
25:46
we limped our way off track and that was another things to Comment on the
25:50
fellowship get back in the paddocks and Matt was there visiting and he's like,
25:55
well, let me ask around the pack So he starts asking around guys that he knew
25:58
might have had parts No one had any and He was willing to he even called guys
26:03
that he knew around the area because when I'd called the parts stores locally
26:06
none of them Had it in stock And so he called up one of his friends that
26:10
just happened to be a Volkswagen guy.
26:12
He's like, let me check and I'll get back to you.
26:14
And I might have one just laying around.
26:15
It's used.
26:16
You can throw it on the car to get back on track.
26:18
No, but that's the thing, you know, calling people that aren't even
26:21
there, that aren't even part of the club and using our resources.
26:24
We do that to help each other out.
26:26
And just to piggyback on something you guys will hear, uh, later on in another
26:32
episode about what car should you buy?
26:34
I think a good procedure when picking a track car is to call the local parts
26:38
stores near the track and find out if they have parts for any of these cars.
26:42
You're thinking about getting, if you're looking at getting a C6 Corvette, they
26:45
may have a couple of parts for that.
26:47
If you're looking at tracking a triumph.
26:50
Yeah, good luck.
26:50
Bring the brand entire spare car with you because they're
26:53
not going to have that stuff.
26:54
Yeah, have front wheel drive will travel with axles.
26:57
I mean, that's, that's the rule.
26:59
That's why we all have pickup trucks and vans.
27:01
So we can bring an entire spare car with us.
27:04
Right?
27:04
And to that effect, right?
27:05
That's the fixed side of the break fix here that we've been talking about.
27:08
And, you know, we have a thing inside of GTM called the tool treasury.
27:12
And a lot of us especially on this call, we have specialty tools, things that
27:16
we've invested in that nobody else has.
27:18
And they're for specific jobs.
27:19
I know Mike has a lot of BMW stuff and Dan has a ton of things for
27:23
the domestics and I got all the Schwab and tools you can think of.
27:25
But that being said, you know, they're open to borrow whenever you need it.
27:29
Just reach out to the people that have, and we keep a catalog of that
27:31
stuff to say, Hey, you know, these guys have these parts that way.
27:34
Don't waste your time.
27:35
Don't waste your money.
27:36
Oh, by the way, that other part, that other tool doesn't work.
27:38
Um, you know, but if you need to give me a buzz and we'll help each other out.
27:41
But that also led us into our DIY days where we get together at the beginning
27:46
of the year to work on various cars, to make sure that everybody's ready for the
27:51
season, you know, I need to work on this.
27:53
It inevitably ends in somebody getting an engine pulled, but it's usually me.
27:57
But, you know, those are great events and they're learning events too.
28:00
And that's also part of something we talked about in the first episode is.
28:03
Is this education that we try to do and how we try to give back and we're always
28:07
mentoring the guys in the club, especially those that aren't wrench turners.
28:11
And there are, we have a lot of professional wrench turners in our group
28:15
and it's, it's good to pass that along.
28:17
And if I can just throw in one more story before we wrap this up
28:20
here, speaking about some of those guys that are not wrench turners,
28:24
we've had this one member, Andrew.
28:26
Who has at the time had a C6 Corvette.
28:29
He was very green.
28:30
This is probably what his third event or something like that coming up
28:33
to the track in New Jersey and JMP.
28:36
He didn't have anything with him.
28:37
He drove the car up there.
28:38
He maybe brought a pair of spare shoes or something in his, uh, you know, 50
28:44
pound dumbbells because he's a gym bro.
28:46
He had brake failure.
28:47
He went off in turn one because he put the pedal to the floor, had no brakes.
28:51
And we got the car back in the paddock and we're looking at the car and he had.
28:55
Nothing.
28:55
I mean, his pads were down to the backing plate.
28:58
So we rallied to help this guy who had no tools, no real experience,
29:04
not a wrench Turner himself.
29:06
We got it, got his car towed to somebody else's house or one of our crew chiefs.
29:09
Harry towed his car, did the brake job for him, brought the car back to him.
29:13
I believe.
29:14
I think, uh, Andrew actually had Harry's spare car or something and drove it or
29:19
whatever, but anyway, he got his car back.
29:20
Fast forward to a couple more events a year forward, now Andrew's doing
29:24
his own brake jobs, is doing his own maintenance and stuff on his
29:28
motorcycles and various other cars.
29:30
And all of that is stuff that he learned, not just from club members,
29:34
uh, helping him and showing him, but also just, just, he got the itch.
29:38
He got the itch that he wanted to be able to do this stuff himself.
29:40
And I think the club helped propel him into that mindset and that mode.
29:45
That particular story.
29:46
And it brought to mind one story that we've been avoiding
29:48
here, which I think all of us.
29:51
We're involved in, and that was summer bash for that.
29:54
We had a, we have a couple that was sharing a car and, um, one
29:58
driver puts the car in the wall and crunches up the left side of the car.
30:04
And they're like, Oh my God, now what do we do?
30:06
And this was well before John and Aaron, you know, we're, we're.
30:09
We're towing tires around and spare parts and all this kind of thing.
30:11
And I know John's an overly prepared guy when it comes now to going to
30:14
these track events, but he's like, you know, this is his daily driver.
30:17
Like, what do I do with the Mustang now?
30:20
And we had people going out of their way.
30:22
We had that car apart, like the suspension completely drawn down in about an hour.
30:27
And then we had a couple of people go out of their way.
30:30
And this is a big shout out to Matt.
30:32
And you guys remember this feature of what six or seven
30:34
hours round trip to go pick up.
30:36
Parts for the Mustang and we got it rebuilt by the end of the night and John
30:40
and Aaron were back on track the next day.
30:42
I mean, granted the rest of it was taken care of because, you know, John had track
30:46
insurance and he had the wherewithal and the foresight to do that, which we'll
30:49
go into in another, in another episode.
30:52
Right.
30:52
And Brad's written articles about this, you know, telling their story and how it
30:55
turned out, but, you know, that was epic.
30:58
And there were so many of us there because that, you know, summer
31:00
bash is our big family reunion.
31:02
And to see that happen.
31:03
And I was like, Oh my God, it's one of ours.
31:05
And we had a couple of scares like that before, because, you know, Harry
31:07
has earned the title, sir spins a lot.
31:10
And, you know, he went off at Shenandoah and luckily he, he just
31:14
barely missed it, but the side of the car was caked in mud and you'll
31:17
see the pictures on the website.
31:18
But, you know, Like I had mentioned earlier, there's those
31:20
scares out there and you really start to feel for everybody.
31:23
But when it happens, much to, you know, Dan's point, it's like military precision.
31:29
We all go into action and everybody knows their role.
31:33
All of a sudden it just happens.
31:34
And I know Doug said that about the situation with his Mitsubishi.
31:37
He's like, one minute I'm just getting out of the car.
31:41
Next thing I know it's up in the air and the wheels are off
31:43
and people are doing stuff.
31:44
And he goes, I didn't even ask him to do anything.
31:46
And it's just happening right in front of them.
31:48
You know, when we are all together, you know, as a larger group,
31:50
we come to each other's rescue, it's the premise of break fix.
31:53
I mean, it's not the, the whole theme of what we talk about here.
31:56
And obviously we don't want to portray racing as a big crash fest.
32:00
I mean, things happen.
32:01
They're mechanical, the race cars, and even the track prepared cars.
32:05
Cause there are very different full on race cars versus track prepared cars.
32:08
They're under such extreme stresses that you would never encounter the engineering
32:12
failures that we encounter on the street.
32:15
So I don't want to dissuade anybody from trying it, but there's
32:18
life lessons to be learned here.
32:20
The harder you push, like in any sport, if you were a runner, a marathon
32:24
runner, if you're a football player, there's always the risk of injury.
32:27
There's always the risk of something going wrong.
32:29
The harder you push and the more you reach for that trophy or reach for that goal.
32:33
So, you know, that's, it's very sage advice at the end of the day.
32:36
So I think in closing, uh, I think we've given enough stories to give you all
32:41
an idea of what we mean by fellowship, obviously what we mean by break and fix.
32:46
All of us have broken things at some time and we've all pitched
32:49
in to fix things at another time.
32:51
That's where we are.
32:51
That's what we mean.
32:52
And we're going to continue to do that.
32:54
And as long as the club's a thing.
32:56
Exactly.
32:57
I was going to say, as a whole, we are basically a racing pit crew.
33:01
Each of us race, but we're pit crews for each other.
33:04
That's very true.
33:05
That's actually, that's a really good analogy.
33:06
We do operate like one.
33:08
And I mean, there's many of us that communicate without ever saying a word.
33:11
I mean, you and I look at it and just go.
33:13
Here we go Well eric you and i've mastered doing a mark four engine
33:18
swap in what was it like two and a half hours That is correct.
33:21
I can change a mark four axle in less than 20 minutes.
33:24
I mean that is a that is a record right there Oh, I mean along
33:29
those mark four motors, uh, how quick can we do an e36 motor now?
33:33
Because how many times have I done those?
33:34
Well, the downside is Dan's going to put a GM in its place.
33:37
So you're, you're only going to get the extraction part of that equation.
33:41
Oh, it's already extracted.
33:43
Oh, even better.
33:45
No, so I, I think that's it.
33:46
I think we're ready to wrap up.
33:47
And, uh, we look forward to bringing you more content in future episodes.
33:51
All right.
33:52
On that note, peace.
33:53
Later.
33:58
What a great episode.
33:59
We heard all about fellowship and supporting other people, and now it's
34:03
our turn to thank all of our supporters.
34:05
We wouldn't be able to do any of the things that we do at
34:08
GTM without the support of our members, our fans, and our family.
34:12
So here's our first set of shoutouts.
34:14
Steve Wade, Max and Michael Sonderby, Judd Gravel, Kerwin
34:19
Webb, Mike and Chrissy Crutchfield.
34:21
As well as Adrian Novak and Jessica Moner Stelly.
34:24
Without all of you, none of this would be possible.
34:27
If you want to learn more about how you can support GTM, please be sure
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You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports.
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35:01
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35:03
Hey, listeners, crew Chief Erik here.
35:05
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