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The Late Model Mafia (Mike Gallagher & Koby Timms) · 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.
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  Late model racing is at the epicenter of American motorsports.
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  Whether on dirt or asphalt, late model drivers, their crew,
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  and their fans are family.
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  And it's the essence of family that makes the world of late model racing
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  one of the greatest of all time.
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  Late model mafia.
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  And their founders, Mike Gallagher and Koby Thames, join us tonight to share
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  their experiences and help you understand the gathering place they've created
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  for all the late model enthusiasts to interact, learn, and simply share their
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  stories, good times with one another.
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  That's right, folks.
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  And joining me tonight is the one, the only Mountain Man band
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  to talk about late models with the boys from Late Model Mafia.
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  So let's first start off by defining and describing to our audience.
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  Exactly is a late model.
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  Are those specifically GM products or does that label apply to all domestic
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  brands or is it a period of time?
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  What the heck is it?
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  Late models, whether they're on dirt or they're on asphalt, whether it's
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  oval or road course racing, they're, they're really in one of a kind.
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  They are purpose built from the chassis up from nose to the tail.
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  Everything's a tube frame.
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  There's nothing really that even resembles what a normal street car would look like.
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  And Kobe, if I'm wrong, they're one step away from an Arca car or a NASCAR
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  or anything that you would see on TV.
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  Nothing's production.
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  It's all custom built handmade chassis.
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  They call them stock cars, but they're so far from stock.
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  It's the best way to put it.
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  There's nothing stock about it.
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  Does it go back to a certain peer starting with the muscle cars forward,
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  or is it just the way they're built?
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  Yeah, it really doesn't.
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  It's all about chassis, right?
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  So like on my car, I have a Townsend chassis and Kobe's car has a Hampty
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  chassis and their purpose built from these two companies and our cars
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  were designed to run asphalt oval.
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  We took them and turn them into road course cars.
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  Dirt cars that I'm, I'm a little less familiar with, but we have some people,
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  you know, on the team that, that run dirt cars, same thing they have
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  purpose built chassis all the way up the bodies that you see on these cars.
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  You know, just take NASCAR, for example, you know, you're looking at the cars.
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  It looks like a Camaro, but there's nothing Camaro about it.
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  My car is actually a body of a Monte Carlo.
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  But it's literally just sheet metal and fiberglass.
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  Uh, it comes off in about 20 minutes door costs about 30 bucks.
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  There are no doors.
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  Actually, you just climb through the window, like a, like a
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  regular stock car and off you go.
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  It depends on what series you're on.
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  Really?
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  I mean, you can talk about dirt guys or run 602 604s or the super lates
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  where they can pretty much run, run with your broom kind of thing.
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  For Coby and I, we typically stay LS based motors, Chevy's, which adds to
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  the conundrum of Coby's car, right?
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  The 13, which is a Dodge challenger body, Hamke chassis, and an LS based motor.
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  So there you have it.
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  There's no telling what's coming around the track until you actually
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  get to the pits, you get to see, you know, under the hood and see
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  what the guy's actually running.
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  So it's kind of wild.
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  So you mentioned two chassis builders in your description of them.
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  Are there other chassis builders out there?
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  There's probably in the southeast along as far as like, you know, asphalt
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  chassis in the Carolinas is where they're really big in production.
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  There's probably 25 plus companies out there right now that's building cars.
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  As far as dirt cars, there's tons.
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  I mean, it's everybody's got their own ideas.
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  Everybody's got their own concept.
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  And then there's a lot of companies that'll take a modern name brand chassis
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  and they'll find something they like about it and they'll tweak it and kind
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  of copy it and produce their own chassis.
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  So there's not like a one generic company everybody uses.
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  If there's 25 cars in the field, there may be 25 different chassis.
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  But only three really engine types, right?
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  You're talking about the Ford V8 LS and, uh, Mopar Hemi at that point, right?
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  And most guys, you know, will run something LS based.
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  They're just super reliable.
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  They're dependable.
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  You know, most guys that run late models, especially road courses and,
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  you know, the regular late models on dirt and asphalt oval, they don't have
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  these million dollar budgets, right?
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  So they're looking for the biggest bang for their bucks.
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  So they'll go with the CT crate, 604 crate, something along those lines,
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  plenty of horsepower for what we need.
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  I mean, my car is actually getting a new CT 525 put in it right now.
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  I think I weigh the new motor will be about 2,600 pounds and I'm gonna
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  have about seven 50 horsepower.
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  So weight, the power ratio is gonna be nuts.
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  Well, a great thing that I've mentioned on numerous articles I've written as well
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  as podcasts is I'm a GM guy, and with the GM engine itself, interchangeability
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  is way better than your Ford or your MO power engine because if you go
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  from small block to big block, a lot of stuff can be interchangeable.
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  Right.
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  That's a great aspect of GM motors going and stuff.
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  The cool thing about GM too, is the 525 and the LS based stuff.
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  It's, and me and Michael's had this scenario countless times.
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  You break something stupid, more than likely advanced autos got it.
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  Oh yeah, we've been at Roto Lana and we've had to make a dash for advanced
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  auto for an alternator, or just some stupid part that just broke.
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  Starters, serpentine belts, power steering belts.
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  It's hilarious when you get to the parts store, they're like,
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  What make and model is it?
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  Michael always has to tell them some stupid shit.
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  Yeah.
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  I don't even know what I tell them half the time.
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  I'm like, yeah, it's uh, not really sure.
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  I'm just kind of winging this here, but it's a Chevy motor.
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  No chassis.
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  You're not, you're not going to find it in your database, I promise.
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  You know, it's one of those things.
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  It's a late model and they go, uh huh.
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  Yep.
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  Got it.
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  Yeah.
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  Okay.
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  What's that?
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  Part short, if you got like a 525 or something like that, a small block.
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  Basically tell them you got something for a 72 Chevrolet truck, if it's an LS
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  space, about a 99 Corvette, and usually you'll find something that'll work.
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  So you could basically say that at the heart of late model is GM.
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  And that's, that's pretty cool.
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  So it's neat to see that, I mean, despite the sheet metal on the
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  outside, but we all know that, right?
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  You see the new Camaro NASCAR, and you're like that, that's not a Camaro, right?
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  It doesn't share anything with you.
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  So generic is ridiculous.
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  Literally they're all now running Everybody, Toyota, Ford,
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  Chevrolet, are all running the same chassis, just different metals.
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  I may be wrong, I want to say the chassis is designed by McLaren.
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  I don't know if it changed, but there was a rule for a while where they
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  were using the exact same template for the outline had to be the same
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  for the aerodynamics to be the same.
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  My thing is the original stock car and NASCAR back in the
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  day was off a manufacturer's lot and you took to the track.
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  It's not like that.
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  No, no.
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  These are purpose built race cars.
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  Now there's nothing that came off any assembly line.
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  These things were built from the ground up basically right there in the shops.
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  So just like ours.
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  And that's what we're going to explore here, right?
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  Is there's more than meets the eye because these things are way more
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  complicated than people realize that there are a lot of fun to your point.
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  I mean, looking at the weight alone, people go, I think weighs 2, 600 pounds.
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  No way.
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  So we'll get into all that.
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  Kobe hit on something kind of interesting before he said about the asphalt chassis,
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  all being built in the Carolinas.
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  Are they coming out of Mooresville?
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  Just like a lot of the trucks and the NASCARs and things are as well,
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  or are they built somewhere else?
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  There's a lot up in NASCAR country.
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  Carolina is kind of the epicenter of stock car racing.
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  Carolina has also come home.
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  A lot of the indie teams, also some of the indie teams have
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  moved operations up there.
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  So I've got buddies that live up around, you know, Charlotte area, Carolina, and
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  that's, you either work in NASCAR or, you know, somebody that works in the
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  racing industry or something, that's just, that's what they do up there
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  before we get into the more intricate parts of how these late models work.
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  Let's take a step back and talk about the origins of late model mafia,
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  where that came from, how you guys met and everything that goes along
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  with that particular origin story.
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  So who wants to take their first shot?
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  I'll take a crack at it.
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  I call Kobe first.
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  I started road racing about three years ago.
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  I had 40 and I was having a midlife crisis and I have a C7
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  Corvette, my daily street car.
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  And my wife's looking at me, like, don't even think about it.
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  You are not taking that thing to the track.
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  And I was like, all right.
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  So I ended up buying a 350 Z for like three grand, beat the brakes off it, had
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  a ball and just fell in Yeah, we both did.
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  Yeah, I'll get to that.
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  We broke that car's back, you know, but we had so much fun.
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  It was reliable.
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  It was a good time.
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  And then I started going to track days, you know, working around,
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  you know, HP junkie and, you know, working with him and just having fun.
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  And it progressed for me to where I decided to go ahead and build
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  my first purpose built race car.
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  I found a Thunder Roadster chassis.
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  They were one of the classes within NASA that was kind of fizzling
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  in fizzling out kind of thing.
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  And I found a chassis with a blown motor, basically a roller needed a lot of work.
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  I was going to do the upgrade, the high boost upgrade and all that.
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  So I bought it for like three grand and I started to take decals off it.
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  And I noticed that I saw these logos and they said KTR.
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  I'm like, wow, that must've been the last owner.
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  You know, I bought it intermediary from another guy.
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  So I started hunting down KTR racing next.
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  I.
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  Somehow got his phone number and I'm like, Hey, you don't know me,
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  but I think I have your race car.
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  Remember?
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  Yes.
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  I remember.
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  I get this call.
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  I can beat on him now.
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  He's like my best friends now.
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  So I can, I kind of beat on him a little bit.
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  I get this call from this Jersey boy asking me questions about a race car.
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  And I was like, but he told me he had my old car and you know,
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  was asking questions about it.
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  I kind of helped point him in the right direction as far as,
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  you know, where he needed to go.
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  As far as, you know, getting that car repaired and back on track.
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  And then God, I don't remember.
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  Where did it go from there?
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  Honestly, man, I called you a couple of times and we just started talking
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  more and more and the next thing you knew, man, we were talking about
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  like, Hey, do you want to go here?
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  You had already had your comp license with NASA.
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  So then you just started going to me to get my comp license.
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  I ended up getting it in the Thunder Roadster.
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  And then I think it was a barber motorsports park.
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  Like is where late model mafia came to be.
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  We, I brought number, I brought the Z up and we just beat the shit out of
• 9:24
  that car for like, Right three days straight, we got black flagged like
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  25 times for smoking and for just doing all kinds of ridiculous shit.
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  Man, it was bad.
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  It was so fun there.
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  We got video of it, like we're going by the flag station and they
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  black flag us with our number.
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  It was 0 2 3 and they're like, and CO was like, what the
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  yelling out the window dude.
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  It's like a plume of smoke coming outta the back of the car.
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  We had, I don't even remember what was leaking.
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  We had something leaking.
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  We had so much fun that weekend.
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  We were sitting around after the Saturday track day and we were just
• 9:55
  drinking beer and having a good time.
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  You know, Brittany, Kobe's fiance and my wife, Debbie, we were just
• 9:58
  sitting around laughing and goofing and we're like, Hey, we need it.
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  You know, and Kobe had been egging me on about buying a late model.
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  He was like, get rid of that Thunder roaster.
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  It's slow.
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  It's boring.
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  Trust me.
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  Once you get into a late model, you'll never come back.
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  And I ended up buying one.
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  Turns out I was hooked and right there that day, we created a late model mafia.
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  We started thinking about names and it was going to be like stock car mafia.
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  And then we changed the late model mafia.
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  The logo came about within a week.
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  And actually I knew we were LLC and we were up and running.
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  Without getting political.
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  That was during 2020.
• 10:27
  Oh, it's a rebel flag and NASCAR.
• 10:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  We intentionally use the tagline, make racing great again.
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  Yeah, I saw it on the website and the hats.
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  Oh yeah, oh yeah.
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  We had a hat, like a throwback hat that actually was red hat like Donald wore
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  and it said, make racing great again.
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  There was a 45 on the side for my late model number, which, you know, just
• 10:47
  happens to be his presidency number.
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  So that was kind of funny too.
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  We've always tried to be really patriotic with everything.
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  As pro America as we can, because Mike is a vet, I've always been involved in it.
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  And I grew up in a house where you either rode a Harley Davidson
• 11:02
  or didn't bring it to the house.
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  So we'd go to the international motorcycle shows and stuff, and
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  I'd see the Buell bikes, and they were American Buell street bikes.
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  My dad always would tell me, if you're going to have one of those damn crotch
• 11:13
  rockets, it's going to have to be a Buell.
• 11:15
  To continue on our patriotic theme of a business of our bloods in my
• 11:19
  house, military Coast Guard for five years, police officer for 10 years.
• 11:23
  Yeah.
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  I mean, it's, it's red, white and blue.
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  You know what I mean?
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  It's, it's kind of, we started out with, you know, American racing and
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  then did the whole make race a great again thing and just kind of segwayed
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  it back, you know, and just keeping the red, white and blue themes.
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  Nothing's more American in my eyes than a late model stock car.
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  I mean, they're just, it's America, you know, it's America's race
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  car in my book, growing up, it had to be a V eight or a V twin.
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  That's the way I always looked at it.
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  It's American as hell, man.
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  I mean, it gets no more American man, big high horsepower cars and
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  just big boxes, you know what I mean?
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  Ripping around track.
• 11:54
  You know, honestly, we started it as like, kind of like a joke,
• 11:57
  Hey, you know, like we're late model mafia and we were teammates.
• 11:59
  We knew that we were going to run together and NASA, you know, we had a bunch of
• 12:02
  other teams out there like big dog racing and team Tracy motor sports and Anika's
• 12:07
  racing and all these people that had pit crews, you know, or somewhat of a pit
• 12:10
  crew and teams, they have multiple cars on track at the same time and we're better
• 12:14
  than a team up with another late model.
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  We get side by side on a road course, we're 15 feet wide, good luck passing us.
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  You know what I mean?
• 12:20
  So.
• 12:20
  Yeah, we ended up, it just started out as a joke, you know, and we were just
• 12:24
  laughing and clowning and kind of playing the whole NASCAR BS that was going on.
• 12:27
  And next thing you know, we're doing business and we're in business.
• 12:30
  My background, I got into road racing in 2018, well, actually about 16,
• 12:35
  I guess we bought an old retired cowbush cup car and we were taking
• 12:40
  it, running track days with it.
• 12:41
  And I think about every track day group that we went to, it asked us not to come
• 12:45
  back because it was just ridiculous.
• 12:47
  It turns out it had some issues.
• 12:49
  We sold it off.
• 12:50
  I got a Thunder Roadster.
• 12:52
  I ran it for probably three quarters of a season.
• 12:55
  And the guy that's over the Thunder Roadster program told me, he's like, the
• 12:58
  motor you're running is the old Yamaha.
• 13:00
  It's kind of previous make of engine they use.
• 13:02
  He said, you need to get the Habusa.
• 13:04
  I was on the line of deciding whether or not I wanted to invest in the Habusa
• 13:10
  because to upgrade one of these cars from Yamaha to Habusa was like 15 grand.
• 13:15
  And I was like, how?
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  Ask me how I know.
• 13:17
  I was like, Jesus, you could go buy a fricking brand new booster for that.
• 13:21
  I mean, why the hell is this much money I got on Facebook marketplace and actually
• 13:25
  found the late model that I, I have it.
• 13:28
  It was a guy actually down in Savannah and down around Michael's area that had it.
• 13:32
  And so we ended up wheeling and dealing and.
• 13:34
  I traded him a roller Thunder Roadster for a light model turnkey,
• 13:38
  which I still don't know why he did it, but hey, that's on him.
• 13:41
  The car got and Michael ends up finding out who KTR is
• 13:45
  and welcome to the shit show.
• 13:48
  So as an organization, as a business, what are you guys selling?
• 13:52
  What are your services?
• 13:53
  What are you providing?
• 13:54
  So the biggest thing that we just started and it's actually really starting
• 13:56
  to gain traction is on our website.
• 13:58
  If you go to lightmodelmafia.
• 13:59
  com and to the page pit lane, We're actually doing marketing for race
• 14:03
  teams now for young up and coming race teams, where they get their
• 14:06
  own website under late model mafia.
• 14:08
  They have their own webpage, their schedules out and they have merchandise
• 14:12
  that's available to people that follow them, their fans, you know, video of them.
• 14:16
  If they have YouTube accounts and all that sort of stuff, we can kind of
• 14:18
  custom tailor, whatever their outfit is, you know, according to their
• 14:21
  race team, the size of the scope.
• 14:22
  I think we've got seven or eight teams now and it's only been
• 14:25
  up for a couple of months ago.
• 14:26
  Oh my God.
• 14:27
  Yeah.
• 14:27
  It's a very nominal fee, you know, on their side and depending on what contract
• 14:31
  is signed with late model mafia, it depends is kind of dependent on profit
• 14:35
  proceeds that go back to the team.
• 14:36
  So basically, you know, they pay the upfront costs for the website development,
• 14:40
  marketing, and all that kind of stuff.
• 14:41
  Any sale they make on late model mafia of all their
• 14:44
  merchandise goes straight to them.
• 14:45
  So the profits all go back to the team and eventually help fund their team.
• 14:49
  For the teams that you help are most of those the road course guys, or do you
• 14:51
  guys have well, yeah, so right now I can kind of break them down real quick.
• 14:56
  We've got, um, Kobe and I are up there obviously team Tracy Motorsport.
• 14:59
  She's, uh, running NASA.
• 15:01
  She's a two time TT champion, and she just changed over to wheel to wheel.
• 15:05
  And she is one bad ass driver.
• 15:07
  I play hell keeping up with her.
• 15:09
  She's Awesome driver, Anika Carter with Anika's racing.
• 15:12
  She's another great one.
• 15:13
  She typically runs Spec Miata.
• 15:14
  She also has a ST car with NASA and she's been on the show before.
• 15:18
  So that was part of the cross.
• 15:19
  I thought you guys knew that.
• 15:21
  Yeah.
• 15:21
  Rita Marie racing.
• 15:22
  She's an up and comer.
• 15:23
  She's trying to work her way into the Arca series.
• 15:25
  God bless her.
• 15:26
  We hope she makes it.
• 15:27
  We know how tough that can be.
• 15:28
  She's pretty new and she's developing a car right now to hopefully get her there.
• 15:31
  And then we've got some Oval guys, number 22, Joshua Batch.
• 15:35
  He's actually out of Savannah, Georgia, runs a lot in Cordele and up in
• 15:38
  Dillon, short track Oval with a pure stock, my stepson, Zachary Christian
• 15:42
  racing, number 69, just made his debut up at Chris motorsports park.
• 15:46
  He went out for his first outing and his brand new legend that we just put him in.
• 15:49
  So he's having a hell of a time.
• 15:51
  And then we've got a champ team that's being developed right
• 15:53
  now, which is FAFO motorsports.
• 15:56
  Cause why not?
• 15:56
  I mean.
• 15:59
  It's kind of very fitting.
• 15:59
  It's more or less a bunch of late model drivers, and that's kind of their mantra
• 16:02
  is basically if you don't move, I'm just going to run you over kind of thing.
• 16:05
  So, so they all decided let's call it motorsports.
• 16:09
  So there we are.
• 16:09
  A couple others that are looking into it right now, and like
• 16:12
  I said, it's a great product.
• 16:13
  I definitely urge anybody that's looking to, you know, get
• 16:15
  merchandise out there and get their name out there a little more.
• 16:18
  It's literally no must, no fuss.
• 16:20
  You tell late model mafia what you want.
• 16:21
  We build it.
• 16:22
  We put it out there for you guys, share the heck out of it.
• 16:25
  Make your sales, make your profits, help fund your addiction of racing, you know,
• 16:28
  or even trapeze, whatever you're into.
• 16:30
  Most of the teams you've mentioned are all in the Southeast right now.
• 16:33
  Are you guys planning to expand to Northeast, even out West and everything?
• 16:37
  Yeah, we are.
• 16:37
  Absolutely.
• 16:38
  We're fully capable of handling the entire country.
• 16:40
  So it's one of those things that if somebody comes on the website
• 16:42
  and they, they're interested, there is a place where they can shoot me
• 16:45
  their information and I'll get in contact with them and then hopefully
• 16:47
  24 hours and see how it can help.
• 16:49
  I like the fact that it's not strictly locked into just late models.
• 16:53
  I mean, you got some spec me on us and other stuff in there as well.
• 16:55
  So do you see yourselves also supporting the folks that are doing e sports?
• 16:59
  Because we know a lot of guys that are, you know, I racing became really,
• 17:02
  really popular a couple of years ago.
• 17:03
  And there's folks that are running virtual late models out there
• 17:06
  and they got teams and they got swag and they need sponsorship.
• 17:09
  Is that another avenue to pursue as well?
• 17:11
  Yeah.
• 17:11
  Absolutely.
• 17:11
  I actually ran ERA last year and had a ball with it.
• 17:14
  It's a lot of fun and honestly, it's great practice.
• 17:16
  You know, it's one of those things where if I wreck my car, I just hit
• 17:18
  reset and keep going on like my real car that probably cost me 40 grand to fix.
• 17:23
  iRacing is blowing up.
• 17:24
  We've got some big plans for that here in the near future.
• 17:27
  We'd love to come back on and tell you guys about more once
• 17:29
  we have a little more developed.
• 17:30
  Yeah, we'd be happy to take on iRacers.
• 17:32
  Is anybody looking for Sponsorship and marketing basically, right?
• 17:35
  Yeah, anybody looking for sponsorship and marketing in the motorsports
• 17:38
  arena, drag racing, it doesn't matter.
• 17:39
  If it's got a motor and four wheels, or even two, and you
• 17:43
  want to go fast and you need some marketing, we're here to help you.
• 17:45
  So how does one go about joining Late Model Mafia?
• 17:47
  Are there upfront fees?
• 17:49
  So it's all contractual without getting too deep into it on here.
• 17:52
  Basically it's how much you buy in is how much you get back, right?
• 17:55
  So if you elect to do the, you know, to pay the full price upfront, which
• 17:59
  is very nominal, it's very small.
• 18:01
  Like I said, Kobe and I are here to make millions.
• 18:02
  This is part of our passion.
• 18:03
  This is what we love to do.
• 18:04
  And if we can help other people.
• 18:06
  Great.
• 18:06
  You know, it's very small and it's really just to help pay for the expenses of the
• 18:09
  website, putting marketing ads out there, if they pay in a hundred percent, they get
• 18:13
  a hundred percent of their profit back.
• 18:14
  They already have a small fan base or even just family and
• 18:17
  friends that are buying stuff.
• 18:18
  Even if they purchase from their own website, they get
• 18:20
  their profits straight back.
• 18:21
  It's kind of a win win.
• 18:22
  I'd kind of factored out the other day on the profit margins based, you
• 18:25
  know, around the merchandise sales.
• 18:27
  And we don't just do t shirts.
• 18:28
  We do hats, t shirts, mugs, banners, flags, you name it.
• 18:31
  We can do it.
• 18:32
  Hoodies.
• 18:33
  Pants, shoes.
• 18:34
  I mean, whatever you can dream, socks, we can get them.
• 18:38
  You want socks, we have bathing suits.
• 18:40
  I mean, whatever you want, you know, whatever your crowds
• 18:43
  into, we can make it happen.
• 18:44
  It doesn't take much if you were to, you know, to throw in the full top dollar
• 18:48
  amount and you have a pretty popular base already, you'll make that money
• 18:51
  back and probably the first month or two.
• 18:52
  Like I said, we're doing this so that we can help people get their names out
• 18:56
  there, hopefully help advance their careers in motor sports and just.
• 18:59
  Help them do what they love, you know, because Kobe and I, we know the one thing
• 19:02
  about a late model, when you ask what the definition is, the first part of
• 19:05
  definition is goes fast, breaks a lot.
• 19:07
  We know exactly how bad it sucks to blow a motor and be out 15, 000
• 19:12
  to get this thing fixed, get it back on track to finish the season.
• 19:15
  It's helped us.
• 19:16
  I mean, coming, I have both made sales just off our own website, you know, and
• 19:19
  it's, it's put one in our pockets and, you know, it's cool to walk down the
• 19:21
  street or at a racetrack that you're, you know, your hometown or whatever.
• 19:24
  And there goes a guy, you know, walking down the street in your shirt
• 19:27
  and you're like, yeah, that's cool.
• 19:28
  You know what I mean?
• 19:28
  And you don't have to be a NASCAR driver, you know, to get that kind of exposure.
• 19:33
  What I really like about this program is.
• 19:35
  This is my 20th year racing.
• 19:37
  I started in 2002 in dirt show carts.
• 19:41
  I wish that we would have had this program back then.
• 19:43
  It would have helped a lot marketing and everything.
• 19:45
  But I mean, we got to figure 20 years ago, we didn't know what social media
• 19:48
  was and social media is everything now.
• 19:51
  It seems like when it comes to motor sports and Michael has helped me a lot
• 19:54
  as far as the marketing and, you know, social media stuff, that's, you know,
• 19:58
  if you don't really know a lot about it, you can get yourself in trouble with it.
• 20:00
  If you don't know how to properly use it.
• 20:02
  Social media is funny, right?
• 20:03
  It's one of those things where it's a blessing and a curse
• 20:05
  because everyone's on social media.
• 20:07
  So how do you get yourself to the top?
• 20:09
  Thankfully, I have a brainiac of a wife who knows how to maximize
• 20:13
  SEOs and do all that sort of thing.
• 20:15
  So the first thing you see when you type in Michael Gallagher,
• 20:18
  It's going to pop up and it's just a matter of how do you do that?
• 20:21
  How do you formulate that and get yourself to the top of that Google search?
• 20:24
  It's invaluable.
• 20:25
  You know, some people would never even know that my team exists,
• 20:28
  but they happen to look up racing and somewhere in the Southeast.
• 20:30
  And boom, one of the first to pop up.
• 20:33
  So thus far, all of your, I guess, client base and people that have joined
• 20:36
  up, has it all been like word of mouth?
• 20:37
  I think you've been working out at this point, the SEO, we were getting
• 20:40
  quite a bit of traffic on the website.
• 20:42
  I just don't think that we have quite the marketing strategy that we need yet.
• 20:45
  We're still developing it.
• 20:46
  Quite frankly, it's interesting because we really expected more late
• 20:50
  models, especially dirt late models.
• 20:51
  Cause those guys are in desperate need of sponsorship that they would have popped
• 20:54
  up, but we're seeing more road course cars outside of the late model scope.
• 20:57
  We're seeing Corvettes.
• 20:59
  We're seeing Miatas.
• 20:59
  We're seeing legend oval cars.
• 21:01
  We're seeing pure stocks.
• 21:03
  It's went a lot further into motorsports than I thought it
• 21:07
  would as quickly as it has.
• 21:08
  I thought we would pick up, you know, late models, you road racing
• 21:11
  and stuff, but there's a lot coming.
• 21:14
  For those folks that are looking to work with late model mafia
• 21:19
  for their sponsorship and getting their brand out there and
• 21:21
  building their base and all that.
• 21:22
  Are there any restrictions or obligations that they should be aware of, or
• 21:26
  is it pretty much open to anybody That's currently racing right now.
• 21:30
  It's open to anybody that's currently racing right now.
• 21:32
  The more the merrier we want as many people to get that
• 21:34
  exposure as they possibly can.
• 21:36
  You know, the only thing that we ask is, you know, we try
• 21:38
  to keep it as PG as possible.
• 21:40
  A lot of people will come to me.
• 21:41
  Hey, can you make this shirt?
• 21:42
  I'm like, yeah, that's great.
• 21:44
  But that's not what our brand's all about.
• 21:45
  We're not trying to stir the pot.
• 21:47
  Yeah.
• 21:47
  It's funny.
• 21:48
  You know, we joke around, make racing great again and all that,
• 21:50
  but we're not going to that level.
• 21:51
  Keep it professional, have fun with it.
• 21:53
  That's the biggest part.
• 21:54
  You know what I mean?
• 21:54
  If you want a goofy design, we can certainly do that.
• 21:56
  Or you want something wild, it'll catch somebody's eye.
• 21:58
  Sure.
• 21:59
  We really don't want to dive too deep in the politics or we won't, you know,
• 22:02
  don't want to get into any kind of offensive behavior and it's racing.
• 22:06
  And so bring people together to have fun.
• 22:08
  You're building a community.
• 22:09
  Absolutely.
• 22:11
  And I will say this too, that, you know, out of the teams that we have so far,
• 22:14
  and there's multiple disciplines that between team Tracy and I, you know,
• 22:17
  it's, it's funny, Coby and I always, you know, we, we race against Tracy,
• 22:20
  I mean, and she's probably one of the biggest threats on the racetrack to us.
• 22:23
  And she always called herself, she's the honorary mafia member because she said, I
• 22:26
  don't ride, I don't drive a light model, but I'm like, you're in, don't worry.
• 22:29
  You're good.
• 22:30
  Everybody's, you know what I mean?
• 22:31
  Like you're part of the mafia, man.
• 22:33
  It's that's what it's supposed to be.
• 22:34
  It's a, it's a big group of people that, you know, I mean, look, I'm 43 years old.
• 22:37
  I'm not making it to NASCAR.
• 22:38
  Let's just get one thing straight.
• 22:39
  I'm like.
• 22:40
  Only because everybody else crashed, but it is what it is,
• 22:43
  but I'm not here to have fun.
• 22:44
  I'm going to blow your mind.
• 22:45
  Andy Pilgrim got his pro seat with GM when he was 40 years old.
• 22:50
  So think about that.
• 22:50
  There's still time, right?
• 22:52
  I got three years.
• 22:52
  I got three years on, but I'll give it a shot.
• 22:56
  But I'm saying?
• 22:56
  It's one of those things where it's like, we just want people
• 22:59
  to come on here, have fun.
• 23:00
  Even if they don't want to really publicize themselves that much, it gives
• 23:03
  them an opportunity to build like t shirts they can wear to the track while they're
• 23:07
  racing or even just track day people.
• 23:09
  It doesn't have, you don't have to race.
• 23:10
  This could be if you're a track day enthusiast and you're all over, you
• 23:13
  know, the United States, or even if you just have one track that you call home,
• 23:16
  like roadbling for me and road Atlanta for Kobe, it's cool just to have your
• 23:19
  t shirt and your number on your back.
• 23:21
  You know what I mean?
• 23:21
  Walking around and kind of like, you know, matching your car and
• 23:23
  kind of getting that swagger going, you know, Kobe will tell you.
• 23:26
  I mean, we, I mean, there it is.
• 23:27
  Boom.
• 23:27
  MGR sit on top of my hat.
• 23:28
  Kobe's got KTR gear.
• 23:30
  People identify you with your car and like, Oh shit, you're
• 23:33
  the guy driving 45, right?
• 23:34
  Yeah.
• 23:34
  How about rec field?
• 23:35
  Not so good.
• 23:36
  You know what I mean?
• 23:36
  But why are you laughing?
• 23:38
  Kobe?
• 23:39
  I get it.
• 23:39
  It's more of a lifestyle, right?
• 23:40
  And that's part of the racing culture that sometimes is forgotten.
• 23:45
  People go to track days that they go maybe once or twice.
• 23:48
  They don't find their niche and they go home and they never come back.
• 23:51
  Right.
• 23:51
  And they're like, well, racing really wasn't for me.
• 23:53
  Like you guys.
• 23:54
  I grew up in racing long time ago.
• 23:57
  And so, you know, I ran around the paddock with other kids.
• 23:59
  We all grew up together.
• 24:00
  It was always a family environment.
• 24:02
  You know, there were rivalries, there was this, there was that.
• 24:04
  But at the end of the day, you're all laughing, goofing off, having a good
• 24:07
  time for the love of racing, right?
• 24:09
  For the love of driving.
• 24:10
  Whether it's a track day or a full blown race at NASA or SCC or whatever, you know,
• 24:14
  whatever league you're affiliated with.
• 24:16
  I mean, end of the day, no matter if we wreck into each other, as
• 24:19
  long as everybody gets up and walks away, man, we're cracking
• 24:21
  beers and having a good time.
• 24:22
  Absolutely.
• 24:23
  That's what we're here to do.
• 24:24
  I mean, I've had a rubber mallet beating dance out of Michael's
• 24:26
  car, so it don't matter.
• 24:28
  You know, that's probably a great segue for us to switch gears and talk
• 24:32
  about what it's like to maintain, operate and run one of these late
• 24:36
  models on an asphalt course, right?
• 24:38
  We did some previous dirt track and oval type of stuff on this show, but now
• 24:42
  we're kind of bridging the gap and coming back to the track world with these cars.
• 24:46
  What's it like taking a quote unquote stock car?
• 24:48
  We won't call them NASCARs and converting them to racing for
• 24:52
  road racing, like TA2 cars.
• 24:53
  What's that process like?
• 24:54
  What's involved?
• 24:55
  Well, it depends on how serious you want to be with it.
• 24:57
  Honestly, you'll see a lot of guys come to track days and stuff that'll find the old
• 25:02
  cup car or something like that for sale up in Carolina, and they'll throw a crate
• 25:06
  motor in it and bring it to the track.
• 25:07
  And then they're like, Well this thing won't turn right for shit.
• 25:10
  I wonder why.
• 25:11
  I guess you're talking about as far as converting an asphalt over car.
• 25:14
  You gotta get a hold of somebody that either knows what they're doing or
• 25:19
  knows somebody knows what they're doing.
• 25:20
  You've got to get that chassis straight up.
• 25:23
  Some of the problems that I've seen people that, you know, bring stock cars road
• 25:26
  racing, you've got to get it neutral.
• 25:27
  You've got to get it straight up.
• 25:28
  You've got to get chassis geometry right and everything.
• 25:31
  When you're going to turn one at road Atlanta at 120 plus miles an hour.
• 25:34
  You got to turn right uphill, not left, it can bite you.
• 25:38
  And you mentioned geometry, that's a huge thing because my familiar late
• 25:41
  models is all dirt track up this way.
• 25:43
  I don't think I've yet to see a late model on asphalt up here.
• 25:47
  With the dirt track though, they purposely have their rears set at an
• 25:50
  angle for when they're going into turns so they can get out and slide around.
• 25:54
  And the way it's set up, it would be a nightmare on a road course.
• 25:57
  I can imagine there's a lot of math and everything goes into that.
• 26:00
  As well as just trying to figure out how it was set up previously
• 26:03
  for the other discipline.
• 26:04
  You're talking about dirt racing.
• 26:05
  I actually come from dirt.
• 26:06
  So I'm familiar with dirt cars and, you know, that geometry and stuff.
• 26:09
  And you're right, you know, you, you kind of preload a dirt car to where
• 26:13
  your rear end will offset in the corner.
• 26:14
  Our cars are, you got to keep them straight up.
• 26:17
  And we have figured out, you know, depending on where you
• 26:20
  go, you might play with stagger.
• 26:23
  Let's say you got a road, there's what, more rights than
• 26:26
  there are lefts down there?
• 26:27
  Seven rights and two lefts, right?
• 26:29
  Yeah, you kind of, you know, make the car a little more to the right, give up
• 26:32
  a little bit on the lefts if you have to.
• 26:34
  Just, you know, getting the car set up pretty neutral is the main part.
• 26:37
  What are the suspension differences or even the brakes?
• 26:39
  Because like, if you're on an oval track, you don't Really
• 26:41
  use the brakes all that much.
• 26:43
  So how do you gear up a car for now, let's say a road Atlanta, that is
• 26:48
  a very technical track where you have heavy breaking zones and loaded
• 26:52
  up corners and things like that.
• 26:53
  So what components are you swapping out?
• 26:55
  If you buy, let's say something off a racing junk tomorrow and think
• 26:59
  you're going to go to the track.
• 27:00
  We're pretty much using standard light model brakes because we're
• 27:03
  still 26, Short tracks, they do pound on the brakes pretty hard.
• 27:08
  Probably one of the biggest consumables in these cars is brake pads and
• 27:11
  using the correct brake pads.
• 27:13
  The fluid helps.
• 27:14
  And fluid.
• 27:14
  Yes.
• 27:15
  We use Castro react, which I want to say in the COVID trap got up
• 27:18
  to like 120 a bottle or something.
• 27:22
  But let me tell you, I painted my brakes coming down at a 10 a road
• 27:25
  Atlanta last time about 155, 160 miles an hour, went to pump and brakes
• 27:29
  and downshift and do everything I could to stop that car that day.
• 27:32
  I rolled out and got.
• 27:34
  Castrol react and never had that issue since, yeah, for those of us that are
• 27:37
  familiar, we call it SRF in our paddock.
• 27:40
  So yeah, I've seen people do that before, you know, bottle stock cars and stuff.
• 27:44
  And they'll just grab off the shelf, break fluid, DLT, throw in it, edible.
• 27:48
  You can forget it.
• 27:49
  But like you were saying, as far as going from oval to road course,
• 27:53
  probably one of the main things is getting air to the brakes.
• 27:55
  You got to keep the brakes cool.
• 27:57
  You got to get the brake bias set up, right.
• 27:59
  Using good pads, using good fluid.
• 28:01
  Well, most of them not using the brakes unless you have to.
• 28:04
  So what about the suspension itself?
• 28:05
  Like on an oval track, I would say, yes, there's suspension, but it's
• 28:09
  pretty static in a certain way, right?
• 28:10
  You're going to set it up for the banking and the degrees and all that.
• 28:13
  But on a road course where you have all sorts of undulation and modulation,
• 28:17
  especially if you're on a natural terrain track, like road Atlanta,
• 28:21
  you are you using multi reservoir, you know, six way Ohlins and.
• 28:26
  Coney's like Bilstein's.
• 28:27
  What are you using?
• 28:28
  Cause we're used to that on production based vehicles.
• 28:30
  What do you go to from a stock car to then turn it into a road course car?
• 28:35
  We're still using the same shocks that you typically use in a light model,
• 28:38
  just different spring rates and the way they're set up and the weather.
• 28:42
  Geometry is a big point.
• 28:43
  Yeah.
• 28:44
  You know, you're talking about straightening the car up.
• 28:45
  Are you actually tweaking the two frame itself and straightening it up?
• 28:49
  Or is it just a matter of getting all of the components basically square?
• 28:54
  It's basically, you know, just as far as geometry and setup and
• 28:57
  everything, getting it straight up.
• 28:59
  I'm not going to go blow a hundred thousand dollars on a new stock
• 29:01
  card for a track day, you know, NASA racing or something like that.
• 29:04
  If you had the money to go buy a new chassis, and you could buy a
• 29:07
  front clip that was straight up, you would be ahead of the game.
• 29:10
  Majority of people don't have millions to blow.
• 29:13
  The Hampty car we've got, we just straightened it up as much as we could.
• 29:16
  I got with Jimmy Garman, which is one of the biggest late
• 29:19
  model gurus in the Southeast.
• 29:21
  He's worked with many of the guys that's in the cup series field today.
• 29:25
  Yeah, I took the car to him.
• 29:26
  You know, he helped me get it straightened up, get everything right.
• 29:28
  Hey, if Hendrick wants to throw two cars at us, we're here.
• 29:31
  Mafia dot com will take two time attack cars, two track attack cars, 16 in a seat.
• 29:37
  Those cars are undeniably amazing.
• 29:39
  You know what they produce for the money of any, you know, they're
• 29:42
  expensive, but for what you're getting for that money is unbelievable.
• 29:45
  Got a buddy that's got one setting in his shop right now.
• 29:49
  I won't name drop because I'm not supposed to.
• 29:51
  It is ridiculous, you know, the way those track attack cars are built and
• 29:55
  it's literally one of his son's cars.
• 29:56
  That's all I'm going to say.
• 29:57
  So if I read between the lines on this, it sounds like with the setup, you
• 30:01
  could easily go, let's say you're a Pocono, you could be running the tricky
• 30:05
  triangle and then be running the double infield and go back and forth on setup.
• 30:09
  Without really having to change any components.
• 30:11
  So the question is how long does that take?
• 30:13
  Or is it all, Hey, I've got a pre prescribed for this track,
• 30:16
  move it to this position, lock it in and go about your business.
• 30:20
  It's all measurements, really fine tune everything and just
• 30:23
  adjusting everything out.
• 30:24
  If you had the right people in the right stuff, couple
• 30:26
  hours, you could be good to go.
• 30:28
  I saw me, I've gone from Jericho four speeds in our car.
• 30:30
  That's another big difference between short track oval versus what we do.
• 30:34
  We obviously need a little more gear than what those guys have got.
• 30:36
  Most of these cars are converted over at Jericho four speeds, winners,
• 30:39
  quick change, rears or tigers, you know, something along those lines
• 30:42
  where we can swap gears out quickly for whatever track we're running.
• 30:45
  Let's talk about maybe some of the advantages of these cars
• 30:49
  on a road course and maybe some of the bigger drawbacks, right?
• 30:52
  They seem really appealing, like who doesn't wanna go drive, quote, unquote,
• 30:55
  a stock car on a road course, but there's gotta be pluses and minuses to it.
• 31:00
  So what have you guys learned over the years?
• 31:02
  You know, some of the things you just put up with and tolerate and
• 31:05
  other things that are just freaking awesome and that's why you love 'em.
• 31:07
  You have to learn to tolerate stuff's going to break.
• 31:11
  I don't think we've ever had a perfect weekend.
• 31:13
  You're going to rent on it.
• 31:14
  We don't have a spec Miata or something like that.
• 31:17
  There's going to come some point between two cars that we're going to
• 31:20
  have to turn wrenches on something.
• 31:21
  It's mostly preparation.
• 31:23
  If you're willing to spend the money and keep good break paths under the
• 31:26
  car and you know, just keep the fluids changed out and everything, you really
• 31:29
  shouldn't have a lot of trouble.
• 31:30
  To Kirby's point, the biggest thing is like.
• 31:32
  I had a three to three stroker in my car.
• 31:33
  It was a built motor and it lasted me, you know, it was new to me that they had
• 31:37
  one season on it, what Cobes eight races.
• 31:40
  And I, it was a built motor tolerances are much closer.
• 31:43
  I had to run one 10 because you know, it was, everything was higher
• 31:47
  dollar, more of this, more of that.
• 31:48
  So that motor finally went, I said, you know what, we're not doing this again.
• 31:51
  I'm just going to go to a CT 525 GM performance crate motor.
• 31:55
  And I know it's going to be reliable.
• 31:56
  Keep the oil in it and make sure it's good.
• 31:58
  You know what I mean?
• 31:58
  Check fluids.
• 31:59
  Motor run strong, maybe two seasons or so.
• 32:02
  I got to do a refresh and I'm good.
• 32:03
  And Kobe's right.
• 32:04
  I mean, whether it's the transmission or the brakes or something, something's
• 32:07
  going to go wrong on that car.
• 32:08
  Just have parts be ready, you know, or make sure there's an advanced auto close
• 32:11
  by, because like Kobe said earlier, most of the parts we need are pretty generic.
• 32:15
  When you go to these LS based motors, I always try to keep, you know, a
• 32:18
  spare set of brake pads, hubs or something like that around, but there's
• 32:21
  majority of the stuff can be purchased.
• 32:23
  Like I said.
• 32:24
  We can make a repair at the track out of your local park store, typically,
• 32:27
  unless you're in the wall and, you know, on rollback, typically we
• 32:31
  can repair trackside after running these things for a couple of years.
• 32:34
  You know, we've got who's at Magnus, you know, they help us with
• 32:37
  all of our transmission issues.
• 32:38
  If we ever greater transmission, we send it off to them.
• 32:41
  They totally rebuild it.
• 32:42
  The cost will be as crazy as you want it to be.
• 32:44
  Right.
• 32:44
  If you want 850 horsepower and some wound out motor, then yeah, you're going
• 32:48
  to pay for it if you want some NASCAR style cup style motor, you're going
• 32:52
  to pay and you're going to rebuild it every two weekends or whatever it takes,
• 32:55
  honestly, reliability over a couple extra horsepower wins every day in my book.
• 33:00
  You know, I think Coby and I have both learned that very valuable
• 33:02
  lesson coming from built motors over to something more reliable.
• 33:05
  They're just tricky cars.
• 33:06
  You know what I mean?
• 33:07
  They're very basic cars.
• 33:08
  I mean, it's really just.
• 33:10
  Horsepower meets ground and go.
• 33:12
  But when you're asking a car to do that for as long as we do it, the speeds we
• 33:16
  do, shit's going to break, you know, so you just gotta be ready for it.
• 33:18
  You hinted on earlier, speaking like a spec Miata, people know spec Miata
• 33:23
  has regulations, what can and can't be done to the car for late models.
• 33:27
  Is there anything like that?
• 33:28
  Or is it a free for all how you want to set your own car up?
• 33:31
  And run it like that.
• 33:32
  Cause you mentioned going from the three, uh, in NASA competition,
• 33:35
  we fall under super unlimited run.
• 33:37
  What's your brung?
• 33:37
  And like, hell you brought enough.
• 33:39
  We've actually ran into that situation a few times.
• 33:42
  We might unload and be the freaking fastest thing there.
• 33:45
  But then again, we had another buddy, Brian Tyler, that he's a freaking
• 33:49
  sprint car legend from the Midwest.
• 33:51
  He showed up with a, uh, yeah, lightning crown sprint car and took it road racing.
• 33:56
  Holy shit.
• 33:57
  How's that going to work?
• 33:58
  But it is.
• 33:59
  Yeah, he was flying and you know, the difference is there too, when
• 34:02
  you talk about road racing is we do a lot of interclass racing.
• 34:05
  So we'll have super unlimited, super touring one through five.
• 34:08
  We'll have Specky 46.
• 34:10
  There's a bunch Thunder roasters, Thunder roaster extreme.
• 34:12
  You know, you've got a bunch of different styles of cars out there.
• 34:15
  You have radicals out there.
• 34:16
  I mean, there's some open wheelers out there from time to time,
• 34:18
  you know, formula style cars.
• 34:20
  I think the biggest allure to me with late models is just the horsepower sound.
• 34:25
  I mean, when you hit that throttle, your ass is gone.
• 34:27
  See you later.
• 34:28
  You know what I mean?
• 34:29
  It's, We're hell coming down a straightaway or a big sweeper, but
• 34:32
  it's a mechanical grip car, so when we start getting into those tighter turns,
• 34:35
  we've really got to focus and we've really got to drive the car where these
• 34:39
  other guys running radicals or, you know, these high downforce cars, they
• 34:43
  can't keep up with them straightaways, but they're going to equalize when it
• 34:45
  comes time for the tight turns because they're just point shoot, right?
• 34:48
  They're not worried about, you know, horsepower blown off the back end.
• 34:51
  That downforce is holding the track and we're gone.
• 34:53
  We got to make up our time where we can, and they're going
• 34:55
  to make up the time where.
• 34:56
  Where they can, and hopefully we're going to get to the finish line ahead of
• 34:59
  them, or they might beat us right there.
• 35:02
  That's a point as far as bringing stock cars or late models into road
• 35:06
  race road racing, always kind of been looked at as the gentlemen's
• 35:09
  sport, I guess you would say not much beating and banging going on there.
• 35:12
  We've knocked the hell out of each other.
• 35:14
  I've had my bumper on his bumper, straightaway at
• 35:17
  Roebling at 160 mile an hour.
• 35:18
  It's got to trust your buddies, whatever.
• 35:20
  But that's one of the cool things about these cars is you can
• 35:23
  beat and bang on them and, you know, rough them up pretty good.
• 35:26
  And you're not worried about wrecking your Corvette or your
• 35:28
  Ferrari or radical or whatever.
• 35:30
  Like you said earlier, a door panels, you know, anywhere from 30 to 50
• 35:34
  bucks, you could put a whole new front bumper on for what a hundred maybe.
• 35:37
  Kobe's point, you know, you listen to like these radical drivers or Corvette
• 35:40
  drivers, they get so antsy when we're around them because they know we
• 35:43
  just don't care we're in a race car.
• 35:45
  Neither do the Miata guys.
• 35:46
  So just, yeah, exactly.
• 35:48
  Right.
• 35:48
  They're like, they're like the spec Miata were like the thunder version of the
• 35:52
  spec Miata's and lightning for, for NASA.
• 35:53
  Right.
• 35:54
  I mean, we just, it's a giant piece of sheet metal and you can literally go
• 35:58
  to AR bodies or five star bodies and buy another door panel for 50 bucks.
• 36:02
  You know what I mean?
• 36:03
  So as far as us going into road racing that we kind of had to chill
• 36:07
  out, I guess you would say maybe, cause we're typical stock cars, we're
• 36:10
  going to beat and bang on each other.
• 36:11
  And then we had a lot of people in NASA that would get butthurt like, Oh my
• 36:14
  God, they leaned on me in the corner.
• 36:16
  Who cares?
• 36:17
  I mean, you give me a rubber mallet and a four before block, we'll
• 36:20
  straighten the door back out.
• 36:22
  Didn't Cole trickle say rubbing his race?
• 36:24
  That's right.
• 36:25
  And now I know why he said it because he was driving a car similar to ours.
• 36:29
  You know, other people may not, may not agree with us.
• 36:31
  Right.
• 36:31
  I mean, look, I ended a day, like Kobe said that the front bumper on my car
• 36:35
  for both pieces is like 200 bucks, you know, and if I rip it off, so be it.
• 36:39
  I've got friends local here at Southern Knights Racing.
• 36:41
  He bends his own sheet metal.
• 36:42
  I mean, he can build you a body for a dirt late model, my late, whatever you want.
• 36:45
  He can have it to me like next day.
• 36:47
  That's one very big advantage of a late model over a production car.
• 36:50
  That's out there.
• 36:51
  Road racing is if you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
• 36:54
  It's just a piece of metal.
• 36:55
  You know, it's not a 6, 000 door on your Corvette or, uh, you know, a whole front
• 37:00
  bumper on a, God knows what, on a BMW.
• 37:02
  You're not as scared to maybe try that corner a little faster next time because
• 37:06
  you know, you're in a really safe cage and your body is pretty expendable.
• 37:10
  It's really beneficial that a lot of the panels are fairly flat on those
• 37:13
  cars as well, compared to some of your production cars where it's got
• 37:16
  all these weird curves bent to it.
• 37:18
  That's well, thanks to Kobe.
• 37:19
  My whole right side is no longer flat.
• 37:21
  It's more wavy.
• 37:23
  I lean on you lean on me like it's waiting in the wind.
• 37:27
  It kind of does this now as you look down the side of it because Kobe decided
• 37:30
  to lean on me and turn one at road.
• 37:32
  Okay, hang on.
• 37:33
  It's his wife's fault.
• 37:35
  Why is it her fault?
• 37:37
  Because when she put the knee wrap on his car, she told me on the grill, she said,
• 37:41
  if you scratch his car, I'll kill you.
• 37:43
  I forgot about that.
• 37:44
  And I came back in with a tire with a donut on the side
• 37:47
  of my car, right on my five.
• 37:49
  I was like, that's great.
• 37:52
  So, Mike, I wanna ask you this question.
• 37:54
  You said it earlier, and I, I know, I know that even though your wife said you
• 37:58
  couldn't take the Corvette on track, I'm sure you've turned a couple laps in it.
• 38:01
  So when you compare your Corvette to your late model, what do you
• 38:04
  think about the differences?
• 38:05
  Right, because the Corvette's fast, it's light, it's all very modern
• 38:08
  and computerized and all that.
• 38:10
  Yeah.
• 38:10
  But how do they differ and how do they compare?
• 38:12
  And obviously you love your late model, but if you had to do it all
• 38:15
  over again, was walking away from the Corvette, still the right choice.
• 38:18
  Yes, absolutely.
• 38:19
  It's two totally different worlds.
• 38:21
  Best way to say it, I think, is a late model is just raw
• 38:24
  power that you have to control.
• 38:26
  There's no assist.
• 38:28
  It's not like you're on iRacing, you turn on all the assists and you pray
• 38:31
  for the best at the turn, right?
• 38:32
  I mean, it's you and the car.
• 38:33
  That's it.
• 38:33
  You don't have traction control.
• 38:34
  You don't have ABS.
• 38:35
  You got none of that crap.
• 38:36
  You mess up, it's on you.
• 38:38
  With my Corvette, if I get a little wonky, the traction control kicks in and
• 38:41
  kind of straightens me up a little bit, keeps me out of trouble a little more.
• 38:44
  I've learned how to drive a car so much better, even with my Thunder Roadster, and
• 38:49
  now this late model, than I think I ever could in a car with all those assists.
• 38:53
  It's night and day difference.
• 38:54
  You'll see us in there, you know, like on the cameras and we're just saw on the
• 38:58
  wall, trying to keep that car straight and stay in the throttle, coming through
• 39:01
  a turn where my Corvette's more smooth.
• 39:03
  You know, I don't have to worry about it.
• 39:04
  Cause I know that slip and that trash control is going to kick in.
• 39:06
  If something goes wrong, you know what I mean?
• 39:07
  It's like, all right, I got this.
• 39:09
  I got this.
• 39:09
  The car will tell me when it's enough.
• 39:10
  The late model is going to tell you when you're backwards staring
• 39:12
  at the rest of the field going.
• 39:14
  Backwards in the woods at Roebling.
• 39:15
  Yeah.
• 39:15
  Backwards in the woods.
• 39:16
  And we've done, we've been there a couple of times.
• 39:18
  So are there any tracks where you kind of regret having a late model and you
• 39:21
  wish you were in the Corvette instead?
• 39:23
  Um, no, honestly, to each their own, right.
• 39:27
  It's what I love to drive the Corvette at each one of those
• 39:29
  tracks too, just for the experience.
• 39:31
  Absolutely.
• 39:31
  But I think I'd take my late model over the Corvette any day.
• 39:34
  It's the sound, the horsepower, like I can't wait to get Daytona this year
• 39:38
  for hopefully, you know, I get the car back, I cannot wait to put that
• 39:42
  late model It's like, you know, with the Corvette, it's just very street
• 39:46
  feel with a late model stock car.
• 39:48
  If you're in a race car and there is no getting around it, I think
• 39:51
  Anika did a thing on track shaker and where she drove my car.
• 39:54
  And I think one of the things she said is, you know, it's like a race car.
• 39:57
  She said, I've driven, I've driven a C7 Corvette on track and
• 40:00
  I've never been in a late model.
• 40:01
  And she said, the one thing about race cars, they always feel like
• 40:03
  they kind of want to kill you.
• 40:04
  Hey, that's true because the car is just a beast.
• 40:07
  Just, it wants to go.
• 40:08
  You hit that skinny pedal and it's gone.
• 40:10
  It's up to you to maintain control of it.
• 40:12
  And it's just, it's a wild ride.
• 40:13
  You come out of turn nine at Roebling or coming down out of turn seven
• 40:16
  at Road Atlanta and you just drop the hammer on that thing, man.
• 40:18
  Just go ripping through the gears.
• 40:20
  The next thing you know, you're doing 165, 170, 175.
• 40:24
  You feel like you're doing four miles an hour because the car is
• 40:26
  so big, but you're just blasting past people on the straightaway.
• 40:29
  And you're like, oh, you're slow.
• 40:30
  And then you realize you got to turn And here come all those damn High
• 40:33
  downforce cars off your butt because you're like, ah, you know, like trying
• 40:36
  to everything you can to make that turn.
• 40:37
  And they're just pointing and shooting.
• 40:39
  You just got to know where you can give up time and make it back up.
• 40:41
  No, I don't, I don't think I could ever say that I would take the Corvette over.
• 40:45
  I mean, I love the Corvette.
• 40:46
  Don't get me wrong, but yeah, the late model is just a beast of its own.
• 40:49
  You mentioned earlier, the fact that getting into the late model and they've
• 40:52
  dented the door or something like that, it's not as bad as doing the Corvette.
• 40:56
  Do you think that inflated confidence helps with the
• 41:00
  want to be in the late model?
• 41:01
  Because Like I did a lot of motocross when I was younger.
• 41:04
  So going from motocross, you know, on a bike to being inside a car, my
• 41:08
  confidence is way higher than it would be.
• 41:10
  Yeah.
• 41:10
  So a funny story when I was still just doing track days, I went out with,
• 41:14
  it was either just tracking or max speed track days here at Roebling.
• 41:17
  I was still in my Z.
• 41:18
  It's a cool car.
• 41:19
  It's fun, but it was such a shit box.
• 41:21
  And it still is, you know, we're totally redeveloping the car for champ car.
• 41:24
  Like the motor's got to come out.
• 41:25
  Everything's getting redone.
• 41:27
  But I was out there and I had been out on the track probably
• 41:29
  for like six, eight months.
• 41:30
  And I, I know, remember like the back of my hand, I mean, it's 10 minutes
• 41:32
  from my house and I'm out there beating the C7 Corvettes and these guys came
• 41:36
  in, two of these vets came in and I'm passing them left and right.
• 41:39
  And then they're like, they came over and they're like, dude,
• 41:40
  what do you have in that thing?
• 41:42
  I'm like, what do you mean?
• 41:43
  They're like, you're passing this, like in the turns everywhere.
• 41:46
  And I'm like, dude, it's stock.
• 41:47
  I popped the hood, dude.
• 41:48
  It's a 200, 000 mile VQ35D.
• 41:52
  You know what I mean?
• 41:52
  There's nothing special, dude, the suspension, every time you
• 41:55
  turn it, pop and crack, like.
• 41:56
  It was a 3, 000 shit box, but I had so much fun because I didn't care about it.
• 42:01
  If I wrecked it, Oh, well, I didn't have 85, 000 and insurance company to go to
• 42:07
  and say, I think I wrecked it on 95.
• 42:10
  You know what I mean?
• 42:11
  Like, cause I mean, that's a huge concern.
• 42:13
  And then if you, if you want to play it safe with a super expensive car, you know,
• 42:17
  like Corvette or a Porsche or a McLaren, you've got to get track insurance.
• 42:20
  And I don't even want to know what that costs.
• 42:22
  You know, I've.
• 42:22
  I heard of some horror stories where these guys are spending thousands of dollars
• 42:26
  for a weekend and they only get like 40 percent of the value of the vehicle back.
• 42:30
  I'm like, what's that?
• 42:30
  I mean, dude, just crashing into the wall.
• 42:32
  Who cares?
• 42:33
  So I think you're right.
• 42:34
  It does give you a kind of an inflated sense of what you can do because you're
• 42:38
  not afraid to push it because guess what?
• 42:40
  It's not my daily driver.
• 42:41
  If I do skirt the wall or I do, you know, clang it off of somebody or I
• 42:45
  hit it in the tire walls, um, dude, I'm going to take a pry bar and a welder or
• 42:49
  a torch and just bend it the frig back.
• 42:51
  Unless something catastrophic happens.
• 42:53
  Then I just take it back to, you know, over to Southern Knights racing
• 42:56
  and they straighten it out for me and go, all right, here you go.
• 42:57
  I would probably cry.
• 43:00
  I'd just walk back to the pits crying.
• 43:02
  Like sobbing, you know what I mean?
• 43:03
  Cause I just destroyed my baby.
• 43:04
  So it's, it's a whole different role.
• 43:06
  You know, I think it gives you more confidence being in a stock car because
• 43:09
  you know, all these late models and everything, they're basically built
• 43:12
  off the idea of NASCAR roll cages.
• 43:14
  And as far as their job direction, any race we go to, there's not a safer race
• 43:18
  car at the event than what we're in.
• 43:20
  We're pretty much bomb proof in there.
• 43:22
  I mean, I've seen a guy roll it over and turn one.
• 43:24
  He lost his brakes going to turn one at Roebling.
• 43:26
  If you know Roebling, that's a super long straightaway followed by a right turn.
• 43:30
  And if you don't make the right, you're going into the
• 43:31
  dirt wall up over the trees.
• 43:33
  And that's exactly what it did.
• 43:34
  There wasn't anything left but the cage and he walked away.
• 43:37
  And when you feel safe behind the wheel of something that's got that
• 43:40
  much power, you're more willing to try to push the envelope a little bit.
• 43:44
  You don't have to worry about what it's going to cost if you bang it up or if you
• 43:48
  tear a body panel up or if you get in the wall or if you go off track and tear a
• 43:52
  splitter off of it or something like that.
• 43:54
  I guess I shouldn't say this, but if you got a set and you don't give a shit, you
• 43:58
  can haul ass in one of these cars, as long as you got the car set up right,
• 44:01
  safety wise, which is something that we are very big fans of, don't buy the cheap
• 44:06
  stuff, set the car up right, good seat, good belts, you know, you'll be okay.
• 44:10
  Wearing an Alpine Stars hat for a purpose.
• 44:12
  Mike and Kobe, let me ask you this for the folks that are
• 44:14
  looking to get into late models.
• 44:17
  Is there an opportunity out there either with late model
• 44:19
  mafia to come and try a car?
• 44:21
  Maybe somebody that's in the group that's got one or where would you
• 44:24
  recommend somebody going to get one of these cars on the cheap if they're
• 44:28
  trying to get in for the first time?
• 44:30
  Stop it right there.
• 44:31
  Do not go by a good deal.
• 44:33
  No, no.
• 44:34
  If you see a car on racing jump that, oh, it's turnkey ready to
• 44:38
  go for eight grand, 10 grand.
• 44:40
  No, it's not.
• 44:41
  It's not.
• 44:41
  It's a pile of junk.
• 44:42
  This is probably going to get you hurt or break your bank account.
• 44:45
  Most times those cars are people's cars that have raced for three to four years.
• 44:49
  They know the engine is spent and they're just trying to get rid of
• 44:51
  it to get something new themselves.
• 44:53
  And it's nothing against them.
• 44:54
  It's just, that's just the nature of the beast with most things on racing junk.
• 44:57
  You have to search for the good deals, you know, or buy the right car.
• 45:00
  I mean, as far as somebody wanting to get seat time on one of these things.
• 45:03
  No, unfortunately you, you kind of got to make the commitment and the
• 45:06
  investment to get into the program.
• 45:08
  The probably best thing you can do is come hang out, you know, with us or whoever.
• 45:12
  We've got a lot of friends in late model racing, get in with a good shop,
• 45:15
  a good house, something like that.
• 45:17
  They can point you in the right direction because you could give me 50, 000 and
• 45:21
  tell me to go buy you a turnkey race car.
• 45:23
  And you're not guaranteed to get anything good off racing
• 45:25
  junk or Facebook marketplace.
• 45:27
  You need to know somebody that knows somebody and get something good.
• 45:30
  You know, the other option, if it's somebody that's just looking to
• 45:32
  experience what it's like to be in a late model, you know, most of these NASCAR
• 45:36
  tracks have those experiences, right?
• 45:38
  The NASCAR experience, you're not gonna really be able to like wide
• 45:41
  open the car, you know, and really let it, you know, send it in term one.
• 45:44
  But I mean, to get that experience and the sound and the horsepower, you
• 45:48
  know, and go through a class and get to see what these guys do and think
• 45:51
  people would really appreciate that.
• 45:52
  'cause, you know, got, you know, these guys in NASCAR and, and you know, the
• 45:55
  Xfinity Cup at Xfinity and arca, I mean, look, they, they earn their money.
• 45:59
  You know, I, I never thought it either when I was younger and before
• 46:02
  I ever drove a late model and I've quickly realized just how skilled
• 46:06
  those drivers are to be able to do what they do week in and week out.
• 46:09
  So for an individual looking to get into late model, would you
• 46:12
  guys be open to them like reaching out to you guys on late bottom off
• 46:15
  and like, Hey, I found this deal.
• 46:17
  Do you think it's worthwhile?
• 46:18
  Is it something I should look into farther or just walk away from and
• 46:21
  don't think about it a second time?
• 46:23
  Is that something you guys openly give advice to people for?
• 46:26
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 46:27
  That's kind of the way I got into it.
• 46:28
  And as far as coming over to stock cars and road racing and stuff, I bought what
• 46:32
  I thought was a really cool, good deal, but it turns out it was a car that Kyle
• 46:36
  Busch backed into the wall at Daytona.
• 46:38
  They got straightened up, become a show car.
• 46:40
  And it was about as wonky as it came.
• 46:42
  Yeah.
• 46:42
  And the funny part is there's no car facts for a late model, right?
• 46:45
  Like you can't check it out.
• 46:46
  Like God only knows what's my talents and chassis has been
• 46:49
  through in the past 18 years.
• 46:51
  I mean, God only knows it could be bent up three times, restraightened
• 46:54
  and kept right on rolling.
• 46:55
  You don't know what you don't know.
• 46:56
  The biggest piece of advice I have is if you have a friend that's local,
• 47:00
  that has been in the late models or in any sort of racing, and you're looking
• 47:03
  to buy a car, take them with you.
• 47:04
  Don't go it alone because they're going to see things that you'll never think about.
• 47:08
  You're looking at it.
• 47:09
  Oh, the tires look good.
• 47:10
  And the brakes look good.
• 47:11
  And you know, the body's in decent shape, but they're looking at
• 47:13
  the chassis as straight as this is that, you know what I mean?
• 47:16
  Is the motor even in there straight?
• 47:18
  I mean, some of these guys just drop a motor and they don't line them up.
• 47:21
  Nothing.
• 47:21
  I mean, it's just boom.
• 47:22
  See, and they send it, you know, and next thing you know, you're putting
• 47:24
  a huge load on your transmission and next thing you know, you got
• 47:27
  a torch transmission or rear lens.
• 47:28
  I've got a couple of really good friends up in the Atlanta area
• 47:31
  that are kind of doing that now.
• 47:33
  They're big fans of light model racing as far as road racing and stuff
• 47:36
  and they're buying cars that are, you know, nice, respectable cars.
• 47:40
  And you can get in touch with a guy like this and kind of tell him, you
• 47:43
  know, what the budget is, what you want to spend, and they'll build
• 47:46
  you something legit and turnkey.
• 47:48
  Ready to go to the track.
• 47:49
  It's probably not as expensive as you would think.
• 47:51
  I've actually talked to some people that's told me that they had more money in a
• 47:55
  spec Miata than we have in a stock car.
• 47:58
  That's saying a lot, but just realize, you know, you might be able to buy one,
• 48:01
  a decent one for between 15, 25, maybe 30 grand, but just know when that motor
• 48:07
  goes, you're talking anywhere from eight to 15, 000 or a place that, you
• 48:11
  know, you're not going to find a cheap motor unless you just go to the junkyard
• 48:14
  and try and find something that'll suffice their investment for sure.
• 48:17
  And I think you alluded to it earlier.
• 48:19
  They're not for the faint of heart either.
• 48:20
  So I would recommend from a coach's perspective, learn on something else
• 48:25
  first, something with the right seat.
• 48:26
  So you can at least get an idea of this, what it's like being out on the
• 48:30
  track, because I mean, outside of your guys mentorship and tutelage, it's
• 48:34
  going to be very difficult for somebody to jump into one of these turnkey
• 48:37
  race cars and a be safe, be, be fast.
• 48:41
  And see, figure out where the hell they're really going.
• 48:43
  So it's a progression, right?
• 48:45
  You don't start with a late model.
• 48:47
  You probably don't end with a late model, but it's going to be to your
• 48:51
  guy's point, the most fun you're going to have during your journey as a driver,
• 48:55
  if that's on the resume that you're building, but you just can't start there.
• 48:59
  Yeah.
• 49:00
  You know, it's, it's interesting.
• 49:01
  I jumped into them way too early.
• 49:02
  I went from a Thunder Roadster, 180 horsepower, you know, little tiny open
• 49:06
  wheel car, open top car, and just went head first into a late model and drove it.
• 49:10
  Like I was driving a Thunder Roadster, which was a huge mistake.
• 49:13
  I got in over my head.
• 49:14
  I spot a bunch, Kobe's laughing at me on the radio.
• 49:16
  I'm cussing him out.
• 49:17
  You know what I mean?
• 49:17
  Like I got you, I'm coming.
• 49:18
  I couldn't catch him because I just didn't have that wherewithal in me yet to
• 49:22
  understand what it took to drive in a car.
• 49:24
  Took me.
• 49:25
  You know, six, eight months to really start dialing it in and getting people
• 49:27
  ask, oh, how do I get one of these?
• 49:29
  And what I do, I'm like, well, you know, have you driven a race car before?
• 49:31
  Have you been on a track?
• 49:32
  Oh, I've been on a track, but you know, it's in a, you know, I was
• 49:34
  in, you know, a BMW Z four, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, not yet.
• 49:39
  Yeah.
• 49:39
  And there are guys out there.
• 49:40
  There are some of these chassis that are actually two seaters,
• 49:42
  you know, where they've converted them and they put a second seat.
• 49:46
  We know one or two locally here, you know, in the Georgia area that have those.
• 49:49
  And, you know, and these guys are great.
• 49:50
  Like if you go to an open track day and you see one, it's got two seats.
• 49:53
  You say, Hey man, can you take me for a ride?
• 49:55
  And 9.
• 49:55
  9 times the guy that owns the late model, like, hell yeah, man, jump in.
• 49:59
  Actually something we've discussed building as far as business
• 50:02
  wise for the late model mafia was building a two seater.
• 50:05
  So we could go to track days or HBDE and take our friends for a ride.
• 50:09
  I just got to figure out insurance of Kobe's driving.
• 50:14
  Obviously scaring the hell out of Debbie Gallagher.
• 50:16
  I've always said that I wanted to get a two seater and get her in a
• 50:19
  shotgun and just make her scream.
• 50:21
  Like a little girl.
• 50:22
  Well, Mike, you had to do it earlier regarding the fact that the late
• 50:30
  models don't have any of the driver assist options on it is strictly
• 50:35
  a driver's ability in the car.
• 50:36
  And a lot of the people that do a lot of the HPD events have gotten
• 50:40
  so used to driver assist items.
• 50:42
  The late model from what I'm taking is definitely not your fresh, you
• 50:45
  know, novice driver to hop in and go get some experience under your belt.
• 50:50
  Work your way up to that and then get into it.
• 50:52
  Yeah.
• 50:53
  And if you decide that, yeah, you know what, hell with it.
• 50:55
  I'm going to jump into a late model right away.
• 50:57
  You need to start in D1.
• 50:58
  And work your way up and just realize that's only going
• 51:01
  to go as fast as you let it.
• 51:02
  As far as you get that skinny pedals as fast as it's going to go and just realize,
• 51:05
  know your limits, you know, and understand that it's a whole different world.
• 51:08
  You got to get those tires warmed up.
• 51:10
  You got to make sure that the suspension's right.
• 51:12
  If you set up your suspension wrong for a certain track, you're in serious trouble
• 51:15
  before you even roll out on the track.
• 51:17
  And you're not going to realize it until it's too late.
• 51:19
  You know, these guys have been doing this for a long time.
• 51:21
  I'm relatively new to it.
• 51:22
  So when we go to the track, I listened to Kobe, you know, and these other
• 51:24
  guys that he's mentioning and just try to absorb everything like a sponge
• 51:28
  so I can learn as much as possible.
• 51:29
  Could you violate my out of the gate?
• 51:31
  Absolutely.
• 51:32
  Should you just go out there and go full send like I did?
• 51:34
  Oh, hell no.
• 51:34
  That's just a bad idea.
• 51:37
  I would recommend either a, uh, broader restrictor or a governor.
• 51:40
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 51:41
  But I will say this, you know, for the younger generation growing up,
• 51:44
  like my stepson, Zach, he just ran his first race in Oval, you know, and I
• 51:47
  was kind of like waffling as to what I should get him for his first car.
• 51:51
  You know, I know that he's going to eventually end up in late models.
• 51:53
  He loves Kobe's car and my car to death.
• 51:56
  And, you know, he's crewed for us for years since we've both been
• 51:59
  out there at Vassa and even R& D.
• 52:00
  I was going to buy him something like a Z and I said, you know what?
• 52:03
  I'm going to buy him something that's totally out there.
• 52:05
  I'm going to buy him a us legends car and let him go run oval for a while.
• 52:09
  I don't want him to learn on the assists.
• 52:11
  If he wants to make it to late models, he needs to drive something that needs
• 52:14
  to be driven and not assisted to drive.
• 52:17
  So, you know, he's been out there already.
• 52:18
  You know, he had his first race and he loved it.
• 52:20
  He was out there.
• 52:21
  He was a slow poke for practice and warmups and qualifying.
• 52:24
  He started picking it up, but he's starting to realize now that.
• 52:26
  You know, it's not just holding the steering wheel and cruising around,
• 52:29
  you know, you're really letting this thing have it in order to keep
• 52:32
  it going where you want it to go.
• 52:33
  And I think that's going to be his biggest attribute when he moves up again.
• 52:38
  I think it helped me with the Thunder Roadster because there's
• 52:40
  no assist in the Thunder Roadster.
• 52:41
  I mean, it's balls in the wall the whole way that at least gave me some sort of a
• 52:45
  shot with a late model life or something.
• 52:47
  I grew up running dirt and for anything from go karts to
• 52:51
  late models, all that stuff.
• 52:53
  And first off, there's no assist whatsoever.
• 52:55
  I've never drove a race car in my life or anything that had assist on it.
• 52:58
  The assist was what's between your ears and hopefully used it smart enough.
• 53:02
  It's one thing that's really helped me is dirt experience on
• 53:05
  road course racing, because you let these cars skew out so much.
• 53:08
  You let these cars rotate so much through the corner.
• 53:11
  People think that you're just turning left.
• 53:13
  No, and Michael can tell you there's, if you follow behind me,
• 53:17
  you'll be like, yep, he's gone.
• 53:19
  How the hell did he do that?
• 53:21
  There's times I've, I've drove the car sideways and I look back at my dirt
• 53:24
  experience and it, it helps with that.
• 53:26
  I reverted back when my late model went down middle of the C or middle
• 53:30
  of last season, I went back to the Z just to play around a little bit.
• 53:32
  The trash control came on at road one and like a couple of turns
• 53:35
  and I'm like, just piece of shit.
• 53:36
  You know what I mean?
• 53:37
  I was like, stupid track.
• 53:38
  I'm like reaching down trying to hit the trash control button is I hate it.
• 53:40
  You know, I want to feel the car rotate.
• 53:42
  I want to know what it's doing and not have it stop itself because
• 53:45
  it thinks it might lose control.
• 53:47
  You know what I mean?
• 53:47
  It's just, it's a whole nother level of driving that realizes streetcars.
• 53:51
  That's like the weekend you had trouble with your light model and you unloaded
• 53:54
  the, uh, Thunder Roaster to back up.
• 53:56
  That was miserable for him.
• 53:58
  That was, that was, it was so frustrating.
• 54:00
  He went from 700 plus horsepower to fuck 80.
• 54:03
  Fuck 80.
• 54:04
  And I'm like literally getting passed by the light models and the bets.
• 54:07
  And I'm like trying to Fred Flintstone it like through the floorboard, like
• 54:09
  trying to get the car to go fast.
• 54:10
  Come on, come on, come on, come on.
• 54:12
  But I caught him in the turns for a little bit and then it just left me again.
• 54:14
  So we're going to get the same story we hear from the auto owner.
• 54:18
  So, you know, whatever you're in good company.
• 54:19
  Yeah.
• 54:20
  Yeah.
• 54:20
  Yeah.
• 54:21
  It's, it's fun.
• 54:22
  So that brings up a really good question.
• 54:24
  I like to ask people.
• 54:26
  So what's your biggest oops moment or maybe code Brown moment
• 54:29
  on track with your late model?
• 54:31
  Yeah.
• 54:32
  My impales way in comparison to Kobe, you know, honestly, when
• 54:35
  I first got my late model, I really haven't had any major oops.
• 54:38
  I've spawned at a bunch, you know, in the race and practice and whatever test
• 54:41
  in tune, you know, honestly, the biggest oops was just, I jumped in way too fast.
• 54:46
  I went from my Thunder Roadster, which they're fast.
• 54:49
  They're faster than the turns.
• 54:50
  They aren't straightaways.
• 54:51
  And I gotta be honest when I first went down the straightaway, my late model,
• 54:54
  I'm like, Holy, I would never go back.
• 54:56
  I mean that horsepower, that speed, that sound.
• 54:58
  I was like, I'm done.
• 54:59
  I'm hooked.
• 55:00
  That's it.
• 55:00
  You know, when you come back, never nothing against those guys.
• 55:03
  Those are fantastic cars.
• 55:05
  Well, you don't drive this thing.
• 55:06
  It just sounds like something off a TV, you know, and you're
• 55:09
  just hooked on it immediately.
• 55:10
  I pushed it too hard.
• 55:11
  You know, I ended up spinning a bunch of times.
• 55:13
  I was like in like fifth place in the race.
• 55:15
  My first race in LA model ended up spinning two or three times all the
• 55:18
  way to the back of the field, got all the way back to eighth place.
• 55:20
  And then me and a Mustang got into it and turned one at Robin on the white flag.
• 55:24
  You know, it is what it is.
• 55:25
  Both kind of entered the turn at the same time.
• 55:27
  I was on the inside.
• 55:27
  He was on the outside.
• 55:29
  He ended up on my inside.
• 55:30
  I ended up outside backwards with a front up busted up clip that
• 55:32
  cost me a hundred bucks to fix.
• 55:34
  It didn't fare so well, unfortunately, you know, we just kind of met,
• 55:37
  but yeah, no, that's fine.
• 55:39
  It wasn't much, but I've got plenty coming.
• 55:41
  I'm sure.
• 55:42
  Go ahead, Kobe.
• 55:42
  Tell them your fantastic story.
• 55:45
  Well, rode Atlanta this past December.
• 55:48
  Did you have, you didn't have a car there, did you?
• 55:50
  No, mine, mine was still down.
• 55:52
  Hey, were you at five?
• 55:53
  I think you were in the SS.
• 55:54
  Yeah, it was, uh, it was actually, let me, let me set this up.
• 55:57
  Cause he's not going to give it to you the right way.
• 55:59
  Cause there, this is a crazy story and a scary story, but
• 56:02
  it was kind of funny as hell.
• 56:03
  Cause it's just, you got to understand who Kobe Timms is.
• 56:06
  Like when you get on the radio and tell him that it looks like
• 56:08
  something's wrong with his car, he goes, F that, let this bitch eat.
• 56:10
  And he just keeps right on going.
• 56:12
  The dude has no fear.
• 56:13
  I've learned so much from his driving because he just doesn't give a shit.
• 56:16
  Like he just goes, he wants to win.
• 56:18
  He wants to be up front.
• 56:19
  No matter what, I mean, I've seen him spin at Rhode Island or at a Roebling
• 56:23
  going to turn three, I'm coming around or I'm coming out of two and I see
• 56:27
  him over in the woods, I got a half a lap on him and the whole field does.
• 56:31
  And here he comes a lap and a half later, here he comes like a bat out of hell.
• 56:34
  I mean, he's just, he's a, he's a maniac, you know, he's just, but it's great.
• 56:37
  You know, he just, he knows what he's doing.
• 56:39
  So yeah, so to set this up, hang on, dad, you wait, cause I know where you're going.
• 56:43
  He calls me up and he's like, Hey, come up to the track.
• 56:45
  We're going to road Atlanta.
• 56:46
  I need you to clear a spot.
• 56:47
  No problem.
• 56:48
  I'm on my way.
• 56:48
  So we go out there.
• 56:49
  We're hanging out.
• 56:49
  We're having a good time.
• 56:50
  It was what two races that weekend, Saturday went shittily because you ended
• 56:55
  up with carbon monoxide poisoning because you're, you're frigging exhaust pipe.
• 57:00
  Start there first.
• 57:01
  I'll preface that.
• 57:02
  And then you can start.
• 57:03
  Okay, Saturday, we had a really fast car, we're doing great.
• 57:08
  I started getting a little lightheaded, a little choked up in the car.
• 57:11
  I the hell's wrong with this thing?
• 57:12
  I started getting sick in the car.
• 57:14
  Next thing I knew, I threw up in my helmet and I was like, oh shit, what's going on?
• 57:18
  I seen the flagman.
• 57:19
  I think he threw down three to go or something at us or something like that.
• 57:23
  And I was like, I'm gonna hang on to it.
• 57:24
  I'm gonna hang on to it.
• 57:25
  I finished the race and I noticed the car was louder for a reason.
• 57:28
  The collector pot after the headers that runs down the
• 57:31
  transmission tube come loose.
• 57:33
  And It was dumping all the exhaust in there with me.
• 57:35
  It's on the radio.
• 57:36
  He goes, get back here quick.
• 57:37
  I'm not feeling too hot.
• 57:39
  I was like, what?
• 57:41
  As soon as we got to the checkered flag, I dropped the window net
• 57:44
  was literally ripping my helmet off going around the track.
• 57:47
  I didn't care what they said about it.
• 57:49
  Come all the way around all the way back to the paddock.
• 57:50
  You know, that car is going slow.
• 57:51
  It's not getting a lot of fresh air in it at all.
• 57:53
  So I was gagging to death.
• 57:55
  I got back to our pit box and his wife was there and I, I call her mother
• 58:00
  goose because she takes care of me.
• 58:02
  I don't know what I did.
• 58:03
  I looked at her.
• 58:04
  I said something and I think she called Michael and said get medical up here.
• 58:09
  I can't remember what, what was my oxygen levels?
• 58:11
  It was not good.
• 58:12
  I don't remember what it was, but it was not a number.
• 58:14
  It was.
• 58:16
  Oh shit.
• 58:16
  Cause they put him in the ambulance, took him down to the medical facility
• 58:19
  there at Rhode Island and had him for two hours on oxygen transporting.
• 58:23
  That's how low he was.
• 58:24
  Like he did not look good when he got out of the car, let's just put it that way.
• 58:27
  We come back in Saturday.
• 58:28
  Not, I think we had our awards banquet that night, didn't we?
• 58:32
  I was sick as a dog.
• 58:33
  I had carbon dioxide poisoning.
• 58:34
  As long as weekend's looking back, I shouldn't have raced the next day.
• 58:37
  But we did.
• 58:37
  Yes, he raced the next day.
• 58:39
  He said, I'm still gonna send it.
• 58:41
  Well, he did.
• 58:42
  It's full sends only with Kobe Tims.
• 58:44
  That should be his nickname.
• 58:45
  Kobe full send only Tims.
• 58:47
  So we get the car back.
• 58:48
  We have the NASA awards banquet and all that.
• 58:50
  We go to that.
• 58:51
  I mean, you stayed up and fix the car.
• 58:53
  We got it ready to go.
• 58:54
  So we go out Sunday, we had a good day.
• 58:56
  We were running good.
• 58:56
  I thought that I was a qualifying one.
• 58:58
  Great.
• 58:59
  Yeah.
• 58:59
  When great, we developed what about five, six laps in a little smoke.
• 59:03
  Now mind you, this is how competitive this guy is.
• 59:06
  This was a fun race.
• 59:07
  They erased the race on Sunday and then they had a fun race.
• 59:11
  So he went out, no guts, no glory.
• 59:13
  Just, Hey, let's go have fun.
• 59:14
  And went to the rear behind what?
• 59:15
  Like 3000 cars or something like that.
• 59:18
  You guys were stacked up in the like.
• 59:20
  Turn nine, when they took the green flag at the start finish, there were
• 59:23
  so many cars in there that I think they had the rollback out there racing too.
• 59:26
  I mean, everybody was out there, so I told him I'm going to go
• 59:28
  spot for you and turn five.
• 59:30
  I'll be on top of the golf cart.
• 59:31
  I got you.
• 59:32
  I can see pretty much the whole back of the track.
• 59:34
  I think Debbie and Brittany were up front.
• 59:36
  He comes around, I guess it was like, yeah, four or five
• 59:38
  laps in and he is moving.
• 59:39
  I mean, just flying, like carving the field up, ripping it up, like truly
• 59:44
  showing what a late model can do.
• 59:45
  You know what I mean?
• 59:46
  Yeah.
• 59:46
  Eight to 12 cars a lap down the backstretch.
• 59:49
  He was just ripping them down the back straight.
• 59:51
  And then he was, he was just nailing all of his marks that wrote Atlanta.
• 59:53
  I mean, he knows the track really well, and he was really doing well.
• 59:55
  And he comes up turn five and I see fire in the wheel.
• 59:59
  Well, behind the tire, kind of like up by the firewall, like
• 1:00:02
  where the headers come down.
• 1:00:03
  And I, one thing about Kobe Tim's and KTR number 13 is if he's not smoking
• 1:00:07
  something wrong, like always, He comes up, he was smoking lightly the whole time.
• 1:00:12
  I figured he probably just put too much rear gear dope in it or something like
• 1:00:15
  that, it was blowing up the breather and it was hitting something hot.
• 1:00:18
  Everything was fine.
• 1:00:19
  Power was good.
• 1:00:20
  Temps were good on the radio.
• 1:00:21
  I'm making sure.
• 1:00:22
  And, and he comes up, he's on fire.
• 1:00:24
  I see a flash of flames come out of the wheel.
• 1:00:26
  Well, behind the tire by the headers and all that good stuff.
• 1:00:29
  And I'm like, you're on fire.
• 1:00:30
  I'm like bringing in, he goes, let me see what it does.
• 1:00:34
  And he goes in the six comes out of six comes out of seven.
• 1:00:37
  I see him getting on the back straight.
• 1:00:38
  He wasn't on fire.
• 1:00:39
  He said, I'm going to let this bitch eat.
• 1:00:40
  I'm like, here we go.
• 1:00:42
  Before I can turn around, there's three specky 46 is coming up.
• 1:00:45
  Turn five sideways.
• 1:00:47
  I think he dropped oil on the track or something, and it probably
• 1:00:50
  ignited, you know, on the headers.
• 1:00:52
  And that's probably what cooked his entire wiring harness and all that good stuff.
• 1:00:56
  And before I could turn back around, there's a mushroom cloud or by turn nine.
• 1:01:00
  And I'm like, well, I'm on the radio, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe.
• 1:01:03
  I'm like, shit, I get on the golf cart.
• 1:01:05
  I fall ass over there.
• 1:01:06
  There he is on fire, fully engulfed.
• 1:01:07
  I'm like, great.
• 1:01:09
  We come out of seven and Michael told me, you know, he's seen
• 1:01:11
  flames smoking or whatever.
• 1:01:13
  And I was thinking it's just something on the headers or whatever.
• 1:01:15
  It'll burn off.
• 1:01:16
  When I went under the bridge and I went to pull the car back into fourth gear.
• 1:01:20
  When I went into fourth gear, the shifter boot just disintegrated.
• 1:01:25
  And flame come up through it.
• 1:01:26
  So I'm what in the fourth, what about 140 mile an hour or so?
• 1:01:29
  Yeah, you're, you were probably doing between one 30 and one 50 somewhere.
• 1:01:32
  Now you were flying because you came out of seven, like a bat out of hell.
• 1:01:35
  And I'm on fire and I'm trying to get this thing wowed up, get this thing stopped.
• 1:01:40
  I didn't know if it was fuel, if it was oil, if I mean, what was going on?
• 1:01:44
  We're putting pretty big, pretty good bit of wind to the fire at 140 mile an hour.
• 1:01:48
  So I stopped the bridge and I say, the next corner worker is before
• 1:01:51
  you, I guess we'll call it eight.
• 1:01:53
  Before you get where the club course would come back on the track, we get
• 1:01:57
  the nine to the corner worker there.
• 1:01:59
  So I start gearing it down and I'm already dropping when the net dropping
• 1:02:02
  seatbelts, you know, trying to get out, get ready to get out of the car.
• 1:02:05
  And I did what you're not supposed to do.
• 1:02:06
  And I'll admit it.
• 1:02:07
  I panicked when I got the car stopped me and Michael, or, you
• 1:02:10
  know, we're bigger, taller guys.
• 1:02:12
  And I'm about six, one and a half, six.
• 1:02:14
  Did you start yelling, save me, Jesus, save me Tom Cruise.
• 1:02:17
  I was in the car.
• 1:02:20
  I think we got it to about 24 seconds with flame.
• 1:02:23
  Wow.
• 1:02:24
  I went to pull the fire handle and the fire handle had already
• 1:02:27
  melted to the dash, you know, it was getting a little creepy.
• 1:02:30
  At this point, we got oil burning.
• 1:02:32
  We've got the fiberglass body burning the legs and windshields
• 1:02:35
  burning, and I'm choking to death.
• 1:02:37
  When I dumped the seatbelts, I got them hung in my Hans device and I
• 1:02:41
  couldn't get loose and I'm sitting here trying to fight to get loose.
• 1:02:44
  And the smoke's getting darker and it's.
• 1:02:46
  It was what, like two o'clock in the afternoon.
• 1:02:47
  I couldn't see right here.
• 1:02:49
  I mean, I was blind and I'm screaming at the corner worker.
• 1:02:52
  Help me, help me, help me.
• 1:02:53
  I mean, cause he's literally 20 yards from me.
• 1:02:55
  It was maybe, it wasn't even that he was like 15 feet from you.
• 1:02:58
  I could see his eyeballs and I'm screaming, help me.
• 1:03:03
  Come help me.
• 1:03:03
  You know, you got a damn fire extinguisher.
• 1:03:05
  Bring it over here.
• 1:03:06
  And he wouldn't do anything for some reason.
• 1:03:08
  I just kept fighting to live and I kept fighting with it, fighting with this.
• 1:03:11
  I went and I finally got loose out of the seatbelts.
• 1:03:13
  I got out of the car and I ran and got the fire extinguisher off the wall.
• 1:03:17
  And I probably should have called road Atlanta and shoot
• 1:03:19
  everybody out, but I didn't.
• 1:03:20
  And this corner worker says the fire truck will be here in about 30 seconds.
• 1:03:25
  I said, the damn thing will be burned up in 30 seconds.
• 1:03:27
  Give me the fire extinguisher.
• 1:03:28
  And I grabbed it off the wall, ran back, stuck it in the hood, man, dumped it.
• 1:03:32
  But I guess I was running on adrenaline man, because.
• 1:03:35
  After that, I collapsed to the ground.
• 1:03:38
  And that was the second time he went to the medical facility at
• 1:03:40
  road Atlanta on the same weekend.
• 1:03:42
  The car was scorched and it was, it was bad.
• 1:03:44
  It scared the hell out of all of us.
• 1:03:45
  I mean, everybody that went by Tracy was on the, you know, on the track at that
• 1:03:48
  time, there were several drivers, you know, that were really close friends.
• 1:03:51
  Right.
• 1:03:51
  They didn't know what to do, whether they needed to stop and help him
• 1:03:53
  or they were just throwing yellow.
• 1:03:54
  No, I didn't even double yellows.
• 1:03:56
  They were racing by him while they were on fire.
• 1:03:58
  It was, it was crazy.
• 1:04:00
  Thankfully he got out and he was right on the edge of the track.
• 1:04:02
  And when he stepped out, he actually stepped.
• 1:04:04
  onto the track.
• 1:04:05
  And thankfully everybody was far enough left realizing what was
• 1:04:08
  going on, even with the yellow flags that they kept them safe.
• 1:04:10
  But speaking negative about the situation would be bashing
• 1:04:14
  road Atlanta or bashing NASA.
• 1:04:16
  But F you, whatever.
• 1:04:17
  I don't care.
• 1:04:18
  You could have threw a red flag.
• 1:04:20
  Wasn't gonna hurt.
• 1:04:20
  I'm literally on fire.
• 1:04:22
  Tracy could do was the leader of the race.
• 1:04:24
  And she literally was going to stop on the track and help me get out of the car.
• 1:04:28
  It was that bad.
• 1:04:29
  I was like, where's the red flag?
• 1:04:30
  Why is there not a red flag?
• 1:04:31
  I was yelling at the corner worker, throw the red, throw the red.
• 1:04:34
  Cause he was just out there, you know, and thankfully fire got there pretty quick
• 1:04:38
  and they were still like just racing.
• 1:04:40
  I was like, this is a fun race, man.
• 1:04:41
  Shut this thing down.
• 1:04:42
  Wasn't cool.
• 1:04:43
  But we learned a lot that day, you know, it's so it's one of those things.
• 1:04:46
  The rescue crew got to me, you know, once I seen that, you know, they
• 1:04:49
  were putting fire out or whatever, I, I finally got in the ambulance.
• 1:04:52
  And we're going down the backstretch and where we always park, we call
• 1:04:55
  it nausea hill, which is up at 10 a above the bleachers or whatever.
• 1:04:59
  I told the ambulance driver, I said, when you go by here, I said,
• 1:05:02
  my people's up here on the hill.
• 1:05:03
  When you go by, throw a thumbs up out the window and let them know I'm okay.
• 1:05:07
  I'm alive.
• 1:05:08
  Apparently.
• 1:05:09
  Debbie misunderstood that is he's dead or something.
• 1:05:12
  I don't know.
• 1:05:13
  He thought he said, come on, bad.
• 1:05:15
  They nearly beat us to the infill care center.
• 1:05:18
  It was a lot of change and experience.
• 1:05:19
  I'll I'll say that.
• 1:05:20
  And it's really pushed me to help others in racing.
• 1:05:24
  Don't buy the cheap fire suit, man.
• 1:05:25
  Don't buy the cheap seat belts.
• 1:05:27
  Don't buy the cheap gloves.
• 1:05:28
  Wear your underwear.
• 1:05:29
  Cause we all, you know, we all wear fire suits and we all think, Oh,
• 1:05:32
  it's not going to happen to me.
• 1:05:33
  Bullshit.
• 1:05:34
  It can happen.
• 1:05:35
  And it happened to me biggest fears, you know, in racing.
• 1:05:37
  I think for anybody that's on track and is taking this stuff seriously with a car
• 1:05:41
  that really has some performance to it.
• 1:05:42
  It's one thing to be out there in a mini Cooper, you know, or, you
• 1:05:45
  know, just a regular old street car.
• 1:05:47
  But I mean, dude, if you hit the wall the right way, something might pop.
• 1:05:50
  You know, and next thing you know, you're engulfed in flames, wishing
• 1:05:53
  to God you had all that gear.
• 1:05:54
  I had a nice Alpine star suit that was getting kind of old.
• 1:05:57
  I upgraded mine.
• 1:05:57
  You know, I just, nope, not taking that chance.
• 1:06:00
  Malaclava, Nomex underwear, socks.
• 1:06:02
  I mean, look, NASA does an excellent job.
• 1:06:04
  No fault to them.
• 1:06:05
  You know, it's that they weren't in control of the corner workers.
• 1:06:07
  I think that NASA does a great, great job with safety, just
• 1:06:10
  like the rest of the clubs do.
• 1:06:11
  But it's because of them that they've ingrained into us to wear all that stuff.
• 1:06:15
  Right.
• 1:06:15
  Cause look, a lot of your dirt track guys, dude, they got
• 1:06:17
  suits that are 25 years old.
• 1:06:19
  They don't wear gloves.
• 1:06:20
  They don't wear a balaclava.
• 1:06:21
  I never understood as far as dirt track racing.
• 1:06:24
  I got buddies that will not wear gloves.
• 1:06:26
  Why?
• 1:06:27
  Cause I can feel the steering wheel better and my long time saying that
• 1:06:31
  I've always used, and this may be too R rated, you're not going to
• 1:06:34
  wear the gloves in the race car.
• 1:06:36
  Who's going to hold your pecker when you need to piss, when you're burnt?
• 1:06:40
  It's so true though, because you don't think about it.
• 1:06:42
  You go to the racetrack, whether it's a track day or a race, Ah, it ain't
• 1:06:45
  going to happen to me, I'll be fine.
• 1:06:47
  Next thing you know, you're fully engulfed in flames going, Uh oh.
• 1:06:50
  There's a problem.
• 1:06:51
  That's another detractor.
• 1:06:52
  You know, late models, they're wild, man.
• 1:06:54
  I mean, you know, you got, Parts moving extremely fast for what
• 1:06:57
  they are, you know what I mean?
• 1:06:58
  And it's shit happens, dude.
• 1:07:00
  And you got to be ready for it.
• 1:07:01
  And thankfully, you know, the only thing Kobe really happened to him, a little
• 1:07:04
  bit of smoke inhalation and some more oxygen solved that problem for him.
• 1:07:07
  And, you know, pretty much burned his nose a little bit.
• 1:07:11
  But thank God, I mean, he had to see how his visor down, the flames were
• 1:07:13
  still coming up, you know, under his helmet through his bottle of clava.
• 1:07:16
  But I mean, think about it.
• 1:07:17
  No bottle of clava on.
• 1:07:18
  Visor up.
• 1:07:19
  People don't think about that.
• 1:07:20
  They just cruise around their visor up, man.
• 1:07:22
  That's not enforced more in racing is, you know, keeping the shield
• 1:07:26
  down because it's there for a reason.
• 1:07:28
  And that weekend was the first weekend I actually started using a helmet sock.
• 1:07:31
  So I had on the balaclava and, and the helmet sock.
• 1:07:34
  So it was kind of double protection, but even with the shield down, even
• 1:07:38
  with the sock, You know, the helmet socks, I still got flame in the helmet.
• 1:07:42
  As someone who's experienced being on fire before, not in a car or anything weird,
• 1:07:46
  because they always teach you as a kid, you catch fire, stop, drop, and roll.
• 1:07:50
  For me, I was working on a, and fuel got sprayed on me and it backfired.
• 1:07:54
  And I wound up being a ball of flame running through the field.
• 1:07:57
  I never thought to hit the ground.
• 1:07:59
  It's one of those things you never think about.
• 1:08:00
  And it's like, no, you were saying that you got hung up in
• 1:08:03
  your belts trying to get out.
• 1:08:04
  I can't imagine how bad that would have freaked out because.
• 1:08:07
  I was freaking out running through the damn yard with just being like my whole
• 1:08:10
  face and chest on fire and my arms.
• 1:08:12
  So I was like, I'd hate to imagine being stuck in a car,
• 1:08:15
  having trouble with my arms.
• 1:08:16
  I did freak out.
• 1:08:17
  I did get a little crazy there for a second, but I had to tell myself to
• 1:08:21
  calm down and get out of that car.
• 1:08:24
  I mean, I was hacking, coughing, wheezing, trying to get some fresh air
• 1:08:28
  and I was in it for over 20 seconds.
• 1:08:30
  I say, I say 24, 25 seconds.
• 1:08:33
  My fire suits done.
• 1:08:34
  I will not wear it again.
• 1:08:35
  It's hanging on the shop wall.
• 1:08:36
  You know, being bigger guys, you know, Kobe 6162.
• 1:08:39
  I'm 64, you know, getting a little, you know, they look like massive cars.
• 1:08:42
  But when you're in the cockpit, it's I mean, you got your helmet on your Hans
• 1:08:47
  device and all this gear, you know, you got radio wires everywhere and just
• 1:08:52
  being able to maintain that calm when you're on a fire is just next level, man.
• 1:08:56
  I mean, it's, it's scary.
• 1:08:57
  I admit it.
• 1:08:58
  I panicked when it happened, when I got stopped and I was trying to get
• 1:09:01
  all the belts off the radio and hooked.
• 1:09:03
  I finally figured out afterwards, tearing the car down.
• 1:09:05
  The reason I didn't hear Michael on the radio is because the radio
• 1:09:08
  harness had already burned up.
• 1:09:09
  I wasn't going to hear him.
• 1:09:09
  I mean, I looked.
• 1:09:10
  I looked at Kobe once we knew it was okay.
• 1:09:12
  He was back in the pits with us.
• 1:09:13
  You know, we all, we all hugged it out for a minute and try to
• 1:09:16
  make light of the situation.
• 1:09:17
  I looked at him and I said, you know, NASA's big into safety,
• 1:09:19
  you know, and kudos for that.
• 1:09:21
  You know, everybody that that works for NASA, the owners of NASA are great.
• 1:09:24
  We'll be impounded for whatever after a race or qualifying.
• 1:09:27
  And, you know, they'll say, all right.
• 1:09:28
  Exit drills and like, oh, you know, you have to get out of the car in 15 seconds.
• 1:09:32
  Yeah.
• 1:09:32
  Well, I looked at Coby and I said, I bet you're glad we do those exit drills now.
• 1:09:35
  Aren't you?
• 1:09:36
  And he just kind of shook his head and laughed.
• 1:09:37
  It's all there for a reason, you know, pay attention.
• 1:09:39
  And it makes you try to do the exit drills in the dark covered
• 1:09:42
  in smoke, because that's where it's going to be when it happens.
• 1:09:45
  Yeah, being on a nice sunny day, that's for sure.
• 1:09:47
  Not going to happen where the safety director can go.
• 1:09:50
  All right, try it again.
• 1:09:51
  See, I told you my story suck.
• 1:09:53
  This is actually a great segue into the future of things, right?
• 1:09:57
  So let's first start off with what's the future of KTR number 13?
• 1:10:01
  Where are things now?
• 1:10:02
  You know, maybe now that we're six months away from the fire, is there a new car?
• 1:10:06
  Are there more plans?
• 1:10:07
  What's going on there?
• 1:10:08
  And let's also dive into the future of late model mafia and where
• 1:10:12
  things are going there as well.
• 1:10:13
  As far as the future of KTR, we plan on going back road racing soon.
• 1:10:18
  I've had a lot going on in my life in the past four months, six months, something
• 1:10:21
  like that, just a little bit of my story.
• 1:10:23
  The fire happened the first weekend of December and at Road Atlanta, two days
• 1:10:27
  after Christmas, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
• 1:10:30
  Out of respect for him, I stepped away from racing for a little
• 1:10:33
  while because it made him nervous.
• 1:10:34
  He passed away back in April.
• 1:10:35
  So there was three or four months there.
• 1:10:37
  I was not behind the wheel.
• 1:10:38
  I actually had another car that I was in the process of purchasing, ready to go.
• 1:10:42
  That deal just didn't work out.
• 1:10:44
  And we're looking at doing another car and I'm going to try something really crazy.
• 1:10:48
  And Michael and Debbie's not too happy about it.
• 1:10:50
  Alpinestars saved me in a race car.
• 1:10:52
  So we're going to take, we're going to go two wheel racing.
• 1:10:55
  Oh, interesting.
• 1:10:56
  Yes, sir.
• 1:10:57
  I keep telling him he's not 18 anymore and with age comes cage,
• 1:11:00
  but he doesn't want to listen.
• 1:11:01
  He's not as old as I am.
• 1:11:02
  So I guess he's still got a little bit of a shot at it, but I came from there.
• 1:11:05
  So I know how bad it hurts to wreck and break seven bones at one time.
• 1:11:10
  I want to try.
• 1:11:11
  I may do it one time and say, No, forget this.
• 1:11:14
  And then again, I may, I may love it.
• 1:11:16
  I don't know.
• 1:11:16
  It's just something I want to try.
• 1:11:18
  I've always been a fan of, you know, MotoGP and stuff like that.
• 1:11:21
  I want to try that, but my roots are in stock car racing and
• 1:11:24
  I'm not going to leave home.
• 1:11:25
  I know where I belong.
• 1:11:27
  So Michael, what about the future of late model mafia?
• 1:11:29
  What's what's going on?
• 1:11:30
  Late model mafia is here to stay.
• 1:11:32
  To be honest, it's grown to a point, especially with pit lane.
• 1:11:35
  Where I think we're going to step into a new venture to that'll be more
• 1:11:39
  of the parent to late model mafia and it'll be motor sports mafia.
• 1:11:42
  We're really going to branch out.
• 1:11:43
  I think the late model mafia was a bit too niche for, you know, the
• 1:11:47
  general motor sports population.
• 1:11:48
  And I think that from the feedback that Toby and I are receiving, I
• 1:11:51
  think it's, it's wise for us to maybe expand it out a little bit.
• 1:11:55
  Motor sports mafia is on the horizon.
• 1:11:57
  We'll be transitioning anyone that's not late model related
• 1:11:59
  over to motor sports mafia.
• 1:12:01
  It'll be two wheels.
• 1:12:02
  It'll be four wheels.
• 1:12:03
  It'll be road racing, asphalt, dirt, rally, whatever, you name it, bring
• 1:12:08
  it like we're, we're here to be one cohesive, you know, motor sports
• 1:12:11
  family and have fun and help people market their teams and, and just get
• 1:12:14
  out there, get the exposure they need.
• 1:12:16
  You know, we're hoping maybe one of these days, one of these
• 1:12:18
  teams makes it to the big time.
• 1:12:19
  We can say that we had a small part in helping them get there.
• 1:12:22
  Look forward to Motorsports Mafia.
• 1:12:23
  We have a one more exciting thing that I guess I'll release right here
• 1:12:27
  for the first under Motorsports Mafia and subbed out by late model mafia.
• 1:12:31
  We are actually in the process of building out our first mobile simulator rig.
• 1:12:35
  Basically we have a short bus, which is very fitting for late model mafia,
• 1:12:39
  as you can hear from the past hour or so, and we are putting into full blown
• 1:12:43
  simulator rigs in the back and we will be.
• 1:12:46
  Basically traveling to dirt tracks, asphalt, ovals, road
• 1:12:49
  course tracks, you name it.
• 1:12:51
  And whoever wants to jump into the simulators, feel free to do so come on in.
• 1:12:54
  We'll, you know, we'll load up iRacing, we'll get everything on and we'll load the
• 1:12:57
  track that we're at, or, you know, we'll let people run it out and have fun and see
• 1:13:01
  what these drivers experience out there, a lot of families out there, especially
• 1:13:04
  at the oval tracks, you know, on the dirt tracks, there's a lot of spectators
• 1:13:07
  that maybe want to see what it's like.
• 1:13:08
  And we definitely think it'd be cool to bring something like that to the crowd.
• 1:13:11
  So.
• 1:13:11
  And then of course, you know, your club racing and all that at 5 PM, everybody
• 1:13:15
  shuts down, the beer drinking commences and what better place to go try to
• 1:13:18
  see if you can handle Roebling road than after a six pack in a simulator.
• 1:13:22
  So who knows?
• 1:13:24
  I mean, it could be a lot of fun.
• 1:13:25
  So yeah, we're excited.
• 1:13:26
  We're excited to announce that the bus is about a, about a quarter of the way built.
• 1:13:30
  We just gutted it and painted the whole thing and we're getting ready
• 1:13:33
  to build all the foundation on the inside power and all that good stuff.
• 1:13:36
  And we're hoping to have it ready to rock and roll for 2023.
• 1:13:39
  So Mike and Kobe, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd
• 1:13:43
  like to share that we didn't cover up until this point in the episode.
• 1:13:46
  First and foremost goes out to my crazy ass wife for
• 1:13:48
  putting up with all this stuff.
• 1:13:49
  I mean, I love her to death.
• 1:13:50
  Uh, my stepson, Zach, the rest of the family, you know, for being there by
• 1:13:54
  my side and just putting up with my shenanigans and, you know, help me
• 1:13:57
  succeed in this stuff, you know, and just go out and have fun as a family.
• 1:14:00
  A couple of sponsors, I can't not mention Hurricane Tumblers, uh, Speedy
• 1:14:04
  Racewear, Trinity Motorsports, MFREX Designs, and Chicane, and Violent HD.
• 1:14:08
  Just a couple that kind of helped me get to where I'm at with MGR, with Michael
• 1:14:11
  Gallagher racing in the 45 late model, you know, looking back over the years
• 1:14:14
  racing, it started from my mom and dad helping me as far as, you know, getting
• 1:14:19
  started in dirt, go kart racing and stuff.
• 1:14:21
  And my dad actually opened a cart shop and ran a cart shop the same
• 1:14:25
  time I was racing all those years.
• 1:14:26
  So my dad's been a really big influence on me racing and he's a big shout out.
• 1:14:30
  I owe him, I owe him one.
• 1:14:32
  He spent a lot of money when I was younger.
• 1:14:33
  I didn't realize it, but looking back now on, and you know, on a race team,
• 1:14:36
  you go, damn, pop spent some money.
• 1:14:38
  We traveled all over the place.
• 1:14:39
  We were going five, six, seven states a year on the road.
• 1:14:42
  And that's, that's some money.
• 1:14:44
  Past two years, I have to thank Michael and Debbie Gallagher.
• 1:14:46
  They've been a big part of my promotion.
• 1:14:48
  I I'm the wrench monkey.
• 1:14:50
  They handle the marketing and the brains of the business.
• 1:14:52
  You know, Zach, his stepson's been a big help to me, means the world to me.
• 1:14:55
  I give him hell, but that's my buddy.
• 1:14:57
  My fiance, Brittany, has put up with a lot of shit the last few
• 1:15:01
  years from wrecking and on fire and, you know, everything else.
• 1:15:05
  That's a big one.
• 1:15:06
  As far as sponsors and stuff, I've got some really good connections in racing.
• 1:15:10
  Jimmy Garman's one, you know, he's a big supporter of mine.
• 1:15:13
  Alan Thornton, Jack Stanford, those guys have been a big help
• 1:15:16
  to us in the late model program.
• 1:15:18
  They are wicked fast.
• 1:15:20
  Carlos Gann, he's been a big help to me.
• 1:15:22
  Jim Barfield, if anybody knows old school NASCAR probably knows that name.
• 1:15:26
  He was very influential in Bill Elliott's career and he's helped me a lot.
• 1:15:29
  It's been a fun ride and you know, I look forward to what 22 brings and I
• 1:15:33
  think 23 is going to be a really big year for Motorsports Mafia, whether
• 1:15:36
  we're doing it on four wheels or two, or I'm sitting on the pit box,
• 1:15:40
  drinking beer, screaming at Michael.
• 1:15:41
  I don't know.
• 1:15:42
  We'll, we'll see where we go with it, but I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:15:44
  If you're a late model enthusiast or want to learn more about the
• 1:15:47
  community that Mike and Coby have created, be sure to stop over at www.
• 1:15:53
  latemodelmafia.
• 1:15:53
  com or follow them on social media at late model mafia or Instagram, Tik TOK as well
• 1:15:59
  at late model mafia America on Facebook.
• 1:16:02
  That's right.
• 1:16:02
  And Mike and Kobe, I can't thank you guys enough for coming on the show and
• 1:16:07
  giving us better insight into the world of late models, kind of giving us a
• 1:16:11
  better idea of what that really means and getting us excited to come check
• 1:16:15
  out some of the races and maybe even get behind the wheel of one of these monsters.
• 1:16:18
  So thank you for everything that you're doing in the motorsports
• 1:16:21
  community to continue to spread this.
• 1:16:24
  Type of enthusiasm and share this part of the motor sports world with the rest
• 1:16:28
  of our audience and everybody that's out there that might be interested in
• 1:16:31
  learning about this for the first time.
• 1:16:32
  So thank you.
• 1:16:33
  Thanks for having us guys.
• 1:16:34
  We appreciate it.
• 1:16:40
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:16:42
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:16:45
  gtmotorsports.
• 1:16:46
  org.
• 1:16:47
  You can also find us on Motorsports.
• 1:16:50
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you
• 1:16:54
  can call or text us at 202 630 1770.
• 1:16:59
  Or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 1:17:02
  org.
• 1:17:02
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:17:04
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:17:07
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
• 1:17:10
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
• 1:17:16
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• 1:17:21
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• 1:17:52
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