Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Who is Gran Touring Motorsports (GTM)?

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Who is Gran Touring Motorsports (GTM)? · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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I'm Brad with me as always is my cohost, Eric.
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And oftentimes we say it's not about the destination.
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It's all about the journey.
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So in this episode, our inaugural episode, we're going to answer the
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questions, who is GTM, which a GTM is short for grand touring motorsports.
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Where did we come from and where are we going?
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And Eric, take it away.
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All right.
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So let's start with, let's start with our mission statement, right?
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Just kind of summarize who we are right off the bat.
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Grand Touring Motorsports is a non traditional motorsports club started in
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2014 as a social group of car enthusiasts.
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We've expanded into all sorts of motorsport and want to
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share our experiences with you.
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Our membership consists of a bunch of petrolheads who like to get
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together and have a great time.
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But years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings us brings
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together a top notch collection of knowledge, stories, and information.
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As a whole, we serve several areas, what we call the DMV, the Northeast, our
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Southern States, and our Mountain Region.
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Our areas of interest revolve around high performance driver's education, HPDE,
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autocross, club racing, cart racing, drag racing, off roading, car shows,
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or just about anything car related.
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So I'll thank, uh, one of our region chiefs, Brett, for carefully repinning
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our mission statement two years ago.
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Sounds really good.
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But what does all that really mean at the end of the day?
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So this story goes Back well before 2014.
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This is one of those golden girls moments, you know, picture it.
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Sicily 1943 But in reality it actually kind of goes that far back I come
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from a long line of car enthusiasts grassroots Uh, mechanics, et cetera.
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My dad wanted to be a race car driver when he was a kid, told
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stories about standing at the fences outside of Maranello, watching Nicky
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Lauda go around the test track.
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Right.
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So it's been in the blood being Italian racing and soccer and formula one.
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It's all, it's all a passion, right?
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So it's, it's, it's passed down through the genes, but our story, right.
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You and I, Brad, our story starts in 1995.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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That is correct for the listeners out there, right?
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The, the, the history of GTM starts.
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It's that far back, right?
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25 years ago, and we just celebrated our 25th or no, whatever it was.
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Yeah.
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20th, uh, high school reunion or something like that.
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As it turns out the way they did things way back then, you know, the, besides
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the nuns were still wrapping us on the knuckles and everything else is they would
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place us in alphabetical order in class, depending on what classes you were in and
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what classes you were taking together.
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So I forget it was like English class or something.
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Brad happens to be the last name directly behind mine and sat behind me in class.
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And I met him basically my, you know, First day of school.
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He was, you were the jock, right?
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You're the baseball player and all that, and I was the car nerd.
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But, but correction, I wasn't just the jock, and I actually
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never made it on any of the teams, the organized teams at school.
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I apparently wasn't good enough for various other reasons that I
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care not to get into at this time.
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But, I was a music geek too, so I Four years of a band at DeMatha and all
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that good stuff, but anyway, yeah, so Simple little correction there.
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I, I was a little bit of a jock, but not in height, not at the high school
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level, apparently wasn't good enough.
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My bad.
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Hey, there were three big clicks in our school.
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You were either an academic in the band or in sports, and I was in none of those.
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So, you know, I was, I was the kid sitting in front of you holding magazines.
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I'm reading it.
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Most of them in Italian too, that my grandfather would bring me.
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I remember we kind of started talking about cars and I think, Oh, I don't
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remember if it was my freshman year or sophomore year and my dad dropped me off.
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In our 70 911 wide body and then you were like, so tell me about this car That
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actually it wasn't just one time either it happened all the time I don't know
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if you forgot your homework at home if your your dog ate It was the excuse you
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were giving the teachers at the time.
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I I don't know but 911 that sounded like, you know, a 7.
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0 earthquake was hitting the earth and Yes, it was a beautiful car, and
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I was like, who the heck is that guy?
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Dropping off his kid's homework.
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But you could hear that car from two miles away, because it was straight piped.
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It was like going to Le Mans or something.
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It's bonkers, right?
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But yeah, so it got a lot of attention.
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So you and I got to talking about cars, and I was already a gearhead, right?
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I had been going to pro solos, been going to track events since
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I was a little, little kid.
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I mean, there's pictures of my mom.
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with me in a, in a stroller at a pro solo in Harrisburg.
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I mean, it's like, you know, it goes that far back.
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And like I said, it comes from a racing family, right?
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My dad was a pro solo, uh, autocrosser.
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He was an instructor, various clubs, you know, SCCA, the sports car club
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of America, PCA, the Porsche club of America, Audi club, et cetera.
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But even my mom was into it, right?
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She used to autocross my dad's cars, the Chiracos, 914, stuff like that.
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Back when there was ladies class, right?
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Way back in the 80s and stuff like that.
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So, like I said, it's just in the family.
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Yeah, and to touch on the ladies class real quick, just a little
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tangent, a little joke that we've got going on throughout the club.
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Uh, there's a W series now also, so there's still a ladies series, you
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know, this isn't a new idea, you know, just a little shout out to some of
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our club members inside joke there.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Welcome back to 1982.
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Right.
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But, but with that being said, right, you know, we were primarily a Volkswagen Audi.
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Porsche family and very heavily in the VW side of things.
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We've had a VW in the family consistently since the 1960s.
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And that goes early sixties.
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And that goes back to my grandparents.
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I grew up in the back of Mark one and Mark two Chiracos, and we never
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had anything stock in our house.
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It was kind of funny.
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My mom had, I posted pictures of it on, on Instagram not long ago.
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She had a.
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Full zender kit, uh, pewter gray Chiraco, beautiful car.
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I mean, we had always the late, I want to say kind of the latest and greatest thing.
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My dad pre ordered a 16 valve.
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We had a Corrado.
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I mean, all these other cars, we've always been at that sort of thing.
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So that again, it trickled down to me, trickled down to
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my sister as time progressed.
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We got out of actually, I started, I started autocrossing in high school,
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but you started just shortly after.
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And, or I guess we were doing it about then, but you were also
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into the, the land pirate stuff.
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Uh, that didn't start until 2000, 2001.
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Uh, when I, after high school graduation, I started going to
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Montgomery college and met a couple of kids and That's when I started.
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I was always in the cars.
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I don't know how because nobody else in my family is or was.
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I think my dad might have been back when he was 16 and he had an old AMC
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that he took to some guy's house.
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Oh boy.
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And they completely destroyed it.
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You know, you know, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree in that respect.
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But anyway, yeah, he, he was in the cars back then, but he grew out of it,
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got into pickup trucks and fishing.
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Uh, and all his money went into boats instead of.
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Instead of cars and everything.
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I don't know where I retained the desire to have cars and become a
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car enthusiast and all that stuff.
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But, yeah, in high school I was into cars.
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I never had any money, so I couldn't afford anything cool.
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We never had anything cool when I was growing up except
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for an 80s box Chevy Caprice.
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Uh, with the 350 motor, that car was pretty, pretty legit.
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And then, I don't know, I started hanging out with these guys
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from college, uh, freshman year.
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They had cool cars.
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One had a 924S Porsche.
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Another guy had a Thunderbird Super Coupe and he's still in the car club.
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He's got a couple other cool cars now, but I, in 2001, I
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bought my first brand new car.
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It was a 2001 GTI Volkswagen.
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We do like Volkswagens here.
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That's not the only cars that are part of the club.
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I want to make sure that I specify that, but we do like the
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Volkswagen, the VAG products.
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So I bought that.
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I.
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Don't know why or how I ended up connecting with you again.
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Um, but I was looking for something to do with the car and we started hanging
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out again, started going to the Porsche club, autocrosses up at Fort Meade.
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What was the Tifton airfield?
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Tifton airfield.
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Yeah, that was a great lot, man.
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It was, oh, good.
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It lasted a couple months until.
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9 11 happened.
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Yeah, that was really, they shut everything down.
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Yeah.
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Um, yeah.
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And so 2001, just after high school was when I started getting into the,
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the autocross stuff and then we kind of reconnected, kept going from there.
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Yeah.
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So by that point, if you remember, I also had a, so it's kind of
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backtracking a couple of years, my first car, man, I wanted a 16 valve
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GTI, some fierce, and to, and to.
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Credit where credit's due.
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We had a lot of two door coupes, you know, throughout our lifetime.
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My dad was like, no boxes on wheels, right?
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He just, he hated the golf for some reason.
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Like he just despised it.
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And I was always like, Oh, it must be the rebel in me.
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It's like, he's in love with the Scirocco.
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I got to have a GTI, right?
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I got to have the opposite of what he has, regardless of the
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fact that the same car underneath.
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But so I ended up after all that, there's some stories there we can tell,
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but regardless, I ended up with that five cylinder Audi make a noise from
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here to God's creation, like a, like a dragon with a dynamite up its butt.
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If you remember, I was going to say, so the noise definitely runs in the family.
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Apparently there are no stock cars here.
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They're all except for your, except for the new Chrysler.
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That's the only stock the spaceship.
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Yeah.
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But, uh, so at any rate, I had that GT coupe and so I don't know, I always dive
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into everything like a thousand and 1%.
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And so I got really attached to those cars because as we used to
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joke in the house, it's just a fat Scirocco at the end of the day.
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Right.
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Uh, and it was penned by the same guy that designed the Scirocco, all
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that kind of stuff, bigger motor.
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It was a lot of, and they were a lot of fun.
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Great.
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Best handling car of 1986, according to some.
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Pull out there.
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But, but at the time, if you think about it, that car was,
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you know, only 10 years old.
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And so it was like, ah, it's pretty cheap, you know, whatever it can get
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it reliable five cylinder run forever.
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So I was on the, on the, on the quest, you know, to make it into something.
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And as you remember, you had your GTI, I was Otter crossing an Audi, but at
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the same token, kind of in the, you know, I was in the comp size side
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of things while you were playing.
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saxophone or whatever.
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And I had gotten into web development, right?
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And early on, I mean, you're talking the mid to late nineties.
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Nah, there weren't a ton of people doing web development.
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It was still like a, a blossoming thing.
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So I had gotten involved in the local clubs.
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I was, you know, doing a bunch of, uh, timing and scoring software
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for autocrosses, you know, for SCCA and PCA and stuff like that.
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But I also got into the website.
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things.
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And so I started to learn kind of from the inside what it was like to run a
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car club, at least from the digital side of the house in the early days.
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So that got me thinking I'm overly obsessed with the,
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you know, with the GT coupe.
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And I bought my very first domain, which is grand touring.
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org.
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It was off of some random guy that was cyber squatting with the domain.
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And I stood up a website called grand touring Audi.
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The deal with Grand Touring Audi was it was an online community for
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owners and enthusiasts worldwide.
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Yeah.
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It was mostly dudes from the UK on a bulletin board with a web, you know,
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kind of a wiki like thrown on top of it because I was trying to collect
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as much information about those cars as possible because they were so
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unique from year to year to year.
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They just kept changing them for whatever reason I'd ran that.
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At the same time as I was running the Audi club, uh, the local Audi
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club website for the DC region.
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And then I was also picking up more, more work and more work and more work like
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that along with everything I was doing.
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Ultimately, I ran that for about five years and then it merged, I merged it into
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a Potomac Chesapeake region of Audi club.
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And some of the content actually still exists on that website today, because
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it's just migrated so many times and change hands and, and things like that.
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And so at that point.
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I had focused my attention elsewhere.
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I was now working for Porsche national and doing their website.
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I dug that for a bunch of years.
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And my dad at the same time was getting out of, uh, basically a very long career
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in it, he was a mainframe programmer and he wanted to go pursue his passion.
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And he ended up going to work for electromotive and a bunch of
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other stuff, and he's, he decided that there was a space in the
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market to resell bad parts, right?
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Volkswagen Audi group parts back then.
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During that time period ECS really wasn't what it is today, right?
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It wasn't as available.
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The internet was still doing its thing and e commerce still wasn't there He
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wanted to stand up this company to be able to do this kind of thing He came to me.
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He's like I I need a name because I can't just go out there and say
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hey, it's It's blah, blah, blah.
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His company.
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And it's like, okay, well, how about we just, you know, despite Rocco versus
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golf conversations, we had a common, uh, common focus on the Audi coupes,
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first and second generation cars.
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And so I said, well, GT grand touring, right?
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I've already, I just gave that up.
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Why don't we take that and just put motor sports on the end of it?
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So then that way it's all encompassing, right?
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Because you are catering to.
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Pro solo guys, you know, local auto crossers, track rats, you know, the guys
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that just need parts for their cars.
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And I believe at one point I even ended up buying some brake pads and
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stuff for this Audi S8 that I had.
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Yeah.
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So it's just, yeah, you, he had the grand touring Audi.
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He was able to hook a lot of people up with parts and everything.
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I don't know how he was able to get, I guess, distributor
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rights or whatever he had.
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I don't know exactly.
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I don't remember either, but I, but you know, times are different
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than, I mean, we're talking like 15 plus years ago at this point.
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So doing the resale side of the business, very different than it is today.
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I mean, you know, trying to get, trying to get hooked up with ECS
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and Euro tuning and those guys today is a little bit more difficult and
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a little bit more challenging, at least for small guys like us, right.
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So fast forward a bunch of, a bunch of years and basically what we ended
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up doing and kind of spawned some of the early kind of the roots of GTM in
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a way is we used to do these like cart leagues and my dad would like try to
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organize them with me and we would have like 10, 15 plus guys come out and we
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would rent out like a facility or we'd go there and get all day passes and
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just basically take over the place.
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Right.
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And then we would, you know, because I had a timing and scoring background, I'd
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keep track of all that kind of stuff.
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And we'd points and this and that, and then the top guys, we'd
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fly all over the country and go race and do that kind of thing.
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So we did that for a number of years and it was a lot of fun.
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It's a lot of wear and tear on my back though.
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As I started to do that, you know, autocross was fading in
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the DC area because parking lots got harder and harder to rent.
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Now everybody kind of does their pilgrimage to FedEx field because
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it's the only lot that doesn't have telephone poles every six feet
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and islands and curbs and stuff.
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And so My dad started to phase away from autocross and get into deeper
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and deeper into road racing and teaching and all that kind of stuff.
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And I think it's around that same time when you all stopped
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doing the autocrosses and things.
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I started transitioning.
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I had sold the GTI.
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I had it for a couple of years and ended up selling it, trading it in
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for a 99 Z28 Camaro that was to this day, it's the fastest car I've ever
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owned, which isn't really saying that much, but it was, it was really quick.
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But I did maybe one or two autocrosses with it.
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And by that time, autocrossing was just hard to get into if you
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weren't trying to do it with the SCCA sports car club of America.
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I was still trying to do it with Porsche club because your dad was
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still somewhat involved with it.
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And, but then I just transitioned over to drag racing and got out of
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autocross like you're, like you're saying, cause it started winding down.
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Exactly.
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So at the same time, my dad started getting really hyper focused.
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On crazy engine swaps, right?
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I mean, we've done some weird stuff.
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Probably one of the first people to do a twin spark three, six in a night 14.
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We did the Audi UR quattro with a three, six V8.
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We did an Audi coupe quattro second gen with a four, two S eight motor in it.
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Like, and, and I'm in the process of doing, I've done some swaps myself,
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but it was, he always had this focus of building like the ultimate.
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Track weapon or the ultimate autocross weapon, right?
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And it was in and he had certain go to's I mean the 914 was bonkers I mean the
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the last times I drove that thing With the 36 it was like you looked where you
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needed to be and you were past that point Ridiculous herculean effort to drive that
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car, you know, he he got away from that car a little bit I think it's scared him.
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He had a couple sideways moments in it that were very difficult to control.
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And so he hooked into the whole Audi thing, went deep,
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went back to his roots, right?
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That whole bag thing.
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Unfortunately, in, oh, my sister would know better than
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me, but in 06, 07 timeframe.
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He was diagnosed with, uh, stage four brain cancer.
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So during all that, we kind of tried to finish out a lot
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of the projects we had going.
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The last one being my UR Quattro, which I actually finished after
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he had passed away in 2010.
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Credible built.
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I don't, I don't want to do it again.
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A really cool car, big bummer, right?
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Because my dad was the type of guy over the years.
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He, he amassed so many connections, so many relationships.
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I mean, His funeral is incredible.
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You would, all these guys from different car clubs came out and it'll look like
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cars and coffee out in the parking lot.
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And it was, it was crazy.
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I mean, you, you would have thought a Senator had passed away or something.
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There's like, you know, 300 plus people.
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There's, it was just bonkers.
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Right.
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And, uh, so at any rate that, you know, that takes a toll on you.
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You have to figure out how to grieve, how to go through all that kind of stuff.
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About a year passed and.
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I just was like, in a funk, right?
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And I'm just like, I don't know what to do.
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It's like racing doesn't have the same appeal anymore.
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You know, autocross is gone.
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Karting, yeah, whatever.
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And finally my wife, uh, was like, you know what?
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You need to go do something.
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Yeah, because I didn't have any projects, right?
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The project was the house or whatever.
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And basically she kind of kicked me in the butt and said, you
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know, get out, go do something.
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And I'm like, are you really sure about this?
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In my infinite wisdom, I decided it was a genius idea.
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To take my highly modified Jetta diesel
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To turn it into a to a diesel cup car.
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Yeah, it didn't didn't really go very well But but I was gonna say they
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they do really well when they've got, you know factory backed mechanics
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and support and sponsorship and funds which you had none of those things.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And really bad ideas for what the good part should be.
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Uh, I did have verified dino sheets, 320 foot pounds at the front wheels.
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It was a hell of a motor.
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Uh, I will say though, it didn't last, but half a season.
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Cause I blew it up at VIR at just shy of 140 miles an hour at red line.
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It wasn't that good.
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The devil's fuel does.
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And the devil's fuel still powers that car too.
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It belongs to a GTM member to this day.
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I think it's, it's on what it's third, fourth motor, something like that.
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I can only, I can only claim the first one.
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Matthew will get on my case.
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One of the members of the group will get on my case from time to
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time about, uh, a diesel in the family since the mid nineties.
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It's just another weird obsession.
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I don't think I can.
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I can never not have one.
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That being said, uh, Jess was like, get out of the house, go figure something out.
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I'm like, all right, all right, if you say so.
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So we went to the track, blew the car up, came home and I was like,
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man, this cannot get any worse.
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Right?
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I'm like, well, this, this was a complete failure.
19:52
Luckily, Matthew, who I mentioned, uh, just a couple of minutes ago, he
19:56
calls me and he goes, uh, I got a car for you with a weird pregnant pause.
20:02
I'm like, Hmm, what exactly are we talking about here?
20:05
He goes, well, you're not going to like it.
20:07
I'm like it.
20:08
Well, it's a TT, and I'm like, ugh.
20:13
And the reason he said that is because he knows how much my
20:17
father despised those cars, right?
20:19
And he had all sorts of terrible names for them, which is also why we call it the
20:23
Terrible Toad, which is the cleanest of the nicknames he would give those cars.
20:27
I was like, you know what?
20:28
The rebel is back!
20:30
Dad hated him.
20:31
I'm getting it.
20:32
And I ended up picking it up for the mechanics lane.
20:35
So it had a blown motor and had been sitting in the corner
20:38
of a shop, single owner.
20:40
It had been there for like three or four years, not running.
20:42
Uh, Matthew was gracious enough to tow it all the way up from VIR to my house.
20:46
And then I started tearing it apart.
20:48
We had that car.
20:49
Track ready and I'll put air quotes around that in 65 days from when it got towed up
20:55
here to putting it on its first track day.
20:58
And I borrowed a lot of the parts in the Jetta and stuff like that.
21:00
So that leads us to my first couple events.
21:04
This was my now foray.
21:05
I've got a dedicated card stripped down.
21:07
It's, it's this, it's that.
21:09
I'm ready to go.
21:09
And so I'm, I'm starting to meet people.
21:11
And this is circa.
21:14
2011.
21:15
Well, before we get into what happens next, I've got to rewind
21:18
a little bit and talk about my, my progression a little bit too.
21:22
From when we, we kind of split, I went the drag racing way.
21:25
You were still doing things and things that were happening with your father.
21:29
So I was still in the drag racing, did a little bit of, uh, illegal street
21:33
racing as well, which I'm not proud of.
21:35
I do not recommend it to anybody, but it is a part of my past.
21:38
So it is a part of when you kind of, makes me who I am.
21:41
Fast forward from 2000.
21:44
Three, I think is when I bought the Camaro about two years, 2005 ish.
21:49
I totaled the car.
21:50
I was driving on some back roads and a truck pulling a horse trailer made a left
21:57
turn over a blind hill in front of me.
21:59
And I rammed right into the back of the trailer.
22:02
So if anybody wonders what my screen name that I use across all these
22:06
different social platforms is, Mr.
22:07
Ed killed my Z, Mr.
22:09
Ed, the horse, cause there was a horse trailer killed my Z 28.
22:13
It's very sad.
22:14
It was one of my favorite cars.
22:17
The origin story within the origin story.
22:19
You like that?
22:19
There you go.
22:20
It's the origin inception story.
22:22
Yeah, well, which level of hell are we on now?
22:24
I think we're level three now.
22:27
But from that point I, I've had a 96 Cobra.
22:31
I've bought a 2004 GTI BR6, which I wish I still had.
22:36
It would have been a great track car.
22:37
And various other cars and motorcycles.
22:40
I think I've owned like 26 different vehicles in my life.
22:44
And we'll talk about that in another episode.
22:45
That will be another episode.
22:47
That, that almost needs its own like series.
22:51
But anyway, from that point on, I, I did some drag racing.
22:55
I got into off roading with Jeeps and everything like that.
22:58
Fast forward to about 2000.
23:00
12 ish, I was working, I was going on a work trip to Omaha, Nebraska, and I didn't
23:08
know anything about Omaha, Nebraska, because who the hell goes in Nebraska.
23:12
So I put it on Facebook, you know, because everybody posts everything
23:14
they do in their world on Facebook.
23:16
Now, now it's just boomers, which we we act like boomers now.
23:21
So yeah, that's why we still use Facebook.
23:23
But anyway, so I didn't know what to do.
23:26
I was going for an entire week in Omaha, Nebraska, but I needed
23:29
to find something to do other than go to this training class.
23:32
So I put on Facebook, I'm going to Omaha.
23:34
What is there to do?
23:35
And then my good buddy, Eric posted, well, I'm going to be there too.
23:39
So we, um, we met up, uh, I think we were, yeah, it was Omaha.
23:44
So it's not too far from council bluff.
23:45
I think you were staying in council.
23:47
Correct.
23:47
That is correct.
23:49
He said steak, so he had my attention.
23:52
Of course, of course.
23:54
Sidebar, Omaha steaks, if you get them in Omaha, overrated.
23:58
The steak place wasn't all that good.
23:59
That's very true.
24:01
We can do better and we've done better.
24:03
But anyway, it was then that he was telling me about the car stuff
24:07
that he was into and all this, you know, all the fun things.
24:10
I had been really missing a car.
24:12
I mean, I had my Jeep, I was doing off roading and stuff, which was fun.
24:15
But I missed doing something was a manual people.
24:18
It was a manual.
24:18
I'll give you that both of the Wranglers that I had.
24:21
I had a TJ and a JK and both have more manuals.
24:24
So they're fun in their own right.
24:27
Yeah.
24:27
I could get it to chirp tires and first and second gear, but I was looking to get
24:31
back in the cars, like doing something fast, like autocross or whatever.
24:36
And so we started talking and we, we ended the dinner.
24:38
We ended, you know, the trips or whatever.
24:40
And we kept in touch.
24:41
We.
24:41
Ended up setting up a, what car should I buy email thread with a couple other
24:47
people that Eric knew, which started, if you're a member of the club or
24:50
you, you know, anything about us, you know, the, what car should I buy?
24:53
Topic.
24:54
is probably the most popular topic in GTM ever.
24:59
Everybody's asking, what car should I buy?
25:00
What should I do?
25:01
Should I get this?
25:02
Should I do that?
25:03
The answer is never HHR, by the way.
25:06
Just gonna say.
25:07
There is no blipshift t shirt that says the answer is HHR.
25:13
I don't care how fast your little milkman grocery getter...
25:17
Can be made.
25:18
It's still an HHR, but I digress.
25:21
So yeah, we set up this email thread and then that was
25:24
going for about a year or so.
25:25
Fast forward to 2003.
25:27
I finally bought it by a car.
25:28
No, 2013,
25:33
excuse me.
25:33
Back to the future.
25:33
We're going back to the future.
25:34
Yeah, absolutely.
25:35
Next up he's buying a DeLorean.
25:39
88 miles an hour.
25:41
I bought this, uh, this Volkswagen and I started building it for track stuff.
25:44
Thanks to my mechanic is fantastic.
25:47
You know, Mr.
25:47
Monasterio over there.
25:49
And I ended up doing my first event with a bunch of other people that
25:53
Eric knew from the tracking world.
25:55
Uh, it was may 2013.
25:58
I think it was, it was with Porsche club on Shenandoah circuit.
26:02
And Tanya was there.
26:03
I know she was, she had just bought her beetle, her first
26:06
dedicated track car as well.
26:08
Um, so a bunch of newbies coming out and it was just an awesome time.
26:12
And, you know, I'll let you take it from there, but that's kind
26:15
of, that brings us both up to this timeframe where we're both tracking.
26:20
Yeah, exactly.
26:21
So, you know, I was still in that weird, uh, I was still in that
26:25
weird phase of, is it a track car?
26:28
Is it a street car?
26:28
And, you know, Matthew continues to remind me, you cannot have
26:31
your cake and eat it too.
26:33
So the big straw that broke the camel's back was the first pilgrimage to mid Ohio.
26:38
And Jess, we were, we were, you know, packed the car loaded, couldn't see
26:41
out the back, like all this stuff.
26:43
And, you know, Bucket fixed back seats on coilover suspension.
26:47
And we're trying to drive home, you know, eight hours from mid Ohio.
26:50
And Jess is like, I don't know that my tailbone exists anymore.
26:54
You know what I mean?
26:55
And at that point I knew it was over.
26:56
I was, I was dedicated and you know, we were going to go off the
27:00
deep end, but that being said, I was still in this mode, right?
27:05
Post my dad passing where it's like, I want to bring back that feeling of going
27:09
to the track and being with my friends and all that kind of stuff that I grew
27:12
up with and the clubs back in the day were very different than they are now.
27:16
Now they're, they're very coin operated.
27:18
You're very much about, you know, the bottom dollar.
27:20
Don't get me wrong.
27:21
They provide a very professional and very legitimate service and everybody loves it.
27:25
And that's great.
27:25
good.
27:26
We're, we're very different, right?
27:27
Our idea is family.
27:29
Our idea is getting together.
27:30
It's prolonging the communication.
27:32
It's not about just keeping up the Joneses.
27:35
You know, we'll, we'll talk a lot more about fellowship, uh, in the, in a future
27:39
episode, but there's a lot of that.
27:40
It's more fraternal as one of our region chiefs in the Northeast.
27:43
Harry likes to say all the time.
27:45
It's more like a fraternity, fraternity and sorority.
27:47
We're co ed here.
27:49
Uh, I just want to point that out.
27:51
Uh, and many of our ladies, by the way, they are very fast.
27:53
They're very talented.
27:54
Uh, it pleasure to meet all of them.
27:56
If, if any of our listeners get to come out and do so, I wanted to
28:00
relive the past because I saw that there was something missing, right?
28:03
I saw that the family aspect was gone.
28:05
The get togethers, the communication, those monthly meetings, those board
28:08
meetings, all those things I was involved in me, even as a kid, just
28:12
they weren't available anymore.
28:13
And so you and I got to talking about it.
28:15
And I said, you know, we had the listserv going on, on good, good old Google groups.
28:19
It was like, why don't we just.
28:21
Make a club.
28:22
I already knew how to run a car club at least from a digital perspective
28:26
And again, we're sitting there Oddly enough and we're fretting over what
28:30
to call it and you and you just turn to me and go Why not grand
28:34
touring motorsports boom done, right?
28:37
We've already got a name And we had a logo and we had a lot of other stuff
28:41
stuff that we could leverage from my dad's company, which had been shut down.
28:44
There was actually already brand recognition there, at
28:46
least in the, in the local area.
28:48
So that was good.
28:48
And people are like, Oh, that's, that's still a thing.
28:50
Can I still order oil filters for my, for my Gabrielle or what?
28:55
Uh, but you know, that being said, that took us to really late, like
28:59
you said, it took us to late 2013.
29:01
So like kind of the OG members, you know, me, you, Matt, Tanya and so on.
29:07
We're really all 2013 people, but we really, we say the first date
29:12
is, you know, January of 2014.
29:15
Our first actual member non core group was like February of 14 is
29:21
the first like application we ever got submitted in our first year.
29:25
We grew pretty big.
29:26
I mean, we had what, 15, 17 people, something like that
29:29
within the first calendar year.
29:31
And then we just kept growing.
29:32
We'll talk about where, where we're going.
29:35
Uh, and where we are here in a minute in addition to, you know, starting the club.
29:39
Yeah, we were, I remember we were sitting in your living room.
29:42
Uh interior at your house and Jess was there as well And we weren't just
29:46
kicking around the idea of a car club.
29:48
We were kicking around the ideas of you know Maybe we should open a shop You know
29:53
We talked about getting like an l shaped building Where part of the shop was like
29:57
a museum to the cars and everything like that part of it is You know people can
30:01
come and work on their stuff somehow that morphed into let's start a car club
30:05
because as you were As it'll probably, uh, mention later on here, people don't
30:09
like going to the track by themselves.
30:10
That was one of the big deterrents to me after my first time going
30:15
in May, the previous year is I went to, yeah, it was a lot of fun
30:19
when I went with everybody else.
30:20
But then I started thinking about.
30:22
Well, if I'm going to go to these other events, how am I going to
30:24
coordinate and make sure other people are there that I like?
30:27
I don't want to go and sit there by myself.
30:28
I did a couple autocrosses by myself.
30:30
That's not really fun.
30:32
That's when we started talking about really, yes, let's make
30:34
this, let's make this a big group.
30:36
We can coordinate when everybody's going to the tracks, what
30:38
everybody's doing, what everybody's doing outside of the track.
30:42
Cause as you all, who are members of GTM know.
30:45
You know, it's not just, you know, track events.
30:47
That's not, that's not what we're all about.
30:48
It's we go to car shows, we go to swap meets, we go to movies.
30:53
I mean, we do all kinds of stuff.
30:54
It's not just about the track and keeping in touch with these people.
30:58
Yeah, they're your track friends, but they're also Just friends.
31:02
All right.
31:02
So now that we've kind of completed the birth of GTM, I'm gonna insert
31:08
here for those of you that have fast forwarded the last, I don't know, half
31:11
hour or so you're listening to GTMs podcast break fix with Brad and Eric.
31:17
So now that we've kind of summarized the past, we're going to talk about
31:20
where we are and where we're going.
31:22
Um, we're going to do this maybe in a little bit of a question answer
31:25
format and then talk again, talk about where we're going to go from there.
31:29
So where are we going right now?
31:33
As Eric said before, when we first started, we were
31:35
probably three or four members.
31:36
We've jumped in that first year to 15 to 20 over the last Five years from there,
31:43
because we're up, we're up to year six.
31:44
Now we've got 70 members, 70 members strong.
31:48
We've got a social media presence, um, that has been constantly growing.
31:51
Thanks to our, uh, our marketing genius over there in the, uh, the other
31:55
camera and, and we're, we're slowly bringing on more and more people.
31:59
And that's 70 members net.
32:01
I mean, we've had more members than that.
32:03
We've had some people leave on their own volition.
32:06
We've had to.
32:06
To boot a couple members for various things, um, which we're not going to
32:10
get into don't ever ask us and it's just yeah We're we're trying to grow
32:15
but we don't want to get too big.
32:16
We don't want to be uh a corner cravers or whatever some of those other clark
32:22
clubs were that got too big for their britches and Ended up dissolving for
32:27
for various reasons We we want to very much still keep the same kind of family
32:32
feel that the friends one of my favorite quotes is Friends are the family you
32:36
choose Uh, we still want to keep that kind of atmosphere, but we do want to grow.
32:41
Um, we want to get a bigger presence, even larger than ours, than we are now,
32:46
uh, on Instagram and social medias.
32:48
I mean, that's why we're doing the podcast here to, to kind of give everybody some
32:52
insight, give some, give people a way to connect with us, not just at the track.
32:57
I mean, this is another.
32:58
Uh, another way that other people can, can talk to us and find out more about us.
33:03
Uh, and so that's kind of where I see us going.
33:07
Yeah.
33:07
So, I mean, I think we've done a really good job of over the years.
33:10
Like we're, we're unlike a lot of other organizations that just
33:15
kind of do the same thing because that's what they've always done.
33:18
I think we're always experimenting.
33:19
We're always.
33:20
Trying something new and we either, we either win it or we kill it.
33:24
And that's how it's kind of, that's how it goes.
33:26
Right.
33:26
But we're always looking forward.
33:29
Uh, and as the Italians say, right, sempre avanti, which means always forward.
33:33
We're always looking in that direction to try to improve.
33:35
And sometimes, you know, we stumble, but we gotta, we always walk before we run.
33:40
And so I think in this case, you know, you're talking about growth.
33:43
We look at the numbers, we look at the trends, we've had people move away.
33:46
That's another big thing we have.
33:47
Some members that tried to hang on and they were living
33:50
as far out as Hawaii, right?
33:52
And, and that's tough to do, but they want to stay plugged in.
33:55
They want to know what's going on in the community.
33:56
And the difference is, you know, for us, it's, it's more grassroots, right?
34:00
There is, there are certain things like grassroots motor sports out
34:02
there, but it's still very publicized.
34:04
It's very marketing heavy.
34:05
We, you know, we try to be advertisement free.
34:07
We try to do a lot of other things.
34:09
To keep it, you know, home grown, like the clubs used to be in the old days.
34:13
And by advertisement free, we don't mean that we're not like
34:16
marketing and advertising ourselves.
34:18
We mean that we're, we're not out there trying to get other clubs or businesses
34:24
or stuff to advertise and kind of flood our membership because we have an asset.
34:29
Our members are our biggest asset.
34:31
Not me, not Eric, not the cars.
34:32
And it's, it's our membership.
34:34
They're, they're the ones that make us who we are.
34:36
And I mean, many people joke that we have the coaches union.
34:39
We've got the North, the Northeastern, uh, coaches union or instructor
34:43
union, uh, for the track days.
34:45
We, we do market ourselves, but we don't sell advertising space within the club.
34:50
That's true.
34:51
And that being said, so talking about growth, we're set up for the future.
34:54
We're broken into different regions.
34:56
I mentioned that at the beginning, uh, you and I started in the DMV.
34:59
The DMV is home.
35:00
We have a very large northeast contingent, which is our, you know,
35:03
Pennsylvania, you know, Philly northwards, all the way up to Boston.
35:07
And then we have our mountain region, which actually follows the Appalachian.
35:11
Trail there.
35:11
And then we have our Southern states, which is everything from, you
35:14
know, Richmond to Texas, basically.
35:19
Um, there is a fifth kind of hidden region in there, which, because we
35:22
do have members, you know, as far out as Colorado and Michigan and family
35:26
members, you know, stuff like that.
35:28
And so, you know, but everybody's connected.
35:30
I never feel like when I'm talking to somebody that's out in the
35:33
middle of nowhere, it's not like I didn't just With that being said,
35:37
we're, we're positioned to grow.
35:39
We're positioned to have the same size in every region, if not
35:42
larger in some respects, and we, we accredit that to our region
35:46
chiefs and they're fantastic people.
35:48
They devote a lot of their time to organizing the events that we put on, you
35:52
know, being the sounding board for some of the crazy ideas that you and I have.
35:55
But, you know, a lot of them have taken over some of the special events that
35:59
we have, be it, you know, mountain region doing summer bash, which is our
36:02
big annual, uh, family reunion, uh, that we've been doing for six years.
36:06
Now we've got things like the animal house of the Northeast region does as
36:09
our season finale up at Watkins Glen and other events, just like that.
36:15
Now, when we talk about events.
36:16
for GTM.
36:17
Like what kind of events do we put on?
36:18
We don't really put on competitive events, right?
36:21
That's the big misnomer.
36:22
We're not here to put on a track day or an autocross or whatever,
36:26
but we are here to support.
36:27
If you're, if you're one of those organizers out there listening,
36:30
we are here to support you.
36:32
And that's why Brad made that joke about the coaches union.
36:35
It's very common for, for me or Brad to get a phone call to
36:39
say, Hey, I need like 10 guys.
36:40
Cause we're short on coaches.
36:42
Uh, how many do you think you can drum up?
36:44
All right, let me make three phone calls and a couple mass messages
36:46
over slack and we're good to go.
36:48
But outside of that, we'll come and help out.
36:50
We'll promote the events.
36:51
We'll, we'll do cross pollination.
36:53
We've done that with, with HOD or hooked on driving.
36:55
Well, we've done that with the Corvette club, various other
36:58
organizations where we try to go in.
37:00
And support them, be their staff, you know, help them as much as we can bring
37:04
things, support, sponsor them, dinners, barbecues, you know, whatever it might
37:08
be, because again, there's that void.
37:10
There's that piece that's missing where it's like, we're putting on,
37:13
we're not putting on a big show, but we're making it super inviting that
37:16
people want to come party with us.
37:18
I mean, that's why our pit race event is, is a fun one, right?
37:21
Paddock party at pit race.
37:23
I got to say it's really hard to say Um, so say that three times fast,
37:26
but uh, but that's a fun one, right?
37:28
Like this year we did we were going to do the volleyball tournament,
37:31
you know stuff like that It keeps people around but instead what we
37:34
ended up doing was a intramural Hod versus uh gtm karting event.
37:39
This would be our second one Now our third one actually got postponed.
37:42
We got to schedule it again, but we do fun Stuff like that.
37:45
You know, those are our types of events, right?
37:47
Going to pro races together, like Salins or flying out to go to the
37:51
Formula One race at Coda or the cannonball runs that the Southern
37:54
States region organizes for us, right?
37:57
We've done things like going to road Atlanta together.
38:00
We've gone to NCM where we were planning on going to
38:02
Indianapolis, places like that.
38:05
We've done mid Ohio and pit race back to back, you know, that was a long haul.
38:08
Went to Barber last year.
38:09
That was really big.
38:10
I was, that was a bucket list for a lot of us, but, uh, you know, stuff like that.
38:14
So it's all about that group.
38:15
It's all about inclusion.
38:17
It's all about, you know, uh, doing that.
38:19
And to that effect, one of our, our mountain region chief, he and I
38:22
were talking about this yesterday.
38:24
So this is Dan mountain man, Dan, which many of you have either know,
38:27
or we'll get to know very well in upcoming episodes, but he was telling
38:31
me, you know, as a former vet and we do, it's kind of funny, we have an
38:34
interesting demographic in the club.
38:35
There are a lot of it guys.
38:37
And there are a lot of DoD, you know, former military folks
38:40
or the combination of the two.
38:41
But one of the things that Dan said is the fellowship within GTM is huge.
38:46
We're always looking out for each other.
38:48
It's none of this like, you know, pissing contest, keeping up with the Joneses.
38:51
You got that part.
38:52
I got to have that part too.
38:53
My car's got to be better.
38:54
It's none of that kind of thing.
38:55
It's very much more social.
38:57
It's very much more family oriented.
38:58
Like you said, he's one of the things he wanted me to.
39:01
point out, which is very important and, and he'll talk about it more
39:04
in a following a follow up episode.
39:06
It's very, for him, it feels very much like the military and don't get me wrong.
39:11
It's not the discipline and the order, and we're making you
39:13
do pushups in the parking lot.
39:15
What it is, is it's that sense of brotherhood and that sense of
39:18
fraternity and that sense of family.
39:20
And so, you know, transitioning out of the military, we have picked
39:24
up a lot of folks and for them, they've said the same thing to us.
39:27
You know, this is now kind of my new.
39:29
My new platoon, my new, you know, my new group.
39:33
And so that's, that's been really important for, for them.
39:35
And I appreciate that.
39:36
And we give back every year, we try to do some sort of charity event.
39:40
We we've done helmets off to heroes year after year, you know, that's, that's
39:43
for wounded warriors and those types of things, and those are fantastic events.
39:47
And we love doing stuff like that.
39:49
And in talking about the events that we do, some of the services, the
39:53
philanthropic events that we hold, we've done a car care clinic for high schoolers.
39:59
Um, we have many of our club members volunteered and came and taught,
40:02
you know, some high schoolers just general maintenance of their vehicle.
40:05
What to look for.
40:06
I mean, these kids are 16 years old starting to drive for the first time.
40:10
I'm sure Eric has probably been there.
40:12
I've been there stuck on the side of the road at some point not knowing what to do.
40:15
Well, Eric probably knew what to do because he's been, he came,
40:19
he came out with a, with a 10 millimeter wrench in his hand.
40:21
I lost it though.
40:22
It's in the woods at dance house.
40:24
Probably.
40:26
But yeah, so I, I didn't know how to do any of that stuff when I was in that age.
40:31
So the, the idea was to teach these kids.
40:34
You know how to change their oil where where the oil goes into the motor
40:37
something as basic as that There are so many people out there in the world
40:40
driving around in these Machines that they have no idea how to keep them running
40:46
That was one of the things that we did.
40:47
We had a golf tournament.
40:48
We donated all the funds from that Um, to a charity that's very special to,
40:51
uh, to people within our organization.
40:53
Um, we're, we're building a, a driver's university kind of thing for
40:58
standardizing, uh, coaching materials to bring up coaches from within our
41:02
organization, growing our coaches union.
41:05
Yeah.
41:06
We've been complimented many times.
41:08
You know, we, we, you know, it's kind of funny, like I said, took the
41:11
same approach that my dad did when I started to learn how to drive.
41:14
He's like, just because you got your license doesn't mean you've passed
41:16
my test, you know what I mean?
41:17
And so we've been working on the whole education aspect of
41:20
GTM since the very beginning.
41:22
I mean, we'll, we'll probably talk about this on another episode, but some of
41:25
the guys that we've brought through.
41:27
I mean, we've gotten compliments on how awesome they are and they'll go
41:30
through a certification school like SCCA and they'll just blow through it with
41:33
falling colors because it's like we've thrown so many things at them, you know,
41:37
over, over the period of a season that they're like, I'm ready for whatever
41:41
you can, whatever you can give me.
41:43
But you know, that's just part of it.
41:44
Right.
41:44
So education is big for me.
41:46
It's a soft spot.
41:46
spot for me.
41:47
I'm a student of history.
41:48
I like doing the research and all that and dive in deep into things.
41:51
But I also like sharing that knowledge with other people, not just our members.
41:55
But if you look at the numbers on our website, we have recurring
41:57
people coming back to read our articles and we're reviewing stuff.
42:01
That's not just about, Oh yeah, the latest IndyCar race, this happened and
42:04
you know, Lando ran into so and so and I racing and it was a big kerfuffle.
42:08
Somebody is already covering that.
42:09
Right.
42:10
So we're trying to cover other stuff that may not be as in plain sight.
42:14
I got to give a big shout out to our writing team.
42:16
We got eight of our members that write for us consistently and just
42:20
the stuff they're putting out.
42:21
It's really, really good.
42:22
And it's, it's tough sometimes to come up with new and creative things.
42:26
Yeah.
42:26
And I was just going to add on to that.
42:28
Some of the articles that we've written, I mean, we've got articles
42:30
about, uh, what to expect at your first track, your first track day.
42:33
And, you know, what didn't I know that I wish I knew then, uh, we've
42:37
got articles about track insurance, you know, a review on some of the
42:40
track insurance companies out there.
42:41
We've got some, some.
42:43
Guys that are really heavy into nutrition and they wrote articles.
42:46
It was a two part series on nutrition at the track and how to keep from getting
42:51
that tracking over that we've all suffered from more times than we'd like to admit.
42:55
So yeah, we've got different, different experience.
42:58
From within the club that lends itself to, to giving the club a different
43:02
perspective and a different voice.
43:04
And so I want to, you know, and the listeners have been kind of putting up
43:07
with us now for probably 40 minutes or so.
43:09
But I got to say this, we use the word track a lot.
43:12
Please don't take it the wrong way.
43:14
Track is one of these like general words because so is motorsport, right?
43:18
At least in our community.
43:20
For us, when we say the track, we're talking an autocross track, a go kart
43:24
track, a drag race, uh, track, right?
43:27
Whatever it might be, motorsport is all encompassing.
43:30
It has different disciplines in it, be it rally, be it autocross, or you know,
43:34
road racing, whatever it is, boating, airplanes, anything with a motor and a
43:39
way to To steer it is motorsport, right?
43:41
As far as, as far as we're concerned.
43:43
So when we use the word track, full disclaimer, that's a generalization.
43:47
So that could apply to you as a drag racer.
43:49
It could apply to you as a cart racer, autocross or whatever.
43:52
So just, you know, we set that up in the beginning, but I want to remind everybody
43:54
again, that that's important to us, that we are inclusive of all disciplines.
43:58
It's not just, you know, going around, making a left turn.
44:01
And it doesn't just mean four wheels either.
44:03
It could be two wheels.
44:04
It could be one wheel.
44:05
Uh, it could be no wheels if you're in the boats and things like that.
44:09
Three wheelers.
44:10
You could have a trike or a three wheeler.
44:12
Yeah.
44:13
If it's got a motor, as he said, it doesn't matter how many wheels you've got.
44:17
We all want to hear about it.
44:18
I mean, we've got people in the club that are even into RC racing.
44:22
That's got people that race or used to race motorcycles out on the West coast.
44:26
I mean, it's endless.
44:28
You know, the, the things that we are into in this club.
44:30
On the road, off the road, on the water, it doesn't matter.
44:33
It's all the same.
44:34
So with that being said, a couple other special things just to talk about just
44:38
before we get into the future and where we're going, special things about GTM.
44:41
We do our annual awards night.
44:43
Uh, it actually started as a, as a joke because of your birthday,
44:47
we would do it at BIR in November.
44:50
I hate to say while Audi club was doing their awards banquet, we were doing ours.
44:54
But, and then it's, it's become a long standing tradition.
44:56
Go ahead.
44:57
Yeah, and a little bit of history on Awards Night.
44:59
It started out as a joke, as Eric said, like the Dundies from The Office.
45:03
A hundred percent.
45:03
If you've ever seen the show.
45:04
And actually, the very first award ever given is the, uh, the DE Champion of
45:10
the Year Award, which went to our very own Eric Montgomery Stanley right there.
45:14
Yours truly, yeah.
45:15
Yeah, and then the next year It was rigged, people.
45:17
The voting was rigged.
45:18
Yes, the voting was rigged.
45:19
There was one person voting, and he happened to be the
45:22
one who bought the trophy.
45:23
But the next year was just as ridiculous.
45:27
It was at Hooters and they got, they had me stand up and do the cluck cluck
45:31
dance with the Hooters girls that I will never forget or live down in the club.
45:36
We picked up a new member that night who happens to be one of our region chiefs.
45:40
So everything happens for a reason.
45:42
But now awards night, like everything we do, it's full send and it
45:46
gets more ridiculous every year.
45:48
I mean, last, if you guys.
45:49
Uh, go back into the vault, uh, or if you're, we'll talk about
45:52
this at the end of the segment.
45:54
Uh, if you're part of Patreon, you can get access to our, uh, behind the scenes award
45:58
night recordings and stuff like that.
46:00
Last year was just absolutely bonkers.
46:02
It was a lot of fun.
46:03
Uh, we did, we did tease some of the things that are coming.
46:06
for the next couple of years, uh, in that.
46:09
So, uh, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
46:10
But, uh, awards night is a big deal.
46:12
The other thing, you know, we, we started out doing fantasy football stuff early on.
46:16
Family events like picnics and, you know, car shows and whatnot.
46:20
But one of the other big ones for us was, uh, Virtual Racing League, the VRL.
46:23
Which we'll probably talk about in, in another episode.
46:26
But VRL was really big for us.
46:27
It was actually a very good recruit.
46:29
Granted, we're not doing iRacing.
46:31
Nobody's buying 20, 000 rigs.
46:33
Don't get excited.
46:33
We're just playing Forza, but we do have a fully automated computerized
46:37
timing and scoring system.
46:39
So, you know, whatever it is legit.
46:41
I'm in it for the points.
46:42
I don't know about you.
46:44
There's some really good stories there, but we've picked up some members over
46:47
the years through that system and we've kept them and they come back.
46:51
Uh, we have the Forza survivor or For people getting punished, but
46:57
you know, it's it that's, that's what it is in a nutshell, right?
47:00
It's a lot of fun.
47:01
It's bringing people in showing the other side of what a car code can be
47:05
It's not getting together on a saturday night behind the dairy queen and showing
47:09
off all your chrome Yeah, and that's why we do this at the end of the day.
47:13
It's for fun.
47:14
All of this is for fun.
47:15
I mean, all the yes, there's going to be some some gentle ribbing and you know,
47:19
talking trash and things like that.
47:21
But at the end of the day, it's all about fun.
47:24
If you're not having fun, then what's the point of doing it?
47:26
And we all in GTM have fun and we all love it.
47:29
Love going to the events and doing the, the, the different
47:32
things that we do in the club.
47:33
And even just us being the ones that put it on us and the crew chiefs and
47:37
the different committees and stuff that we have, we do it because it's fun.
47:41
Exactly.
47:41
Or it's the constant source of caffeine and fuel provided by monster, uh,
47:47
hurry, Haribo, gummy bears, and a fig Newton's just, just like, no, that's.
47:51
Typical gtm diet the and the official drink of gtm used to be
47:56
the white russian, but now it's graduated To jaeger and monster.
48:00
That's true.
48:00
The jaeger monster is pretty nice.
48:02
Thank you.
48:02
Sam.
48:03
We I curse you
48:07
But no, I mean again all all in good fun all in good spirits
48:11
and what we're gonna do You know allow us to talk about the future.
48:14
So the podcast right we've been we have been talking about this for
48:18
probably two years and we've We finally are now talking to you instead
48:22
of talking to ourselves about it.
48:24
We have a lot of good material out there.
48:26
We have a lot of stuff that really gets left on the cutting room floor
48:29
when it comes to our articles, where we could really expand, go dive deeper.
48:33
We've got some really passionate members that want to share their
48:35
stories with you, just like we said in our, our mission statement.
48:39
I've got some stuff I want to go deep in with, we've got some really
48:41
cool debates like what should I buy and things like that, where
48:44
we can, it's going to be chaotic, but it's going to be a lot of fun.
48:47
fun and we hope that you're going to enjoy that too.
48:49
So that's the podcast side of things.
48:50
Obviously we've been, we've been blowing out Instagram.
48:53
We've been trying to, you know, trend our own hashtags like GTM spicy Italians
48:56
and GTM francais and a bunch of other ones that we have, and those have been
49:00
really good for us and we're trying to bring something unique, right?
49:03
It's not the same picture of the orange Lamborghini that they had on Jalopnik that
49:07
was on car and driver that was wherever.
49:09
Yeah, you can only see so many pictures of a silver GTI with 666 all over it
49:14
or a black TT before you unsubscribe.
49:19
But I can post stuff from like 1957 that nobody's seen before, like a Renault
49:23
Dauphine and it's people, what is that?
49:25
And we get like You know, 93, 000 likes, but, uh, but that's the whole idea.
49:30
Something new, something different, something interesting,
49:31
a breath of fresh air.
49:32
The, when we plan out our years, we usually start in the winter
49:36
time and we meet quarterly and go through all that kind of stuff.
49:39
Not to give you all the dirty details there, but some events are very variable.
49:43
And so summer bash is always bigger and badder and more chaotic,
49:47
and it keeps getting bigger and more people keep coming out.
49:50
We tend to take over the track and it's, it's a lot of fun.
49:53
And we do, we've only done one summer bash outside of maybe this year,
49:56
thanks to COVID that wasn't at a track.
50:00
And the reason we do it at a track is we don't have a problem with parking.
50:03
There's plenty of spectator, you know, space, no admission fees.
50:06
You can have a lot of fun.
50:07
You can ride along with a lot of us that are coaches and go for a thrill ride.
50:11
They do parade labs, all sorts of, you know, we try to get you excited about
50:15
motorsport and that's an easy way for us.
50:17
do it.
50:17
And that event is a lot of fun and it is a very family friendly event.
50:21
The cannonball run, like I said, this year, that the top
50:24
three were Indianapolis, GP circuit, uh, club motor sport.
50:27
And we were going to try to go back to NCM.
50:29
So we hadn't really decided yet.
50:30
And thanks to COVID, we still haven't made a decision.
50:33
So the cannonball run is still up for grabs.
50:35
Uh, the way we figured that out, just so you guys know, uh, we're,
50:38
we're super scientific about it.
50:39
We, we basically draw a line from the Washington monument, 12 hours out.
50:44
And then take a protractor and just kind of go around in a circle and
50:48
whatever track fits in that radius.
50:50
We try to go as far as we can.
50:52
There's been some talk about going to Road America.
50:54
There's been some talk to really starting to stretch our legs
50:56
because once you've done 700 miles, what's another 150 at that point?
51:01
It really doesn't matter.
51:03
And that would really get us more connected, especially with our members
51:06
of the Michigan and stuff like that, that are really big fans of that track.
51:08
And it's a bucket list for me, too.
51:10
I want to do it.
51:10
Now, granted, there's the crazy, we're going to...
51:12
Put all the cars on a car trailer and go to Laguna Seca, but, you know,
51:15
My, my personal dream right there.
51:19
Laguna Seca and to put all the cars on a boat and drive Rans Hatch.
51:23
Yeah, a hundred percent.
51:24
Koda is still being talked about.
51:28
Uh, it's doable, but I need about 500 more horsepower to do Koda.
51:35
Exactly.
51:35
That's, that's the big problem, but it would be a lot of fun to
51:38
say, Hey, I drove that track.
51:40
There are some bucket list motorsports races to go to that we
51:43
haven't seen that we'd want to do.
51:45
A bunch of us used to do F1 when it was in Indy, been to Global Rallycross.
51:49
I'm a big Group B fan.
51:50
We can talk about that for a whole nother episode.
51:52
Probably one of the few people to WRC in this club.
51:55
Obviously going to Salins last year was a blast.
51:57
You got behind the.
51:58
scenes.
51:58
We can talk about that another time.
52:00
But one of the big ones, one of the big things that's coming,
52:02
the big cannonball 2023.
52:05
Right.
52:06
I'm not trying to put this too far out into the universe.
52:08
We're going to Le Mans.
52:10
No, we're not campaigning our own car.
52:14
The plan is to go as a group.
52:16
What class would we even be in if we campaigned our own car?
52:20
It would be Le Mans, LGT turd.
52:25
With a 1.
52:25
6 Viotta going around.
52:27
We'd have the slowest lap on record at Le Mans.
52:31
Lots of bum drafting.
52:32
A hundred percent.
52:35
I was right on his tail.
52:36
I can hear him.
52:36
I was right on his tail.
52:39
But, uh, that being said, uh, the plan is to go to 23.
52:43
The reason 23 is special is it's the hundredth anniversary of Le Mans.
52:48
Not necessarily the hundredth running of Le Mans, but the hundredth anniversary.
52:52
So for that, for, for a bunch of us, that's special.
52:54
We've always wanted to do it.
52:56
Every time we ask, where should we go?
52:58
Somebody stands up and goes, LeBron's!
53:00
I mean, they've been saying it for six years, right?
53:02
So we're gonna do it.
53:04
I don't know.
53:04
The future is still unwritten.
53:05
That's the best part, right?
53:07
And we do it all just, it's like, send it.
53:09
Let's go.
53:10
Let's just, let's just go do it.
53:12
So I'm going to throw this out then.
53:14
What do our listeners want to do?
53:15
What do they want to see in the future?
53:17
You know, at the end of this, you're going to get our contact information.
53:20
If you don't already have it.
53:21
Um, some of you, if you're members, you're in Slack and stuff.
53:24
Let us know what you want.
53:25
What do you want?
53:26
Where do you want the club to go?
53:27
Give us suggestions.
53:28
What don't you like that we're doing?
53:30
What do you like that we're doing?
53:31
You know, what do you want to see from Grand Touring Motorsports?
53:34
Absolutely.
53:35
Absolutely.
53:36
I think we covered quite a bit in our first episode.
53:39
This is pretty good.
53:40
Hopefully we didn't put anybody to sleep.
53:42
If we did, you know, market that, it's good stuff.
53:45
Yeah.
53:46
So Brad, any final, any final thoughts before we really wrap it up?
53:50
Uh, no, I, I'm, I'm happy to be doing this.
53:54
I'm glad I've been talking about doing a podcast for a couple years now.
53:57
I'm glad I finally, we finally got off our butts and started doing it.
54:00
I know it's, I know it's all been my fault, but, you know, I've
54:04
had some things going on that...
54:06
Precluded me from being able to do it, but now here we are.
54:09
Uh, so like I'm excited and curious to see where it leads.
54:13
Absolutely.
54:14
All right, my friends.
54:15
Well, I think that about wraps up episode number one.
54:18
So with that, peace, peace.
54:27
So there you have it.
54:28
He broke it.
54:29
I fixed it until next time.
54:31
Always remember if you can take it apart without breaking
54:34
it, you can surely fix it.
54:36
For all of us at GTM, Merry Motoring.
54:38
If you like what you heard and want to learn more about GTM,
54:41
be sure to check us out at www.
54:43
gtmotorsports.
54:45
org.
54:45
You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports.
54:49
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can
54:52
call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
55:00
org.
55:00
We'd love to hear from you.
55:01
Hey listeners, Crew Chief Eric here.
55:03
Do you like what you've seen, heard, and read from GTM?
55:07
Great, so do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it.
55:09
But please remember, we're fueled by volunteers and remain
55:12
a no annual fee organization.
55:14
But we still need help to keep the momentum going.
55:17
So that we can continue to record, write, edit, and broadcast
55:20
all of your favorite content.
55:22
So be sure to visit www.
55:23
patreon.
55:24
com forward slash gtmotorsports or visit our website and click in the
55:29
top right corner on the support and donate to learn how you can help.