Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Nürburgring to the Classroom: How David L. Middleton Is Revolutionizing STEM Through Motorsports

Transcript

From Nürburgring to the Classroom: How David L. Middleton Is Revolutionizing STEM Through Motorsports · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  Brake fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
• 0:04
  all over the auto sphere, 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 petrol heads that wonder, how did
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  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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  So.
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  Tonight we're going to talk about my.
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  Wait, did you say pie?
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  Nope, M I E, my.
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  Middleton Innovative Education, a new startup in the world of education looking
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  to revolutionize the way we teach and engage students in science, technology,
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  engineering, and math, also known as STEM.
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  And I see that we have David Middleton, CEO and founder of My, on break fix with
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  us tonight to explain how it all works.
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  So welcome to the show, David.
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  You're welcome.
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  Thank you guys for having me.
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  I'm blessed to be here.
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  We were very grateful to have one of our previous guests who's been
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  on two episodes now of Break Fix.
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  Phil Engels introduced us virtually and brought to our attention the idea of Mai.
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  So first question as always.
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  Let's talk about the origin story.
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  Let's talk about the mission.
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  Tell us what my is all about and how it got started.
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  Sure.
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  So we had other names and then somebody who was kind of counseling
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  us, he said, how about using your initials and making a company?
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  So it's Middleton Innovative Education.
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  My like pie.
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  And the way the mission got started is I'm by background automotive engineer.
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  I had been working abroad many years, not only development, but in motorsports.
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  And I got to a point where I'm looking around the paddocks.
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  I'm looking around a lot of the meetings I'm in, and I'm wondering
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  where are all the Americans?
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  And it started to bother me.
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  And, and I talked to my wife, always wanted to give back.
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  So what I started doing when I was abroad is I started actually
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  reaching out to military families.
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  And bringing them out to the track that I was at, I used to be a
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  race engineer at the Nürburgring.
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  So I would bring out military families out there and tell them, Hey, I don't
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  know how long I'm going to be doing this, but bring your son, bring your
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  daughter, experience the paddock.
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  And they were having good times.
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  And then I started talking to my wife more in depth about, well, what's the
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  future when we either transition back to the stage or what's the next step?
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  So we talked about it some more.
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  And then I reached out to a lot of my friends.
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  I'm originally from New York city.
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  And I have a lot of friends who were either born in the Dominican Republic
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  or in the Caribbean and, and they're all car guys, but I'm the only
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  one who went on to be an engineer.
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  And I was asking them, what's the disconnect?
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  They told me, well, you're fortunate.
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  You had two parents who were in education.
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  They told you, you can do whatever you want to do.
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  They were like, our parents told us survive.
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  So, and they said, and nobody ever told us we could do this.
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  They said, you were the crazy guy reading magazines, telling us you do these things.
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  And what really hit me was one of my friend's brothers.
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  He told me, you know, he said, Dave, you got to understand
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  you're like the hope of the block.
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  He said, every time you're sending us pictures of the Nürburgring and videos
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  and all this, you're giving hope to us.
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  And I thought to myself, well, something has to change.
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  I said, well, what's going on in industry right now?
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  And I feel that.
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  There's a lot of young people who really love cars, but there's a disconnect of
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  how to turn that love into an actual career and America needs great engineers.
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  We need great mechanics.
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  We need great technicians using the knowledge I have, but also
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  the fact that I started doing not only racing, but sim racing.
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  I said, how can I combine this in a meaningful way?
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  And I think some of the problem with a lot of, a lot of STEM programs is
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  they give these kids good exercises and things like that, but it doesn't sink in.
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  So I thought long and hard about how do I combine STEM education, motorsports,
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  that love into a meaningful program.
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  All I got to say right now is wow.
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  And we got a lot of stuff to unpack.
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  So before we dive a little deeper into mine, I can see
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  it on Brad's face right now.
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  We got to talk about this automotive engineer and the Nürburgring, because
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  my eyes are as big as my head right now.
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  Automotive engineering, did you start with like, let's say at Ford Aerospace,
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  which was like where everybody went to in my generation or somewhere else?
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  Were you fortunate and went the way of, you know, McLaren through
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  BAE or something like that?
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  And how did you end up at the Nürburgring?
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  So let's, let's unfold that a little bit.
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  I went a totally opposite route than anybody else.
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  I went, I went to a really good school, studied physics.
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  I told my advisor that I wanted to do research and development of engines.
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  And this came from a love I've had a Porsche since nine years old.
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  I saw a commercial stuck with me.
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  I told my dad, Hey, I want you to teach me how to drive manual because
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  one day I'm going to own a Porsche.
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  And he kind of stared at me cause you know, my parents are educators and
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  no one really had a Porsche around.
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  And he said, okay.
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  And he said, he's going to pass, but I kept bugging him.
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  So he started teaching me how to drive and then I asked how to drive manual, but this
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  love of cars was basically self inflicted.
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  I'm reading everything.
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  I'm chasing things down.
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  My parents didn't know what to do exactly.
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  So they put me in every engineering program, summer program.
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  I did three years at Cornell during high school.
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  Wow.
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  Yeah.
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  And I did all these programs and it led to me going to a very good
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  university and studying physics.
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  Well, I finished my physics degree and I'm no closer to the automotive industry.
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  My wonderful advisor didn't tell me that.
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  Right.
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  He said, Oh, you get a degree in physics and trust me, I
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  suffered getting through physics.
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  But I was like, well, what do I do now?
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  So I call up Audi and BMW and Porsche.
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  And back in those days, you know, you had to fight to get somebody on the phone.
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  And they said, what do you want to do, young man?
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  I said, well, I want to do research and development of engines for your company.
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  And they said, in America, I said, well.
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  If that's not possible where they said, Germany, he said, if you want
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  to do that, you gotta go to Germany.
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  And I said, all right, I will.
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  And I don't think anybody believed me, you know, like I got a lot of pauses on
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  the phone, like, okay, well, long story short, I started working for a startup.
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  I'm no closer to the industry.
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  And I just, from one day to the next, I come out of a meeting
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  and I tell somebody I'm done.
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  I was like, that's it.
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  I'm getting up and I'm moving to Germany.
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  Within two months, I sold everything I had.
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  I took the little money I had and I got up and I moved to the Frankfurt mines area.
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  What I did for the next few months is I went to every single car show.
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  I went to the international auto show at Frankfurt.
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  I met with people such as AC Schnitzer and Brabus and, and I was very fortunate.
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  I hustled really hard, but it got to a point where people were saying, Hey, well,
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  you're very well educated, but, uh, you do not know what it takes to work in Germany.
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  That was a shock.
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  Right.
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  Because I paid a lot of money for this great education.
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  And here I am, my education doesn't really mean anything to them because
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  they've got their own universities.
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  They got their own ways of doing stuff.
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  And I remember talking to the AC snitcher guys and they said, do you realize
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  how many engineers we have on staff?
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  He said, we're such a small team, man.
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  Like my team is six.
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  And you want to be here?
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  And I said, yes, I do.
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  I want to be there.
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  And they were kind of taken aback at this brash American and not so
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  much that I was brash, but for the point of they didn't find a lot of
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  Americans who would come over with this attitude of I'm going to get in.
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  I'm going to be here.
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  I want to learn from you.
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  Persistence.
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  Persistence.
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  Yeah.
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  So that was refreshing.
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  So they pointed me in, in, in some directions.
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  It got to a point where I had to take on other jobs to make sure I stayed alive.
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  Of what I knew about Germans and started learning the language, I said, All right,
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  if I'm trying to get in here and study some more, if I don't have ones and twos,
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  which is a German A and B, then I'm going to sit down, HR department, and they're
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  going to say to me, Ah, Herr Middleton, I see that you want to work for Porsche.
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  But you did not get ones and twos, you know, like, you know, why, if you
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  really want to be here, why did you not do well enough and to an American?
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  We're like, well, look, I'm self supported.
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  I had to learn the language.
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  There's a lot of things I had to go through, but to a
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  German, it's a numbers game.
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  It's like, well, if you really want it.
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  You will get it.
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  So I said, let me be smart here.
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  I found a good program in South Carolina, connected to BMW.
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  I got in and I got another degree and my parents were like, what,
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  what is this guy thinking about?
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  Well, while I was doing that, I had an internship or I got a call
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  from a good advisor this time.
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  And he told me, Hey, there's an internship program in Esslingen.
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  You should do it.
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  We think it'd be great for your career.
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  I was actually on the tennis court.
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  They called me off.
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  I go down to the office.
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  Sweaty and smelly and there's these two Germans sitting there and they start
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  talking to me in German and they were surprised at how good my German was
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  and the guy answers me and says, Hey, look, here's someone we want for this
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  program because we can't find Americans who go over and want to do this program
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  without going into too much detail.
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  I do this program and the things that I did in this program.
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  I got to go on Mercedes test track.
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  I got to go to Audi's factory where they make the R8.
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  I got to go to Vizac and get on the test track.
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  A lot of students were able to do this too.
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  Thank you.
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  But we had some American guys and we're like overslept some of these events.
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  And I tried to explain to them.
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  I said, you could buy 10 cup cars and you may never, ever get to Vizac.
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  Like, you don't understand, like that's something special, man.
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  You need to appreciate it.
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  But I was totally locked in.
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  I finished my schooling.
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  I made the right connections.
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  I started applying for OEMs, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and I knew a couple
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  of Germans in America, and they said, well, have you considered Bosch?
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  And I said, um, yeah, a little bit.
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  So I said, no, not, not the sister, not the big sister company.
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  There's a daughter company, Bosch Engineering.
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  They do ECU development.
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  They do engine develop.
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  That's where the motorsports department is.
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  And after several interviews and fighting to knock the door in a
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  little bit and some connections, yeah, I became an engineer there.
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  Wow.
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  So that's how I got to Germany.
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  Very, I guess, unusual.
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  I didn't go from Michigan to Germany.
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  I went in directly as a German engineer.
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  I had a German contract.
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  I ended up getting a German Lebenslauf, which is like basically the work permit.
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  I had to, of course, make a way, but, but yeah, I went straight in because My
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  thinking was, if I had worked for BMW in North America and got settled in,
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  I would have wanted to go over, right?
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  But once I got settled and if I had kids or if I got married, you know, it's
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  just like a lot harder to transition.
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  But this way I said, Hey, I'm just going over.
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  Luckily, the woman I married, she, she also was interested in going to Germany.
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  She had lived there previously too, and she already had things set up.
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  So we both went over and yeah, I worked for Bosch engineering.
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  And while I'm working there.
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  I had a French intern and the intern was, uh, very nice to me and we started
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  talking and he said, Hey, I see you got a big interest in cars because I used to
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  have stacks of magazines, you know, and I used to have actually F1 tracks, like
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  pasted to my desk, you know, because the group I was in, there weren't a lot of
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  car guys in my particular group, but the surrounding groups like Aston Martin.
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  It's funny how that always happens, right?
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  You get into these industries.
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  That are making products for let's say a consumer group like us petrol heads,
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  and they have no love towards what it is that they're doing and I mean that in a
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  in a philosophical way, not necessarily they probably nerd out on what they do
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  and they love it, but it's like, yeah, I'm not a car guy, but I do car things.
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  I know a lot of people like that.
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  I'm like, My mind, I'm like, this does not compute.
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  This does not make any sense at all.
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  Do what you love.
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  Right.
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  But I guess we're not always able to do exactly that, but it sounds like you are.
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  So please continue.
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  Yeah.
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  It kind of blew my mind because the surrounding groups, I worked for
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  JLR and the surrounding groups, the Ferrari group, the Aston Martin group,
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  the McLaren group, the Porsche group.
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  I mean, these guys are like petrol heads, right?
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  And I'll give you an example.
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  Well, we developed the 918 with Porsche and they brought out the 918, I think
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  about a year before it launched.
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  And it was just sitting out there, man.
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  My eyes are as big as saucers.
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  Cause we had to walk past the canteen and sitting there
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  and Porsche execs were there.
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  So I go into my group, man, 918 is there like, let's go see it.
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  And a couple of guys were like, eh, they like shrugged their shoulders.
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  Right.
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  And that's not me, man.
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  I think I was, I was told anything that came through the group.
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  We had a secret garage that had, I mean, tons of things from
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  manufacturers, secret development.
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  I mean, we had Bugattis that were torn apart.
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  Like it was just, it was basically everything I would
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  ever dreamed of at a company.
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  But I have this French engineer and he goes, why aren't you in the carding group?
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  I was like, I didn't even know it existed.
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  Come out.
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  So I came out and I was thinking to myself, all right,
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  I mean, I should be okay.
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  I know how to drive.
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  Well, I learned very quickly.
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  I didn't know how to drive because these guys have been doing it and girls
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  have been doing it since 10, 11, 12.
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  And through that.
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  I stayed and I fought with them.
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  And when I, when I started the carding group, I think I was
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  outside of the top 60 by the time I finished, I was within the top 15.
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  And from there I made connections.
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  And then people were like, Hey, we do track days, started doing track days.
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  Hey, we go to the Nurburgring, started visiting the Nurburgring.
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  And when I got to the Nurburgring, I knew of the Nurburgring, but I
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  didn't really know the Nurburgring as you guys can attest to.
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  I knew of it, but I get there and the atmosphere is just, there's nothing
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  like that on the planet, especially if you're a motorsports person.
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  So I said, all right, I want some experience.
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  So I started walking up, down the garage and saying, Hey,
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  you know, in German course.
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  I'm an engineer.
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  I work for Bosch and I want to leverage whatever little I
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  know and be a race engineer.
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  A lot of the teams were shocked that I spoke German because they asked
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  me in German, where are you from?
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  And I'd say USA and they'd be like, what?
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  They're like, you're not from Cameroon.
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  You're not from Nigeria.
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  Like, no, I'm from the USA, you know, we can actually speak other languages.
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  But I eventually got in with a team and that started my motorsports career.
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  And that was an eye opener.
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  I did three years in the VLN series.
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  I did three years as a, uh, race engineer for the 24 hours.
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  Wow.
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  And that led to other stuff.
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  I mean, I attended 24 hours of spa.
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  I attended Le Mans.
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  I got to know a guy.
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  He was the director of composites for Porsche LMP1.
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  And we became friends and we met at Lamont.
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  So if you can imagine, I'm going through all this and I'm having the time of my
• 13:58
  life and to kind of give that up and come back to America, I really had to
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  have a vision of like, man, I really want to give back to America because
• 14:05
  I'm going to be honest with you, man.
• 14:06
  I was very happy, you know, like a weekend, somebody could call me
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  and say, hey, come down to Imola.
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  Let's do this.
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  Or Hey, drive this.
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  Or Hey, I got, I bought this new Lotus.
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  Can you help me shake it down?
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  I mean, I was having the time of my life, but at the end of the day, I
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  said, well, what do I want to do?
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  Do I just want to gain all this knowledge and just stay out here
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  and, and then nothing changes.
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  But I felt my path, it was a very long bridge from getting A to B.
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  And there are young men and young women out there who love this industry,
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  who don't know how to get into it.
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  And I wanted to change that from the knowledge I've learned
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  from the contacts I've made.
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  I want to make sure that their path is not so long and they can
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  say, well, look, I love this.
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  This is what I want to do.
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  How do I do this?
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  I live in Georgia.
• 14:46
  Lanier Technical is near and they've got a great motorsports program.
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  From what I've heard, I've met so many kids here who don't even know that exist.
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  What's the disconnect?
• 14:53
  What's the problem?
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  How can I solve it?
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  Working over there and being over there that led to the Nürburgring,
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  which just led to a baptism in motorsports that I cannot explain.
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  And it was tough.
• 15:03
  And the team spoke 90 percent German.
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  But, but I made it through and I fought with those guys and I think they, they
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  liked the fact that I wouldn't give up and that I wanted to be there and they
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  said this guy could do whatever he wants, you know, but here he is on his weekends,
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  speaking of foreign language, hanging out with us, learning German culture,
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  drinking their beer, sitting with the mechanics, having them explain stuff to
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  me and the way they did it because it was foreign to me, me explaining what
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  I'm seeing, learning from other people.
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  And yeah, man, the Nürburgring is, it's hard to put it in words,
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  but I'll just say that if you ever have the chance to go, you should.
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  And that changed my dad's mind on motorsports.
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  He had no clue about it.
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  He couldn't understand my passion, but when I took him to the
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  Nürburgring, I remember him sitting there and just taking it all in.
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  And he comes to me and he goes, Hey, I'm so sorry that if I knew this existed,
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  I would have put you in carding.
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  I would have put you in racing.
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  I would have done something.
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  He said, but I had no clue.
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  He said, I, he said, I'm at this.
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  And this is like, feels like the Mecca of motorsports.
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  And he said, everybody's friendly.
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  Everybody's talking.
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  People are, people don't care where I'm from.
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  He said, I just, I feel at home here.
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  And he said, I wish I knew that this existed before.
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  Beauty of motorsport.
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  And if I haven't said it a hundred times already in this episode
• 16:11
  of people, I'm sure people are taking shots as they're listening.
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  I'm going to say it again.
• 16:15
  Wow.
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  And I think I've just lived out vicariously all of my childhood
• 16:20
  fantasies in the last 15 minutes that you've told that story.
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  Absolutely amazing.
• 16:25
  I mean, absolutely astounding the things you talk about.
• 16:27
  So I got to ask some questions.
• 16:28
  I think Brad's got a couple as well.
• 16:30
  So let's rewind a little bit and go back.
• 16:32
  Cause you said one day I'm going to drive a Porsche or I'm going to own a Porsche.
• 16:36
  So what was The first car you drove or first car you had, was it stateside?
• 16:42
  And what did you get when you went to Germany?
• 16:43
  Let's start there before I continue kind of pulling this thread a little bit.
• 16:47
  Sure.
• 16:47
  The first car I had was a 19, I think it was a 1986 or 1985 Volkswagen GTI.
• 16:53
  Mk2 baby.
• 16:54
  All right.
• 16:55
  Everybody starts with a Volkswagen.
• 16:57
  I don't know how that happens on this show.
• 16:59
  It just does, you know.
• 17:01
  If you want to hear kind of a crazy story, there was some upperclassmen and
• 17:05
  they had this car wasn't getting used.
• 17:07
  They passed it down to freshmen named, I'll never forget Dennis.
• 17:10
  Dennis didn't use this car, sat there for a year and I kept
• 17:12
  saying, Dennis, sell me the car.
• 17:13
  Dennis, sell me the car.
• 17:15
  Well, he finally sells it to me for a dollar, right?
• 17:17
  I go to the car.
• 17:18
  And it's got a club on it.
• 17:20
  And I said, Dennis, where's the key?
• 17:22
  He didn't know.
• 17:22
  Now, now mind you, we're college, we're not wealthy.
• 17:24
  And then I call a locksmith.
• 17:26
  The guy tells me it was going to be what, 150, 200 to get the club off.
• 17:29
  We ended up stealing liquid nitrogen, freezing it off out of the
• 17:33
  science lab and freezing it late at night, covering the steering wheel
• 17:38
  with a, you know, with a towel.
• 17:39
  Cause someone suggested like sawing the steering wheel.
• 17:41
  I said, heck no.
• 17:42
  So we stole liquid nitrogen.
• 17:43
  So if anybody was missing liquid nitrogen back then, I'm sorry.
• 17:46
  We froze the lock, we broke it, and we got it off.
• 17:49
  But we didn't think because, you know, it's like five, six black guys late
• 17:51
  at night, freezing liquid nitrogen, you know, like luckily the cops
• 17:57
  didn't come because that probably the optics didn't look so good.
• 18:00
  But yeah, that was my first car and I, I drove that thing.
• 18:03
  And drove it and drove it.
• 18:04
  And then one of the cylinders eventually went two years later.
• 18:06
  So eight valve or 16 valve.
• 18:09
  Mine was 16 valve.
• 18:10
  They're very nice.
• 18:11
  And so when you got to Germany, what did you get?
• 18:12
  Cause over there you have a larger, let's call it smorgasbord of things
• 18:17
  you can choose from that we don't get, you know, all the fun stuff.
• 18:20
  Yes.
• 18:20
  I got a manual E90.
• 18:22
  Oh, nice.
• 18:23
  That's what I got.
• 18:24
  And then I got a E36 track car that was prepared by a guy who was
• 18:29
  the chief Audi mechanic for years.
• 18:31
  And he actually did the Nürburgring.
• 18:33
  That, that's like an oxymoron there.
• 18:35
  Chief Audi mechanic and he's got a BMW.
• 18:36
  How does that work?
• 18:37
  Oh man, this guy used to build Minis, BMWs, all these things
• 18:41
  and, and he used to keep them in his garage and then sell them.
• 18:44
  Within a month, he'd sell them.
• 18:46
  So that was my first track car, the E36.
• 18:48
  Did you end up with a Porsche?
• 18:49
  I did.
• 18:50
  Was there a first one or is there only one?
• 18:53
  There's only been one.
• 18:54
  Okay.
• 18:55
  The second one's going to be coming soon.
• 18:56
  Hopefully.
• 18:57
  Uh, 997 Gen 2 2011 white.
• 19:01
  I actually got PDK, but I left foot brake the whole time and
• 19:04
  drove it like a Formula One car.
• 19:05
  So excellent.
• 19:07
  My last question before we transition and continue talking about what you're
• 19:11
  doing now and motorsport community is since you were on the ring.
• 19:15
  So often, did you get to meet or interact with Sabine Schmidt?
• 19:19
  You just stole my question.
• 19:21
  So we inquire your minds want to know though.
• 19:24
  Frigidelli was maybe 15, 16 garages away from us.
• 19:28
  I did meet her.
• 19:29
  I used to go in and out of her garage a lot.
• 19:31
  And then RSR.
• 19:33
  If you ever heard of RSR Nurburgring, well, they run a lot of drivers,
• 19:36
  so I got to know their drivers.
• 19:38
  They know Sabine, so we'd be at stuff and we'd cross paths.
• 19:42
  So I didn't have like a deep, deep conversation with her, but
• 19:44
  she definitely knew who I was.
• 19:46
  I was always hanging out in the garage, and there's actually an American over
• 19:49
  there who I think still does the VLN series named John, who was driving
• 19:52
  Porsches at one time, and Sabine was his driver for a couple of the VLNs, so yes.
• 19:57
  I did.
• 19:58
  Never got her to take me out on the ring.
• 20:00
  That would have been awesome.
• 20:01
  I know, right?
• 20:02
  But she would have only done it in a Ford Transit van though, you know?
• 20:04
  Hey, whatever.
• 20:06
  It could be a shopping cart, you know?
• 20:08
  It's always fun.
• 20:09
  Speaking of transit vans, you ever take the ring taxi?
• 20:11
  I have not.
• 20:12
  I have not.
• 20:13
  Are they as nuts as they look on the videos?
• 20:16
  They are.
• 20:16
  Yes, they are.
• 20:18
  They absolutely are.
• 20:20
  All right.
• 20:21
  So let's get serious for a moment.
• 20:23
  So getting involved, why don't you tell us about, uh, the, the, the, my program.
• 20:27
  Yeah.
• 20:27
  How you developed it.
• 20:28
  I started sim racing about 10, 11 years ago, introduced by
• 20:32
  all these crazy French guys.
• 20:34
  They invited me over to their house and every single one of them had a simulator.
• 20:37
  You know, the foldable play seat with a Logitech and they asked me if I had one.
• 20:41
  Are they like, do you SIM?
• 20:42
  Do you, do you play racing games?
• 20:44
  I said, yeah, I play Gran Turismo.
• 20:45
  And they're like, what do you use?
• 20:46
  I said, my controller.
• 20:47
  And they kind of laughed me, you know, out of the room.
• 20:50
  And they were like, why don't you have a simulator?
• 20:51
  And I was like, I don't even really know what one of those are.
• 20:53
  I sat down and I was amazed.
• 20:55
  I was like, this is real driving.
• 20:56
  Like this is, this is unbelievable.
• 20:58
  Well, it didn't take long before I told my wife, like, Hey, I
• 21:01
  would like to buy a simulator.
• 21:03
  I actually stepped up.
• 21:05
  I didn't get Logitech.
• 21:06
  I actually went to Thrustmaster and back then Thrustmaster was quite expensive,
• 21:09
  but I started simming wanted to be better than them, or I wanted to be comparable.
• 21:14
  And a lot of these guys were like really super quick, you
• 21:16
  know, for being engineers.
• 21:18
  They they're, they're quite quick.
• 21:19
  And some of them even did amateur racing.
• 21:22
  So I got the simulator and the more I'm driving it, the more I saw
• 21:24
  that there's applications to it.
• 21:26
  I would get people who say, I don't know how to set up a car.
• 21:29
  How do I do that?
• 21:30
  I'm in SIM, or I don't know what the, Brad's pointing at himself.
• 21:37
  Or what effect does ride height have?
• 21:40
  How do I find the rear, you know, rear wing angle?
• 21:42
  And how does that affect the tire temperatures?
• 21:45
  And there was a lot of information on forums, but I realized like, man, there
• 21:48
  is some principles that can be applied to learning and if young kids are already
• 21:53
  racing or they're doing video games, this is a great way to get them into
• 21:57
  the industry and see that the math and science that they're learning in school
• 22:01
  can actually be applied in the real world.
• 22:03
  And in sim, when we made the decision that I wasn't going to go back into
• 22:06
  industry and I just started full time and I started writing out a curriculum.
• 22:10
  I've written the whole STEM curriculum.
• 22:12
  I've, I've used my experience in motorsports.
• 22:14
  My experience in sim racing, then also my experience in industry to make a,
• 22:20
  just a curriculum that gels together.
• 22:21
  So I have it very tailored, but also with the, with the mindset
• 22:25
  that you're going to get some kids.
• 22:27
  We don't know anything about racing, anything about driving.
• 22:30
  So it's video based.
• 22:31
  You're also getting tested, but everything you do is applied to your,
• 22:36
  your SIM exercises and just to give it in more in depth, if you don't mind.
• 22:41
  So what we were pitching and we were first of all, starting off with schools
• 22:45
  and what we were trying to get schools to do were to bring in a minimum of four
• 22:48
  simulators and per simulator, there'd be.
• 22:51
  Three to five kids, but every kid has a specific role.
• 22:55
  So Brad, I don't know if you like arrow, you're saying that I don't know about
• 22:58
  the theoretical grip, theoretical grip.
• 23:02
  All right.
• 23:02
  But maybe, maybe you don't, maybe you like arrow.
• 23:04
  Maybe you don't.
• 23:05
  Right.
• 23:05
  But you would have a job, whether it's aerodynamics, whether it's the suspension
• 23:10
  engineer, whether it's the race engineer.
• 23:12
  And we also added management because I want the kids to understand that racing
• 23:18
  doesn't just happen in a vacuum, right?
• 23:19
  You need somebody to pay the bills.
• 23:21
  You need sponsorship.
• 23:22
  So there is one person who by the end of these 18 weeks has
• 23:26
  to write a fictional paper.
• 23:28
  on funding and say, this is what we did.
• 23:30
  Good.
• 23:30
  This is where we need help at and pick companies and write whether it's a
• 23:34
  work of fiction, but it has to sound professional and that's her role.
• 23:38
  And the person who's responsible for that, that's his or her job
• 23:41
  throughout the season, but they also do the same exercises.
• 23:44
  They also do some of the tuning and everything.
• 23:46
  So you function together as a race team.
• 23:49
  You will compete against your other fellow classmates.
• 23:52
  As teams and in between these 18 weeks, I have like a practice race one practice
• 23:58
  race to practice race three and then at the end of the 18th is the final
• 24:02
  race, which you hopefully in theory, you know, race for scholarships.
• 24:06
  That's what we're trying to do.
• 24:07
  So not only do you have your job and your role of what you have to tune, when
• 24:12
  you do your sim exercises together as a group, you've got to function as a team.
• 24:15
  And I think that's a way to build communication.
• 24:18
  That's a way to build collaboration, but also it's a way for students
• 24:21
  to understand responsibility.
• 24:23
  Absolutely.
• 24:24
  And, you know, there's a lot to what you're talking about there
• 24:27
  that I think is often overlooked.
• 24:28
  You've got chemistry, you've got physics, you've got engineering,
• 24:31
  you've got aerodynamics, thermal dynamics, you even got artistry when
• 24:34
  it comes to design interior exterior.
• 24:36
  And to your point, when you bring motorsport into
• 24:39
  the equation, it gets easy.
• 24:40
  astronomically more complicated, right?
• 24:42
  Because you have the competition factory of the management factor, the budget, the
• 24:45
  financing, the sponsorship, all of that.
• 24:46
  So I think what you're doing, you know, even on a, on a smaller scale to
• 24:49
  represent the real world is, is great.
• 24:52
  And it gives these kids what I think is lacking in school sometimes, which
• 24:56
  is the real world aspect to all of it.
• 25:00
  Let's say Brad went through it in his background in finance.
• 25:02
  You go through these accounting classes and you're like.
• 25:05
  These use cases are nothing like they are when I am going to end
• 25:08
  up in the real world, right?
• 25:10
  It's like, what does this have to do with anything?
• 25:12
  So to your point, you're bringing it all together and really grasping that.
• 25:16
  I guess what we used to call that Athenian mentality to education, which is to
• 25:20
  broader reaching and fuller encompassing of all the different aspects of something,
• 25:25
  an object, whatever it is that you're learning or, or that discipline to make
• 25:29
  you more well rounded as a student.
• 25:31
  Right?
• 25:31
  So I really applaud you for that.
• 25:32
  So how are you relating all of this or making it make sense?
• 25:37
  Are you keeping it at a foundational level so that at
• 25:39
  least the principles are absorbed?
• 25:41
  So first of all, I guess the program right now is tailored
• 25:45
  towards high school students.
• 25:46
  I'm keeping him at a introductory level, but I'm applying things
• 25:51
  from the real world and then showing them how it works in sim.
• 25:54
  So I'll give you an example.
• 25:56
  Thermodynamics.
• 25:57
  I had a carding kid tell me that he sucks at math.
• 25:59
  And I said, I said, yeah, James, why would you say that?
• 26:01
  Well, because you know, it's just hard and I don't like it.
• 26:04
  And I said, James, you do carding, right?
• 26:07
  What do you do when the temperature is hot to your tires?
• 26:09
  Well, I let some of the air out.
• 26:11
  I said, why?
• 26:11
  Well, because they overheat and the tires don't feel, you know, if
• 26:15
  they overheat and you lose grip.
• 26:17
  I said, what do you do when it's cold out?
• 26:18
  He said, I put more air in.
• 26:19
  I said, James, it's basic thermodynamics, right?
• 26:22
  I said, pressure, volume, temperature, and the relation.
• 26:25
  And how I do that in my with my is that I teach them that
• 26:29
  principle, the relationship between pressure, volume, temperature.
• 26:32
  I teach them the formula.
• 26:33
  I show, you know, P1 over P2 equals T1 over T2 and volume.
• 26:37
  I show them all that.
• 26:38
  They actually have to do an example where they have to figure out the values.
• 26:42
  When it comes to the SIM side, what I do for their SIM task is I
• 26:46
  take them to Texas Motor Speedway.
• 26:48
  in July.
• 26:49
  I give them a certain set of tire pressures and I tell them to do five laps.
• 26:52
  Texas, July, temperatures go through the roof.
• 26:56
  So here they see it applied.
• 26:57
  And I say, okay, we're gonna go back to Texas Motor Speedway in
• 27:00
  December, do the same thing, give 'em the same exact pressures, do five,
• 27:04
  eight laps, and they'll see that the temperature doesn't come out.
• 27:06
  Now you've learned the relationship between pressure, volume, and
• 27:09
  temperature, and you've seen it all right, we're gonna go back to Texas.
• 27:12
  I'm gonna give you uneven pressures 'cause it's an oval and, and s slammed it.
• 27:15
  Oval.
• 27:16
  What do you think the, the pressures are gonna be?
• 27:17
  And, and so.
• 27:18
  That's what I do.
• 27:19
  I do things like that.
• 27:20
  So it's applied physics and applied thermodynamics and that it's, and
• 27:24
  that's good applied thermodynamics.
• 27:25
  I guess I have to ask the question on the behalf of everybody
• 27:28
  else, what platform are you on?
• 27:29
  Are you using iRacing for this or something else?
• 27:31
  I'm using something else.
• 27:33
  Eventually, we'd like to make a iRacing platform, but as we all know from using
• 27:38
  iRacing, what I'm trying to do is get this out to, to the general public.
• 27:41
  All right.
• 27:42
  There's a lot of carding kids.
• 27:43
  They're using iRacing.
• 27:43
  That's great.
• 27:44
  I bring this to certain areas.
• 27:46
  And the kids could do our program.
• 27:47
  And then I'm like, Hey, you like the program so much go home and practice.
• 27:51
  Well, let's see.
• 27:52
  Now you're telling somebody's parent, please let my son or
• 27:55
  daughter buy a gaming computer.
• 27:58
  A rig and all this.
• 28:00
  And I picked a game that is cross platformed on purpose.
• 28:03
  It's not exactly, I don't think it's the best game dynamically, but it
• 28:07
  fits the bill for several reasons.
• 28:09
  So what I'm using is Project Cars 2 currently.
• 28:12
  Okay.
• 28:12
  Okay.
• 28:13
  And what I like about Project Cars 2, well, it's on PC, Xbox, PlayStation.
• 28:18
  Right now, the price is very cheap.
• 28:20
  You're doing it in school, you already got a PlayStation or Xbox at home.
• 28:24
  I can convince your parents to buy a 100 wheel, you put it on your desk, plug
• 28:28
  it into your PlayStation, go practice.
• 28:30
  And I can't do that with iRacing.
• 28:32
  The other thing I like about Project Cars 2 is that the graphic user interface
• 28:36
  is easier to understand than iRacing.
• 28:38
  No offense, iRacing, but yeah, I wish that would change.
• 28:41
  Another thing, weather in the real world, right?
• 28:44
  I was, I was at VIR over the weekend.
• 28:46
  We had a half dry, half wet session.
• 28:48
  I can't really do that in iRacing.
• 28:50
  So I had to find a platform that could do all these things.
• 28:54
  And What I'm trying to do with the program is not just have one year, I'm
• 28:57
  trying to have four years consecutively.
• 28:59
  And every year you're going to do a different challenge.
• 29:02
  Year one, we may do GT4.
• 29:05
  Year two, maybe GT3 with a weather change.
• 29:08
  Year three might be Indy or LMP1.
• 29:12
  But year four, I'm saving for Formula One because I want kids to come back.
• 29:15
  And, and what's great about it is if you were the suspension engineer and
• 29:18
  you don't like it, it's not for me.
• 29:20
  I want to be the guy who's the race engineer.
• 29:23
  I want to do something different.
• 29:24
  Well, you have the option to change every year, but if you love suspensions
• 29:27
  and you say, Hey, I love this.
• 29:29
  I can't wait to, to work on a suspension and GT four to GT three or LMP one to
• 29:33
  GT three, see what the difference is.
• 29:35
  You can say, I opt to stay in my role.
• 29:37
  So yeah, that's one of the reasons that I decided to use Project Cars 2.
• 29:41
  But, going forward, I am going to have to develop something for iRacing,
• 29:45
  because I have a ton of cart parents and a ton of cart kids asking me.
• 29:48
  And then also, as you guys know, ACC is really making a big splash.
• 29:53
  It's also a great game.
• 29:54
  And a set of Corsa 2 is coming out soon.
• 29:56
  So hopefully those guys will get it right, that's the goal, but right
• 29:59
  now it's Project Cars 2 only, and I think it's just the best balance.
• 30:03
  And I would agree with you, because I have used Project Cars 2 and I
• 30:07
  do like it, I'm one of few in our VRL that does, and you know, it was
• 30:11
  available for free for a while there, so it made it even more palatable.
• 30:15
  The one thing I think is interesting that that's the choice you made is if
• 30:18
  you are a gamer, like, you know, Brad and I am, even though he claims he's not
• 30:22
  you, if you look at its lineage, there's like certain families of racing games
• 30:28
  that they've all kind of stemmed from.
• 30:29
  So you've got Forza, which was built from the ground up.
• 30:32
  You've got Gran Turismo.
• 30:33
  That's always been its own thing.
• 30:34
  I racing came out or whatever, but then there was this pocket of
• 30:37
  games that came out of the SIM bin.
• 30:39
  Lineage, right.
• 30:40
  Where you had like things like GTR, GTR two, and, um, similar to like Toka and
• 30:46
  all those all came out of that family tree and project cars is in a similar vein now.
• 30:51
  Now they're owned by code masters.
• 30:52
  Right.
• 30:53
  So it's all part of that.
• 30:54
  That bigger happen.
• 30:56
  Yeah.
• 30:56
  Well, I mean, and that's the other, that's the other big.
• 30:58
  family, right?
• 30:59
  As if you're part of the code masters, ego engine and all those physics engines that
• 31:02
  they developed and all that kind of stuff.
• 31:04
  But what I find interesting about the choice of projects cars to is
• 31:07
  yes, it's a little older, but it does have some redeeming features in it.
• 31:10
  Like you said, variable weather conditions.
• 31:12
  It also has a race manager.
• 31:14
  Feature and race engineer feature in there where you can interact with the
• 31:18
  race engineer and he'll tell you things about the car as you're driving it.
• 31:21
  You can do all these changes back and forth.
• 31:22
  So I think that's kind of cool.
• 31:23
  I want to get your feelings on project cars three and why not
• 31:27
  pursue that or maybe something like Forza, which has a huge amount of
• 31:32
  tunability in its physics engine.
• 31:35
  You're going to get me in trouble with the project cars three question.
• 31:38
  I got to ask, I sunk money into it as well.
• 31:41
  So.
• 31:42
  I did too.
• 31:44
  I like it.
• 31:45
  I'm just going to say straight up.
• 31:46
  I wrote an article, you know, singing its praises.
• 31:49
  I think it has a lot of potential.
• 31:50
  They continue to update it.
• 31:51
  It has been getting better since launch full disclaimer.
• 31:56
  Yeah.
• 31:57
  Project cars three, the way they were developing it, what they promised
• 32:00
  and what got delivered was kind of a turnoff to me, the fact that tire wear.
• 32:05
  Wasn't an option.
• 32:06
  I had to pick a game where I could feel that there was some longevity and
• 32:09
  I just didn't feel that project three matched up to how my program worked.
• 32:13
  I wanted it to trust me.
• 32:16
  I really wanted it to.
• 32:17
  In fact, we had a contact, uh, that we were trying to, to get project
• 32:21
  cars to come on board, especially.
• 32:24
  That it didn't really sell well in America.
• 32:26
  And I said, Hey, this is a way to get your product out.
• 32:27
  And the guy was all for it.
• 32:29
  But the guy who, who was actually all for it, he ended up leaving the company.
• 32:32
  Uh, as far as Forza, I think it's a matter of, I started down the project cars to
• 32:37
  road and I'm also a PlayStation guy.
• 32:39
  So I hope that'll do it.
• 32:41
  That'll do it.
• 32:42
  I've had PlayStation 2, 3, 4, and getting 5 eventually.
• 32:46
  Forza was, I would have to go out and buy an Xbox I had my
• 32:49
  PlayStation hanging around here.
• 32:51
  I had Project Cars 1 on PlayStation.
• 32:52
  That's one of the reasons.
• 32:54
  I mean, for many of us, we started with Gran Turismo.
• 32:57
  I mean, for the younger, some of us started with like, you know,
• 32:59
  RC Pro Am and Rad Racer and Pole Position and stuff like that.
• 33:02
  You know, I'm dating myself now.
• 33:04
  You know, for those of us that still...
• 33:07
  It's the godfather of a lot of these, but on the same token, I
• 33:10
  can't wait 10 years for the next version of Gran Turismo to come out.
• 33:14
  Now with Forza 8, Forza Motorsport being delayed yet again, I'm like,
• 33:18
  ah, whatever, you know, I'm not rushing to get a Series X either.
• 33:21
  I think it's interesting the choices you made.
• 33:23
  I understand why, especially having played, and I've played
• 33:25
  so many racing video games.
• 33:27
  Not even funny at this point, but I will say this about Project Cars
• 33:30
  3 and to your point about what they promised and what they delivered, I
• 33:34
  think because it was in the auspices of the merger between Codemasters and,
• 33:38
  uh, thank you, Slightly Mad Studios, that what we ended up with was Grid.
• 33:44
  With the madness engine in it, which is not necessarily a bad compromise.
• 33:49
  We got all the awesome UI from Codemasters and the soundtrack and the graphics.
• 33:54
  It needs some refinement.
• 33:55
  That's for sure.
• 33:56
  But we'll, we'll save that for another day.
• 33:57
  Another thing too, is there's very few racing games that are on PC, Xbox.
• 34:03
  That's true.
• 34:04
  Project Cars is one of them.
• 34:05
  Assetto Corsa is the other.
• 34:06
  That's about it, you know?
• 34:08
  I mean, I like Gran Turismo.
• 34:10
  Actually, they do some great things.
• 34:11
  I don't particularly always love the racing in Gran Turismo.
• 34:14
  But when you get your licenses, how they show you like the video
• 34:18
  of how to do it and all this.
• 34:19
  I mean, Gran Turismo could be a great learning tool.
• 34:21
  But it's not on the Xbox.
• 34:23
  So you got all these young people who like the Xbox and they're
• 34:25
  not going to go out of their way.
• 34:26
  To get grant charisma when they got four.
• 34:28
  So I had to find the balance and that's really what it came to.
• 34:31
  It was like trying to find the perfect balance.
• 34:33
  I knew I couldn't satisfy everybody, but that's also why down the road, we're
• 34:37
  going to have more specialized, you know, it doesn't take much to change.
• 34:41
  A few things that make it specifically for one game, it just takes, and in
• 34:45
  your case, this allows you to also do this offline as well, or call it local
• 34:50
  LAN party, like in our old days, right.
• 34:51
  Versus iRacing, you have to be connected to the servers and make it
• 34:54
  work and all that kind of fun stuff.
• 34:56
  So going back to that episode we did last year with Jericho from Twitch,
• 35:00
  who some of you may know as Tucker, you know, he's into the gaming world.
• 35:03
  He's, he's at the.
• 35:04
  front end of Twitch when it was, you know, not as popular it is today
• 35:07
  and things like that, he's also the host of Amazon's chasing the crown,
• 35:10
  you know, things of that nature.
• 35:12
  So we had him on and we talked about, you know, simulators and the future
• 35:15
  and, you know, the, the difference between the fake and the real, right.
• 35:19
  That's what we always get into, especially with the racist.
• 35:21
  I was like, man, this game is so fake.
• 35:23
  And so I wonder what you've come across in building your curriculum to get
• 35:29
  around that, or things that you just.
• 35:31
  Straight up say, you know what?
• 35:32
  This is a shortcoming.
• 35:33
  The physics engines can't do it.
• 35:35
  And this is how we have to work around it.
• 35:36
  Or how do you teach to that in your plan?
• 35:39
  I do tell the kids, this is how it works in reality.
• 35:42
  And in the same world, sometimes things work a little bit different.
• 35:46
  I preface it by saying it's not exactly one to one.
• 35:48
  I let them know that simulation is a great tool.
• 35:51
  I think it's a fantastic tool, but nothing beats being in a seat, right?
• 35:56
  No, I don't care.
• 35:57
  What kind of level D Box, SimCraft, I don't care what you got in your house,
• 36:02
  as great as it is, and I've driven most of this stuff, nothing beats
• 36:05
  the real world in real world physics.
• 36:07
  You know, I know a lot of companies say we have real world physics,
• 36:10
  we have this, but at the end of the day, nothing beats seat time.
• 36:13
  So you have to understand what this is.
• 36:14
  This is a tool to prepare you for the future.
• 36:17
  What I'm doing is I'm trying to give exposure to what's out there.
• 36:20
  I want you to go.
• 36:21
  I want you to get trained properly.
• 36:24
  I want you to, whether it's a degree, whether it's an apprenticeship,
• 36:27
  whether whatever, but I want you to remember the math and science
• 36:30
  and the tools that I taught you and to put that towards your future.
• 36:35
  So that's kind of how I get around it.
• 36:37
  You mentioned that this is geared towards high schoolers and the world having
• 36:43
  been kind of turned upside down in the last, let's call it 18 months, you know,
• 36:46
  with COVID and everything like that, were you guys initially doing this in
• 36:51
  person, you know, at a school and then when virtual, was it always CBT based
• 36:56
  or, you know, something like that.
• 36:58
  Is it more like a work study?
• 36:59
  Is this done in conjunction with their normal schedule, or is it part of their
• 37:03
  everyday schedule at that particular school that you're partnering with?
• 37:06
  Well, the path we were going down was after school program in person.
• 37:10
  We wanted to get it part of a curriculum for CTE, career technical engineering
• 37:15
  or career technical experience.
• 37:16
  Sorry, I can't remember exactly which one it is.
• 37:18
  So we had many talks.
• 37:20
  about that in California, but it was in person.
• 37:22
  And then, you know, we're in the midst of raising money in COVID.
• 37:26
  So if you can imagine how tough that was, because one of the things on
• 37:30
  our agenda was a standalone center.
• 37:32
  Centers like Kids That Code and things like that, Code Ninjas, where
• 37:36
  They have these standalone centers.
• 37:38
  And I thought, well, this is a great thing.
• 37:39
  Instead of your kid coming and doing rock climbing or something else, we
• 37:42
  were looking at a space in California and we had started the process of
• 37:46
  raising money and of getting partners.
• 37:48
  And I won't go into who we had on board, but once COVID hit, you
• 37:52
  know, everybody just pulled back.
• 37:53
  So then I said, okay, the goal is still to have it in person.
• 37:56
  But in the meantime, How can I make it where kids who are homeschooled or
• 38:01
  kids who cannot go into the classroom can just log on and do their exercises.
• 38:05
  So there's been a little bit of a shift because one of one of
• 38:08
  the big things is communication.
• 38:09
  And I know that virtually you can communicate, you know, you can send
• 38:13
  me emails and we could do this.
• 38:14
  And this is great, but there's nothing like being in person
• 38:17
  and working on a car together.
• 38:18
  Right?
• 38:19
  Absolutely.
• 38:19
  Right.
• 38:20
  Brad can tell me, Hey, I've been working on this and show me the.
• 38:23
  See me join, show me whatever.
• 38:24
  And I'm like, Oh yeah, you should do that.
• 38:25
  Brad or Brad can give me advice.
• 38:27
  But until he has me a wrench and if I'm not torquing it right, he's like,
• 38:31
  Hey Dave, that's not how you do it.
• 38:32
  You know, there's a whole different aspect.
• 38:34
  Hopefully the in person will return.
• 38:36
  There's nothing like watching Brad strip a bolt and then just waiting
• 38:39
  for all the expletives to come out.
• 38:42
  Yeah, I'm usually the one handing Eric the wrench.
• 38:47
  But so it kind of, it makes me wonder, do you have a plan to set this up in
• 38:52
  such a way that it's a transition from what they've been working on into maybe
• 38:57
  something like formula SAE, which is something available to college students?
• 39:00
  It's funny that you mentioned that.
• 39:02
  I think there is a lot of potential for my program.
• 39:05
  I'm very familiar with Formula SAE.
• 39:07
  It would be great to work with them if they wanted to work with
• 39:11
  me, but I also think this can be almost a standalone thing.
• 39:14
  One of the downsides, if any of you guys have ever done Formula
• 39:17
  SAE, you want to do it, you come into it, you're six foot three.
• 39:20
  You're like, I want to drive.
• 39:21
  And they look at you say, Hey, buddy, grab a torch over there.
• 39:25
  Right?
• 39:26
  Or you're a freshman and, and you want to do something and you want
• 39:28
  to do maybe the engine mapping.
• 39:30
  And they're like, yeah, you can do that year three.
• 39:32
  So having it virtually shortcuts, all that.
• 39:34
  And guess what?
• 39:35
  Everybody has to drive, right?
• 39:36
  That's just part of my program.
• 39:38
  Everybody has to drive, whether it's in exercises.
• 39:40
  Whether it's for everybody has to drive and then the cause level where I don't
• 39:44
  need more than three kids per simulator.
• 39:47
  You know, I can have it set up like Gran Turismo does their finals where
• 39:50
  you do a enduro and everybody has to drive, you know, so you're not
• 39:54
  just mastering your special area.
• 39:57
  You have to get in the car and we've got to make a car that's going to
• 39:59
  work balanced between the three of us.
• 40:01
  So yeah, I do think there's stuff.
• 40:03
  It's just right now I've been focusing so much on high school.
• 40:06
  Because by the time you get to college, sometimes your mind's set up, you have
• 40:12
  the idea of, I know what I want to do, I got college, I'm going here, and then
• 40:15
  maybe you get your degree and you change your mind, but I want to reach minds
• 40:18
  early, and in fact I want to go younger, like I'd love to start in the junior high
• 40:22
  level, so they're already thinking about it, and that's why I'm focusing on high
• 40:25
  school, nothing against college students, But to get a liberal arts person, I'm
• 40:29
  going to major in history and they'll be like, Hey, hi, have you considered
• 40:31
  being an engineer or a technician?
• 40:34
  They're like, well, not really, you know, and I don't know, I don't know
• 40:36
  if my program would change their mind, but I definitely think, and I
• 40:40
  would love to work if anybody's out there from SAE, please contact me.
• 40:43
  I'd love to work with you and see how we can get this into colleges.
• 40:47
  You're right.
• 40:47
  There's a certain stigma around the word engineering.
• 40:51
  It's almost scary in a way.
• 40:53
  Like you just say, well, I'm a chemist.
• 40:55
  You're like, Oh, cool.
• 40:56
  You know, beakers and things and whatever, and it's possible explosions.
• 40:59
  Then you go, I'm a chemical engineer.
• 41:01
  And you're like, Whoa, stand back, hold on.
• 41:03
  What's going on here.
• 41:04
  Right.
• 41:05
  You put that word on anything and it suddenly just takes it to the next level.
• 41:09
  And so I like the fact that by going early where minds are maybe
• 41:12
  a little bit more impressionable, but less jaded, you drop the stigma.
• 41:17
  And to your point, everybody's now part of a team.
• 41:19
  And I think the younger students, especially high school students,
• 41:22
  they still have that team mentality.
• 41:23
  When you get to college, you're like, man, I'm going to go do this.
• 41:26
  Plus the word engineering behind it.
• 41:28
  Right.
• 41:29
  And then you become singularly focused.
• 41:30
  You almost become myopic.
• 41:32
  You're specialized, but you no longer have that team mentality.
• 41:35
  It's more survivalist in college where it's like, well,
• 41:37
  my parents dumped me off here.
• 41:38
  I'm here for the next four years.
• 41:40
  I got to figure this out.
• 41:41
  Like, to your point, like going to Germany.
• 41:42
  Got to survive, right?
• 41:43
  I got to get through this.
• 41:44
  Got to figure out how I'm going to excel.
• 41:46
  I applaud you for that.
• 41:47
  But I think there's one more challenge here that spans, I
• 41:50
  think, the entire age range.
• 41:52
  And I don't want to be any sort of way, but we all know that it's true.
• 41:56
  It's first of all, it's females in motorsport.
• 41:59
  And then it's the extension of that, which is females in engineering, right?
• 42:02
  Which have been positions that are tough to fill.
• 42:04
  And we're starting to see that change every day, right?
• 42:07
  Like the full team of women that are running in Indianapolis, right?
• 42:11
  And you've got, you know, more and more women in science and all these kinds of
• 42:14
  things, but how do we engage them early?
• 42:17
  Drop the barrier and make motorsport less of a male dominated sport and bring
• 42:22
  in more, more ladies into, into this.
• 42:25
  It's by putting a program like this right directly in front of them.
• 42:28
  Unfortunately, one of the casualties of COVID is I was working with a school in
• 42:32
  California and you can go on my Instagram and see, even though I don't have much
• 42:35
  there, it was an all girls school.
• 42:37
  And I brought the simulator out there to demo to the teachers
• 42:40
  and the teachers loved it.
• 42:41
  And then they brought in four girls just to get in, just to have fun.
• 42:44
  And when I tell you, you couldn't get these four girls off of my
• 42:47
  simulator, you know, when I'm saying, Hey, I know what to do.
• 42:50
  She just jumped right in.
• 42:51
  She hadn't really driven before, but she keep it on the black stuff.
• 42:54
  And it's encouraging, you know, women showing them that they can do it
• 42:58
  and don't put any barriers on them.
• 42:59
  And in getting programs like this in front of them, I'm fortunate.
• 43:03
  I have two daughters and another on the way.
• 43:05
  And then I have three girls in my household.
• 43:06
  And my four year old, every time I'm playing Formula One, she comes
• 43:11
  in and she goes, can I drive?
• 43:13
  And sometimes like in the middle of a qualifying, and I'm like, baby,
• 43:15
  now it's not the climb, but sure.
• 43:17
  Sit in my lap because I don't want to discourage her.
• 43:19
  My eldest daughter, I'm starting her in carding already at six.
• 43:23
  And I said, Hey, we're, we're practicing on the SIM and she gets
• 43:25
  on the SIM and she tries her best.
• 43:27
  But what happens is I have neighbors and I invite my neighbor's kids
• 43:30
  over because they know what I do.
• 43:31
  I'm the crazy guy with the helmet and going off the tracks and coming.
• 43:35
  They, they know, they know exactly what I do.
• 43:36
  And they have kids.
• 43:37
  And one of my neighbors has son and daughter.
• 43:39
  I invited them both over.
• 43:40
  They did a couple of times.
• 43:41
  Then the son only came over and I said, Hey, where where's your daughter?
• 43:44
  Well, we don't know.
• 43:46
  I said, did she like it?
• 43:46
  Yeah.
• 43:47
  She liked it.
• 43:47
  So it's a bring her over.
• 43:48
  Well, you know, we'll see if he likes it first.
• 43:51
  And, and yeah, that's a wrong move.
• 43:53
  And I keep saying, no, bring your daughter over.
• 43:55
  My daughters love seeing her here.
• 43:57
  She's a little bit older than my kids.
• 43:59
  You know, I said, my daughters also like to get on and see another girl,
• 44:03
  you know, it's just, it's recognition.
• 44:05
  That's what, that's what we gravitate to.
• 44:06
  It's encouraging them from an early age.
• 44:08
  It's having programs, not just my program, but having other
• 44:11
  programs that's showing them.
• 44:13
  carding that's showing them, whether it's wrenching, things like that,
• 44:16
  that to get them started at early age and tell them, look, you can do it.
• 44:20
  It may be tough.
• 44:21
  You may be the only one.
• 44:22
  It may not exactly be, uh, what you thought it would be at the
• 44:25
  beginning, but stay with it.
• 44:27
  And then when they get older, they will go into careers.
• 44:30
  So I think it's on us.
• 44:31
  And I mean, the general public to encourage them.
• 44:34
  I've had girls say, Hey, I can't be an engineer because I'm bad at math.
• 44:37
  I'm like, well, what'd you get in math?
• 44:38
  A's and B's.
• 44:40
  I'm like, what?
• 44:41
  What do you mean?
• 44:41
  You can't be an engineer.
• 44:43
  Well, you know, that's just not for me.
• 44:44
  And I don't know where they get this from.
• 44:46
  I make sure that in my household and I make sure that when I go and
• 44:49
  talk that I tell people, this is absolutely for young girls too.
• 44:54
  You know, I want young girls in this program.
• 44:56
  I want girls schools in this program.
• 44:58
  I want girls to do the after school program with the guys to have
• 45:02
  mixed teams to fight, mix it up.
• 45:03
  You know, I want them to do that, to understand that look, this entry to
• 45:07
  motor sports, it's, there's no barrier, you know, you just have to go do it.
• 45:10
  It's funny you bring that up because, and I know people are going to cringe because
• 45:14
  I try not to bring it up too often, but I'm going to say it world rally.
• 45:18
  Right.
• 45:18
  I grew up in the group B era.
• 45:20
  And for me, women in motorsport back then, it wasn't uncommon because there
• 45:25
  were a lot of women rally drivers.
• 45:26
  I'm one of the most famous, one of the fastest ladies on the planet.
• 45:29
  They used to call her Michelle Mouton.
• 45:31
  Right.
• 45:31
  And her co driver Fabrizia Ponce, she went on to do rally later
• 45:34
  Dakar and a bunch of other stuff.
• 45:36
  I mean, they're, they're famous.
• 45:37
  And even the same time in Trans Am, you had Lynn St.
• 45:40
  James running with Willie T.
• 45:41
  Ribs and Hurley Haywood and all them.
• 45:43
  So because I ran in those circles, it was like, you know, there were Definitely
• 45:47
  more men, but it wasn't uncommon to see women, but I'm like, how did it not
• 45:51
  catch on, especially since the eighties when, you know, motorsport was so
• 45:56
  much more accessible than it is today.
• 45:58
  Like I don't, I just don't get it.
• 46:00
  And to add on to that point, since you spent so much time in Germany and the U S.
• 46:05
  Do you feel it's a domestic problem to the U.
• 46:08
  S.
• 46:09
  or is it a worldwide, like a global problem?
• 46:12
  Yeah, that's tricky because I knew somebody who raced in E.
• 46:15
  T.
• 46:15
  C.
• 46:15
  C.
• 46:16
  Particular female, man, she was good.
• 46:18
  She was, I learned a lot from her.
• 46:20
  First of all, she was a great engineer.
• 46:21
  She could just flat out drive.
• 46:22
  From one year to the next, sponsors just backed out.
• 46:26
  She should have went from E.
• 46:27
  T.
• 46:27
  C.
• 46:27
  C.
• 46:27
  to W.
• 46:28
  T.
• 46:28
  C.
• 46:28
  C.
• 46:29
  There were people who were less talented.
• 46:30
  And I don't know, because, you know, in Europe, they don't
• 46:33
  frown against female drivers.
• 46:35
  But at the same time, if you don't have the right team behind you, if you don't
• 46:38
  have the right PR person, sometimes it seems like there are some women who
• 46:42
  get promoted, who shouldn't be there.
• 46:44
  And there are some women who should be there and they don't get promoted.
• 46:46
  It's very hard to say.
• 46:48
  I think domestically, sometimes the mindset is that this isn't for girls.
• 46:52
  Like, Oh, you're a girl.
• 46:53
  Well, go play women's soccer, go play tennis, go play softball.
• 46:56
  Like we've got, we've got women's sports.
• 46:57
  Like that's your thing.
• 46:59
  And I'm like, no, like let's, if they like motor sports, well, don't force them.
• 47:03
  Right.
• 47:03
  But if they like it.
• 47:04
  Don't shine away.
• 47:06
  Still trying to solve the problem myself, to be quite honest with you guys.
• 47:09
  I talked to a lot of engineers, talked to a lot of drivers.
• 47:11
  I hear a lot of things, some of it, not all positive, but I'm trying
• 47:14
  to figure this out because I would like to know what's the disconnect.
• 47:19
  Right?
• 47:19
  If you ask me about African Americans, well, I could tell you
• 47:21
  what's the disconnect with at least African American males, right?
• 47:24
  I can, I can explain that because that's the side that I was on.
• 47:27
  But for females, I'm working with people and trying to
• 47:29
  listen to what's the disconnect.
• 47:31
  Is it because we make it overly complicated?
• 47:34
  When cars are complicated, but maybe the barrier is simplifying it.
• 47:38
  That's what I mean.
• 47:39
  Even for people that they're like, I'm not a car person.
• 47:41
  I don't get it.
• 47:42
  Right.
• 47:42
  Going back to my analogy about them being toasters and dishwashers,
• 47:46
  maybe that's part of it is we've made it so complicated or seemingly
• 47:50
  complicated that it turns people away.
• 47:53
  Maybe.
• 47:53
  I think also one of the things is you have to have a path and you have to have a path
• 47:58
  to get young girls to become, whether it's drivers or engineers or whatever, like
• 48:02
  something clear, something sustainable and something not done for PR, right?
• 48:06
  No offense to anybody out there, but there's a lot of PR stunts.
• 48:10
  And some women walk away like, what was that?
• 48:12
  Like that wasn't even a fair shake.
• 48:14
  Well, what did I just get involved in?
• 48:15
  This is all PR.
• 48:16
  Like, I'll give you an example.
• 48:18
  The, the w series scrape.
• 48:19
  I like it.
• 48:20
  Right.
• 48:20
  But personally, I want someone from the w series to immediately
• 48:23
  be able to step into formula three.
• 48:25
  And I've heard people say, well, you can't do that because if they get in the form
• 48:27
  of them to get crushed, well, so what you keep saying when the w series, you get
• 48:32
  into formula three or you get into formula two or something like that, and then.
• 48:36
  Make sure that there's a clear path to success.
• 48:40
  Now, if they're getting crushed, well, then you got to think about
• 48:43
  who you fill in the w series with.
• 48:44
  Don't just fill it with women to fill the grid, fill it with talent, right?
• 48:49
  Exactly.
• 48:50
  When it comes to men and women, there's no shortage of talent on either sides, right?
• 48:54
  But the problem is.
• 48:55
  Sometimes somebody gets a spot more because PR and less of talent.
• 49:00
  And there's that pressure, unfortunately, for a woman who's going to be a driver
• 49:03
  and there's pressure that you're going to have to perform, right?
• 49:05
  Because you do have men who are going to frown down and say, Oh, well, she's just
• 49:09
  here because, you know, she's a female.
• 49:10
  So there is that pressure.
• 49:11
  You're going to have to deal with that pressure to perform.
• 49:13
  But I do believe there's a lot of women.
• 49:16
  Who can definitely not only go in the industry, but be drivers, but
• 49:20
  you got to get the right ones.
• 49:21
  Don't fill it because it's a PR stunt.
• 49:23
  Don't fill these spots because you're just trying to fill the
• 49:26
  grid, like grow the talent.
• 49:27
  And if the talent isn't there, then you got to go to the grassroots
• 49:29
  and say, what's the problem?
• 49:30
  How do we get more women at the grassroots?
• 49:32
  And you know, what excites me about this, David, the most is
• 49:34
  your kids and my kids, same age.
• 49:36
  We've both got girls.
• 49:37
  And we're probably going to be standing shoulder to shoulder at a
• 49:40
  paddock, probably at road Atlanta going, look at them go, right.
• 49:43
  When we're too old to do it, we'll be cheering them on.
• 49:45
  Right.
• 49:45
  And that's the plan.
• 49:47
  I mean, at least in my, in my fantasy world, that's how it's going to work.
• 49:49
  My wife, you know, whatever, but I would love to see that happen.
• 49:52
  Right.
• 49:53
  And, and, and I think it takes us, it takes our generation
• 49:55
  to make that happen as well.
• 49:57
  So I think you're really doing the right thing and moving the
• 50:00
  ball in the right direction.
• 50:01
  So, I mean, I applaud you for that.
• 50:03
  Well, thank you.
• 50:03
  I've been, I've been very clear with my girls.
• 50:04
  I said, look, this is daddy's love.
• 50:06
  Right.
• 50:06
  You know, I go to the track, you know what I do on the weekends,
• 50:09
  you know, all the carding.
• 50:10
  I said, if you don't want to be here, that's fine.
• 50:12
  Dad's not going to force you.
• 50:14
  But you know, I'm going to the track and I come home and I have
• 50:16
  like all the bands and everything.
• 50:17
  And every time I come home, my girls are like, Oh, you're at the track again,
• 50:20
  you know, like, why aren't I going?
• 50:21
  And that's what I'm trying to do to motivate them to go on their own.
• 50:25
  You know, I don't want to force them, you know, and say, Hey, you
• 50:27
  know what, baby, there's so much sponsoring dollars out there for a girl.
• 50:31
  Go get it.
• 50:31
  No, it's like, look, if I want you to love it, if you're not going
• 50:34
  to love it, don't even bother.
• 50:35
  Go do something else.
• 50:36
  This is dad's passion.
• 50:38
  But if you are going to love it, I'm going to support you any way you want.
• 50:40
  My eldest daughter, she likes pink and blue and she
• 50:44
  already said, I want a helmet.
• 50:45
  I want pink and blue shoes.
• 50:46
  I want this.
• 50:46
  I said, that's fine.
• 50:47
  I said, do your first carding class before I buy anything.
• 50:51
  Do your carding class.
• 50:52
  Say you like it.
• 50:53
  Dad will start buying equipment, but until then, I don't want to go buy all
• 50:56
  the stuff that you're never going to use.
• 50:57
  So that's, that's why I had them buy me a pair of pink Pilates
• 51:02
  for Christmas and I wear them.
• 51:04
  And I'm like, Hey, these, my daughter, if somebody who's got a problem,
• 51:06
  I have a daughter bought these.
• 51:07
  That's awesome.
• 51:08
  They're driving shoes.
• 51:08
  They're amazing.
• 51:09
  I love them, but, but getting back into it a little bit.
• 51:13
  Yeah, to change gears a little bit, we'll go back to the sim rigs.
• 51:16
  So your bio states, you consult with some of your clients on sim rigs.
• 51:21
  So we have a lot of sim racers in the group.
• 51:23
  What would you recommend to be competitive for someone racing on like an iRacing
• 51:28
  or in our case, Forza or whatever?
• 51:30
  You know, just to, to be fun and just to have a lot of fun, not necessarily,
• 51:35
  a super competitive or whatever.
• 51:37
  Okay.
• 51:37
  So I'm giving you some free consulting here.
• 51:40
  I think the rig is about, it's about immersion.
• 51:43
  So I think you can be fast on anything.
• 51:45
  Of course, there's some differences with brake pedals and things like that.
• 51:48
  There are certain rigs out 80 20.
• 51:52
  Those are the aluminum profile rigs.
• 51:54
  I know they're a little pricey.
• 51:55
  There's different ones of a rigidity.
• 51:58
  A solid rig and the wheelbase.
• 52:00
  That's what you want, really, because it's the wheelbase, the
• 52:02
  pedals that make a difference.
• 52:04
  I would suggest to anybody who, who's in the market, has the money,
• 52:07
  go with the aluminum profile rigs.
• 52:09
  I think they're some of the best.
• 52:10
  There's several companies that do it.
• 52:12
  And that's what I would recommend.
• 52:13
  You know, we talked early on about the setups and the different things that the
• 52:17
  students are doing and setting up the car.
• 52:19
  And, you know, a lot of times we look at setup in the video games.
• 52:23
  as a dark art, right?
• 52:24
  And so I actually did an article recently about that called
• 52:27
  The Dark Art of Forza Tuning.
• 52:28
  And I've kind of walked through approaching how to tune a car in
• 52:31
  the game from different angles.
• 52:32
  And, you know, certain changes have what seemed to be almost a placebo effect
• 52:37
  versus other ones actually have, you know, the inverse effect, the way you think
• 52:40
  about it in reality and stuff like that.
• 52:42
  So to dovetail into the question that Brad just asked you, What are maybe
• 52:46
  some basic techniques for folks that are already maybe established virtual racers
• 52:50
  that want to get into tuning that you could pass on some of that knowledge?
• 52:53
  Absolutely.
• 52:54
  Well, I think some of the techniques you can do is when you make changes, whether
• 52:58
  it's your, your suspension or your arrow.
• 53:01
  What you want to pay attention to is the effects it has on the
• 53:04
  inner outer and middle of the tire.
• 53:06
  If you're finding that there's too big of a temperature differences between
• 53:10
  them, then you want to go a step back.
• 53:12
  There's a lot of good resources out there.
• 53:15
  If you can find it still, there is a GTR tuning guide, which, which I read
• 53:20
  years ago, and I still have it saved.
• 53:22
  To my desktop, because he kind of goes through steps and he says, look, if
• 53:26
  you do this step and that step, and this is the result you're getting, and
• 53:28
  you're seeing that your temperatures are rising, then go back every time
• 53:32
  you do a step, you do six or seven laps and see where your car is at.
• 53:35
  And if you like that, well, you go on to the next step.
• 53:38
  If you tune that.
• 53:39
  And again, the temperatures are fine.
• 53:41
  You tune something else.
• 53:42
  Now, if you change that and the temperatures are going crazy
• 53:44
  and the can't, and the bounce of cars feels weird, go back a step.
• 53:47
  So I think it starts out with small things.
• 53:49
  As you start.
• 53:50
  Maybe working on your brake duct openings, tire pressures.
• 53:54
  Of course, that's like the first thing.
• 53:56
  If anyone's driving ACC, if you nail the tire pressures, man, it helps.
• 54:01
  It helps a lot.
• 54:02
  And then just try stuff.
• 54:03
  It's a, it's a lot of practice and you have to, I would say, start tuning three
• 54:08
  things, try a couple of weeks, tuning three things, then start expanding
• 54:12
  four things, five things, six things.
• 54:14
  And actually always go in with a plan.
• 54:16
  One of the things I do when I'm, I'm seriously practicing.
• 54:19
  I will go into a track that I know and I spend the first 15
• 54:23
  minutes just doing laps, just so I get like a baseline of myself.
• 54:26
  And then I say, all right, I'm going to take the car that I
• 54:28
  know here or the car that I got to drive this week to this spot.
• 54:31
  Start tuning it till I feel good.
• 54:33
  And then I'm going to go to the track where I'm competing at.
• 54:35
  So I think it's about practice consistency.
• 54:38
  And I also, okay, I'm nerdy.
• 54:39
  I write it down.
• 54:40
  So I write down some of the changes.
• 54:41
  I, you got like spreadsheets and yeah, you know, just like a real engineer.
• 54:47
  I do that because I'm like, wow, that, that worked here, but it didn't work here.
• 54:52
  How can I get faster?
• 54:54
  So that that's my suggestion.
• 54:55
  So you don't recommend my approach, which is to go in and change everything
• 55:00
  and then ditch the car after two laps because it's undrivable.
• 55:03
  I can't recommend it.
• 55:04
  I'm sorry.
• 55:05
  I mean, I mean, there's the other approach to which is turn on all the
• 55:09
  nannies maximum downforce, you know, all arrow to max and send it at that point.
• 55:15
  So that's the Andrew bank.
• 55:18
  So let me, let's ask about this is we talked about nannies, right?
• 55:20
  Nannies exist in the real world.
• 55:22
  Those are the driver aids, right?
• 55:24
  Whether they be simplistic ones like APS, traction control, stability management.
• 55:28
  There's like a million of them now, all sorts of alphabet soup when it
• 55:31
  comes to that in the real world, ESP and TCS and all that stuff.
• 55:35
  But in the virtual world.
• 55:36
  How do you tend to set up your rig?
• 55:38
  Are you full manual manual with the clutch?
• 55:41
  Do you turn on and off stability control?
• 55:43
  What's your best blend there?
• 55:45
  Or do you just turn everything off?
• 55:46
  I'm more of the almost turn everything off.
• 55:48
  If I'm driving ACC, I got ABS set to one.
• 55:53
  I got traction control, usually set to two or three.
• 55:55
  If I'm driving formula one, I got everything off except
• 55:59
  for the hybrid system.
• 56:01
  I have it on automatic because it's not realistic.
• 56:04
  That's not the way it works in the real world.
• 56:05
  And it's too much of a pain in the butt for me to keep switching it on
• 56:08
  and off and going through the mapping that that's not the way it works when
• 56:10
  I'm driving, when I'm driving on, um, project cars, too, I have it set to
• 56:16
  realistic, but then I usually turn down the traction control as, as much as,
• 56:21
  as I can, doesn't interfere as much.
• 56:23
  Yeah.
• 56:23
  The minute it starts interfering, it's like, I just shut off.
• 56:26
  Even if I know.
• 56:27
  That there is traction control say on, uh, but let's say the GT four,
• 56:30
  the minute I feel it on my pedal.
• 56:32
  I just can't drive like that.
• 56:33
  I'm sorry.
• 56:34
  So I shut it off.
• 56:35
  That brings me to another question to kind of circle back to your students
• 56:39
  and your curriculum a little bit.
• 56:41
  How do you feel or what do you think, or have you seen.
• 56:45
  their driving skill evolve over the course of your program and learning
• 56:51
  this engineering, I guess, skills, has it affected the way they drive
• 56:55
  in the SIM and has their driving gotten better both in the SIM?
• 56:58
  And if you happen to see them, you know, driving their 1989 GTI on the street, I
• 57:04
  mean, how, how has their driving evolved?
• 57:06
  Well, unfortunately I haven't seen that in a lot of students again, because of.
• 57:10
  Where we were with launching my, um, but I, but I will say that I've done
• 57:15
  a short courses, the driving from when they started in the SIM and when they
• 57:19
  came out weeks later has totally improved because I teach them driving techniques.
• 57:25
  Some of the kids never knew what a marker board is.
• 57:26
  I have something on looking ahead and I show video of in game
• 57:30
  footage of it's me driving, but I'm going down and I say, look.
• 57:35
  Here's a marker board, or here's a gap in the fence.
• 57:37
  Here's this.
• 57:38
  And this is how you break.
• 57:39
  Because for them, they're like, Oh, the curve's coming time to get on the break.
• 57:42
  They have no idea.
• 57:43
  It's analog.
• 57:44
  Yeah.
• 57:44
  Right.
• 57:44
  It's very analog.
• 57:45
  So I teach them actual racing and driving techniques.
• 57:50
  They start applying it because they they've got a lap counter
• 57:52
  and they're like, wait a minute.
• 57:54
  I'm slower, you know, when I don't pay attention.
• 57:56
  So now I'm paying attention.
• 57:58
  I'll just buy kids who've come and visited the house and done laps and laps and laps.
• 58:02
  And I'm always sitting in the room while they're driving.
• 58:05
  I'm trying not to talk too much to annoy them.
• 58:07
  But sometimes I'm like, Hey, you know, Jerry, why, why did you break there?
• 58:11
  Oh, I don't know.
• 58:11
  I said, well, try breaking at the 200.
• 58:13
  Once he gets it down, like, hey, Jerry, try shifting it to 150.
• 58:16
  Where are you looking?
• 58:17
  Well, I'm looking right at the market board.
• 58:18
  No.
• 58:19
  Once you start breaking, look towards the apex.
• 58:21
  I'm very hands on.
• 58:22
  I want, I want them to learn.
• 58:23
  And I have seen the kids who've been in my house improve.
• 58:27
  I'm hoping it's going to transition that when I have high school students, I have
• 58:30
  several programs that their parents are going to be like, man, my, my son or
• 58:33
  daughter is a much better driver now.
• 58:35
  And they understand speed.
• 58:36
  You know, I'm hoping that a lot of these kids will realize this is
• 58:39
  why you don't speed on the street.
• 58:41
  Because it is so dangerous.
• 58:42
  And now you understand a little bit of vehicle dynamics.
• 58:45
  So please don't speed on the street.
• 58:47
  I'm envisioning some of your students sitting in the car with their parents.
• 58:50
  Mom, you really shouldn't be driving like that.
• 58:52
  You missed the apex back there at the curb when you drove past the stop sign.
• 58:56
  But I got one other question for you.
• 58:58
  I know Eric wants to jump in here, but, um, have you ever
• 59:01
  had any like beat the teach?
• 59:02
  competitions or anything.
• 59:03
  Have you ever been beaten by one of your students?
• 59:05
  Not yet.
• 59:06
  And yes, we do.
• 59:07
  In fact, one of the ways to get the word out is I have a beat the pro challenge
• 59:10
  where I was going in schools and bringing the simulator, did it in California.
• 59:14
  And luckily, you know, I had one kid who was like, Oh, I play Forza.
• 59:17
  And he was pretty good.
• 59:18
  And I was like, but I beat him
• 59:23
  like, he was, he was like, Oh, he's like, okay.
• 59:25
  He's like, I don't know this game, but I got fours it.
• 59:27
  And he got on the wheel and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to have to really
• 59:30
  drive and then that goodness, the physics and PC too, is a little more complicated.
• 59:36
  He didn't, he didn't let foot break.
• 59:37
  So I had the advantage.
• 59:39
  I'm sure eventually it's going to happen because kids adapt so quickly.
• 59:43
  You know, and, and that's what I want.
• 59:44
  I want, I want kids to beat me and I want me to, I want to be upset about it, but,
• 59:48
  but I'm going to be like, Hey, tip my hat.
• 59:51
  Good job, young man, young woman.
• 59:52
  And that's what I want.
• 59:53
  I want them to be excited about taking down a pro or taking down an adult.
• 59:58
  To Brad's point, I found myself.
• 1:00:00
  Many times using the simulators as teaching tools, not only both for the
• 1:00:06
  real word HPDE, but also in our VRL where folks are like, I am just not getting
• 1:00:12
  this track and I'll be like, cool, let's get on, on a multiplayer session.
• 1:00:16
  We'll do lead follow at Watkins Glen and I will walk you through the track.
• 1:00:19
  I've recorded videos with that too, where it's like, Hey, here's
• 1:00:22
  a lap of VIR on Forza or whatever.
• 1:00:25
  This is how we do it in real life.
• 1:00:27
  This is how you should do it in the game.
• 1:00:28
  I mean, modify for your driving style.
• 1:00:30
  If you'd like to drift every corner, that's up to you.
• 1:00:32
  Do you find yourself doing that as well?
• 1:00:34
  Or is that part of the curriculum is kind of just teaching him the basics.
• 1:00:38
  That's not part of the, of the current curriculum at all, unfortunately,
• 1:00:41
  because I do have a lot of guided.
• 1:00:43
  On track stuff, but I do use it a lot with friends, especially friends
• 1:00:48
  who, I'll give you an example.
• 1:00:50
  I was fortunate enough to drive Imola.
• 1:00:51
  A bunch of my friends, they drive PC2.
• 1:00:53
  We drove Imola for the first time.
• 1:00:55
  And the first thing I did, I did a closed session, private room.
• 1:00:57
  I did lead follow.
• 1:00:59
  I remember, and I was so visual being there.
• 1:01:01
  Like I remember the track, like it was the back of my hand, you know,
• 1:01:03
  in the first session, they followed me and then we did some practice and
• 1:01:06
  I'm still like four seconds faster.
• 1:01:08
  So I had to do it again.
• 1:01:09
  But just because, you know, when I went to Emily, I just soaked it in,
• 1:01:13
  I was there for a couple of days and I just soaked it in and I love that
• 1:01:15
  track, but I do use lead follow.
• 1:01:17
  I think it is a powerful tool.
• 1:01:19
  I think it's great if you are an up and coming.
• 1:01:22
  Carding kid who does SIM get somebody who could do lead follow with you.
• 1:01:25
  You know, I think it's so helpful.
• 1:01:27
  So what you're saying is you need some virtual coaches.
• 1:01:29
  I got you.
• 1:01:30
  I think I'm picking up what you're putting down.
• 1:01:32
  I do.
• 1:01:33
  I have grandiose plans and I would love to see everything and every thought that
• 1:01:37
  comes across my mind into the program.
• 1:01:40
  But of course, we're still growing.
• 1:01:42
  We're still young.
• 1:01:43
  But I, and, and that's why I come on a show like this is to connect with people,
• 1:01:46
  because I think there's so many people connected to motorsports and automotive
• 1:01:51
  who'd say, Hey, look, I'll give back to some young people if they're going
• 1:01:54
  to, if it's going to benefit them.
• 1:01:55
  So you guys can always be a virtual coach.
• 1:01:57
  Well, do you GTM even got it start?
• 1:01:59
  We're very deep in education and wanting to give back to the communities, teaching
• 1:02:05
  people, you know, the proper ways to drive and various things like that.
• 1:02:09
  Um, so, yeah, we're whenever you get to that certain point,
• 1:02:11
  we'd love to help in any way.
• 1:02:12
  We can.
• 1:02:13
  Absolutely.
• 1:02:14
  So that actually leads right into probably 1 of the last questions,
• 1:02:17
  which is, you know, what's the direction in the future for my, you
• 1:02:20
  know, is there a way to partner up?
• 1:02:22
  Is there a way to volunteer our time as petrol heads to help you
• 1:02:26
  out or make the program better?
• 1:02:28
  Well, yeah, if you're interested in volunteering or learning
• 1:02:30
  more about what we do, there's our website, my dash racing.
• 1:02:34
  com going forward.
• 1:02:36
  I am looking for partners.
• 1:02:37
  Um, what I, what I hope, and, and I'm, I am working on this is I still
• 1:02:41
  would like a standalone center.
• 1:02:43
  There are certain partners I won't name right now, but there's certain.
• 1:02:45
  Partners, I think, would work well.
• 1:02:47
  I live a few minutes from Road Atlanta, so if you can imagine, there's opportunity
• 1:02:53
  combined with Road Atlanta, and it is the Michelin Speedway, so you got Road
• 1:02:57
  Atlanta, you've got mechanics, you got technicians, you've got IMSA there.
• 1:03:02
  You've got Lanier, Drifting Track, there's all these opportunities,
• 1:03:06
  and I go out to the Drifting Track from time to time just to watch.
• 1:03:08
  And sometimes it's filled with thousands of young people.
• 1:03:11
  We gotta be able to do something there, because these kids need careers.
• 1:03:15
  Some of them aren't really doing anything.
• 1:03:17
  There's that.
• 1:03:17
  I think there's a lot of potential, but I would like a stand alone center.
• 1:03:21
  I would like a place where people can bring their kids.
• 1:03:24
  But I am also going fully virtual in case, you know, you don't want
• 1:03:27
  to do in person, that's fine.
• 1:03:28
  The other thing I'm doing is, as it is now, it is kind of a team based thing.
• 1:03:33
  I am writing and finishing up the solo aspect of it.
• 1:03:36
  So if your son or daughter says, Hey, I just want to go
• 1:03:39
  through the curriculum myself.
• 1:03:40
  I want to do the races by myself and then maybe jump in for the
• 1:03:44
  practice races as a group where other kids are doing the program.
• 1:03:48
  And we say, for example, all right, Friday, June 20th.
• 1:03:51
  Will be practice race one, you know, and then they come meet online.
• 1:03:54
  Then that aspect is there.
• 1:03:56
  So would they be submitting that, let's say via Twitch, that way you
• 1:03:59
  could go back and see it or jump into their session and watch them live?
• 1:04:02
  Are you actually broadcasting the races for the curriculum for the different years
• 1:04:06
  that you're doing on a platform like that, where we could tune in as an audience
• 1:04:09
  and check out and reach you guys on?
• 1:04:11
  That would be great.
• 1:04:11
  Currently, we're just using our own platform and and we have a, um, a
• 1:04:16
  standalone app with video capabilities, but broadcasting would be again,
• 1:04:20
  there's nothing short of what I want to do what I want to accomplish.
• 1:04:23
  And that would be great because I want people to tune in and say,
• 1:04:26
  Hey, Look what these kids are doing.
• 1:04:28
  I want my son or daughter to do that.
• 1:04:30
  If you need commentators, uh, in a play by play people, we're,
• 1:04:33
  we're right there for you.
• 1:04:35
  Okay.
• 1:04:35
  Oh yeah.
• 1:04:36
  We can trash talk with the best of it.
• 1:04:37
  It's amazing.
• 1:04:39
  You're not going to get David Hobbs quality announcing from us.
• 1:04:42
  That's for sure.
• 1:04:42
  Hey, you know, that's what we need though.
• 1:04:45
  We need, we need some humor.
• 1:04:46
  We need some trash talking.
• 1:04:48
  That's turn one chaos right there.
• 1:04:49
  Coming up.
• 1:04:50
  Just be prepared.
• 1:04:51
  Every single race.
• 1:04:56
  The race is not one and turn one folks.
• 1:04:58
  To your point about, you know, seeing all those people in the paddock at Lanier,
• 1:05:02
  even at Road Atlanta, it's right in line with why we started GTM, which is to
• 1:05:07
  continue to spread motorsports enthusiasm.
• 1:05:09
  Because one of the things that people forget is the word.
• 1:05:12
  Sports in motor sport.
• 1:05:13
  It is a sport.
• 1:05:14
  There is physical activity and exertion and all that.
• 1:05:17
  It's not the same as a stick and ball game.
• 1:05:19
  Stick and ball games aren't for everybody either, right?
• 1:05:21
  I wasn't one of those kids.
• 1:05:22
  I was attracted to cars, mechanical things, whatever.
• 1:05:25
  And so motor sport is another avenue to be physically active, to be involved.
• 1:05:29
  It is strenuous.
• 1:05:30
  It's definitely cardio, right?
• 1:05:32
  What you were saying about people being there is how do we engage them?
• 1:05:35
  How do we make them the next generation of motor sports enthusiasts or motor sports
• 1:05:40
  participants and not let our corner of car culture, let's call it that from dying
• 1:05:45
  off, we understand the EV revolution.
• 1:05:48
  We know everything that's changing.
• 1:05:50
  We're embracing that we're seeing in a drag racing.
• 1:05:52
  We're seeing in a road racing where EVs are being brought on board.
• 1:05:55
  So.
• 1:05:55
  It's not, you know, the end is nigh.
• 1:05:57
  It's a matter of adapting and overcoming to the changes that we're seeing.
• 1:06:01
  But we don't just want it to fizzle off and go away because think about
• 1:06:04
  how many tracks there are just road racing tracks in the U S alone.
• 1:06:08
  There's over 80 of them, right?
• 1:06:10
  That's not counting your circle tracks, your dirt tracks, your rally
• 1:06:13
  courses, and then you go worldwide.
• 1:06:16
  Motorsport is huge and it's amazing how small.
• 1:06:20
  It can be sometimes.
• 1:06:22
  And I think you're right on the right track.
• 1:06:23
  Exposure, exposure, exposure, get them early, get them interested and
• 1:06:27
  realize that it's not just, we'll get Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton
• 1:06:32
  or whatever, these superstars.
• 1:06:33
  I could be part of this too.
• 1:06:35
  I could be the guy that, you know, we talked about, was it the gentleman driver?
• 1:06:38
  One of our early episodes where it's like, I want to learn about the dude.
• 1:06:42
  Who was the tire manager?
• 1:06:43
  Like he had the coolest job and they interviewed him and we're like, can
• 1:06:46
  we talk to that guy some more, you know, or whatever, and, and so there's
• 1:06:50
  so many different pieces to this.
• 1:06:52
  And I think it's absolutely amazing that you're trying to engage kids at
• 1:06:55
  an early age and continue that forward.
• 1:06:57
  Well, thank you.
• 1:06:58
  And I do tell a lot of the young men and young women, well, look, we,
• 1:07:01
  we want you to carry this forward because this is what we love.
• 1:07:04
  We understand that things are changing, but you're going to have to develop it.
• 1:07:08
  You know, we want you to go in and develop it.
• 1:07:09
  We want you to have a love of motorsports and keep that in mind as you're
• 1:07:13
  transitioning, whether it's to Evie or whatever else is coming down the
• 1:07:16
  pipeline, and I think some politicians forget about just how big the motorsports
• 1:07:21
  industry is, they forget because if you just ban all these gasoline cars.
• 1:07:27
  You know, there's so many millions, billions of dollars
• 1:07:30
  tied in to motorsports, into, into gentlemen, racing, into all this,
• 1:07:35
  there's, there's so much money.
• 1:07:36
  So we want to develop kids who say, Hey, we're going to keep this going, but
• 1:07:39
  we're going to do it in a way where of course we can protect the environment.
• 1:07:42
  So, so for sure.
• 1:07:44
  Absolutely.
• 1:07:45
  And what you do in motorsport often trickles down into your driveway.
• 1:07:49
  It takes a couple of years to get there.
• 1:07:51
  We've mentioned that before.
• 1:07:52
  It's amazing how that trickles down.
• 1:07:54
  And it takes a lot of people like to your point earlier, it's not done in a vacuum.
• 1:07:58
  It takes a team.
• 1:08:00
  And motorsport, you know, you look at basketball.
• 1:08:02
  Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  It's a team of X amount of guys on the court and the managers and the coaches
• 1:08:06
  and all that, but motorsports even bigger, like there's so much more involved.
• 1:08:09
  And so there's an opportunity for everybody, male, female, young,
• 1:08:13
  old, to be part of that world.
• 1:08:15
  And so that's really important.
• 1:08:16
  And again, I applaud you guys for doing that.
• 1:08:18
  For more information on my, be sure to check out www dot.
• 1:08:23
  My dash racing and that's M I E dash racing.
• 1:08:26
  com or follow them on Instagram and Facebook at M I E dot racing.
• 1:08:32
  And you can always reach out to David directly via LinkedIn by
• 1:08:35
  searching for David L Middleton.
• 1:08:37
  And he'll come up as CEO of my racing.
• 1:08:40
  So a couple different ways to get in contact with.
• 1:08:43
  My and with David, and we will be sure to stay on top of your guy's
• 1:08:47
  progress and be able to help you out as much as we possibly can.
• 1:08:50
  So I can't thank you enough for coming on the show.
• 1:08:52
  I think this has been excellent and an, and an amazing opportunity
• 1:08:55
  to talk about something new and exciting in the world of motorsport.
• 1:08:59
  And I hope this continues to grow and flourish.
• 1:09:01
  But yeah, man, just again, it's all about the passion and it
• 1:09:05
  just kind of led to these things.
• 1:09:07
  And led to me, you know, meeting Phil and.
• 1:09:11
  Connecting me to you guys.
• 1:09:12
  So again, thank you so much.
• 1:09:14
  Thank you for the time.
• 1:09:15
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:09:16
  Pleasure.
• 1:09:17
  Have a good night.
• 1:09:22
  That's right.
• 1:09:23
  Listeners.
• 1:09:23
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• 1:09:34
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• 1:09:34
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• 1:09:39
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• 1:09:43
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:09:45
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:09:49
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• 1:09:49
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• 1:09:50
  You can also find us on Motorsports.
• 1:09:53
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• 1:09:58
  or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 1:10:05
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• 1:10:06
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• 1:10:08
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:10:10
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
• 1:10:13
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization.
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