Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Dirt Roads to Podiums: Andy Lee’s Ascent Through Grit, Gears, and Go-Karts

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From Dirt Roads to Podiums: Andy Lee’s Ascent Through Grit, Gears, and Go-Karts · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
• 0:04
  all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
• 0:09
  designers, and everything in between.
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  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder what's 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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  The following episode is brought to you by SRO motor sports,
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  America, and their partners at AWS CrowdStrike, Fanatec, Pirelli,
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  and the Skip Barber Racing School.
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  Facebook and catch live coverage of the races on their YouTube channel.
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  At GT World.
• 1:01
  With over a decade of coaching experience at the Bondurant Racing School, our guest
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  has worked with thousands of drivers.
• 1:08
  During every coaching session, his goal is to make you a faster and
• 1:12
  ultimately safer driver, with a variety of techniques that he's picked
• 1:15
  up throughout his racing career.
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  With over 100 professional starts, 29 podium finishes, competing in Trans
• 1:23
  Am, IMSA, and SRO World Challenge.
• 1:26
  Coming up through the ranks at Bondurant, driver and coach Andy Lee made his
• 1:31
  move to pro racing in 2012 with the support from Chevrolet, Bondurant, and a
• 1:35
  Phoenix based IT company called Best IT.
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  And he's here to share his story with us.
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  On break fix.
• 1:42
  So welcome.
• 1:43
  Thank you, Eric.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Appreciate it.
• 1:45
  So like all good break fix stories, they start with an origin.
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  So let's talk about the who, the, what, the, when, the, where, and the,
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  why of Andy Lee, the petrol head.
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  Did you come from a racing family?
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  Definitely didn't come from a racing background.
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  I grew up in Colorado, mostly in the town of Colorado Springs.
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  I grew up there with my mom, single mom, had a little sister.
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  We grew up with her brother, my uncle, and he was, he was, uh, It's kind of like
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  my father figure of sorts growing up.
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  He was a huge motorcycle enthusiast, motorcycle racing enthusiast, and car
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  racing too, but I grew up watching MotoGP, World Superbike, AMA Superbike,
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  you know, Isle of Man, like to me those guys were gods, you know,
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  and that was the dream when I was a really young kid to race motorcycles.
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  Everybody in my family drove for a living now.
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  My mom, a lot of the jobs she had were driving jobs.
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  She drove heavy equipment and dump trucks and school buses and stuff like that.
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  My uncle drove heavy equipment.
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  So I was always around people that did it for a living, just not racing.
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  Growing up in Colorado Springs, that's home to the famous Pike's Peak Hill Climb.
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  That was probably in your backyard.
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  Did that have an influence on you wanting to be in motorsports?
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  Yeah, I mean, that was one of my earliest.
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  Motorsports memories.
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  I'd say just sitting on the side, go up there with my uncle.
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  I'd just be covered in dirt from head to toe, you know, cause as a little kid, you
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  got nothing to do while you're waiting for cars to come and go by, you know, so
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  you're playing in the dirt the whole time that was certainly an influence for sure.
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  I haven't done that race.
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  That's high on the bucket list of races.
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  I'd like to do.
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  So were you more interested in the bikes going up to the summit or the cars?
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  Both, everything that went by at that speed to me was awesome.
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  I was like, Yeah, this is great.
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  So back then it was all dirt, you know, they hadn't paved any of it.
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  My uncle actually worked on Pike's Peak.
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  He plowed the road and maintained the road that went to the top.
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  So we would always be on that mountain all the time as a kid, you know, up in
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  dump trucks, riding with them and stuff.
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  It was, it was awesome.
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  It was a great place.
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  So what do you think of it now that they've paved it?
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  I get the arguments to a degree why they paved it.
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  To me, it just kind of changed the nature of it.
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  It demanded a lot more back then on dirt.
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  The chances of just simply sliding off the thing was a real possibility.
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  And so I kind of miss the intensity of that or cars were
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  just sideways the whole way up.
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  I think the pavement has brought a lot more speed to the event.
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  Obviously it's faster.
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  It's probably makes it maybe even a little more dangerous, but I kind
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  of miss the dirt days for sure.
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  And a different variety of cars too.
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  Cause now the front wheel drive, I mean, front wheel drive guys can
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  participate at Pike's Peak as well.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, man, just one of those events, you know, it was cool and a part of my
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  childhood and, and at one point, I guess I, maybe I could be wrong, but I think.
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  Think it was part of the IndyCar championship at one point, wasn't it?
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  The hill climb.
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  And so how cool was that?
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  You know, that was part of the deal.
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  Like you had to do well at Pikes Peak, you know, on top of
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  going to all these other tracks.
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  They still do that.
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  I believe we talked about that on a previous drive thru episode where a
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  couple of the IndyCar drivers were going up in those open wheel cars.
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  Still to this day, they're doing that.
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  It's pretty incredible that that's like tradition.
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  It is.
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  Yeah.
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  It's a great event.
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  Let's talk a little bit more about little kid, Andy, the petrol head
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  sitting on the sidelines of Pikes Peak.
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  So when you got home, you know, covered in dirt after you got out of the shower,
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  what was the poster on your bedroom wall?
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  I think when I was a little kid, I probably had a poster of a Lamborghini
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  Countach, I bet, I bet that was probably the car, you know, and
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  as far as like racers or drivers.
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  Of that nature, I, I remember a lot of the MotoGP riders back then, like
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  Rainy and McDoon and those guys probably like the guys next to the Countach, you
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  know, eventually I started to fall in love more and more with car racing too.
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  And my uncle would take me to racing events.
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  So they built this track, Pikes Peak International Raceways, PPIR, when
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  I was still a kid and Trans Am came there when Trans Am was still kind
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  of at the tail end of that heyday, where it was like Tommy Kendall and
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  Dorsey Schrader and all those guys.
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  We went there for that race and just came down to the last
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  lap, last couple of corners.
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  I remember rooting for Tommy Kendall cause he had this bright
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  green all sport car, you know, it was like the coolest looking car.
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  And he got taken out like one of the last corners.
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  One of those races where I remember being on the edge of my seat,
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  watching till the last minute.
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  I hadn't been engaged in a race like that ever before.
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  And when we left that event, it was like, I want to do that.
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  I mean, that's what I want to do.
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  That had to be tough growing up in Colorado too, because just like
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  there's a lot of beach and not a lot of ocean in the landlocked state,
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  there aren't too many race tracks.
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  PPIR and High Plains are the two that come to mind.
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  Yeah, that was it, man.
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  I didn't even know High Plains existed.
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  I don't think it did exist back then, but there was like some podunkey
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  sort of tracks, you know, here and there we'd go to, you know, like.
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  their cone tracks and stuff.
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  But, uh, yeah, PPR just kind of brought the real guys pros to
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  the state for the first time, but that didn't last very long.
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  You know, that track held a handful of pro races and kind of deteriorated after that.
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  So Lamborghini Countach, we joke that that is the car for petrol
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  heads of a certain age, right?
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  If you grew up in a certain era and everybody had a Countach or
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  a Testarossa up on their wall, and then there were the nerds.
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  like me that had a 930 turbo, right?
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  Cause it was right there kind of along with those cars.
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  But I wonder in your mind and in your imagination, or even today, is there
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  still that car that you reach for that you go, man, that is the top of the summit.
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  That's at the top of Pike's peak for me as a car that you'd like to own or drive.
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  What is that bucket list car or what is that sexiest car of all time?
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  Oh, well, now you're talking about nerd cars for sure.
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  Because.
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  You know, the car that I would love to own is very different than the car, like,
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  that I'd like to race or be on track.
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  And you know, that car I've always wanted is like a Datsun 510 station wagon.
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  I just, I've always loved that basic 510 body style.
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  It's just, I love it.
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  So that'd probably be the car I'd have, but that'd be very different.
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  Few laps of driving that on track.
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  I'd be like, Yeah, the hundred horsepower that it makes, it doesn't quite compare
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  to what you drive on the weekends, right?
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  No, no, I remember a little kid too, one of my uncle's buddies had like a
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  240z with the sunken headlights and he had like racing harnesses in the thing.
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  And I just thought that was one of the coolest cars too.
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  I wouldn't mind, you know, one of those.
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  Yeah, I guess closet dots and fan, I suppose.
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  So that money is no object car.
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  What's that money?
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  No object, man.
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  You know, it'd probably be when I think of cars from my childhood
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  race cars, you know, like the camel GTP cars, money was no objects.
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  I know it's not new.
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  But I'd love to have like that Jaguar with the rear wheel covers.
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  And that would be the car.
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  Oh, the XJ220.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  There's a poster of it downstairs, actually in my garage.
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  Love that guy.
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  Excellent choice.
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  Excellent choice.
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  So let's talk about how you went from the motor sports enthusiast as
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  a kid to landing a job at Bondurant.
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  What happened in between there?
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  How did you end up at Bondurant?
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  I had like a phase when I was growing up or I was.
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  I was always getting in trouble.
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  I was a really bad student, terrible grades, struggled for sure.
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  And I kind of like fell in with a bad group of kids.
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  I started getting into a lot of trouble.
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  I started getting suspended from school.
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  Eventually, basically getting asked to leave, more or less expelled for
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  lack of a better word, just because I had caused too many problems.
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  And not like I was like, I wasn't violent or anything like that.
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  Or it just, I'd always disrupt class.
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  A terrible class clown too.
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  And just, or at least I thought I was.
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  And so I eventually just dropped out, dropped out of high school.
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  And, you know, obviously there was no future of becoming some academic.
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  There was no path going to college back then.
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  I didn't know what I was going to do.
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  And during that summer, a buddy of mine, one of the kids in that group, which
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  wasn't necessarily best kid in the world.
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  Like we were all kind of getting in trouble, but he had a garage
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  and he was building his own car.
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  He was building like a Fox body Mustang.
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  And I was like, sounds fun.
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  You know, I'm into cars and that'd be great.
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  Let's do that.
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  I.
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  Got a kind of a junkyard Fox body Mustang and we built these two cars next to each
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  other and in his garage all summer and out of junkyard parts and scrap parts.
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  And when mine finally started, it burned more smoke and oil than it did gasoline,
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  but it ran, you know, and that was kind of a cool feeling to take something.
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  And at that time of my life, I wasn't starting and finishing a lot of things,
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  you know, and to take that car from nothing and build it and finish it.
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  And it ran and drove and.
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  That was cool.
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  So my buddy wanted to go to a mechanic school after high school.
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  He also had dropped out of high school.
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  We were both a couple of losers.
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  And so, so I was like, Oh yeah, maybe I'll go with you.
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  I'll go.
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  So we both enrolled at the universal technical Institute in Phoenix.
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  That's when we made the move to Arizona.
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  I guess when I was younger though, even despite all that, like not doing well in
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  school and really didn't appear like I had any kind of future, I still thought that
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  I was going to do something in racing.
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  I just, I love the sport so much.
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  Yeah.
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  Anytime I'd ever tell anybody that, obviously the state of my school and my
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  terrible grades, they would always say, you're not going to make it in racing.
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  Like, are you crazy?
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  After a while, I just stopped saying it to people, but inside, like I knew, I don't
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  know, just something drew me to the sport.
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  Something I just, I knew I was going to go, knew I was going to make it one
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  way or another, it's going to make it.
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  And when I went to UTI, I did really well there actually finished that program.
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  And I got a job as a mechanic at Bondurant originally.
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  And that's how I got.
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  Involved at the school.
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  That's kind of the beginning stages of how I got in just
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  working on cars more or less.
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  So you're there turning wrenches at Bondurant and suddenly somebody walks
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  up and taps you on your shoulder and says, Hey kid, get your helmet.
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  Let's go.
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  Right.
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  It can't be that easy.
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  So how did you work your way up through the system being
• 10:52
  there employed at Bondurant?
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  I was broke.
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  And I think back then when you, you were an entry level mechanic at
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  Bondurant, I think my hourly salary was like 7, 50 cents or something.
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  An hour.
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  Barely enough to pay my rent.
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  I always looked for like side job and working on people's cars
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  for extra money on the side.
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  And there was a guy that was a chiropractor by trade.
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  His name's Barry and he had a group of racing enthusiasts.
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  They all had their own racing go karts.
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  It was like a little club that they had formed and he needed somebody to
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  help him prep the cards, maintain them, get them ready for the next event.
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  And so I was like, yeah, I'll help you out with that.
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  After work, I'd go over to his house and help get cards prepped and work
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  on them and learn about them and.
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  And one day he was just like, Hey, you know, I can keep paying
• 11:30
  you to work on these carts.
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  Or if you have any interest in taking one to the track and race in one, I'll
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  trade you, you know, your time and you can take one of the carts and go play.
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  Took me about a millisecond to say, absolutely.
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  Yes.
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  And after that, him and I just kind of formed a really close.
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  Bond and relationship.
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  He kind of became a mentor of mine and shepherd made from being a, just a very
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  immature young adult and it kind of helped turn me into a full fledged, you
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  know, functioning adult, a real person.
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  And when he took me under his wing, he introduced me to the people in
• 12:00
  that group to the other members.
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  And they were all mostly affluent guys, business guys own their own companies.
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  And so when I started to do really well in the local go kart track in
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  that go kart finishing well, some of those guys would come up and watch.
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  I'd hang out and next thing you know, they're like, well, let's see, you
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  know, you're doing pretty well here.
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  Let's see how you do at a big national event.
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  They'd give me a little extra cash for some tires and fuel and
• 12:20
  entry fees and stuff like that.
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  And then I do pretty well at the national event.
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  See how you do for a whole season and just kind of kept snowballing from there.
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  But I really have to, Give a lot of thanks to Barry for opening that
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  door and kind of helping me through.
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  And meanwhile, you're still turning wrenches at Bondurant.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
• 12:35
  Yeah.
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  It's still a mechanic at the time.
• 12:37
  It was like a dream job to me.
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  I would call my uncle.
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  I'd be like, you're not going to believe I work on a car.
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  As soon as I'm done, I get to go test it.
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  I get to go take it out on track and drive the thing.
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  Like, you're not going to believe this.
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  I get to do that and I get paid for this.
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  To me, it was just a dream come true.
• 12:51
  And back then, what were they using for the school in terms of cars?
• 12:54
  Cause Skippy always had the Miatas and the Formula cars.
• 12:56
  What was Bondurant using?
• 12:58
  I got there at the tail end of the Mustang phase.
• 13:00
  They were just kind of transitioning from Mustangs to the Chevrolet
• 13:03
  contract at the time, to Corvettes.
• 13:05
  So, it was good times.
• 13:06
  And the Mustang days back then, because we got all those cars for
• 13:09
  free, you know, like Ford just gave them to us, hundreds of them.
• 13:12
  The whole place was just covered in Mustangs.
• 13:14
  After hours too, things would just get out of hand.
• 13:16
  Other coaches and instructors that worked at the school and some of the
• 13:19
  mechanics, and we'd go out on track and race each other all the time.
• 13:22
  Bump each other and hit each other and then come back into the
• 13:25
  shop and try to patch it all up.
• 13:27
  And you know, get ready for the next day so nobody would notice.
• 13:29
  I got a tremendous amount of seat time just learning from
• 13:32
  those guys playing around.
• 13:33
  So at some point, somebody did tap you on the shoulder and
• 13:36
  said, Andy, we need you to coach.
• 13:38
  So how did that happen?
• 13:40
  Yeah, at the school, we'd have these big corporate events a lot.
• 13:42
  And so companies would bring out 20, 30 employees or management
• 13:45
  teams, something like that.
• 13:46
  So those types of events, they always needed extra helpers.
• 13:49
  So there just wasn't enough instructors to do the normal class load, and then
• 13:53
  also take care of this big group.
• 13:54
  And the type of drills that the groups would do are very basic stuff.
• 13:58
  Autocross, driving go karts.
• 14:00
  And so they'd always pull a couple of guys out of the shop to help just
• 14:03
  shepherd the guys, people around, move them around to one event to the other
• 14:06
  and, and give them little brief ground schools on how to get in and out of go
• 14:09
  karts and, you know, don't hit cones.
• 14:11
  And this is how you buckle your seatbelt, like basic stuff.
• 14:14
  So I started doing that a lot at the school.
• 14:16
  And eventually one of the instructors noticed that I could speak.
• 14:19
  Okay.
• 14:19
  Like I talked to a group.
• 14:20
  I wasn't afraid to talk to people and my ability to get in front and talk
• 14:24
  to these groups of people allowed me to kind of get in the door as far as
• 14:28
  the coaching more and more and more.
• 14:29
  We just kind of grew from that point on.
• 14:31
  There's something in this story though, before you became a pro
• 14:34
  that is near and dear to my heart.
• 14:36
  Growing up in a Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche family, I was looking at
• 14:39
  your resume and buried in there, it says Volkswagen TDI Cup.
• 14:44
  So how did you get absorbed into that?
• 14:46
  Was that your first time, let's say pro racing, or was there
• 14:50
  an opportunity before then?
• 14:52
  That was the gateway.
• 14:53
  Right before the series started, I just won a karting title.
• 14:56
  I'd won this, what they call the Florida winter tour, which is like
• 14:59
  this big off season racing series.
• 15:01
  After I'd won that, I found out that Volkswagen was looking for people to
• 15:06
  send in videotape of yourself, kind of just explaining what you've done.
• 15:09
  And they wanted kart racers and club racers, autocross racers.
• 15:13
  Like if you, as long as you didn't have any pro racing background, they
• 15:16
  wanted you to kind of submit a video.
• 15:18
  About yourself.
• 15:19
  And if they liked you, they would invite you to do a big tryout.
• 15:22
  Eventually the faster drivers would get to compete in the series.
• 15:25
  I did a video.
• 15:25
  And at the time, Bob at the school had this Volkswagen thing, and it was always
• 15:29
  parked in the little museum of the school.
• 15:31
  Cause the way he tells the story is he used this Volkswagen thing to
• 15:34
  lay out the track configuration for the school track when they moved
• 15:37
  the school from Sonoma to Phoenix.
• 15:39
  So this thing's just been sitting in this museum.
• 15:41
  I hardly ever even started.
• 15:42
  I got the thing started.
• 15:43
  Drove it up, put that in the background of my video.
• 15:45
  I was like, well, at least if I put this Volkswagen back there, maybe
• 15:48
  they'll at least notice my tape.
• 15:50
  I guess it worked.
• 15:51
  And so they invited me out to do the tryout, which coincidentally enough ended
• 15:55
  up being right next door to Bond Run.
• 15:56
  So there's a couple of different tracks that are test tracks, if
• 15:59
  you will, or like club racing tracks right next to the school.
• 16:02
  And they held the tryout at one of those tracks.
• 16:04
  I've driven that track a million times.
• 16:05
  I have.
• 16:06
  tons of laps on that track.
• 16:07
  So I was like, I couldn't believe how much this is all
• 16:10
  just kind of falling into place.
• 16:11
  Did the tryout of course, since I knew the track and I was quick
• 16:15
  and made it into the series.
• 16:16
  And so that's how it all started.
• 16:17
  Tell me what's it like to drive one of these mark five based 1.
• 16:22
  9 liter diesels on track that only turns to like 4, 000 RPM.
• 16:26
  It was actually really cool.
• 16:27
  The racing was.
• 16:28
  Very intense.
• 16:29
  I mean, it was like spec me out of that level of competition and just
• 16:33
  super tight, always bumping each other.
• 16:35
  The cars were really quick.
• 16:36
  Actually that first 5, 000 feet out of the corner, all that diesel torque, the
• 16:40
  thing would launch off of every turn and then flatline, of course, then it just
• 16:44
  took forever to get to the next corner.
• 16:46
  And car was so quiet.
• 16:47
  You would hear the wind noise.
• 16:48
  It's going over the bodywork of the car, more so than the engine.
• 16:51
  So if you weren't really paying close attention to the shift lights,
• 16:54
  you'd miss the shifts because you couldn't hear the motor at all.
• 16:57
  So it was really unique.
• 16:58
  The other thing that was really cool about that car is it had Audi R8
• 17:01
  brakes on it and these massive slicks, which definitely didn't need, I mean,
• 17:06
  the thing was never going that fast.
• 17:07
  I mean, you could break so ungodly late into every corner.
• 17:11
  It was ridiculous.
• 17:12
  And the car had, you know, such a wide slick on it.
• 17:15
  Way too much tire.
• 17:16
  Instead of sliding, oftentimes it would just stand up on two wheels.
• 17:19
  You wouldn't do a corner too fast and the thing would try to flip over.
• 17:21
  So you'd go up on two wheels and try to set the thing back down.
• 17:24
  And so it was such a unique thing to do.
• 17:26
  To drive around.
• 17:26
  I love the series.
• 17:27
  It was great.
• 17:28
  Not too much lift throttle oversteer there then.
• 17:32
  No, no, not at all.
• 17:33
  But that being said, you know, that was an interesting series though, because
• 17:36
  like from the East coast, we had names like Tristan Herbert in the VWTDI Cup
• 17:41
  series, so I'm wondering, did you start to develop friendships during that time?
• 17:45
  You know, names of folks that we now see in the paddocks almost every weekend.
• 17:49
  You know, there's a few kids, I would say kids, uh, we were young back then.
• 17:52
  But probably about a handful of us that I still see about everywhere I go.
• 17:56
  Josh Hurley's one kind of competes fairly regularly in like IMSA and SRO.
• 18:00
  The Pombo brothers, Mark Pombo and his brother didn't compete
• 18:04
  in it, but Mark competed in it.
• 18:05
  You know, got used to seeing those guys around the paddock.
• 18:07
  I'm trying to think of anybody else that really rose to the top.
• 18:10
  There's definitely a few others.
• 18:11
  I'm just blanking on some names right now, but it's a tight little circle of People.
• 18:15
  And I guess the people that were most influential to me were the ones
• 18:18
  that were running it at the time.
• 18:19
  It was, uh, Mark Miller was a really successful off road racer, raced the
• 18:22
  Volkswagen Touaregs with Red Bull and did like Dakar rallies and Baja and
• 18:27
  his partner, Ryan Arciero, which was another very successful off road racer.
• 18:31
  And then they hired Jan Halen, who was like our driver
• 18:33
  coach for the whole series.
• 18:35
  So I'd see those guys still from time to time.
• 18:37
  And they really changed the course of my professional racing life.
• 18:40
  They taught me what it was to be a pro, how you handle yourself, not only, you
• 18:45
  know, when you're out on the track, but how to look at your data and how
• 18:47
  to prep for an event and, you know, how to treat people around the paddock.
• 18:51
  And it was just such a cool series for a lot of us.
• 18:54
  And that way, well, that's a great segue to talk about your
• 18:56
  transition into pro racing.
• 18:57
  So for those that are unfamiliar, we're talking about the TDI cup that
• 19:01
  ran from 2008 and 2009, but you didn't hit the pro stage until about 2012.
• 19:07
  What did you do for those couple of years there?
• 19:09
  Was it all prepped to go to the big stage where you're already working on that?
• 19:11
  Was somebody mentoring you and bringing you up?
• 19:14
  How did that transition happen?
• 19:16
  Finished second in the championship in the TDI cup in 2009.
• 19:19
  And then It ran actually one more season in 2010, but I was too old to compete.
• 19:24
  Yeah.
• 19:24
  I didn't start racing go karts 20.
• 19:26
  The age range for the TDI Cup, I think it was 16 to 26.
• 19:29
  So after I finished second in 2009, I, I turned 27 and I couldn't compete anymore.
• 19:34
  But Mark Miller and Ryan asked me to be like a coach for the series.
• 19:38
  So like a peer to some of these other guys and help them through the series.
• 19:42
  And so I did that in 2010, but I don't know, it was kind of a dark
• 19:45
  period because I thought, you know, I did, Really well, I almost won the
• 19:48
  championship and now I don't have a ride.
• 19:50
  You know, I didn't have a ride for several years and I thought maybe that was it.
• 19:53
  I thought I got a taste of it.
• 19:55
  It was great, but I thought, you know, now real life sets in and
• 19:58
  better start paying the bills.
• 20:00
  I just worked, I worked at the school and I coached and I still worked
• 20:03
  on cars from time to time and, and then, you know, right around 2011.
• 20:08
  Towards the end of 2011, the school took in a shipment of Camaros.
• 20:11
  And so there's a good story here.
• 20:12
  So at the time I was coaching and we would do these hot lap deals
• 20:17
  for like big groups of people.
• 20:19
  Like big corporate groups come like a hundred people.
• 20:21
  We would just do hot lap after hot lap after hot lap, just cycling people out of
• 20:24
  the passenger seat and giving them just a thrill ride around the track basically.
• 20:27
  One of the days when the new Camaros were delivery, we're like,
• 20:30
  all right, let's use the new cars.
• 20:31
  Let's get the new Camaros out there.
• 20:32
  Going into the very first turn with my very first passenger
• 20:35
  was like a 10 year old kid.
• 20:36
  I hit one of the apex curbs.
• 20:38
  And all the side curtain airbags went off in the car.
• 20:41
  Didn't hit anything, you know, but just scared the crap out of both of us.
• 20:45
  And come to find out this became an issue with that first generation of Camaros.
• 20:48
  If you go on YouTube, you can find guys that are drifting in
• 20:51
  parking lots and all of a sudden all the airbags go off in the car.
• 20:53
  Some sort of sensor in that safety mechanism in the car was really sensitive.
• 20:57
  And they sent out engineers.
• 20:59
  So I was the first one that happened to at the school.
• 21:01
  So they thought I had done something wrong.
• 21:02
  So they're trying to blame me like, well, you must've done something.
• 21:05
  You must've done something.
• 21:05
  These things just don't go off.
• 21:07
  A couple of weeks later, another one went off on one of the other coaches.
• 21:10
  And then a couple of weeks later, another one goes off
• 21:11
  and started to become a thing.
• 21:12
  So these cars just sat in the back lot of the school while they were
• 21:16
  waiting on Chevrolet to decide what they want to do with them.
• 21:19
  And then after a while, Chevy's like, yeah, you guys are
• 21:20
  gonna have to pay to fix them.
• 21:21
  You're gonna have to fix them on your own.
• 21:22
  And so to replace all the airbags and replace all the interior, I mean, it was
• 21:25
  like, I don't remember the exact cost, but you know, it wasn't worth it really.
• 21:28
  They were going to sell them.
• 21:29
  I was like, Hmm, I had met a gentleman that owned this it company
• 21:33
  that you mentioned in the intro.
• 21:34
  His name was Harry and he was interested in going racing.
• 21:37
  I just didn't kind of know at what level he had bought a Baja buggy.
• 21:41
  And we went and did Baja 1000 together.
• 21:43
  And he's like, I want to get into sports car racing.
• 21:45
  I was like, well, there's these cars they're sitting out back.
• 21:47
  I think the school wants to part ways with them for pretty cheap.
• 21:50
  We could turn those into race cars.
• 21:51
  We could run them in world challenge, you know, And there was a couple other
• 21:54
  Camaros competing in the series already, so he's like, yeah, let's do it.
• 21:57
  That was it.
• 21:57
  Myself and a couple other volunteer guys from the shop, we stripped them
• 22:01
  down, we built them ourselves and then entered the series the next year.
• 22:05
  When you got there, when you got to World Challenge, what did you realize?
• 22:09
  was different and people think, you know, that maybe they're working through
• 22:12
  SCCA, they're doing NASA, whatever.
• 22:14
  I want to go pro.
• 22:15
  And when you go pro, what are the things you're faced with right away that are
• 22:18
  maybe those culture shocks or those things you have to adjust to almost from day one?
• 22:23
  I don't know if I was shocked as much as I was just so happy.
• 22:26
  I was so stoked, could not wait to get out on track with all these guys.
• 22:30
  Cause I guess I was just blindly confident.
• 22:32
  And I thought if I can get out there, I think I can compete, you know?
• 22:35
  And I, and a lot of that confidence I think came from the TDI Cup.
• 22:38
  Been around a lot of guys in that series.
• 22:39
  And I'd watched what they had done in the years after that.
• 22:41
  So I was like, I think I can do this.
• 22:43
  And I'd say the hardest part though, the part that you don't think about is all
• 22:46
  the stuff that happens off the track.
• 22:48
  The amount of time that goes into prepping and getting the car
• 22:51
  ready and all the setup stuff and having the right people around.
• 22:55
  Cause once you start operating a team, it's like operating a small company and
• 22:59
  trying to find the right fit for everybody to get the most out of this world.
• 23:02
  Car.
• 23:03
  Once it finally hits the track, that was probably the hardest part for sure.
• 23:06
  And really kind of not understanding how expensive it really was.
• 23:09
  You know, like I had a kind of an idea and I try to tell Harry and a couple of
• 23:13
  the other sponsors that we had at the time, you know, what I thought it was
• 23:16
  going to cost, but it's always a lot more than that trying to raise money was I'd
• 23:20
  say the, Biggest challenge of it all.
• 23:21
  You've been with what's now called SRO.
• 23:24
  Many of us still refer to it more intimately as just world challenge.
• 23:27
  It's gone through many name changes over the years, but you've been with
• 23:30
  SRO for, let's say over a decade now, what's it been like as it's transitioned
• 23:36
  from Pirelli world challenge and speed and all these different kinds of things.
• 23:39
  How has it changed?
• 23:41
  How do you see it continuing to evolve?
• 23:43
  In the early years when I competed, it's still, even though it was
• 23:46
  considered pro racing, it kind of had a club feel to it, felt very modest.
• 23:51
  You go into the world challenge paddock and I'm sure you'd have real time.
• 23:54
  You'd have Cadillac, you'd have, you know, some real players in the paddock,
• 23:57
  but you had a lot of teams like us that were just very low budget, single car
• 24:01
  trailer, you know, with everything set up.
• 24:03
  Stuffed in there and a couple of easy ups, you know, and stuff.
• 24:05
  So back then it felt more of a relaxed sort of place, I guess.
• 24:09
  And it's become a lot more serious and probably becoming more equivalent with
• 24:13
  kind of the way an emcee paddock feels as the years go along, it's getting
• 24:16
  more professional, if you will, but also a lot more expensive to the budget
• 24:20
  that we were working on back then was a fraction of what it costs to do today.
• 24:24
  So it was accessible back then for somebody like me, I could go out,
• 24:27
  you know, as a Bondurant coach, like I'd meet a lot of people on
• 24:30
  a weekly basis that were into it.
• 24:32
  You know, a lot of the people I would end up coaching at the school.
• 24:34
  I'd say, Hey, you know, if you pitch in 10 grand, you know, we'll give you
• 24:37
  the side of the car for the weekend and you can come in and hang out with us.
• 24:40
  And, and I had so many great sponsors that they just wanted to go hang out
• 24:44
  for the weekend, drink beer, smoke a cigar in the paddock and watch
• 24:46
  their car go around in circles.
• 24:47
  And it was very affordable for those kinds of guys to get in.
• 24:50
  But now it's quite a bit more, it's just different.
• 24:52
  The competitions I'd say is risen a level I'd say now for sure.
• 24:57
  There's a lot of guys.
• 24:59
  that are just extremely fast.
• 25:00
  It's getting harder.
• 25:01
  Yeah, for sure.
• 25:02
  And there's an interesting blend too, because a lot of the, let's say bronze
• 25:05
  drivers that are in SRO or former gold and platinum drivers from other disciplines.
• 25:10
  Right.
• 25:11
  So now you've got this interesting mix of people in the paddock.
• 25:13
  And I think what's kind of funny about this is probably on both ends
• 25:16
  of the pendulum in your early days.
• 25:18
  Andy Pilgrim was there at the Cadillac and now he's back with other cars 10
• 25:23
  years later, but he's still roaming around the paddock, hanging out with
• 25:25
  everybody, which is pretty cool.
• 25:26
  Yeah, it is.
• 25:27
  You know, it's different back then.
• 25:29
  There wasn't any driver ranking system, the metallic ranking.
• 25:32
  It was everybody just writes against everybody, amateurs, pros.
• 25:35
  We were all in the same bag out there, all racing against each other.
• 25:38
  And it was cool.
• 25:38
  And I, I do miss that to a degree, even though now it's kind of.
• 25:42
  More separated.
• 25:42
  It was a lot of fun.
• 25:44
  It was a great place to be.
• 25:45
  So you did some time with IMSA as well as Trans Am.
• 25:49
  So how do those compare and contrast to World Challenge?
• 25:52
  Done a little bit in IMSA.
• 25:54
  It's weird.
• 25:55
  For whatever reason, I've always gotten funneled more towards SRO World Challenge.
• 25:59
  And I've always wanted to do like 24 hours or 12 hours of Sebring and stuff.
• 26:03
  And I've come so, so close.
• 26:05
  But just for whatever reason, it just never worked out.
• 26:08
  Those series are still on my Bucket list, if you will, like,
• 26:12
  I'd like to compete there more.
• 26:13
  I dabbled in Trans Am just for a short period.
• 26:16
  And those cars are a lot of fun to tested them more than I've raced them.
• 26:19
  But those are like hustling a big F 150 around on slicks.
• 26:22
  They're a blast, but I love those cars too.
• 26:25
  They're, they're a lot of fun to drive and I love them just for the nostalgic.
• 26:28
  Like, again, it just takes me back to my childhood and, and, you know,
• 26:31
  watching Kendall and those guys.
• 26:33
  It was fun for that reason.
• 26:34
  What are your thoughts on balance of performance as a driver?
• 26:38
  You know, I've heard different arguments for different people, but I always
• 26:41
  like to get people's opinion on BOP.
• 26:44
  Yeah.
• 26:44
  You know, I don't know.
• 26:46
  It's gotten a lot better in recent years.
• 26:48
  I'd say in the early days when they first started back when we first entered
• 26:52
  the series in the Camaro, it seemed like it was, It's a work in progress.
• 26:56
  And every weekend it seemed like the scales would move drastically.
• 26:59
  So you'd be super competitive and then all of a sudden you can't even break
• 27:02
  the top 15 and then all of a sudden you're back at the top again and you
• 27:06
  really just didn't know what to expect.
• 27:08
  I guess the unpredictability of it in the beginning was a frustration,
• 27:10
  but it seems a lot better now.
• 27:13
  I don't know how you would ever make all these cars perfectly matched.
• 27:16
  There's always going to be problems.
• 27:17
  Some car that's going to be a little stronger somewhere.
• 27:19
  I think that's kind of unavoidable, but at least in this year and maybe past
• 27:23
  couple of seasons, it's not too bad.
• 27:25
  It's not too bad now.
• 27:26
  It's allowed some of the other manufacturers that maybe would have
• 27:29
  struggled with certain cars, enter the series and still be competitive.
• 27:32
  It's leveled the playing field a bit.
• 27:34
  It's a frustrating thing, no matter what.
• 27:36
  The racer inside of you, like especially the mechanic inside of
• 27:39
  me, just wants it to be no rules.
• 27:40
  Build the fastest car you can build and let's go line them up.
• 27:43
  And let's see, not only who can drive them the best, but which team can build it.
• 27:47
  The best, like it was in the old days, here's your power to weight
• 27:50
  ratio that you need to hit, you know, maximum amount of fuel and minimum
• 27:54
  weight and go build whatever you want.
• 27:56
  Yeah.
• 27:56
  Yeah.
• 27:57
  I missed that era of motorsports.
• 27:58
  I wish I had gotten a chance to taste that.
• 28:01
  And you know, what's funny about that, we grew up in the same era.
• 28:03
  So those are the old days of Can Am and IMSA and Trans Am.
• 28:08
  And you're just seeing all the crazy stuff, the Mustangs,
• 28:10
  the Audis, the Buicks.
• 28:12
  I mean, you name it, they were all out there and everybody was
• 28:14
  building a different mousetrap.
• 28:15
  Some of the people that were competing in those series.
• 28:18
  The names alone are just in the halls of legend, right?
• 28:21
  I mean, you've got Stuck and Haywood and Ribs and St.
• 28:24
  James and Pilgrim and down the line.
• 28:26
  And I mean, there's a bunch of them and it's just talk about
• 28:28
  an amazing time in racing.
• 28:29
  Especially the car that comes to mind of like that era is like the Audi's.
• 28:34
  Right.
• 28:34
  They were just such an alien car compared to everything else
• 28:38
  that was out there back then.
• 28:39
  And yeah, man, that must've been a pretty cool thing to be a part of back then.
• 28:43
  And maybe, you know, yeah, everything's cyclical, maybe somewhere down the road.
• 28:47
  Maybe some of that will come back.
• 28:48
  I hope maybe during my lifespan and career and racing, but
• 28:52
  that would be the ultimate.
• 28:53
  I had my druthers, I would just say.
• 28:55
  Here you go.
• 28:55
  Here's your budget.
• 28:56
  I'd say maybe you have a cap on the budget.
• 28:58
  You can take any car you want.
• 29:00
  We'll see you on Sunday.
• 29:01
  Let's go.
• 29:01
  And talking about having been to so many tracks.
• 29:04
  I mean, if anybody follows you on social media, you're somewhere and
• 29:07
  anywhere on every given Sunday.
• 29:09
  When you look at all the places you've been to, all the cars you've
• 29:12
  driven, what's your favorite, what's your least favorite track
• 29:15
  favorite, least favorite car so far?
• 29:17
  I don't know if I have a least favorite.
• 29:18
  I guess maybe when I first started, I had tracks That I didn't care to go to,
• 29:22
  but it wasn't as much about the track.
• 29:24
  It was mostly the town they were in.
• 29:26
  Oh man, we got to go to that place again.
• 29:28
  But when it comes to the track, I find almost every track entertaining
• 29:32
  to some degree, they all have some little crux, you know, some little
• 29:35
  challenge that you try to figure out.
• 29:37
  And mentally for me too, like anytime I go to a track, I try never to think
• 29:40
  of a corner of like, Oh man, I don't want to go through this corner again.
• 29:43
  I always want to try to be as excited as I can about every corner.
• 29:46
  Like, what is it about this corner that I can figure out and make it better?
• 29:49
  Better and more fun to drive.
• 29:51
  But I think sentimental wise, there's tracks that rise to the top for me.
• 29:56
  Like Sonoma was a track that I did really well at early on.
• 29:59
  And so Sonoma is one that that's always been a sentimental favorite of mine.
• 30:02
  I like Watkins Glen a lot.
• 30:03
  It's a great track.
• 30:04
  I always love street tracks.
• 30:05
  I always did well at street events.
• 30:07
  So like Detroit, like Belle Isle was a fun one.
• 30:09
  Long Beach, you know, streets of St.
• 30:11
  Petersburg.
• 30:12
  I, I love those venues too.
• 30:13
  Those are.
• 30:14
  Those are great.
• 30:14
  And Nashville is the newest one, right?
• 30:16
  Yeah, but they don't let the pros go there.
• 30:18
  We don't get to go there.
• 30:19
  It's an AMS only.
• 30:21
  And now I'm like, come on, just let the GT4 America go there, please.
• 30:25
  I'd love to race there, but not at the moment.
• 30:27
  During this last 10 years, obviously you've continued to come up through the
• 30:31
  ranks and now you find yourself racing for the famed Flying Lizard Motorsports.
• 30:36
  So people might recognize Flying Lizard going back many, many years
• 30:40
  with their winning 911s and Audi R8s.
• 30:42
  And they've got some other cool cars in the stable for sure.
• 30:45
  And we'll talk about them, but how did you end up at Flying Lizard?
• 30:49
  This goes back to Bondurant either.
• 30:50
  There's this kind of like this brotherhood of people that have
• 30:53
  been instructors at Bondurant.
• 30:54
  We're everywhere.
• 30:55
  And every time you meet one somewhere, it's just nothing but
• 30:58
  great stories and camaraderie.
• 30:59
  And Darren Law, one of the owners of Flying Lizard was.
• 31:02
  You know, he worked at Bondurant as an instructor and, and he actually, while
• 31:06
  I was still there as an instructor, he came back and became the general manager
• 31:09
  of the school for a short time, him and Johnny O'Connell, both I've always
• 31:12
  wanted to drive for flying lizard.
• 31:14
  When I worked at the school and Darren was still racing full time for that team.
• 31:18
  I just thought that was just the coolest thing.
• 31:20
  It made it seem realistic.
• 31:22
  My dreams of becoming a race car driver.
• 31:23
  I was like.
• 31:24
  Well, Darren Law did it and you know, he worked here and he didn't
• 31:27
  have much money and he was able to figure it out and he got to the high
• 31:31
  levels of pro racing, got to run at Le Mans and won 24 hours at Daytona.
• 31:35
  So for me, it was always a dream to race for Flying Lizard back then.
• 31:38
  I just thought that was one of the coolest places you could ever land.
• 31:41
  My co driver Elias Sabo and I, we were just looking for a team this off season.
• 31:46
  Through my connection with the school and knowing Darren from way
• 31:49
  back in the day, I was just like, Darren, do you have any room for us?
• 31:52
  And he's like, yeah, I think I can make that work.
• 31:54
  And that's how we got pulled over there.
• 31:56
  So how long have you been driving for the Flying Lizard now?
• 31:59
  Just this season.
• 31:59
  Yeah.
• 32:00
  Just this year.
• 32:00
  Congratulations.
• 32:01
  First year with the team.
• 32:03
  Yeah.
• 32:03
  And it's been great.
• 32:04
  They're a stellar operation.
• 32:05
  You get to pilot a bunch of their cars.
• 32:08
  Two in particular, we're going to hone in on.
• 32:10
  One is the beige, I guess is the right color, Aston Martin.
• 32:14
  And the other is a.
• 32:15
  Hot pink, let's call it magenta Lamborghini Huracan, which
• 32:19
  has a very cool nickname.
• 32:21
  Uh huh.
• 32:22
  Yeah.
• 32:22
  Yeah.
• 32:22
  We'll talk about the Lamborghini, right?
• 32:24
  We'll come back to the Aston.
• 32:25
  So we like to call the Aston color, like a tactical tan, right?
• 32:28
  Cause it's 511 tactical.
• 32:30
  So it sounds a little sexier than beige, but the other driver, I don't
• 32:33
  get to race that car, but I'm, I'm coaching him named Slade Stewart.
• 32:37
  He's had that livery on a few other cars he's owned.
• 32:39
  I've coached him.
• 32:40
  You know, in those cars prior to joining Lamborghini Trofeo.
• 32:43
  And it's just kind of coincidental that he ended up with Flying Lizard also.
• 32:46
  But I don't know where the name came from.
• 32:48
  So one day he's just comes up to me.
• 32:50
  He's like, we're going to call the car Sparkle Farts.
• 32:52
  And I was like, okay, sure.
• 32:56
  I was in the room, I think when he told Darren Law this and Darren like kind of
• 32:59
  like, like, I don't know if that's the right look for Flying Lizard, you know,
• 33:05
  like, because we're this very classy, you know, well known team in the paddock.
• 33:09
  Darren let him go for it.
• 33:10
  And it's become a big fan favorite.
• 33:12
  Very much is.
• 33:12
  And my daughter became an immediate fan of Flying Lizard because of Princess
• 33:17
  Sparklefart, she likes to call it.
• 33:19
  So, I mean, and it was a hit to watching her walk around the
• 33:22
  paddock with the pink tee on her.
• 33:23
  It's like, Oh my God, you know, she's like, She's so cute.
• 33:25
  She loved it and showing her other races online and stuff.
• 33:28
  And she's hooked.
• 33:29
  And just like we were talking about with you sitting on the edge of
• 33:32
  Pike's Peak, watching the cars go by, it's the same for her now she's
• 33:35
  a fan and she's into motor sports.
• 33:37
  And sometimes it's just that getting out over your skis that makes all the
• 33:41
  difference for the next generation.
• 33:43
  And once you have a rooting interest in any sport, once you're
• 33:45
  attached to something, a driver, a player, whatever it is, I mean,
• 33:49
  it just changes the whole dynamic.
• 33:51
  And I mean, for your listeners that don't know what the car looks
• 33:53
  like, it's bright pink and it's got unicorns on the side of it.
• 33:57
  I mean, it stands out.
• 33:58
  The livery was designed by his daughter.
• 34:00
  So Slade's daughter came up with the look, you know, the way the story
• 34:03
  goes, like he was going to let each one of his kids design the wrap, you
• 34:06
  know, they would alternate every year.
• 34:07
  His daughter would design it one year.
• 34:09
  Then one of his sons would get to design the next season, but pretty
• 34:11
  sure that design's not going anywhere.
• 34:13
  I think that is going to stay.
• 34:16
  So I'll let the kids design a wrap on something else later on.
• 34:19
  It's a pretty popular car.
• 34:20
  The kids, I mean, they love it.
• 34:22
  And so at the last event, he did this really cool deal where he went and he
• 34:25
  bought like 40, 50 stuffed unicorns and some tiaras with unicorn horns on them and
• 34:31
  started handing those out to the kids too, and they come over to look at the car.
• 34:34
  And he's definitely doing his part in converting young kids to cars.
• 34:38
  to racing fans, which is what the sport needs desperately.
• 34:42
  It needs young fans to be attached to it.
• 34:44
  Let's talk about your tactical khaki beige Aston Martin.
• 34:49
  What's it like to drive that thing?
• 34:51
  Tell us about the Aston.
• 34:52
  I love the car.
• 34:54
  I don't know, recent years.
• 34:55
  And this kind of goes back to our previous conversation where we were
• 34:57
  like, things have become very uniform.
• 34:59
  Like all race cars are mid engine now.
• 35:01
  They're all mid engine, Porsche's rear engine, but everything's
• 35:03
  got that same sort of setup.
• 35:05
  And there's a Mercedes, I guess.
• 35:06
  There's a few outliers.
• 35:07
  I've always been a huge fan of front engine cars.
• 35:10
  I just, I love the way they drive, the way they handle.
• 35:12
  We switched from driving the Audi R8 GT4 last year, or last several seasons.
• 35:16
  To the Aston, and I was excited about that switch.
• 35:19
  I love the car.
• 35:20
  It's probably one of the best GT4 cars I've ever driven.
• 35:23
  And I've, I've driven a pretty good number of them, but it's, it's a
• 35:25
  great car for an amateur driver also to really get comfortable the speeds
• 35:29
  that a lot of these tracks demand.
• 35:30
  It's cool, man.
• 35:31
  You feel like James Bond for sharing that thing.
• 35:33
  Just cool looking.
• 35:34
  Like, I just love the way it looks too.
• 35:35
  And it sounds good.
• 35:36
  And it does all the things that it's supposed to, but going back to our
• 35:40
  conversation about balance of power, let's talk about the Austin versus the Mercedes.
• 35:44
  Cause there seems to be a pretty good rivalry there in world
• 35:47
  challenge between the two marks.
• 35:48
  And I always feel like the Mercedes is just as massive torque monster.
• 35:53
  Like it's got you on that low end grunt.
• 35:56
  Is that how you feel about it?
• 35:57
  Or Are they pretty close?
• 35:59
  You know, they have the same motor, right?
• 36:00
  Both cars have the exact same motor, but the Mercedes has a different gearbox,
• 36:04
  different gear ratios, I believe too.
• 36:06
  So it creates its power kind of differently.
• 36:09
  It feels like it almost feels like it doesn't have the same engine.
• 36:11
  I'd say at least the way the World Challenge BOP is set up at
• 36:15
  the moment, it almost feels like the Aston's a little stronger.
• 36:18
  And that just might be my perception.
• 36:19
  It feels like it's a little torque here, but that may have more to
• 36:22
  do with the gear ratio difference in the cars than anything else.
• 36:25
  It is a torque monster, which I love.
• 36:27
  And last year in the Audi, that thing had to be revved the limiter
• 36:31
  every gear, just had to strangle that thing to get a lap time out of it.
• 36:34
  Um, but this car, it's a lot more fun, you know, that first 50 feet off
• 36:38
  the apex thing just lunges forward.
• 36:40
  It's a great feeling.
• 36:41
  Do you think there's an Achilles heel or a shortcoming to the Aston?
• 36:44
  Or you don't want to let your rivals know what it is.
• 36:48
  I don't know.
• 36:49
  You know, there's cars in the series right now.
• 36:51
  Like I, I for sure feel like, you know, if you were to have like a category for
• 36:54
  horsepower or like straight line speed and a category for breaking a category
• 36:58
  for like corner speed, apex speed, and you were to put everything on that chart.
• 37:03
  I feel like the Aston is like an A minus at almost everything.
• 37:07
  There's a few other cars that are like an A plus in a few categories where it's
• 37:10
  a little bit stronger than us in places.
• 37:12
  We feel like the Porsche is a little better than us in a few spots.
• 37:15
  And lately the Supra has been really strong and really fast in a few places.
• 37:20
  It feels like we just can't quite measure up, but over the course of
• 37:22
  the whole season, it just feels like we're pretty strong everywhere though.
• 37:26
  So it doesn't actually have much of a weak spot, at least none, nothing
• 37:29
  that's like, Glaring, you know, I don't see you turning wrenches in the
• 37:33
  flying lizard paddock, or although you maybe you do in the evenings, you
• 37:36
  know, behind closed doors or something, but I do want to ask about setup.
• 37:39
  No secrets here.
• 37:40
  But, you know, nowadays you talk to a lot of drivers and everybody says, Oh, we're
• 37:45
  driving off the front wheels of the car.
• 37:47
  Nobody likes to run them loose anymore.
• 37:48
  Like in the old days, you know, It's kind of sliding, rotating through the corners.
• 37:52
  What's your driving style?
• 37:53
  Do you run off the front?
• 37:54
  Do you like it a little loose?
• 37:55
  Do you want to keep the car totally neutral?
• 37:57
  How do you tell your engineers how you want the car to run?
• 38:01
  When I was moving up into racing full size cars, all of
• 38:04
  my seat time came at Bondurant.
• 38:06
  Primarily driving Mustangs and Corvettes and later on Vipers.
• 38:10
  So all front engine stuff.
• 38:11
  And so I really got comfortable with a car that understeers and pushes.
• 38:15
  I don't wouldn't say that necessarily that it's what I love.
• 38:17
  It's just that I've adapted to it.
• 38:19
  I like a car that's just slightly on that understeer side of the curve.
• 38:24
  But what that also allows you to do is really manipulate it a lot.
• 38:26
  I want.
• 38:27
  The car to free up.
• 38:28
  If I want to rotate the car, I know what I have to do to do that.
• 38:32
  I can hold the brake a little longer.
• 38:33
  I can slow down the trail brake.
• 38:35
  I can grab the gear shift a little closer to turn in.
• 38:38
  I can get the car to rotate when it's necessary, but I think over the span
• 38:41
  of a whole race, 60 minute race for us, just limiting mistakes is key,
• 38:46
  especially when I hand it over to Elias.
• 38:48
  And so I think a car that's just slightly on the pushy side can help you kind
• 38:51
  of limit making big, nasty oversteer mistakes and caused you a lot of time.
• 38:55
  Practically it works well for me, but you know, I also like going out and
• 38:59
  Smoldering the tires off something to understand they're screwing around.
• 39:04
  Yeah, of course.
• 39:04
  Like I would love to just toss the car into a corner and just throw the wheel
• 39:08
  to the lock and just destroy tires.
• 39:10
  That's fun too, but not as much when I'm right.
• 39:12
  To your point there, it's also a game of managing fuel and tires because you guys
• 39:16
  don't have pit stops and world challenge.
• 39:18
  So you got to make that car survive on all of its consumables.
• 39:21
  And sometimes I think the fans forget that, right?
• 39:23
  Well, why, why didn't he take that pass or challenge that guy?
• 39:26
  And it's not your age.
• 39:27
  It's all a game, right?
• 39:28
  It's a game of chess.
• 39:30
  It is.
• 39:30
  Yeah.
• 39:30
  And especially when you're dealing with a co driving situation.
• 39:33
  Road America, I had a bad start.
• 39:35
  I lost a few spots and I made up a couple and I got to like fifth, you
• 39:39
  know, and I'm, I'm just kind of stuck there, guys in front of me are all
• 39:41
  pretty equal, you know, nobody's making any mistakes, we're all just kind of
• 39:45
  turning laps, but the cool thing now is Elias has risen to a level where
• 39:49
  I know which AMS he compares to.
• 39:52
  And so I can look at the cars ahead of me and I can say, well, I
• 39:55
  know Elias I know Elias is faster than that guy's co driver as well.
• 39:59
  So I don't have to take as many risks sometimes.
• 40:01
  So like you're saying, like when somebody's sitting there on the
• 40:03
  sideline, you're like, why isn't he trying to go for a move or something?
• 40:05
  It's like, well, I think the best bet for me is just to let Elias go
• 40:08
  out and beat some of these guys, because I know he's better and not
• 40:11
  take the risk, you know, so it's cool to play the strategy sometimes too.
• 40:15
  Now that you've been with flying lizard for an entire season,
• 40:18
  why don't we look back over the 2022 SRO world challenge season?
• 40:23
  What are your thoughts going into next year?
• 40:25
  It was nice at the final weekend to get a win to finally get to the
• 40:28
  top, not only in our class, but to get an overall win, you know, even
• 40:31
  against some of the pro pro pairings.
• 40:33
  Congratulations.
• 40:34
  Yeah.
• 40:35
  Yeah, no, it was, it was fantastic.
• 40:37
  Unfortunately, I followed it up on Sunday with one of the biggest
• 40:39
  mistakes I've made in my career.
• 40:41
  And turn one on the race start.
• 40:43
  That's something I'll learn from of course, and move forward.
• 40:45
  But I think the season as a whole, we came away with nine podiums out of 14 races.
• 40:50
  And it seemed like every weekend we became more cohesive and just everybody
• 40:54
  just started to click on all cylinders.
• 40:56
  I mean, the car just got better and better and better and better.
• 40:59
  And a lot of that's because of our extremely talented engineer, Owen Hayes.
• 41:03
  unbelievable guy and I tell him what I need and he just always
• 41:06
  figures out a way to give it to me.
• 41:08
  So that makes a big difference.
• 41:09
  It probably took us about half a season to really develop the car and
• 41:12
  catch up to the other teams that had had the Astons for numerous seasons.
• 41:15
  It'll be awesome to start the season with a car that we feel is
• 41:18
  pretty well developed set up wise.
• 41:20
  That doesn't mean it's gonna be easy.
• 41:21
  Of course, who knows who's going to be on the starting grid next year.
• 41:24
  So certainly not expecting anything to get handed to us, but it'll be nice
• 41:27
  to start fighting with a great car.
• 41:29
  So when you take a broader brush approach as a retrospective to your career in pro
• 41:35
  racing, you look back over the decade plus, especially with world challenge.
• 41:38
  What have you seen?
• 41:40
  What has changed?
• 41:41
  What would you like to see change?
• 41:42
  I guess that's one of the questions I want to ask you.
• 41:45
  I suppose.
• 41:46
  You know, I have my own opinion.
• 41:48
  Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm too close to it.
• 41:49
  People ask me that all the time and I can never really give them a solid answer,
• 41:52
  but maybe that's because I've been a part of it through the evolution of where it
• 41:55
  was when I started and where it is now.
• 41:57
  But I'm curious if you were handed the keys to SRO tomorrow,
• 42:01
  Stefan Rittal is like, Eric.
• 42:03
  It's yours.
• 42:04
  What would you change?
• 42:05
  That's a great question, Andy.
• 42:06
  And I got to tell you, the one thing I like about SRO is that it's so accessible.
• 42:12
  There's a lot of motorsports organizations you go to that everything's
• 42:15
  at arm's reach and even further.
• 42:17
  And I'll give you a prime example.
• 42:19
  When we went to Nashville, you could go to the Trans Am paddock.
• 42:22
  You could go to the SRO paddock, but you couldn't go to any of those.
• 42:24
  IndyCar.
• 42:25
  When you go to F1, there's the whole village that keeps you there,
• 42:28
  dizzy and all that kind of stuff.
• 42:29
  NASCAR is the same way, right?
• 42:30
  They keep you in the beer line long enough that you don't have
• 42:33
  enough time to go to the paddock.
• 42:34
  SRO is very inviting.
• 42:36
  You can walk into anybody's paddock, talk to an engineer and talk to a driver.
• 42:40
  It's awesome to watch.
• 42:41
  It's awesome to be there.
• 42:42
  I think what it lacks, you know, if I had to change something, it doesn't
• 42:45
  have the same bit of circus that let's say the other organization also
• 42:50
  known as IMSA, the sister organization or the cousin organization has.
• 42:54
  IMSA has just a lot more fanfare to it.
• 42:57
  It has sort of that Olympic village feel like F1 has, but it's still inviting.
• 43:02
  You can still be there in the paddock, walking up and down
• 43:05
  24, you know, things like that.
• 43:08
  Sports car racing as a whole is one of the best places to be.
• 43:11
  The multi class racing is awesome.
• 43:13
  There's just so many things going on in the day.
• 43:15
  What would I change?
• 43:16
  I don't know.
• 43:17
  Maybe I'd like to see.
• 43:18
  more booths, more things for my kids to do while I'm there, you know, to keep
• 43:21
  them distracted or something, but also to just kind of break up the day other
• 43:25
  than just races breaking up the day.
• 43:26
  I think that would be the biggest thing.
• 43:27
  I appreciate that.
• 43:28
  And I'm curious also, like, you know, that's kind of like
• 43:31
  the interaction part of it.
• 43:32
  Would you change anything on track as far as watching the races?
• 43:36
  Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the restarts.
• 43:39
  Having sat in several of the drivers meetings this season, I
• 43:43
  was confused and watching it go on, I was even more confused.
• 43:47
  I'm like, why do we have to re grid?
• 43:49
  Why do we have to have this separation?
• 43:51
  You look at a WEC race, or you look at an IMSA race or something else.
• 43:54
  You restart wherever you were when the flag dropped and
• 43:57
  you continue on with life.
• 43:59
  That whole restaging of cars to me feels like you're stealing time from
• 44:02
  the session, but you're also taking away at least two laps from the fans
• 44:07
  as they're watching you guys kind of basically grid up while you're rolling.
• 44:10
  It's just really weird.
• 44:11
  I'd agree with that too.
• 44:12
  There's another rule and I know that The race directors during our
• 44:15
  meetings have talked about wanting to change it over the off season.
• 44:17
  I hope they do.
• 44:18
  The other problem with the restarts and SRO is that you're not allowed to
• 44:21
  overtake until you cross start finish.
• 44:23
  Yeah, that's true too.
• 44:24
  It's a little strange.
• 44:26
  And I hope they change it.
• 44:27
  I'm in the mind.
• 44:28
  So they just let the green flags out.
• 44:29
  It's go time.
• 44:30
  Like it's racing.
• 44:31
  The flags waving, you can pass, right?
• 44:33
  Yeah, exactly.
• 44:34
  We all learned that go kart racing.
• 44:36
  Yeah.
• 44:36
  Doesn't matter how far back you drop it.
• 44:38
  You can see that flag drop.
• 44:39
  It's good to go.
• 44:42
  I think the other thing I missed too, and I don't know if you remember it
• 44:45
  or watched a lot of racing back then, but I missed the standing starts.
• 44:48
  You know, I'm used to those with SCCA and NASA, where it's just like, let them
• 44:51
  rip, watch 43 Miatas, go for it right off the bat, you know, that kind of thing.
• 44:55
  It goes either way.
• 44:56
  I mean, it depends on, I guess, where you are, where a rolling start would be
• 45:00
  a lot of fun versus a standing start.
• 45:02
  I think it depends on the, on the track, like the standing start at national
• 45:05
  would be really cool versus a rolling start coming around turn 11 and walking.
• 45:09
  Lime is pretty impressive, you know?
• 45:11
  So I think it really depends on where you are.
• 45:13
  I'd agree with that.
• 45:14
  Yeah.
• 45:14
  You know, the other thing I was curious of, you know, ways to like spice it up.
• 45:17
  And I guess that kind of ties into the question I already asked you,
• 45:21
  but, you know, I remember when IndyCar, when Pikes Peak Hill Climb
• 45:23
  was a part of the championship, where there was these different kinds of
• 45:26
  challenges that you had to deal with throughout the course of the season.
• 45:29
  You know, dirt track or pavement or whatever it is, I'm wondering if there's
• 45:32
  some way sports car racing can have a little bit of flavor like that, where
• 45:36
  just a different dynamic in some events.
• 45:38
  The term world challenge has this interesting connotation to it.
• 45:42
  It's kind of preloaded and you think to yourself, well, what
• 45:45
  exactly does world challenge mean?
• 45:47
  For me, I immediately go back to the late 70s, early 80s, international
• 45:51
  races of champions, right?
• 45:53
  They were put on with the IROC IROC Z came from, you know, that you're
• 45:57
  more than familiar with, right?
• 46:00
  So I miss those days seeing Hans Stuck run with Danny Sullivan and all these
• 46:04
  people in just basically the same car.
• 46:07
  And then they would do oval track and road course, and they would just mix it up.
• 46:11
  And to me, that was the real world challenge because you were pulling
• 46:15
  guys from F1, from NASCAR, from Indy, from rally, and you brought them to
• 46:19
  the big stage and say, let's see what y'all can do with this Chevy Camaro.
• 46:22
  Let's go.
• 46:23
  I love that format too.
• 46:24
  They kind of still do that, but it's not the same.
• 46:26
  I miss those times too, man.
• 46:28
  That was really cool.
• 46:29
  No, I think it'd be cool to have some sort of like time trial competition or
• 46:32
  points, you know, for something that's just different, like maybe night races or.
• 46:37
  Yeah, that'd be fun.
• 46:38
  Something to mix it up a little bit, but.
• 46:40
  Or maybe a longer format, not the full 12 hour Enduros, but maybe like a four
• 46:45
  hour or two hour or something like that.
• 46:47
  Granted you now you have to bring in pit stops and pit strategy and
• 46:50
  all that kind of thing, but still it'd be, it'd be pretty cool.
• 46:53
  Now I will say there's one thing I think the world challenge team.
• 46:56
  Doesn't get enough credit for and having worked with them behind the scenes, the
• 47:00
  season, the press core, people like Dean case and public relations, the social
• 47:05
  media team, and the folks that are doing the televised races, the quality of
• 47:09
  the TV coverage is really, really good.
• 47:13
  The media team.
• 47:14
  At world challenge is amazing.
• 47:16
  And again, I think they just don't get enough credit and I can't say
• 47:20
  enough that people should really tune in to the races and check them out.
• 47:23
  Even after the fact, they're really, really good to watch.
• 47:26
  They're on par with, you know, the big league television stations.
• 47:29
  I agree with that too, man.
• 47:30
  It's gotten a lot better for sure.
• 47:32
  I like the fact that you could just go in and watch the races whenever you want.
• 47:35
  The accessibility of just having them up on YouTube is just awesome to be
• 47:38
  able to share them with people and you don't have to watch them live.
• 47:41
  I still watch every second of them though, so You know, on the weekend, what are you
• 47:47
  most primed up to watch as like a fan?
• 47:49
  Like for me, it's been MotoGP.
• 47:52
  I go, I go back and forth.
• 47:53
  I grew up in the Group B era and the Trans Am era because they were at the same time.
• 47:59
  And so I would flip back and forth and I followed Group B.
• 48:03
  And then you saw a lot of Group B drivers move to Trans Am like
• 48:06
  Han Stroke and Walter Rural.
• 48:07
  And then suddenly they're there running with Willie and Lynn
• 48:10
  and Hurley Haywood and all them.
• 48:11
  And so it just became one thing to the next.
• 48:13
  And I go back and forth and I often say on the show, I'm one of
• 48:16
  the few people in our organization that is interested in world rally.
• 48:19
  And I'm like, it's one of the hottest, probably most dangerous
• 48:22
  motorsport that there is out there.
• 48:24
  It's amazing.
• 48:24
  And the drivers are extremely talented.
• 48:26
  Granted, the cars are not the cars of 30, 40 years ago.
• 48:30
  They're not even close to, you know, the group A cars that replaced the
• 48:33
  killer B cars and stuff like the Subarus and the Evos and stuff like that.
• 48:36
  They're just, they're very different.
• 48:38
  I flip flop back and forth because then suddenly you want to talk about petite
• 48:41
  or Rolex or Lamar's, you know, any of that stuff, and I'm all about it.
• 48:44
  All right.
• 48:45
  Sports cars or rally car.
• 48:46
  That's where I'm at.
• 48:48
  I love world rally, man.
• 48:49
  I mean, I got a tiny, tiny, tiny taste of what it's like, you know, doing a
• 48:52
  Baja 1000 years ago and just the level of commitment, just ever changing terrain
• 48:58
  and just people standing around on the sides of the track in the line of fire.
• 49:03
  And it's just a crazy, crazy way to race.
• 49:06
  You know, there's nothing quite like World Rally watching those
• 49:08
  guys, especially in the snow.
• 49:10
  So cool.
• 49:11
  You know, you bring up Baja.
• 49:12
  I was very fortunate last year.
• 49:14
  I was invited by one of our guests, Matt Martelli, to join them at the Mint 400.
• 49:18
  And so I got to see Trophy Trucks and all this stuff.
• 49:21
  The Mint 400 is one of the oldest and longest running off road
• 49:25
  races, even older than Baja, out there in the deserts of Nevada.
• 49:28
  And I tell you what, I was really impressed.
• 49:30
  That's another motorsports venue event where, you know, you're You can get really
• 49:34
  up close to the drivers and the cars.
• 49:37
  And I had told Matt, he's like, what do you think?
• 49:39
  What do you think?
• 49:39
  And I said, I gotta be honest with you.
• 49:41
  This reminds me a lot of being at an SRO event or being at an INSA event.
• 49:45
  And he goes, yeah, there's a reason for that.
• 49:47
  And he just kind of laughed.
• 49:49
  Because he took the best of what he knew from other organizations.
• 49:52
  He's like, I want to bring this to the off road world.
• 49:54
  And they did a masterful job.
• 49:56
  And it's a great event to go to.
• 49:58
  Yeah.
• 49:58
  I've been to that once as a, as a crew guy, I was just a fuel guy for
• 50:02
  one of the teams, but the beginning of the event's cool, you know,
• 50:04
  downtown, you know, Las Vegas, yeah.
• 50:08
  And all the cars coming through.
• 50:09
  It was really quite a experience.
• 50:11
  It's cool.
• 50:11
  And spectator wise, it's tough.
• 50:13
  You see about a hundred feet of the race, but outside of
• 50:16
  that, it is such a cool deal.
• 50:17
  I love it.
• 50:18
  We're going to switch gears here.
• 50:19
  So I don't think people realize how busy drivers are.
• 50:23
  I mean, there's so much stuff going on during the weekend,
• 50:26
  especially you with the co driver.
• 50:27
  I mean, you could stand there and your guys paddock and you guys
• 50:29
  are buzzing around, you know, Practicing driver changes, looking
• 50:32
  at data, all this kind of stuff.
• 50:34
  But when you're not at the racetrack, you got other things going on.
• 50:37
  You're volunteering your time.
• 50:38
  You're still coaching things like that.
• 50:39
  And we did an episode.
• 50:42
  Prior to this one with your friends over at OpenTrack and you were working with
• 50:46
  them as their pro coach, talking to folks like, you know, many of our listeners
• 50:50
  that are in the HPDE and track day world.
• 50:53
  So I wanted to get an idea of what you do when you're working with
• 50:56
  people in the grassroots motor sports world, and maybe what are some
• 51:00
  of your top tips for those folks?
• 51:02
  It was a cool experience getting to work with those guys.
• 51:04
  That kind of came up around during COVID a lot of the tracks were closed.
• 51:08
  And so I was sitting around my house a lot and they were like, Hey, we'd like
• 51:11
  you to coach our, our members virtually.
• 51:13
  So I was like, yeah, that sounds fun.
• 51:14
  I started to work with a lot of people that were just getting into HPD or
• 51:18
  track the events, most of which had only maybe done one event or two events.
• 51:22
  Like most of them are very, very new.
• 51:23
  What was surprising to me is.
• 51:25
  These people are driving five, six, seven, 800 horsepower
• 51:29
  cars with no training, nothing.
• 51:31
  A lot of them had never been to a racing school.
• 51:33
  A lot of them had never had a coach other than like the one that's provided
• 51:37
  at a track day event that's kind of like somebody that's had a few more
• 51:40
  track days than you have and they're trying to help guide you around like
• 51:43
  the basics, you know, that was shocking.
• 51:45
  I was like, wow.
• 51:46
  Okay.
• 51:46
  It was pretty cool to get a chance to give them some of the.
• 51:49
  The really important information, the things that can really keep
• 51:51
  them safe, prevent a big accident.
• 51:54
  And a lot of that stuff is pretty simple things.
• 51:56
  But until somebody tells you, just don't know.
• 51:58
  Yeah, I think the biggest piece of advice when I'm talking to somebody
• 52:01
  that's new to the sport, it's not a profound thing to say, but how much this
• 52:05
  all comes down to just, Your vision, how good you are with your vision.
• 52:09
  I know that that's so easy to say.
• 52:10
  And a lot of times I get eye rolls when I tell people that when I'm
• 52:13
  coaching them, I'm like, well, we're going to focus on your vision.
• 52:15
  But you know, a lot of times it's the determining factor between getting through
• 52:18
  that corner safe, getting through that corner fast or versus not making it at
• 52:22
  all and making really poor decisions.
• 52:24
  You really always start there.
• 52:25
  That's the tip of the spear, if you will.
• 52:26
  And then you kind of work your way from there.
• 52:28
  So what about top tips for those of us been doing this forever
• 52:31
  and we just want to go fast?
• 52:35
  Uh, give me a scenario.
• 52:36
  There's all these little tricks and things you've learned, you know, being
• 52:39
  a pro racer that you could pass on to those of us that are, you know, still
• 52:42
  struggling through the lower ranks.
• 52:44
  Yeah.
• 52:45
  Brand new tires.
• 52:46
  It's always a cheap, well not a cheap way, but an easy way to go fast.
• 52:50
  You mean those 25 leftover Hoosier scrubs is not a good idea?
• 52:54
  No, that's not necessarily going to improve your time every time, but.
• 52:58
  Let me put it this way.
• 52:59
  What is one of the things that you find that advanced drivers have been
• 53:02
  doing this for a while, maybe still need to work on or something that
• 53:06
  they've taken for granted that was fundamental from the early days.
• 53:10
  And you go in and if you just did this and it's not vision, right?
• 53:13
  It's something else.
• 53:14
  Yeah.
• 53:14
  That they could probably work on, which would tidy up their lap.
• 53:16
  Well, there's a couple of things.
• 53:17
  There's one that's off the track and one that's on the track.
• 53:20
  Okay.
• 53:20
  I'll do the one that's off the track first.
• 53:22
  So as a mechanic, kind of know my way around a car for the most part,
• 53:25
  the prep jobs that I see at track day events on some of these cars, I'm
• 53:30
  like, my God, I'm shocked that you get around the track, you know, let
• 53:34
  alone trying to go fast in this thing.
• 53:36
  I think a lot of drivers just don't spend nearly enough time
• 53:39
  like in the garage, you know?
• 53:41
  And obviously it's like, you know, when you're doing this.
• 53:42
  For fun as a hobby, you got kids, you got work, you got, it's hard
• 53:46
  to carve out a big chunk of time to go through your car properly.
• 53:49
  But I'd say a lot of drivers that I've worked with, I've gotten in their cars,
• 53:52
  I've driven them and I'd said, man, okay, we're going to have to adjust that shock.
• 53:56
  Okay.
• 53:56
  We're gonna have to adjust that sway bar.
• 53:58
  Like that's way off.
• 53:59
  Where's the brake bias knob?
• 54:00
  Like that's way off.
• 54:01
  There's all these little things that are just.
• 54:03
  Not set right.
• 54:04
  And they just got used to driving the car that way.
• 54:07
  I'll go through and try to mix it up and change things.
• 54:09
  And they get in the car.
• 54:10
  They're like, Oh my God.
• 54:11
  Like, I had no idea that this car was, could be this good.
• 54:14
  I'd say that's one trick, have somebody that's got a lot of experience, like
• 54:18
  a really good, it doesn't have to be a pro driver, but just, you know,
• 54:21
  there's a lot of, Guys around the paddock, they're savvy on setup.
• 54:24
  Have one of those guys drive your car, man.
• 54:25
  You know, hand the keys to one of those guys.
• 54:27
  Let them go out, play in the car for a bit.
• 54:29
  You'll learn a lot.
• 54:30
  And obviously we do too.
• 54:31
  Like when we're racing at our level, when we have teammates, you know,
• 54:34
  we're always learning from each other.
• 54:35
  And so if you're just going out there trying to do it all on your own, sometimes
• 54:38
  you're going to miss some things.
• 54:39
  You want to have some way to bounce your ideas off of and see what they think.
• 54:42
  The thing on the track that I run into, even with really experienced drivers,
• 54:45
  Experience guys, guys that have been going to HPD racing club for years is braking.
• 54:50
  Most of the drivers I work with struggle with braking proper,
• 54:53
  like a braking technique.
• 54:55
  I spend a big bulk of my time when I'm working with somebody for the
• 54:57
  first time, really just trying to break habits around how to brake,
• 55:01
  you know, how to break properly.
• 55:02
  In addition to all the things you're doing and you're extremely busy schedule, we did
• 55:06
  some digging and we also came to find out that you're behind the group track record.
• 55:11
  And for those that are unfamiliar with that, what's it all about?
• 55:14
  Yeah.
• 55:14
  Track record was started by a friend of mine, Kai Goddard.
• 55:17
  And I, we came up with the idea based on input from people that were going to HPD
• 55:22
  track day events that were looking for a high level of coaching, but just didn't
• 55:27
  really understand where to find that.
• 55:30
  Kind of driver, driver, coach, you know, whatever you want to call us,
• 55:33
  somebody that has maybe experience in GT four cars, high level GT three
• 55:37
  cars, you know, race cars, if you will.
• 55:38
  We thought it would be cool to come up with a place where people could go and
• 55:41
  they could source, you know, a coach, they could vet them, they'd see their
• 55:45
  profile, their experience, everything they need to know about somebody, and they
• 55:48
  could hire them off the website rather than through a friend of a friend of a
• 55:51
  friend of a friend to get to somebody when it comes to driver coaching, it can be
• 55:54
  expensive to hire somebody like myself.
• 55:56
  We wanted to have coaches all over the country just so that we could minimize
• 56:00
  the travel expense to have somebody come out to an event and work with you.
• 56:03
  So yeah, it was, it was a part of starting it with Kai.
• 56:05
  I'm not as involved with it as I was at the beginning.
• 56:08
  Kai's running that company now, but it was exciting to start it with
• 56:12
  them and I help out whenever I can.
• 56:13
  It's not an HPD organization.
• 56:15
  It's more pro coach for hire.
• 56:17
  Is that what I understand?
• 56:18
  Yeah, it's just basically a place to find, you know, pro level coach.
• 56:23
  And I think the industry needed it for quite a while.
• 56:26
  They needed somewhere to go to find it.
• 56:28
  So yeah, it's been doing really well.
• 56:30
  If somebody asks you to convince them to come into racing, starting
• 56:34
  at the HPD level, what would you say?
• 56:36
  You know, what's your 32nd elevator pitch?
• 56:38
  How would you motivate them to get up off the couch, get their
• 56:41
  car and cover the track and drive it the way it was intended to be?
• 56:45
  One of the things for me that's important when I talk to, especially younger
• 56:48
  kids, people that have an interest in getting into the sport, I think there's
• 56:51
  this misconception that you have to be rich, have to come from money.
• 56:54
  You have to have all this stuff.
• 56:55
  And I didn't come from any of that.
• 56:57
  And I know a lot of drivers that didn't come from any of that.
• 56:59
  I like representing for that group.
• 57:00
  If you want to get into this, there is a way to do it.
• 57:03
  And it may be a little harder pathway, but if you want to get into the sport, like
• 57:08
  the sport wants you, we need drivers from a diverse bunch of different backgrounds.
• 57:12
  And so I think when kids come up to me, they're like, Yeah.
• 57:15
  You know, I raised cards now, you know, I just think my family can afford it.
• 57:18
  We can afford to go to the next level.
• 57:20
  It's always a bummer for me to hear.
• 57:21
  I always like to tell, you know, you'll find a way if you're persistent enough.
• 57:24
  If you dig around this paddock enough, you stay involved, like
• 57:27
  there's opportunities out there.
• 57:29
  And so just even beyond like the HPD driver, somebody that's looking maybe
• 57:32
  to go to the next level and race.
• 57:34
  That's something I always like to say.
• 57:35
  If you're in the HPD level, you're at maybe that tipping point where
• 57:38
  you're like, should I go compete or should I just continue to do this?
• 57:42
  I would say go race.
• 57:43
  I mean, life is short, man.
• 57:44
  The thrill you're going to get from racing exceeds HPD driving like tenfold.
• 57:49
  And you know, like you line up and you compete, it's a whole nother ballgame.
• 57:53
  It's addicting, but it's also like, it just, you feel truly alive, you
• 57:58
  know, when you're out there like that.
• 57:59
  I'd say you got to do it.
• 57:59
  You just got to do it.
• 58:01
  Any level, just do it.
• 58:02
  It's fun.
• 58:03
  Just send it.
• 58:03
  Yeah.
• 58:04
  So the big question, what's next for Andy Lee?
• 58:08
  I thought about a few different angles on it.
• 58:09
  There's always like the what's next after, you know, cause you can't race forever.
• 58:13
  Like there's always going to come a time when you have to hang the helmet up.
• 58:16
  I don't know how long that's going to be.
• 58:18
  But, you know, I, I think my passion, even since I was a little
• 58:22
  kid has always been motorcycles.
• 58:24
  I have three of them in the garage downstairs, much to my wife's dismay.
• 58:28
  I'd love to do something in the motorcycle realm.
• 58:30
  Would be like my next move.
• 58:32
  I don't know quite what that's going to be, but I've always loved it.
• 58:35
  I still watch MotoGP.
• 58:36
  It's just my favorite thing to pay attention to.
• 58:38
  On the track, I'd say I would love to go to, to do the big events,
• 58:42
  like 24 hours, Daytona, 12 hours of Sebring, like the Petit Le Mans.
• 58:46
  You know, get the chance to maybe one of these days go do 24 hours at Lamont.
• 58:50
  I mean, those items are on every driver's bucket list, certainly on mine.
• 58:55
  And from a more sentimental side, Pikes Peak Hill Climb is also on that list.
• 58:59
  So getting a chance to do that event would be great.
• 59:01
  And I know I bring them up a lot, but if you get a chance to go back
• 59:05
  and listen to Eddie Pilgrim's story, you know, he got his pro seat at 40.
• 59:08
  So you're still in time.
• 59:10
  Still got a chance, man.
• 59:11
  Yeah.
• 59:11
  And it's funny because.
• 59:13
  Andy Pilgrim and I, so when I was racing the Camaros and we were doing really
• 59:16
  well, like we were, we were winning a lot of races in those cars and, and
• 59:19
  we got the attention of Chevrolet and GM and they invited me to test the
• 59:23
  Cadillacs alongside a few other drivers.
• 59:25
  We were all there to replace Andy and Andy was at those tests.
• 59:29
  Even though we were all there to take his seat.
• 59:31
  He was probably one of the most generous pro drivers I've ever been around.
• 59:35
  He was there.
• 59:35
  He answered any question I had.
• 59:37
  He was there helping me every step of the way.
• 59:39
  Just like the best, one of the best people I've ever met in the paddock.
• 59:43
  So great guy and a motorcycle guy too.
• 59:45
  I think motorcycle guys.
• 59:46
  Just tend to be good guys.
• 59:47
  You know, I don't know.
• 59:48
  I'm in the water.
• 59:50
  He's a big motorcycle enthusiast too.
• 59:52
  So when him and I get around each other, that's usually what we talk about.
• 59:55
  That's a great guy.
• 59:55
  Yeah.
• 59:56
  It's such an interesting fraternity and sorority there in any of the
• 1:00:01
  paddocks you go to, whether it's at the grassroots level, you know, at
• 1:00:03
  world challenge or IMSA and beyond.
• 1:00:05
  I mean, the world of motorsport is just so different than a
• 1:00:08
  lot of other sports, right?
• 1:00:09
  You're competitors when you're behind the wheel, but when the helmets come
• 1:00:11
  off, it's like a big family atmosphere.
• 1:00:13
  So it's always.
• 1:00:14
  A lot of fun.
• 1:00:15
  So it's one of the things I cherish the most about being
• 1:00:17
  in the motor sports world.
• 1:00:18
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:19
  So that said, Andy, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
• 1:00:24
  to share that we didn't cover thus far?
• 1:00:26
  It's difficult for me to list off everybody that's
• 1:00:28
  helped me through the years.
• 1:00:29
  I mean, it's a long, long list and I just don't want to leave anybody out.
• 1:00:32
  There's probably a hundred people that have helped me get to where I am now.
• 1:00:35
  I'm just unbelievable, thankful and grateful for all those people.
• 1:00:38
  Every time I see these people, I try to tell them how much that
• 1:00:41
  they mean to me, but I just don't want to risk missing anybody.
• 1:00:44
  So I'll leave it at that.
• 1:00:45
  You're getting into the sport.
• 1:00:46
  That's the way it goes.
• 1:00:48
  If you want to.
• 1:00:48
  Get into racing.
• 1:00:49
  You do need like an army of people that are kind of helping to push you up.
• 1:00:53
  I've been very fortunate to have that.
• 1:00:54
  So I'm very gracious for all these opportunities and the latest one this
• 1:00:58
  year, just getting the chance to run for flying lizard, which for me was a dream
• 1:01:02
  come true when I was working at Bondurant as a mechanic, Darren Law was racing for
• 1:01:06
  flying lizard and doing 24 hour Le Mans.
• 1:01:09
  You know, I just thought.
• 1:01:10
  Wow.
• 1:01:10
  That dude is such a bad ass, you know, I'd love to, to race for that team someday.
• 1:01:15
  And, and I can't believe I've actually gotten the opportunity.
• 1:01:17
  Yeah.
• 1:01:18
  It's been fun and I'm looking forward to more of it.
• 1:01:19
  Thank you.
• 1:01:20
  Well, we're going to close out this episode with a quote from Bob Bondurant.
• 1:01:24
  And he said.
• 1:01:25
  Andy came up through the demanding ranks at Bondurant to become a
• 1:01:29
  top instructor for the school.
• 1:01:31
  He was one of those rare talents that I felt had exactly what I
• 1:01:34
  look for when I pick a champion, a real passion for racing.
• 1:01:38
  I can teach anyone to be a better, faster, smoother racer,
• 1:01:42
  but I cannot give them the heart.
• 1:01:44
  And with that, Andy will be one of those racers that will still be
• 1:01:47
  on the podium 25 years from now.
• 1:01:50
  So to learn more about Andy Lee and to keep up with his progress on and off
• 1:01:54
  the racetrack, be sure to log on to www.
• 1:01:57
  andyleeracing.
• 1:01:58
  com or follow him on social at Andy Lee Racing.
• 1:02:02
  And if you have some extra time, be sure to check out his YouTube channel as well.
• 1:02:06
  So Andy, I cannot thank you enough for coming on break fix and sharing your
• 1:02:11
  journey with all of our listeners.
• 1:02:13
  And I got to say, you know, coming up from that kid on the sidelines there in
• 1:02:18
  Colorado Springs at Pike's Peak, picking yourself up from your bootstraps, working
• 1:02:21
  through as a mechanic, and now being in the pro racing for 10 years plus, I mean,
• 1:02:26
  I can't wait to see where this goes.
• 1:02:27
  And if you land yourself a spot in MotoGP, that would be amazing as well.
• 1:02:31
  So all of us here are definitely rooting for you.
• 1:02:34
  For you, that would be incredible.
• 1:02:38
  Well, all of us here are definitely rooting for you.
• 1:02:40
  And again, I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your story.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah.
• 1:02:44
  Thanks man.
• 1:02:44
  I appreciate it, Eric.
• 1:02:45
  Thank you.
• 1:02:45
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:02:51
  The following episode is brought to you by SRO Motorsports America
• 1:02:54
  and their partners at AWS.
• 1:02:57
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• 1:03:01
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• 1:03:07
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• 1:03:26
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• 1:03:32
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• 1:03:32
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• 1:03:36
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• 1:03:40
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• 1:03:45
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• 1:03:47
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• 1:03:48
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:03:50
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:03:52
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