Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Max Track Time: Redefining the Track Day Experience

Transcript

Max Track Time: Redefining the Track Day Experience · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
BrakeFix 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.
0:11
Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that
0:15
wonder, how did they get that job?
0:18
Or become that person.
0:19
The road to success is paved by all of us.
0:22
Because everyone has a story.
0:27
Their mission is in their name.
0:29
To provide the maximum amount of high quality track time for their participants.
0:34
Events are open exclusively to experienced racing and track day drivers.
0:38
This allows them to remove run groups to allow their entrants to manage their own
0:42
schedules to best service their needs.
0:45
Tonight, we're joined by Charlie Stryker, Operations Manager for
0:49
MaxTrackTime, to explore the idea of how you can maximize your entire track day
0:53
experience with them without compromises.
0:57
So welcome to Break Fix, Charlie.
0:59
Hey Eric, thanks for having me.
1:00
I appreciate you guys bringing me on.
1:01
So like all good break fix stories, everybody has a superhero origin.
1:06
So let's talk about Charlie the petrol head before we get into
1:09
what is max track time all about.
1:11
Did you get into cars as a kid?
1:13
Did you come from a racing family?
1:14
Did you come into it later in life?
1:16
I got in maybe a little later than most kids did, but You know, earlier
1:20
than a lot of folks who discovered it later in life in fifth grade, I
1:23
saw a movie called American Graffiti.
1:25
My dad was a big fan of old movies.
1:27
So, you know, he always had us watch those.
1:29
And there was a drag race in that between, it was Bob Falfa's 55
1:32
Chevy and Milner's 32 Deuce Coupe.
1:35
I just thought that those things were the coolest thing in the world.
1:37
And all I wanted in fifth grade was to have a yellow Deuce Coupe, just
1:42
like Milner's, you know, a little unrealistic, both for the age.
1:46
And, you know, I don't think you're going to see a teenager driving
1:48
around in a classic car like that.
1:49
You know, when I was old enough to drive, I did end up buying myself a Mustang.
1:54
I wanted to be just like those cars in that movie.
1:56
So I chopped all the exhaust off, made it loud as hell.
1:59
It was, my mom hated it.
2:01
Everyone else around town thought it was the most annoying thing in the
2:04
world, but man, I thought I was cool.
2:06
You know, after college finally had a little bit of cash.
2:09
And so I wanted to start doing track days and whatnot.
2:11
And so I did it in that Mustang.
2:13
That car was probably the worst car to do track days in.
2:17
You know, you'd kind of drive up the corner, hop out, lift the car up,
2:20
turn it, and then go the next corner.
2:22
Taught me the fundamentals enough, you know, I was able to then kind of
2:25
leverage that into then going to the Skippy schools, doing Skip Barber
2:29
and racing and that, you know, from there, racing just kind of took off.
2:32
And that's what I've kind of been doing since then.
2:34
So if you had to buy a track car today, new, old, or in the
2:38
future, what would you buy?
2:39
You know, I had the opportunity to drive a Radical SR3 a while back.
2:43
Yeah, I just think that they're great value.
2:44
I think the NPO 1 honestly as well is pretty good value when looking
2:50
at a track car for dollar per mile and just the pace per dollar.
2:54
You know, I think the NPO 1 is an extremely underrated car.
2:57
Well, our Thunder Hill car, you know, we've got that built with a, uh, 2.
3:01
5 liter putting out 250 horsepower.
3:03
And at Audubon country club on slicks, we were doing.
3:07
F3 car pays, you know, and granted an Audubon country club, not the fastest
3:10
track for an F3 car, but the amount of aerodynamic ability that that
3:15
car has built into it is phenomenal.
3:18
You know, like, the, the tobacco and 1, the guy who builds
3:20
them, his name is Ben Cooper.
3:22
He used to be a wind tunnel guy for Williams.
3:24
F1, you know, he really took a car that was like, very built.
3:28
I think for cost efficiency.
3:30
At first when it came out and he's taken it and turned it into
3:32
a really, really proper race car.
3:34
So, uh, yeah, I think if I, if I had to get a track day car, it'd be an NPO one.
3:38
So you mentioned that you're driving the NPO one for a WRL team and
3:42
you started out with a Mustang.
3:44
So when you go to your local HPD event, what are you tooling around in these days?
3:49
So usually when I go to HPDs, I just instruct.
3:52
I do some coaching with, like, the NASA region locally here
3:55
and, uh, NASA Great Lakes.
3:56
I'll go up and coach every once in a while.
3:58
I'll go home, see my buddies.
3:59
I have a 1994 Miata with, uh, like 220, 000 miles on it.
4:04
And to be honest, I'm kind of afraid of that thing.
4:07
It's kind of a rusty piece of junk.
4:09
You know, last time I took it out to VR and I'm going through turn 10 and,
4:12
you know, that car is so down on power.
4:15
Now you can take turn 10, just about flat.
4:16
And I'm thinking, what if something broke right now, that
4:21
would be absolutely catastrophic.
4:24
So most of the time I just go there and coach, cause I love coaching.
4:27
I worked at extreme experience for five years, you know, working right seat
4:30
with hundreds and hundreds of people.
4:32
And I just, I just loved sharing that experience with folks.
4:35
Is there anything on the street these days that gets your attention?
4:41
When I was a kid, I was such a muscle car fan.
4:43
I loved muscle cars.
4:44
You know, nowadays I drive a 2015 Camry.
4:46
I'm very boring.
4:47
If I had to have kind of a cool cruiser car, I love the 82 Ferrari through
4:52
a GTS, you know, the Magnum PI car.
4:54
You know, there's just something about target top old red Ferrari that just.
4:58
You know, it's just cool
5:03
speaking my language.
5:04
All right, so how did that evolve into max track time?
5:07
Yeah, so max track time started as a private testing operation for our
5:11
team where we would just rent tracks and do about six weekends or six,
5:15
you know, two day tests every year.
5:17
Me and a couple of folks that I did Skippy with wound up racing the Sebeco NPO1.
5:22
That's a car that both needed development on the performance side
5:26
for the car, but then also we wanted development for us as drivers.
5:30
Two cars and eight drivers between them.
5:32
A track day just won't cut it for getting that kind of practice
5:35
and getting that development.
5:36
Or, you know, God forbid you need to try out a change on a car,
5:40
be it aero change, setup swaps, new components, what have you.
5:44
And so we did a lot of private testing, you know, we really focused on getting
5:48
convenient dates for our drivers, whether that be weekends or Thursday, Fridays or
5:52
Monday, Tuesdays, because a lot of our guys work, you know, there's only a couple
5:55
of our people who are professional in the racing industry and had that kind of
5:59
freedom to come and test during the week.
6:01
And so we tried to make it as convenient for everybody as possible.
6:04
From there, we had a tested barber a couple years ago.
6:08
We just extended the invite to a bunch of other teams that were racing with
6:11
us to see if anybody else wanted to.
6:13
And, uh, sure enough, every single team we invited showed up.
6:16
And so it kind of started to just snowball there where we thought, okay, people see
6:21
the value in coming out and testing and, and having this open track environment.
6:27
Yeah.
6:27
So we thought, okay, why don't we just standardize this and market it out to
6:30
anybody who might be like us, who is interested in doing this kind of testing.
6:34
We decided that, you know, okay, we've got something that people want to do.
6:38
Let's make it into a business.
6:39
And so from there we made Max track time.
6:41
It's not so much a track day company in the chin or like that sense.
6:45
It's more of an alternative to private testing.
6:47
We open up these two day events.
6:49
They're open track, open passing from green to checker for up to
6:52
25 cars to come out and just run.
6:55
If for those folks like us who really can't make the track day format work,
7:00
it's a great alternative to having to go and rent a track and get your own
7:03
insurance and do all of the kind of the legwork to get that all sorted.
7:07
So when did you guys establish max track time?
7:10
How long have you been doing this?
7:12
At this point, Max Tractime has only done two events.
7:14
We had one at Thunder Hill, and then we had one at Audubon Country Club,
7:17
and we've added in catering and beverage service and such, because
7:21
not every team has that arm where they have someone providing hospitality.
7:26
You know, at the events that we hosted before, some folks would
7:28
end up disappearing during lunch to go run out to, you know, whatever
7:32
subway or whatever they could find.
7:33
So we thought, okay.
7:34
We can plus up this experience a little bit and, uh, our big rollout's
7:39
going to be next year here where we have 14 events, we've got six, two day
7:43
events, and then we've got a bunch of Thursday test days before WRL events
7:47
at the various tracks that they go to.
7:49
So you guys are the newest.
7:51
Let's call it track day organization on the scene.
7:53
So that's exciting because they don't just pop up overnight anymore.
7:56
I mean, I hate to say the market is pretty saturated.
7:59
There's different organizations that have been around doing this for decades
8:02
now and others that come and gone.
8:04
So it's cool to see something different.
8:06
And obviously max track time is doing just that.
8:08
So when you run an event, it's pretty cool.
8:11
Kind of compare and contrast your experience with, let's say other HPD
8:15
organizations and how you're running it.
8:17
Are there flaggers?
8:18
How does coming on and off the track work?
8:21
There are no run groups, so it's just an open day.
8:24
But, you know, we're all sort of used to the flag talk and
8:27
all these kinds of things.
8:27
So what's the day like when it kicks off at a max track time event?
8:31
What's that drivers meeting like?
8:32
You know, generally it's going to be the rundown of the facility,
8:36
where things are going to be, where our catered lunches are going to be
8:38
coordinated, how to get in and out of pit lane, what the flags are, obviously,
8:42
and where the flag positions are.
8:44
You know, I like to include a lot of maps and graphics and stuff in my
8:46
PowerPoints that I give so that people know where to look and what to look for.
8:50
Trying to get people as acclimated to the facility and the on track
8:54
attitude before they get out there.
8:56
I typically try to make the driver's meeting restricted to things
8:59
that people need to know and that they'll actually want to know.
9:02
And not so much all the ancillary stuff that might be focused on a, a beginner.
9:06
Because the track is open and there's no run groups and things like that,
9:10
you still got to give the workers, the volunteers, the flaggers a break.
9:13
So do you guys cut up the day in any way, or is it, we're going to
9:17
run the morning session for four hours, there'll be an hour break.
9:21
And then, you know, we'll do an afternoon or how does it all lay out?
9:23
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there.
9:24
Yeah, we do the four hours with one hour lunch break and then another
9:28
four hours there, you know, a lot of teams when they test, they're
9:31
not going to go all day long.
9:33
And so, you know, they'll give on track, they'll come off track and
9:36
they'll come on track again, you know, just as they're working on stuff.
9:38
So we actually open up our lunch 30 minutes before that
9:41
breaking and 30 minutes after.
9:42
So that way teams can kind of trickle in and feed themselves
9:45
without having a whole bum rush on the lunch service there as well.
9:48
It's not uncommon for us also, being that this is effectively like a
9:52
private test for us to have those rental car laps available to those
9:56
people who want to utilize those.
9:57
These events are open to folks who should have a pretty good
10:02
understanding of what they're doing.
10:03
So, you know, in many ways, it's a lot more lax than say, like, uh,
10:07
a track day where you've got folks bringing their street cars out
10:10
to come and run and do whatever.
10:12
Absolutely.
10:12
And so with that, the on track etiquette, like you said, is like a race weekend.
10:17
So therefore it's open passing.
10:19
That's the expectation.
10:20
Absolutely.
10:21
With the caveat that, you know, there's 25 cars out on track and
10:24
everyone's got a different goal.
10:26
Someone might be in there.
10:27
Learning a track for the first time might be a newer driver who,
10:30
you know, is licensed, but maybe not familiar with the track or
10:33
getting more familiar with the car.
10:34
And then you've got someone else out there laying down quali labs, you know, but
10:37
that's where that 25 car limit comes in.
10:39
At the expense that people are paying to be at these, we generally
10:42
trust that the prep shops are going to prep their cars appropriately.
10:45
And so we don't have our whole internal tech team, you know, we'll
10:49
do the visual inspection, right?
10:51
You know, if someone's running around on track who maybe shouldn't be,
10:53
then that would be an appropriate time for us to go and talk to them.
10:56
But you know, we're not going to go through your car and make sure that it's
10:58
prepped and ready to go full flaggers.
11:00
It's going to be like a race weekend effectively as far as safety on track
11:04
going to be a flagger in every corner.
11:05
There's going to be a guy working pit lane releasing cars in and out overall.
11:10
A lot of folks use these test days as opportunities to prep for race weekends.
11:15
And so we want to keep the pit lane open, so we're not going
11:18
to hold people in pit lane.
11:19
You can enter and exit pits as you wish.
11:20
You can fuel in pit lane.
11:22
You can set up your crew in pit lane, driver changes, whatever you got to do.
11:25
As far as the rules and the structure, it's a race weekend because God knows
11:28
when testing, especially if you're a team that's going to run an IMSA or SRO or
11:32
something like that, you know, part of the value of testing is preparing your crew.
11:36
You can't much do a practice driver change if you're doing it in the paddock.
11:39
So are there any groups out there that are doing, let's say, exercises or
11:44
other types of strategic maneuvers?
11:46
They can coordinate that between themselves.
11:47
They want to do that, that's all fine by me, as long as they're not going to
11:51
impinge on anybody else's ability to test.
11:53
Because even though it's like a race weekend, we're not racing.
11:56
You know, you don't want to be bombing people in the corners, testing's about.
12:00
We expect our participants...
12:02
To be courteous and work together and be mindful of each other on
12:06
track and not try to force the issue.
12:08
So that's kind of my big goal there is I'm walking the paddock, I'm talking to folks.
12:12
How's it going out there?
12:13
Is there anything that you need me to know?
12:14
Because I'm not out on track with them, right?
12:16
If there's an issue, people generally tell me, and then I can go and chat
12:20
with the folks who need to be chatted with and we can get that cleared up.
12:22
But so far, it really hasn't been an issue.
12:25
We stress that in the driver's meeting, that we need to be courteous and that
12:28
we need to work together, and people are generally very aware of that.
12:32
Though we wouldn't limit anyone from kind of practicing between their own two cars,
12:36
we're not going to see that in mass.
12:39
It's very uncommon.
12:40
Do you guys do any simulated starts?
12:42
Sometimes that's important for different groups to do either rolling or standing
12:46
or any of those kinds of things.
12:47
Do you set up for that?
12:48
We have not seen that.
12:49
I'm not aware of any organization that does that.
12:52
Set up, you know, I think that that might be something that's appropriate for like a
12:55
private test if anybody wants to do that.
12:57
Mostly what we're built for is, is folks who want to do driver
13:01
development and want to, you know, work on set up at cars and such.
13:03
Yeah, I could just envision teams.
13:05
You mentioned SRO with maybe 2 cars or 4 cars, and they're all running,
13:09
you know, nose to tail or doing some sort of exercises that they
13:13
might want to work on, you know, traffic management, things like that.
13:16
So I could see that playing out with such an open amount of space on track.
13:21
Yeah, absolutely.
13:21
And you know, they're welcome to do it.
13:22
Generally speaking, I think that what test days are used for our driver
13:26
development, have your gentlemen drivers come out and try to find some
13:29
pace, work on a little bit of setup.
13:31
Some teams will be working on running in certain components and whatnot as well.
13:36
You know, again, at 25 cars, I think it's generally pretty clean.
13:39
You mentioned earlier street car versus race car is every car that's
13:43
coming to a max track time event.
13:44
Caged, logbooked, you know, maybe club racing level on up type of
13:48
vehicle, or are there people bringing, let's say, a hypercar or supercar?
13:53
What does the field look like?
13:54
So our insurance will actually not allow anything without a roll cage,
13:57
racing seat, and racing harness.
13:59
That's the bare minimum that our insurance allows out on track.
14:03
We'd be open to time attack cars, I'd say, at a minimum.
14:06
Assuming that, you know, everyone's vetted and the driver's comfortable
14:08
with open track, open passing.
14:10
But typically speaking, the group that we attract is going to be race
14:13
car drivers looking to do testing.
14:16
And they'll be coming from, say, the PCA, Porsche Sprint Challenge, SRO, IMSA.
14:20
We have a partnership with WRL, so we are targeting that group very heavily and
14:24
making sure that they are aware of our service and what we can provide for them.
14:28
So you mentioned caged cars and you mentioned trialers,
14:31
time attack, et cetera.
14:33
So in a lot of trial organizations, the minimum that they follow for safety a
14:37
lot of times are hill climb rules, which means half back cages, not full cages.
14:42
So do you differentiate there?
14:44
Or as long as you have some sort of cage harness Hans, what's the
14:47
minimum in terms of being caged?
14:49
So our insurance will allow you to have a halfback cage.
14:52
However, right now I'm restricting it to full cage.
14:55
Just as we work out the format.
14:56
If it ends up that we feel comfortable doing halfback cages in the future, then
15:00
we will, but for now it's full cage.
15:02
So Charlie, we're talking about all the different cars, and I'm curious, you
15:05
know, we talked about the limits of, you know, maybe bringing in a streetcar,
15:08
a supercar, something like that.
15:09
It's gotta have a cage, all these kinds of things.
15:12
But what about vintage cars and also.
15:15
Open wheel.
15:16
Do you guys mix it up?
15:18
I almost wish we could with the open wheel.
15:20
Cause I get so many emails from folks asking if we open up to open wheels and
15:24
maybe, maybe that's something on the horizon, you know, maybe that's a, maybe
15:27
we'll do some open wheel exclusive events.
15:29
You know, I used to do some driving in pro Mazdas and such, and in those
15:32
cars, the last thing I'd want to be pulling up next to is a GT car.
15:36
Like that would be terror.
15:38
Like, you know, what happens to you?
15:40
Lock wheels and brake and that car is going upside down.
15:43
That's the last thing that I'd want at one of these events, is to have
15:45
an open wheel and a closed wheel car on the track at the same time.
15:47
Have you thought about maybe carving out a session for open wheel guys and kind
15:50
of splitting up the day a little bit?
15:52
I try to not divert from the format.
15:54
Folks like the format that will keep it that way.
15:56
I am very tempted in the future to try to carve out one or two open
16:00
wheel events and just see how they do because the demand is definitely there.
16:04
I think there's a group down in Florida that actually does open testing
16:07
events exclusively for open wheel guys, and it's been pretty popular.
16:10
We have some open wheel guys here too, and they say all the time, they're like,
16:13
there's never anywhere to go to practice.
16:15
I got to practice.
16:17
When I'm there for, you know, the regionals or the runoffs or whatever it
16:20
is, and it's to their disadvantage all the time that there's nowhere to go.
16:23
Yeah, totally.
16:24
You pretty much have to have a private membership at a place.
16:27
If you want to drive those things, you know, like, uh, you know, Audubon
16:29
Country Club, they have that open wheel group and it's pretty much dominated by.
16:33
Local, you know, USF teams coming down to tennis just because
16:36
you don't have the opportunity.
16:38
So what about the vintage guys?
16:39
Are they able to run with the modern cars too?
16:41
Is there any restrictions there?
16:42
Yeah, I'd love to have vintage guys come out.
16:44
I'm a huge fan of vintage cars.
16:46
I love going down even just watching SVRA and HSR cars run around.
16:50
I think as long as they're appropriate.
16:52
You know, I'd love to have them out.
16:53
You know, I'm not going to have a, uh, like an old Model T
16:55
ripping around on track, but...
16:57
No, I'm thinking like e prepared Triumphs and MGs and stuff like that, you know?
17:01
Totally.
17:01
We'll take them.
17:02
Especially if they, you know, we got a test at VIR in May.
17:06
Anybody wants to have some very early testing for the runoffs,
17:09
they're welcome to come on out and bring whatever they've got.
17:11
Now with those e prepared cars, they're not full cage, right?
17:14
You've seen them.
17:15
So will that fit in for your guy's insurance?
17:18
Yeah, you know, cause again, the insurance, it's a half cage rule.
17:21
But I think that, I guess my differentiation there would be
17:24
that that is truly a race car.
17:25
You know, you can race it wheel to wheel.
17:27
It's appropriate to do so.
17:28
Then I have no issue with that one coming out.
17:30
A lot of cases for these teams, whether it's club racers that are coming out
17:35
or SRO teams or WRL teams, et cetera, there's a whole staff of folks between,
17:39
you know, the trainers and the engineers and the crew and all this kind of stuff.
17:43
But somewhere in there, we're here to learn.
17:46
Tests, we're working with the car and all this kind of stuff.
17:48
Does max track time offer any pro coaching, or do you guys have people
17:53
on staff that can jump in and work, especially with the AM AMs, the new guys
17:58
or the rookies or any of those folks that are really trying to come up quickly?
18:01
I would love to offer that.
18:03
I've actually explored that typically with the IMSA teams and the SRO
18:06
teams, you hit the nail on the head.
18:08
They usually have folks on their end who do that.
18:11
And so I'm trying to not interfere too much with their programs.
18:16
Most of these teams have a trusted coach that they work with, and I
18:20
think that sometimes it can be a little inappropriate to toss a coach
18:22
in there who they don't know and, you know, kind of shove their way in.
18:26
So we try not to impose that on folks in our group.
18:29
We do have some very qualified folks who do race and IMSA and SRO
18:33
and whatnot, who could if needed, but we're not going to have that
18:36
at the forefront of our offering.
18:38
What our offering mostly focuses on is making sure that we can take care
18:41
of the folks, catering, beverage service, coffee, what have you, the
18:45
stuff that most teams might not bring with them, our events in the past, you
18:49
know, the teams kind of vary in scale.
18:51
And the 1 thing that they all benefit from is having nice warm lunch.
18:54
I'm sure there are a lot of people that are interested in finding out more
18:58
about how do I get involved in this?
19:00
I got a car that qualifies.
19:01
I need some track time.
19:03
I don't want to go to a DE and I don't want to learn on the fly either.
19:07
So it comes down to cost and how do you register and things like that.
19:11
So let's talk about some of those details.
19:13
So what we do is we have two tiers of events.
19:16
I think that this is one of our differentiators with max track
19:19
time versus some of the other open track organizations out there.
19:22
Typically the format is find a pro race weekend, find a couple of days just
19:28
outside of the testing band window, book those and then go, it'll be a
19:31
Wednesday, Thursday, what have you.
19:32
Our focus is.
19:34
A lot of folks who are going racing with these organizations, especially on,
19:38
you know, like kind of am level of the pro am the value in testing is gaining
19:43
experience, getting miles in the car, and it matters less if you're testing at the
19:48
track that you're going to be racing at.
19:49
That's incredibly valuable.
19:50
No doubt.
19:51
But I think that the most valuable test of these folks
19:54
are the ones that they can make.
19:55
So that's why we focused so hard on booking tracks like NCM, CMP, Hallet.
20:00
You know, they're not those huge Premier Pro tracks.
20:03
They're not Daytona.
20:04
They're not COTA, which we do host events at as well.
20:06
But for the two day events at these tracks, they're on weekends.
20:10
So for folks who are racing in these Pro Am series, who a lot of times
20:14
the business owners, they're having a great opportunity cost by having
20:17
to take four days off to fly to the track, do two days on a Wednesday,
20:20
Thursday, and then fly home on Friday.
20:22
We've eliminated that conflict.
20:25
Our NCM event, for example, or our NOLA event at the beginning of the year,
20:28
next year, are both on Saturday, Sunday, allowing for those people who are not
20:32
full time drivers to come out and practice in the case of like NCM, HAL, and C& P.
20:37
Sure, it might not be the track that they're going to be racing at, but you're
20:40
getting miles in the car, you're getting exposure to corners in a low pressure
20:43
environment where you're unlikely to come across, you know, an LMP2 car that's
20:47
going to be sharing the track with you.
20:48
So, you know, registration, we work through motorsports reg folks can
20:52
just go to our website, click on the events tab and then find the
20:54
event they want to attend and then go through that, click on that.
20:57
And then it'll take you to the motorsport reg pays.
20:59
They can click that all out there being that this is a semi private
21:02
testing event, 25 cars limited for 16 hours of track time.
21:06
The pricing does follow that the 4, 500 ballpark for the.
21:16
More regional tracks that we attend that will be priced lower 2, 500
21:20
bucks, you know, and so that's our, our goal having this offering at the
21:24
pro tracks, close to the pro weekends.
21:26
And then the regional tracks further off of a pro weekend is
21:29
to allow folks who want to test.
21:31
To be able to have that access without being limited to one type of option.
21:36
So for the more price sensitive folks, the more club focused folks,
21:39
we have those more regional tracks at a more reasonable offering for
21:43
the more pro series focused folks.
21:45
We have the big pro tracks closer to the province.
21:49
Do you guys have a track that you call home somewhere?
21:51
That's the closest that you see yourself doing the most events at?
21:54
You know, we're a WRL team.
21:56
We run the two Stratus Racing NPO1s in WRL.
21:59
So we really like going to those tracks.
22:00
The schedule that we will follow will be the one that most
22:04
closely follows the WRL schedule.
22:05
What about for you?
22:06
What's home?
22:07
So I grew up in Chicago.
22:08
I was the Audubon country club wrote America where my two home tracks
22:11
wrote America was actually the track.
22:12
I did my first ever track day at a little intense for, uh, someone
22:16
doing their first track day.
22:17
I remember I took my Mustang out.
22:19
It was a MVP track time event.
22:20
And you know, they do a lead follow and I pull back in at the end of my session.
22:24
And my friend's like, how fast are you guys?
22:25
And I went 80 miles an hour and I was so hyped and thought that was amazing.
22:30
Looking back at it, that's.
22:33
That's not the now, right?
22:34
Yeah, that's your min speed some places.
22:38
You know, now I live down in Raleigh, North Carolina.
22:40
So I'm about an hour and a half from BIR.
22:41
I, uh, I try to get up there as much as I can.
22:43
It's a, it's a great track, great facility.
22:45
And the CMP is not too far.
22:47
It's not, you know, I, I haven't been able to go there as much as I like our
22:50
last test that we had scheduled at CMP.
22:52
I was getting my bags into my car to go.
22:55
And then I got a call from our team owner that the lift gate on the semi broke.
22:59
And so we couldn't get any of the cars down there.
23:01
And so, you know, we paid for the track, but we didn't go to it.
23:04
You know, I am excited to go back next year at the end of March.
23:07
I think that's going to be a great event.
23:08
You said there really isn't a tech session per se.
23:11
You kind of just visually looking over the car to make sure a lot of
23:14
the folks that are coming are more professional teams, things like that.
23:17
Is there a form or anything that has to be filled out ahead of time or any sort
23:20
of paperwork, medical documentation, anything that needs to be submitted to
23:24
you guys before showing up for the event?
23:26
With the cars, these teams know more about the cars than I do.
23:29
You know, they're professional teams.
23:30
They've been doing this for their careers.
23:31
I think that it's just fine for them to bring them out.
23:33
If I see something that looks a miss, you know, while I'm kind of wandering
23:36
the paddock and chatting with folks, that's when the issue will be raised,
23:39
but overall, these are professional teams coming out and testing their cars.
23:43
I trust them to prep their cars appropriately.
23:45
And then the drivers, they're all race license drivers.
23:48
So they have their appropriate medicals in order to have those licenses.
23:52
So what other services does max track time offer that people might not be aware of?
23:56
What are some of the changes that are coming for the next few seasons?
23:59
What's the future look like for max track time?
24:01
The thing that I'm really excited about is this partnership
24:04
that we've announced with WRL.
24:05
So what we will be doing next year is hosting Thursday test days ahead of
24:09
every available weekend that they have.
24:11
So I believe that that's Confirmed at eight weekends.
24:14
So we have a full open track.
24:15
The WRL ones are limited to 30 cars just because there is that
24:18
big of a demand amongst that group.
24:20
And a lot of these tracks are big enough that 30 cars is still
24:23
appropriate to get a good lap in.
24:25
We'll be offering that same format with that same catered lunches that we provide
24:29
for the WRL teams that want to attend.
24:31
So.
24:31
As WRL grows and it gets massive, these weekends have kind of turned into four
24:35
day weekends where individual teams would rent the Thursdays ahead of time.
24:39
And then they'd call up their buddies and then share the track with a few folks.
24:42
And we thought that it would be good if we took the onus off the teams of having
24:45
to rent the track, but also make sure that it's opened up to the entire WRL paddock
24:49
and everybody who wants to participate.
24:51
And so I think that that is going to be a really promising opportunity for a lot
24:54
of these teams to get more seat time.
24:56
And prepare for the weekend as they need to, especially with their rental
24:59
drivers who might be seeing the track for the first time and could
25:02
really benefit for an extra day.
25:03
We've come to that part of the episode where I always like to ask any shout outs,
25:07
promotions or anything else you'd like to mention that we haven't covered thus far.
25:11
Sure.
25:11
You know, uh, I'd love to shout out to Sebeko.
25:13
You know, they build an awesome car.
25:15
We've had a lot of fun racing it for the past couple of years.
25:17
And, you know, as the WRL GTU class grows, I think that the competition
25:21
we have is, uh, incredible.
25:23
You know, I can't wait to see what happens next year.
25:25
So I'd love to do a shout out here for WRL, their offering
25:28
is absolutely incredible.
25:30
I think that coming from Skippy, you know, after Skippy ended up closing down a few
25:34
years ago, it was tough to find a place that had those same values and brought
25:37
that same value and experience to racers.
25:40
And I think that WRL has done an amazing job at creating a
25:44
professional level atmosphere for racers who are either on the pro
25:47
end and coming in or, or coming up.
25:49
into racing for the first time.
25:51
Max Track Time understands that many drivers have obligations outside of
25:56
racing, and they have worked diligently to obtain dates on or near weekends.
26:01
That way, participants with careers outside of racing are able to
26:05
attend and maximize their experience without having to compromise.
26:08
So if you're interested in attending a Max Track Time event, you can get
26:12
more details by visiting them at www.
26:16
maxtracktime.
26:16
com or follow them on social at Max track time on Instagram and Facebook.
26:22
Well, Charlie, I can't thank you enough for coming on break fix and
26:25
telling us all about max track time.
26:27
I'm actually really excited about this.
26:28
I'm sure a lot of our listeners are too.
26:30
This is a haven for those of us that need to shake down our cars, test our cars.
26:36
Get away from massive amounts of traffic at your standard HPD or club
26:39
race type weekend and really get in tune with our vehicles and tune
26:43
up our vehicles at the same time.
26:45
So, I really appreciate you providing this service to the
26:48
motor sports community at large.
26:49
This is really amazing.
26:50
And I wish you guys the best of success in 23 and beyond.
26:54
Thank you very much, Eric.
26:54
I appreciate you guys having me on.
26:55
This has been an awesome experience.
26:57
No worries.
26:57
Thank you.
26:58
Thank you so much.
26:59
It's been a pleasure.
26:59
Take care.
27:19
You can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email
27:25
at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
27:27
org.
27:27
We'd love to hear from you.
27:29
Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
27:32
We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted to remind you that
27:36
GTM remains a no annual fees organization.
27:40
And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes
27:43
like this one at no charge.
27:45
As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
27:49
bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.
27:54
For as little as 2.
27:56
50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other
28:00
volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummy Bears, and Monster.
28:05
Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.
28:08
patreon.
28:08
com.
28:08
dot Patreon.
28:09
com forward slash GT Motorsports.
28:12
And remember without fans, supporters, and members like you,
28:17
none of this would be possible.