Danny P on Cars

• Let’s talk about The who/what/where/when/how of Dan P? What’s your petrol-head origin story… How did you get into cars? What type of vehicles got your attention as a lad in the UK?
• One of your bits on your show is “what is your criminal record car?” – in your case a Yugo?
• The UK has a huge car (& bike) culture, probably more race tracks per capita than anywhere in the world. How does the UK car culture differ from the US? 
• What did you go to school to study? Computer Science? What were you doing at Microsoft? What was the relationship there with Formula 1? How did you get onto that team? What were you doing/working on? 
• What advances in technology have you seen during your time in F1?
• How do the other businesses/disciplines of racing that you’ve experienced compare/contrast to F1? (ie: NASCAR, Indy, etc). 
• What’s next for Dan P? Any other projects you’re working on? 

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Tonight’s guest has created a podcast focused on the people he considers to be part of the same tribe. The tribe of car lovers. His love of cars started at an early age, but was really cemented during an internship for Porsche Cars of Great Britain. He worked in the PR department, helping to launch the 993 Twin Turbo, as well as organizing a film shoot for Top Gear.

Crew Chief Brad: Dan Pilling went on to a career in technology where he had the opportunity to mix his passion with a part of his day job working on the technical partnership between Microsoft and the Lotus F1 team, [00:01:00] now known as Alpine, along with working for teams like Williams and Mercedes F1. When he moved to the U.

S., he worked with Hendrix Motorsport, NASCAR, Honda and IndyCar, and MotoAmerica Superbikes. Dan is here to tell us all about his journey in the world of motorsports and how and why he started his new podcast, Danny P on cars.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And with that, let’s welcome Dan Pilling to BreakFix.

Crew Chief Brad: Welcome.

Crew Chief Eric: Gentlemen, thank you ever so much for having me. Like all good BreakFix stories, there’s always a superhero origin. So, Dan, let’s talk about the who, what, and how. Where and when of you, how did you get into cars and what type of vehicles got your attention as a lad in the UK?

Danny Pilling: My love of cars has started from a young age.

I don’t remember exactly when, but ever since I can remember, I’ve loved cars. Part of my school projects, I would write to car companies and see if I could go and visit them. And it was mainly around the technology they were using as they were developing out these new cars, et cetera. So it was always this really great passion for cars.

Early trips included [00:02:00] going to people like Land Rover and went to see how they were building the, what was the newest Land Rover. I actually went and saw the Jaguar XJ220 being made. So I’m a kid of the nineties, you know, that was fun, but it wasn’t really on the technology side because they were just assembling a car.

I was really lucky due to chance that I got to do an internship at Porsche Cars Great Britain, and that really just cemented it for me, you know, spending time there was just like,

Crew Chief Eric: wow. One of the most notable supercars of all times, especially in the 90s, the XJ220, but was that up on your wall or was there something else?

Danny Pilling: So I had a Ferrari Testarossa on my wall.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re a petrol head of a certain age.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, there we go. I guess it was either the Countach or the Testarossa, and I had the Testarossa.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re in a very small club there because most people runs headfirst into the Coontosh camp. What about you gentlemen?

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t really think I had any car posters on my wall.

I had three Hot Wheels. One was a red Ferrari Testarossa. One was a white Lamborghini Coontosh. And then the other was a red Porsche 911 or 959 or whatever it was. And I used [00:03:00] to race them around. I always thought the Lamborghini was the fastest followed by the Ferrari and then the Porsche. That’s just the way the world was.

Crew Chief Eric: And you know, that’s the shocking part about that because everybody thinks the Lamborghini can do like a thousand miles an hour and it’s actually slower than the other cars you mentioned.

Danny Pilling: Sort of out of looks, isn’t it? It looks fast. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know, I hung up my Kuntosh roller skates pretty quickly, especially in 1987 when the F40 came out.

One poster on my wall. It’s always going to be an F40. That’s for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: The F50 is better.

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t even get me started.

Danny Pilling: Glad F40 though. I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with some. I’ve not driven one. But they’re just an unbelievable car. It’s just like a go kart.

Crew Chief Brad: They look good sitting on a yacht in the middle of Monaco.

Danny Pilling: Did you see that? That was pretty interesting. The update to that though, that car actually leaked oil onto the teak deck. Oh no.

Crew Chief Brad: Rich people problems beyond first world problems.

Danny Pilling: Yeah. I would just be happy with that car. Forget the yacht, just the car. But imagine what it’s going to cost him now to replace the deck.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re going to get a little bit deeper [00:04:00] into your maybe more technical side of your automotive history

Crew Chief Brad: and get more into your educational and professional background. So when you were in school, what did you study? You started working for Microsoft. Tell us a little more about what you were doing there, your experience and the relationship with that in the car community.

Danny Pilling: When I was 17, I got this internship at Porsche cars, great Britain. And I would say that that was a defining point in my career for me. I kind of had to make a decision. Did I go down the route of going into the automotive industry, learning my craft and doing that, or did I go down to the route of computers and IT and all that sort of good stuff?

And I naturally gravitated to the computers and IT cause I was pretty good at it and I enjoyed it. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do before I went to college. So I was a very last minute call up to go to college and I took on this course. There was a combination of business and computing. One week we’d be doing programming.

The next week we would be doing more on sort of business type topics. And that was a university down on the South coast called Bournemouth university. And off the back of that, I graduated, took on a [00:05:00] couple of jobs and then managed to land this role at Microsoft initially in sales, but then quite quickly moving into marketing.

And one of the roles that I did early on was technical marketing. So I owned the technical audiences for Microsoft in the UK. And really one of the big things there was how do you communicate how other companies are using Microsoft technologies to get benefit in order to help those companies adopt the technology.

And it was funny because Microsoft had just signed an agreement with the Lotus Formula 1 team. And it was a sponsorship agreement around a relatively new product that Microsoft had brought out called Dynamics. The objective there was twofold. One was to use that team as a platform for testing technology and using latest technology, but also getting the brand out there that this Dynamics product that Microsoft had developed was available and was a competitor to other things.

So the partnership was. Both brand and technical. And it was really funny. Actually, I got introduced to the team via a tweet. I was tweeting about the partnership. I was tweeting about other things. So the deputy CIO or IT director at the time reached out [00:06:00] to me and said, Hey, do you want to come and visit?

So you don’t turn down an invite to go and get a tour of a formula one team. It was about the time that Kimi Raikkonen was racing with them and Roman Grosjean and those sorts of names that have, you know, Romans obviously now doing a lot of us racing, but I get to go along to go and get a tour of the factory and.

And I just developed the relationship since that, I would go and meet with the IT team. They would have a connection with Microsoft in the UK versus worldwide, because obviously it’s a large corporate based company in, uh, in Redmond, Washington. And over time I would work with them and help them utilize or help them understand what the technology could do for them.

And I would use them as a reference case when I was doing events. We would hold events there. We would do these large scale events and have them come and keynote and that sort of thing. It wasn’t like a formal relationship where I was the technical partner manager for Lotus F1 team, but it was one where I would go and help them and everyone would see benefit from it.

Over time got to develop relationships, meet lots of great people. And those folks then moved on to other [00:07:00] teams. It’s a very small community, the Formula One community. So generally people tend to move within the business. They don’t tend to go out to other industries like banking or finance and that sort of stuff.

So develop relationships eventually with people like Williams and Mercedes. So, uh, one tweet started it all.

Crew Chief Brad: The relationship with Mercedes and Williams, was it the same kind of thing? Were you also from the Microsoft side introducing and helping them with dynamics and stuff like that? Or what other things were you working on with Mercedes and Williams?

Danny Pilling: Yeah, the technology had moved on by then. So we didn’t have any formal partnerships with them, but because the folks that had moved to those teams had a background in Microsoft, they tended to go down the Microsoft route versus other competitors in terms of the technology they were adopting, you know, Williams specifically.

And actually I had the former CI of Williams on my podcast, a guy called Graham Hackland. Part of the CIO’s role is to introduce new technology to the team, but do it with a business case, talk about the benefits they would enable as a result. And cloud computing was a really big thing during that time.

So one of the things I would do is I would help [00:08:00] Graham with things like the business case for adopting cloud technology. So I remember one specific example where. They were really worried about security. So if you can imagine that you can see where all your information is held, because it’s in a server room in a building versus out in the cloud, where you’ve got no visibility of where that could be enabling them with things like bringing our chief security officer to talk to Graham and help him build his business case for adopting that technology.

So it was less around getting them to do things like keynote and present and share their technical stories and more around helping them be a channel into Microsoft, which is a very complex organization as they went to adopt new technologies.

Crew Chief Eric: I talked about this on another podcast that I was on, Text Transforms with Carolyn Ford, and we talked about the intersection, which is large between the racing community and the technology community.

It’s more than just decals and things as part of the livery of the cars. When you see Amazon and CrowdStrike, they’re part of that team, especially Amazon, one of the largest cloud providers in the world, probably usurped Microsoft in this particular [00:09:00] instance that we’re talking here. But. They’re not just names on the side of those vehicles.

They are part of the team and an integral part of that team.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, specifically F1, but any motorsport environment is a great place to be able to test technology because you’re going to see results really quickly. You can see a direct line between that technology adoption and the impact it’s having with other organizations.

It may take time to see those benefits or those challenges. So it’s a great environment to go. And test things, any technology company will always look at motorsport as a way to be able to accelerate their knowledge, their learning, their adoption. It’s just a great partnership thing.

Crew Chief Brad: Talking about all this technology that you’ve helped get into formula one.

What are some of the advances in technology you’ve seen over time in formula one with your time being there?

Danny Pilling: We’re talking about a sort of 12 year period. You know, I think the first one data and the being able to make decisions and use data for technical and strategic advantage. I remember us releasing a product, I think it was around 2010, where this database solution [00:10:00] had a level of intelligence where previously.

Data would come off the car and be beamed back to the paddock. But when you would get street races like Monaco, there was no guarantee that that data would come off the car and hit the paddock in the order that it came off the car, it might bounce off a wall and then come to the paddock, et cetera.

Right. I remember us introducing a set of features in this database technology where. It would automatically re sequence. So it became an advantage, whichever teams adopted that database technology. If they were using Microsoft technologies, they would see benefit. I think on the collaboration side of things, I talked a little bit about cloud, but being able to recreate the engineer’s environment back in the factory, that’s now been enabled a lot more in terms of just the way things like communication, I was talking to one of the teams the other day, and they’re using the Starlink solution from Elon, but they’re using the maritime version.

Which was interesting to me because, you know, in theory, when they get to the track, they get given a pipe from the organizers, but they’re actually using Starlink as well, but I can’t say which team that is. And then the other thing for me was if COVID had happened, [00:11:00] I don’t know, five years ago, the teams would not have been anywhere near as productive as they were when it happened three years ago.

Cars were designed remotely, which would have never happened five years ago. If you think about the amount of compute power needed to use CAD diagrams, et cetera, to develop these cars, you would have to be somewhere on premises being able to do that, these really super clever people, whereas because of the advances in technology, they were able to collaborate and design these cars.

I mean, there’s so much more, we could do like five podcast episodes on this.

Crew Chief Eric: Of the technology you’ve seen evolve in Formula 1, has any of it made it to your passenger vehicles?

Danny Pilling: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s specific to like the technology I worked in. So, you know, you talk about things like hybrid engines, is it Mercedes are going to release a car that’s got a Formula 1 engine?

You talk about things like DRS and even brake technology, carbon fiber brakes, they were utilized early on. There are a lot of technology, especially on the safety side, but I don’t think it’s as much on the sort of IT technical side of things.

Crew Chief Brad: Wouldn’t DRS [00:12:00] be great to get around traffic?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. You know what I use?

I use that skinny pedal underneath my right foot to get around traffic.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. One of Eric’s gripes about Formula One, as well as he puts it, that he says is basically spec racing and the technology’s all the same with the limitations on the advancement in technology that the teams can do.

I mean, back in the Wild West days when teams could bring out whatever they wanted and it was run what you brung, it’s very far removed from that now with all the regulations.

Danny Pilling: What is interesting is a couple of years ago, they obviously brought the cost cap in, which said that every team must adhere to this set of regulations.

But the challenge is all the teams weren’t starting from zero. They were starting from benefits of previous years, et cetera, and knowledge, the technology piece, there’s going to be a few more seasons before you start to see the effect of the cost cap. So right now you’re still seeing benefits from teams that have had more cash than other teams.

So they’ve been able to adopt [00:13:00] technology further. The cars are designed. Either one or two years in advance, depending on how much money you’ve got, etc. So it’s still a case of innovation is coming through and whoever’s got the smartest designer and that’s definitely an advantage. You look at Adrian Newey versus some of the other designers and definitely his impact, but not just him, the team around him are having an impact on the cars.

In one of my podcasts with Graham, he talked about some of the innovations maybe 10 years ago. One example was the Benetton team, they observed buildings that had to survive earthquakes, have these springs to absorb. So when you’ve got these earthquakes happening, they’re absorbing all the energy. The F1 team saw that and put it in the nose cone.

And it wasn’t till halfway through the season, the other teams found out and tried to copy it. And generally in Formula One, they’ll do two things. You’ll try and bend the rules as much as you can without getting in trouble. And it’s not getting caught. It’s getting in trouble because you submit that to the regulators and say, this is what we’re thinking of doing.

Does it meet the rules? And they’ll come back and say, we think it [00:14:00] complies or we think it doesn’t comply. Right. That innovation still happens and the teams are either trying copy it, which I guess is what we’re seeing with the Mercedes team now on the side pods, because they haven’t been able to go their own way.

So they decided to reset and copy or try and get it banned.

Crew Chief Eric: I really enjoyed the episode you did with Graham. I think that was like episode four or five or so in the catalog. And he touched on something which you alluded to, which was. Making changes until somebody either banned or approved the change that you made.

Now, if you go a little bit further back in the history of F1, Colin Chapman was notorious for breaking the rules. And then a rule would be written because Lotus did something completely off out of spec. So formula one’s always been about that. Push the envelope, find something new. Does it stick or does it not?

There was a period there where. Formula one got a little bit silly with, well, we needed to be more competitive. So we’re going to make everybody drive on groove tires during a dry race. I go back to it’s what you imprint on, which is the time period in which F1, you still had crazy [00:15:00] things like six wheel TRLs and you had flat 12 Ferraris and four cylinder turbos and Porsches with their six cylinder, and they were all running together and everybody was trying to build a better mousetrap.

I look at F1 cars today. They’re huge. The wheelbase is equivalent to a Ford F 150. I mean, Senna’s MP4 is like a go kart compared to Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren right now. They’re night and day different. You look at them and I can’t tell them apart. To me, it’s literally like looking at a spec Miata race.

What I feel like is Formula One is losing its technological edge because somebody else is dictating what the technology is, everybody’s building to that, and what do you end up with? No offense, you end up with IndyCar.

Danny Pilling: It’s an interesting dynamic, isn’t it? Teams try different things, but they learn quite quickly if those things work or not.

You know, back to Mercedes, clearly their approach didn’t work in the same way that the other teams like Aston and Red Bull have. There’s always still some innovation that they’re always looking for that extra 10th, whether it’s the way that they’re presenting the impact of the wind [00:16:00] after it’s hit the car.

So what impact does it have on the car behind, for example? So, you know, they’re thinking about different things, but it’s just, the rules are becoming so much tighter that you don’t have the ability to create a car that has a fan on the back, for example.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re sort of stuck with whatever you designed as well.

I mean, there’s only so much wiggle room now that if you made a bad choice, like you were saying, Mercedes is sort of going back to the drawing board. Utilizing somebody else’s design because that design is approved. Now for them to come up with something completely unique, they got to go through all these boards and change approval process and all this bureaucracy to get it done.

And in the old days, you listened to the episode with Mario about how they developed the ground effects. And how simple it was. And they just kept trying and trying until they found something that worked. And nobody said, no, it’s like, yeah, go have at it. If you can figure out how ground effects work by all

Danny Pilling: means.

It’s just got that competitive. It’s just a different world. Exactly. It’s a space race and it’s still the most advanced form of motorsport in the world.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. There’s an argument to be made about. Sports car and [00:17:00] endurance racing because the GTP cars, they’re very technologically advanced as well.

If you look at the Toyota hybrids, the new Porsche nine, six, three, the Ferrari four nine, nine X the Peugeot nine X eight, any of those prototypes, I mean, there are engineering marvels and I’d say there’s almost more technology given. The space parameters that they have, then there is on board an F1 car.

Danny Pilling: Because the thing with F1 is the testing and the simulation is so regulated, right?

Crew Chief Eric: It is, but the car only has to run for 90 minutes.

Danny Pilling: Yeah. So I guess the point I was making is do these teams doing the endurance racing, do they have unlimited wind tunnel time, for example? Because if they do, then they have the option to be more technically advanced.

Crew Chief Eric: That I’d have to look into specifically what the regulations are around that. But what I know is that when Porsche comes to the table with their design, granted they’re using a Dallara. Chassis. So is I think Cadillac or whoever Ferraris got their own, there’s certain underpinnings to the vehicles, but what they do with the body design, what they do with the cockpit layout, with the gearing, with the engines, they’re all [00:18:00] different.

They’re not required to run a hybrid if they don’t want to. So there’s a lot more freedom in that. But the Testament at the end is after 24 hours, who’s still standing.

Crew Chief Brad: Mercedes results over the last two years have not been what they had expected. And I’m curious. So what the effect of Nicky Lauda’s death, could that be attributed to with their lack of success over the last couple of years?

I mean, I could be wrong, but I thought he was very involved in the technical advancement aspect of the Mercedes car.

Danny Pilling: I do know that they’ve got James Allison there and the team around James, he was at Enstone, he was at Ferrari, super smart guy. I can’t imagine Nicky had a lot of involvement on the technology side.

I think he was more of motivational and supporting the drivers and that sort of stuff. I don’t know enough. I’m sorry.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re going to pause here. You know, we’ve been deep in technical thought. I want to ask one of our newest and probably most favorite pit stop questions, especially for a fan of Formula One and somebody like yourself who’s worked in Formula One, the [00:19:00] GOAT.

Or Goat Teefy, who is the best driver of all time, in your opinion, Formula 1?

Danny Pilling: That is such a great question, and it’s one that could be debated again on numerous vodcasts. I remember watching Senna on TV, just remembering, you know, how much of a complete driver he was. I have a favorite driver, which is slightly different to GOAT, but his stats rank up, which is Lewis Hamilton.

You know, someone who’s won the championship seven times, he’s got to be pretty good. I know there’s arguments to say that his car was better than everyone else’s, but you’ve still got to bring that car home. You’ve got to avoid all the other cars on the track, etc. So I think Senna was the greatest, completest driver, but my favorite GOAT would be Lewis Hamilton.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s definitely a difference between the greatest driver and the most dominant. Driver. Yeah. They’re mutually exclusive.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, there’s another debate that we should maybe have a whole nother show about, which is are the current formula one drivers as talented as some of the ones of years past that would move between disciplines and they could go to NASCAR or Indy car [00:20:00] rally, and they could jump back into formula one car and they would win everywhere they would go.

Or are they just. Yeah. Good in their discipline.

Danny Pilling: A lot of people argue that rally drivers are the most talented based on what they have to do in the environment they have to work in, but you know, how would a rally driver do in a formula one car, but there’s also been various drivers in history that have done it on two wheels and four wheels.

So does that make them more of a goat?

Crew Chief Eric: We’ll put a pin in that. Maybe we’ll revisit it on a future episode. Since you’ve experienced NASCAR and IndyCar and Moto America Superbikes, what about the business side of racing? Is it same same but different? Are they drastically different? Did you draw any commonalities between those cultures?

Danny Pilling: So on the business side, and I’ll probably caveat this with the work I did in NASCAR was probably about five or six years ago, so things could have changed. From my experience, the world of NASCAR and the world of IMSA are looking towards Formula One to try and replicate some of the business things.

Some great sponsorships out there, but I’m sure you talk to any of the teams in those race disciplines. They [00:21:00] would love the number of sponsors and the amount the sponsors are paying in Formula One on their cars. So I think they look for practices, big things like sustainability, for example, is now a big thing that has obviously been in Formula One for a few years.

And it’s now, you know, even more prevalent in IMSA, for example, I think my experience is, is that they all been looking towards Formula One as the glowing light, but the work that I was doing on IndyCar was, I don’t know if it’s the case now, it’s again, a few years ago, but there were only two manufacturers providing engines for IndyCar.

And I was working with one of the manufacturers and they were thinking about the engine they provide as a service to the teams and how do they improve the durability and how do they give more indication of if an engine may fail. So we were doing some work around machine learning. They run these engines on these dynos outside of the car and how do they look for early signs of engine failure, et cetera.

But Formula 1 have been doing that for many years as well. So I think it’s a similar thinking and similar level of discipline.

Crew Chief Eric: Is there a hidden IT joke in there? Is this E A S S, engine as a service. Is that what [00:22:00] you guys

Danny Pilling: are providing? Oh, your engine’s blown up. It’s now in the cloud.

Crew Chief Brad: Just download a new engine.

Danny Pilling: Yeah. Just make sure it doesn’t need a

Crew Chief Brad: reboot halfway around. Did you try plugging it in and unplugging it?

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t go for blue screen of death jokes. He did work at Microsoft.

Crew Chief Brad: Heard them all before. All right, Danny P, the real reason we’re all here is because we’re podcasters. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your podcast, Danny P on cars.

Danny Pilling: For me, which I’m guessing is similar to you guys, this was a passion project. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some really great car people in all sorts of disciplines, in all sorts of tribes. And one of the things that happened to me at the beginning of the year is I got laid off from Microsoft. That was part of these big.

10, 000 tech layoff and decided that I wanted to do something as a bit of a passion project. So I set up a podcast. It was always going to be something that gives the opportunity in a vehicle for people to tell their car stories. So whilst the theme is cars, the people is the real thing that we’ve kind of connect on.

It’s in its first season. I’m trying to get a different mix of guests. So every episode may [00:23:00] be slightly different. I was really lucky to meet two gentlemen who started their own podcast called the steering committee. So Ryan and Doug reached out to me on LinkedIn and then Instagram because of the relationship I have with the Peterson Automotive Museum, but I got friendly with them and they actually gave me a lot of coaching on how to do my podcast.

And they were my first guests. So I got the steering committee on to kick things off. But I’m now almost to 10 episodes. I’ll probably be 10 episodes by the time this comes out. I’ve had motorsport folks, an IndyCar driver, a gentleman called Dominic Dobson. Dominic, he raced Indy seven times. He also won his class for Pike’s Peak.

So the hill climb race in Colorado. So he was an early guest. I’ve had quirky guests, a college friend of mine who I’d 20 years. I had no idea what they’d been up to, but they kind of stepped up at the last minute when I had a guest pull out and Simon Hall, he was influenced at an early age by Americana.

And he loved smoking the bandit and his dream was to own a firebird So he actually imported a firebird from the us to the uk. We talked about graham a bit So [00:24:00] graham good friend formula one guy. I’ve just done a two part episode Another brit in seattle is a guy called peter gleason and peter is a good friend He is a passionate bmw and bmw motorsport fan in that episode.

We do a bit of a history lesson We talk about the 70s and what was going on When two brits get together over a cup of tea we tend to talk for quite a while And it just so happens that the very first winning BMW M car, which was a Batmobile, it won in Sebring. He managed to buy that car a year and a half ago.

So we talk about the journey to buy that car. We talk about some of the other cars in his collection. He’s owned cars from famous racing drivers like Johnny Giacotto, but really the podcast is all about cars. It’s all about culture. I talk about it being a tribe because it doesn’t matter what car you own.

As long as you love cars, there’s a commonality there. And it’s just great to be able to share some of the stories.

Crew Chief Brad: Was that similar for you guys? We were in the height of COVID and we were a car club that used to get together 10 or more times a year at the racetrack or various car related [00:25:00] events. All of a sudden we weren’t getting together anymore.

And we tried doing a couple of virtual happy hours. And there’s so many people sitting around telling stories of the good old days, and we thought, well, we should really try and get some of those stories out there of other people. Listen to all these great stories. They can’t just die in our small group.

And I guess I’ve always been talking about, we should start a podcast. But Eric likes to say, the next words out of my mouth are, who cares what we have to say? And apparently there are a decent number of people that care what we have to say. All two of them are loyal listeners. Arbitron rated. Yes. It’s my wife and his wife.

There’s the two loyal listeners. No,

Crew Chief Eric: mine doesn’t listen.

Crew Chief Brad: So yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Lost

Crew Chief Brad: half

Danny Pilling: your

Crew Chief Eric: audience.

Crew Chief Brad: It started out as more just something for the club. We had some couple fun, kind of quirky, silly episodes.

Crew Chief Eric: We apologize for our first season, like every podcast group does.

Crew Chief Brad: But then we lost someone important to the club, but it’s someone very, very important to Eric.

And he was one of those guys that also had all these stories and… Eric, you know what I’m trying to say. You tell it [00:26:00] better.

Crew Chief Eric: The whole mantra of everyone has a story is something that Matthew used to say all the time. And he was a big proponent and us finally getting off the blocks and saying you need to do this because he kept saying that motorsport is a sport of convenience, not of loyalty.

And that sentiment wasn’t lost on me. And I saw people transition in and out over the last 13 plus years that I’ve been doing this as a coach, not only considering that I’ve been in the motorsport world since I was a kid. And yeah, I look back and I go, whatever happened to Bob and where did Tom go? And suddenly they were here and then they’re not.

And those stories, you heard them a hundred times in the paddock. And then there’s suddenly now whispers on the wind. And so we wanted to capture that. And then it just sort of evolved into. You know, there’s a lot of race car drivers that are getting older, that are, they’re retired and their stories aren’t being shared.

And you tell people you don’t know about the story behind the apple nine 35 and they’re like apple nine 30. What are you talking? Apple had a Porsche. Yeah. And there’s a gentleman behind that and there’s a story behind that and how Steve Jobs and Wozniak were involved in all these kinds of [00:27:00] things. And so you unravel that and it just becomes this, how did we get here?

Moment. In our first season, we had to transition our audience from the written word, because we were already doing journalism, to the spoken word. It just became these interesting stories, these motivational stories, To your point, you came from the UK, you got a job at Microsoft, and next thing you know, you find yourself in Formula One, whether you realize it or not, you inspire other people to go, well, if Dan can do it, maybe I should look into this, maybe there’s a path for me here, that’s what we want to remind people of is that the motorsport and the vehicle enthusiasts.

Community is much larger than people realize there are so many moving parts. It drives so many different industries, so many different jobs. You don’t have to be into cars to enjoy them. Let’s say on a smaller level, maybe you’re marketing, maybe you’re art, maybe you’re engineering, maybe you’re this, maybe you’re that.

And so it all comes together in this really beautiful symphony, but it’s getting to these people’s stories, blossoming the flower and seeing what’s inside to go, well, that’s. How they became who they are. And that’s, what’s important. Not [00:28:00] after the fact that someone’s eulogy and people are trying to put the pieces together.

There is no better truth than living history.

Danny Pilling: That’s super cool. And I need to go back and listen to more of your episodes.

Crew Chief Eric: You only got 200 and some to catch up on. It’s all good. But that being said, let’s talk a little bit more about car culture. Your show, Danny P on Cars, is all about car culture, the journey you’ve made.

You’ve been here in the States now about a decade or so. You’ve worked in all sorts of different industries. Tell us about the culture shock coming from the UK, which per capita, the UK has more tracks and car meets and autocrosses and you name it than probably anywhere on the planet. It’s a very heavy car culture there.

You come to the United States and you move all the way to the Pacific Northwest. How do you compare and contrast European car culture versus the U S

Danny Pilling: yeah, I think the first thing I would say is that growing up in the UK and car culture in the UK, you’re very much in a bubble. You don’t necessarily get exposed to the great car culture that’s in the U S from a motorsport perspective, we have formula one, which [00:29:00] obviously is now becoming much bigger on the worldwide scale and specifically in the U S but you generally had.

Formula One, touring cars, and some rallying. And we didn’t get exposed to IndyCar. We didn’t get exposed to NASCAR. At least for me, there was no real knowledge of all this great history and great car culture. I mean, we would see films like, um, American Graffiti. You would hear about some of these racing legends who are American like Andretti, which I know you folks had him on your podcasts the other week.

There was definitely this bubble. So when I moved to the U. S., it just became a real learning opportunity for me to learn about car culture. Really early on, I sat at a dinner and the son of Dan Gurney was sat next to me and I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know who Dan Gurney was. So really, this has been a big opportunity for me to just learn a lot more about U.

S. car culture. You know, learn everything from hot rodding all the way through to drag. I went to my first drag race about a month ago in Pomona in California. And again, I was just blown away a completely different set of car culture. So, you know, as you kindly alluded to, that was one of the reasons with the [00:30:00] podcast was to try and investigate more of this and share more of this on a wider scale.

So I think that’s the first difference, you know, just very much you’re in a bubble. I guess you’re on an Island, but you’re very close to Europe. I think we got a lot of different cars, you know, so some cars didn’t make it to the U S and some cars didn’t make it to Europe from the U S you talk about wagons, wagons are a big thing in the UK.

If a manufacturer is making a hot version of a car, take the M three, for example, and you M three M four, they’ll do a wagon version, whereas wagons don’t tend to sell well in the U S so you get the SUV version instead. I think I’m right in saying that in the U S BMW, you didn’t necessarily get the hottest versions of the BMW cars, or if you did, they weren’t necessarily as tuned as highly as the European.

So it’s just a big learning opportunity for me.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s systemic in the German manufacturers. Cause Volkswagen does the same thing. And obviously the Italians are just making a resurgence now, but you see it across the board where we will never get the Scirocco. It doesn’t matter how many times I beat on Volkswagen of America’s door.

It’s not going to happen, right? The new [00:31:00] golf are three 33. We’re not going to see that. So they got the fun stuff over there, but I’m also envious of what you guys have in the UK. And some of the best tracks are within a couple hours distance. I get it. Everybody in mainland Europe complains. If they got to go from France to Germany, it feels like they’re going.

So far away, but the United States, you can fit Europe in it. Like six, seven times. I don’t know. Everything here is so spread out. I’d love to go from spa to Lamont to Hockenheim to the ring in a day here. That’s not possible, right? Not really anyway.

Danny Pilling: No, it’s very true. But also I think you folks do things bigger.

So I went to Daytona earlier in the year for the first time. I went for a bike race actually, the Daytona 200. And wow, what a facility that is. I don’t know how many hundred thousand people can fit in that, but there’s nothing like that in the UK or even in mainland Europe. Everything’s a smaller scale.

The tracks might be similar size in terms of mileage, but you just don’t have those kind of almost coliseum esque.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s funny that you lump what [00:32:00] we consider motorsports disciplines Into car cultures. So for us, drag racing is a discipline of motorsport. It’s part of the, let’s say the racing community or the racing culture versus the car collector culture, where then you have the concourse folks, you get the pebble beach crowd and Amelia Island and touring and what we call road rally here, and then the people that do all the car care stuff and collectors in general.

You’re very progressive in the thought that it’s all just one community where we tend to split things into, are you a racer or a collector?

Danny Pilling: Ultimately, there are car people. And then off of that, there are tribes, but those tribes intersect. One week we’ll go to do the NHRA and watch the drag racing. The next week, they’ll be showing a car at Pebble Beach.

For me, it’s very much, you’re not one or the other, you can be many.

Crew Chief Eric: No, that’s absolutely the best way to look at it. We try to extol the idea that Car culture in general is inclusive. And then people have put up these facades and these boundaries to say, well, I’m a hot rodder. I don’t want to deal with the import guys.

And it’s like this tug [00:33:00] of war that doesn’t need to exist. It’s why can’t the Nissan guy and the Ferrari guy and the Corvette guy. Collaborate together in a room and just talk about cars and enjoy it. And that’s what our shows bring to the table, right? Is this intersection of these different communities to say, this is what it’s really all about.

Moving to the Pacific Northwest specifically is a little different than California and even California car culture. It’s this. War between the North and the South, San Francisco and Sacramento, putting out all the new carb rules, trying to stifle the car creators and the builders and all that, and everybody in Southern California is like, send it, man, we’re going to build the coolest new hot rod and Siamese two cars together.

But when you go North past Oregon and you hit the Puget sound out your way, you get a lot of rain and I wonder what the car culture is like compared to California.

Danny Pilling: Yeah. And I’ve been lucky to spend time in both car cultures. And the thing with Seattle is. Obviously, we have bad weather for a good six months of the year.

But I would say that we make up for it for the other six months of the year. On [00:34:00] my latest podcast, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a BMW collector, and he talked about the Space Needle being a magnet for great cars. It’s not a needle to show world trades, actually a magnet for great cars. So from a car collections perspective, I think we’re very lucky.

We have probably three or four of the finest car collections in North America up here. They’re in private hands, so it’s not always easy to go see them. At one point in time, we had four… 250 Ferrari GTOs in the Pacific Northwest. So for a place that rains a lot, to have those cars was pretty significant.

You know, as soon as you get to the summer here, or at least signs of the summer, things open up. So every Saturday we have various cars and coffees and an event called Exotics, which is, they have a list of which cars are allowed to exhibit and which cars aren’t, it’s that exclusive. Which some people like, and some people don’t like, I just appreciate the fact you can turn up and see some really rare cars.

We have regular different cars and coffees events on Sundays. We have car shows. We’ve got three or four racetracks within stones throwing distance. So I [00:35:00] think the car community is pretty good and it’s very vibrant. Lots of good clubs. I’m a member of the Porsche Owners Club, and you know, every night there’s practically something on you can do, whether that’s going for a drive and pizza or going to one of the tracks for an autocross day.

I think it’s pretty good, but you have to appreciate that come October, you’re probably not going to see those friends in car context for three, four, five, maybe six months.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the times I spent in the Seattle and Oregon area, I noticed there was a very large Air cooled Volkswagen and Porsche community.

Is that still true now? It’s been a while since I’ve been out there.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, there is a, a lot of those folks. There is a chapter of what’s known as the R group, which is the outlaws and hot rodders of Porsche. So after California, which is where it was founded, the next chapter was up here in the Pacific Northwest.

So we get lots of classic Porsches and some Beatles and that sort of stuff. But we also have some really amazing like Japanese cars, for example, I live out in a place called Alki, which is a little beach area of Seattle. And it’s a regular route for all the [00:36:00] car community to drive through. So every night you’ll see a different set of cars driving through and you see these JDM cars that have been modified or you see low riders.

So yeah, I think that’s a really good mix. So looking back to the UK, is there anything you miss? Well, I miss a good curry and fish and chips, but that’s not really car related. So I miss being able to drive to racetracks for things like touring cars. You know, we have a couple of really good racetracks that have competitive events on, but we don’t really have anything like going two hours down the road and going to see the touring cars and then maybe the next weekend going two hours in a different direction and seeing the next race in that series.

So I kind of missed that. I miss being able to go see my friends in the Formula One teams. Super lucky to work with three of the teams. Whenever I’m back in the UK, what I would generally do would go for a coffee at one team, go for lunch at another, and then go for a cup of tea at the third team. So I missed that as well.

But yeah, more on the motor racing side of things, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: On your show, you also talk about the collector car world a little bit. I wanted to touch on your thoughts on the rise [00:37:00] in collector cars and prices and how things have gotten out of control.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, I mean, again, that could be a whole series on a podcast.

I think the things for me is it’s very much a generational thing in terms of which cars tend to get the premium collections. Depending on what you grew up and what you had on your wall, then that might be the car that you kind of want. You know, a lot of my podcast guests, they get onto that ladder of car collection because of what they loved as a kid.

They realize that at times it’s very difficult if they miss the ladder. Peter Gleeson talked to me about his love of BMW and… If you talk to a lot of people, the ultimate BMW is the 507 and he never got on the ladder for the 507. Every time he saw them and wanted one, they were too expensive, or he thought they were too expensive.

And then before he knew it, they doubled or trebled in price. The thing is, if you love a car and you want to collect a certain car, then get in as soon as you can, because the chances are that if you love it, other people will love it and go up in value. There is always [00:38:00] a link between motorsport and car collection in terms of collecting classic cars.

You look at the impact that some of these motorsport cars have on used car prices, right? So the most expensive car sold at auction was a Mercedes. That was a historical motorsport car. You look at the 250 GTOs, which previously had been the most expensive cars sold at auction, and then motorsport cars.

They might be road cars as well, but I guess the point I’m trying to land is that motorsport has a massive influence on All up car community collecting, not

Crew Chief Eric: just motorsport. And one of the things about your show is you have this bit called, what’s your criminal record car? I won’t say that my jaw didn’t hit the floor when I heard your answer, because it’s very rare that this car comes up in conversation.

So would you care to enlighten our listeners?

Danny Pilling: Yeah. So part of my podcast, I do a, uh, a bit of background on the guests. And one of the questions I ask is have they ever owned a criminal record car? So what is a criminal record car? Well essentially it’s a car that you’re kind of embarrassed that you once [00:39:00] owned.

Now I want to be really clear on this podcast, for the record, that I never owned this car but I was so close to buying this car that it could have been my criminal record car. So you’ve got a picture of the scene, I’m 16 in the UK, the driving age is 17, so I’m very close to 17. I’m looking for my first car, that summer I’d worked all summer on a building site to pay for my first car, and I guess like a lot of impatient 17, 16 year olds, you kind of go for the first thing you see.

Anyway, at this car dealership, there was a Yugo. Now it wasn’t just a regular Yugo, this was a Yugo with a body kit. So close to buying this car and I guess it’s probably the only time I can be really thankful that my parents stopped me. So I didn’t get it, didn’t own a criminal record car, but it was super close.

But some of the other examples on my podcast, people have bought cars and it turned out to be two cars welded together. I also want to be clear that you can’t have a criminal record car if it was inherited. So if you got your grandfather’s car and it was still an embarrassing car, that’s not a criminal record car because that’s got sentimental value and, you know, lots more.

So criminal [00:40:00] record cars are ones that you’ve actually bought. Do you guys either? Have you have a criminal record car? I know Brad’s got one. Come on, Brad.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m not embarrassed. I’m embarrassed in the condition that it was in. But I’m not actually embarrassed because had it been a running driving car, it would have been pretty cool.

It was a, uh, 924 turbo.

Danny Pilling: Nice.

Crew Chief Brad: So that’s definitely not a criminal record car. Given your definition of a criminal record car, I can’t think of any car that I’ve owned that I’m embarrassed by.

Crew Chief Eric: And I have an interesting caveat to this, which is I never technically owned my criminal record vehicle and now that it’s gone I can openly admit that I fostered for a year a bright yellow 2003 Pontiac Aztec GT.

Wow.

Danny Pilling: You would do hard time or hard porridge as we would say in the UK. If you’re up against the judge on that one.

Crew Chief Brad: I will say that I haven’t owned it, but I do have a deposit in on a criminal record car. Oh, yes you do. Anybody listening knows that I’ve got a [00:41:00] deposit in on a Tesla cyber truck that I’m trying to get rid of.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, I’ve seen one in real life. Have you? There’s one in the Peterson right now in L. A., the Peterson Automotive Museum.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting, I wasn’t there when I was there the last time, so that’s pretty cool. Did it have working laser windshield wipers?

Danny Pilling: No, no, I didn’t see any dents on the door or the window, so I don’t think it was the one that was there at the launch.

And behind it was the Tesla quad bike, which also looks really cool.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Danny Pilling: But I think that is a criminal record car, so um, yeah, there’s a sentence to be had there, I

Crew Chief Eric: think. Ha, From your perspective, growing up in the UK, what would you define as a beautiful car? I

Danny Pilling: think for me, any car where you look at it more than once and you discover new angles, or you discover things that you weren’t thinking about the first time you looked at it.

So you’ve obviously got an appreciation for it the first time, but then you look again and you think. How much thought has gone into this car? For me, the most beautiful car in the world is the Mercedes Gullwing. I love the lines on that car. And every time I look at that car, I see another level of detail I haven’t thought about.

Crew Chief Brad: So the opposite [00:42:00] of that question, Brad, would you consider it a terribly ugly car other than a Yugo or an Aztec? Yeah, those are off the list. They’re disqualified.

Danny Pilling: I think again, it’s the thought. If I look at something and it’s just angles, I don’t feel like they’ve put a lot of thought into it and maybe it’s function over design.

Maybe it’s a utility versus a soulful car. I think, you know, things like. The Aztec, but also things like the Fiat Multipla, but I also think that some cars at the time are ugly, but over time, you might appreciate them more or things have changed and you might actually turn and go, well, I thought that was ugly when it came out, but actually now I’d really like to drive,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, being from the UK, I thought you were going to say the Reliant Robin.

Danny Pilling: Oh, you see, that’s got a lot of character because it was associated with TV and film. So in the UK, we had this BBC series called Only Fools and Horses. The main character used to drive one, but it was a van. So it was a Reliant Robin van in bright yellow. You can do a search on the web for it. But, uh, so that kind of transcends it because it’s got this character from a TV series.

Crew Chief Brad: I wonder how fast Reliant Robin van would be around [00:43:00] Nürburgring instead of the transit.

Danny Pilling: Oh, wasn’t there an episode on Top Gear where they put one on a rocket and sent it up? That was one of the best episodes ever.

Crew Chief Brad: That was the fastest Reliant Robin ever. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s take your criminal record and spin it a little bit.

What about a guilty pleasure car? Something you’d like to drive, something you’d like to test, or even maybe own, but are embarrassed to admit it?

Danny Pilling: I quite often search the internet for used cars, and I get to alternation a lot. And at the moment, the cheapest used convertible on alternation is about 6, 000.

And it’s a Chrysler ET convertible, but it looks like a pram. And I just wonder what would that like be like to do on a road trip?

Crew Chief Eric: There’s many cars that fall into that category. One of Brad’s favorite, the Nissan Murano cross cabriolet comes to mind.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no, that is not a guilty pleasure car. That is just a travesty to the automotive community.

Danny Pilling: It’s like two big fingers up. Isn’t it? They ultimately basically,

Crew Chief Brad: yeah. Nissan said the CEO’s daughter wanted to own a convertible [00:44:00] Murano. So they made one.

Crew Chief Eric: So Brad, what is your guilty pleasure card? Do you have one?

Crew Chief Brad: I feel that I would look extremely silly driving around in a Volkswagen Cabrio. But I would love to have one.

Crew Chief Eric: I say the same thing about one of your most hated cars, which is the Fiero. I think it would be fun to borrow and drive around and then just give it back. Just to say that I did.

Crew Chief Brad: We need to convince our resident wheeler dealer to buy one so we can drive it.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. And prove that you don’t fit in it either.

Right. That’s true. That being said. It really leads me into another question, which is something I’ve experienced more than once, and I’ve taken ownership and have test driven and written about what we call hero cars. So have you ever had that never drive your heroes experience, Dan? I

Danny Pilling: don’t think I’ve driven a car that’s disappointed me.

I think every hero car I’ve driven has been fantastic. So things like, you know, when I was growing up, I managed to do this work experience, as you talked about. An internship, as you may call it at Porsche cars, great Britain. And that set me on this track for [00:45:00] life of what is that dream car you want to go and own?

And the nine 11 was it? And about four years ago, I was able to buy a nine 11 and that was my hero car for many years. I was working hard and it didn’t disappoint. I think from that perspective, the hero car met and exceeded expectations, but I don’t think there’s been anything where it’s not got to a point where I was like, you know, that car really is overrated.

Crew Chief Eric: For me, it’s been all the movie star cars. They tend to break the illusion that you had about what a Ferrari 308 should drive like, or a Smoky and the Bandit Trans Am, even a DeLorean DMC 12 for that matter, or any number of cars that are on that list from, let’s say, the 80s. Maybe they’re because they’re cars of a certain era, you know, late seventies, early eighties, that kind of thing.

They all are plagued with issues and problems and their own quirks, but that’s also what makes them charming to the collector. There’s very few cars I’ve walked away from that I’ve seen on TV or in a movie or that I considered hero cars. And I went. Yeah, that was an awesome ride. That was an amazing car, even a Renault turbo too, [00:46:00] which is super quirky.

And it was a lot of fun to drive. There were a lot of things in the negative column that left me going, I would never want to own one of these. I gladly drive it all day long, but it takes an extra special, something to cross that bridge when you’re collecting cars to say, yeah, I got to have that. Now I’ll launch a Delta Integrale.

That’s. They’d be a different story. I haven’t driven one yet. I could be disappointed. So I still hold that one in pretty high regard.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t think this is a hero car, but it definitely disappointed me driving it. And that would be basically any Corvette I’ve driven after watching the top gear reviews of them and any review actually by anybody European.

They always seem to rag on it and say, it’s not as good as the nine 11. And, you know, after driving a couple of many different generations, I totally get it. They’re totally right. It’s just not having actually driven a nine 11 now is no, they’re not anywhere near, and then another car that is a hero car, but I wouldn’t say it disappointed me, but it is definitely not for me is a Dodge Viper after driving one.

That’s where [00:47:00] I draw the line. It’s just too much car for me, especially it being somebody else’s car that I ended up driving. I was way too uncomfortable driving it. And I don’t, I don’t mean like my fit. Yes, I was uncomfortable sitting in it, but just like driving it, I was uncomfortable and on edge the whole time.

Danny Pilling: When I lived in the UK, I would come to the U S for vacation and about three or four times I would rent Corvettes from Hertz and I would have the opposite. And I don’t know whether it’s just the moment, right? You’re there in the moment. You’re on vacation, you’ve come from the UK, you’re in Southern California and the sun is shining and you’re driving a convertible and it’s a convertible Corvette.

But I always really enjoyed them, but I kind of took them for what they were. I wasn’t expecting, you know, the most sophisticated driving machine. I was expecting, um, I guess a muscle car.

Crew Chief Eric: That might be part of our problem is that because we always approach things with a motor sports filter on. And because we coach and we’re in so many cars, weekend after weekend, after weekend, we get to see all the bad sides of a vehicle, whether they’re stock or modified or otherwise.

And there are cars that [00:48:00] you get extremely excited about coaching and then they tend to disappoint you. And you’re like, really? You know, the driver is sometimes like, Oh, would you like to drive it? And you’re like, well, okay, sure. And it still doesn’t change the perspective. It is different from the left seat, but it is what it is.

I agree with Brad. There’s only been a couple of cars that have transcended. One of them for me was the Skyline R32. That car I walked away from completely satisfied. This is everything I expected it to be. And 10 more things on that list. That was an incredible car. To this day, I think it’s still an incredible car.

What else what’s next? What other projects are you working? I can’t be just focused on the podcast.

Danny Pilling: Yeah, I’ve got some fun racing coming up. I’m going to be going to a few races for the super bikes. The thing I will say about bike racing is four years ago, before I went to a race, I would have been the first to dismiss that sport as in that’s just not for me.

I love formula one. I love rally cars. I love touring cars. I don’t really have a space in my heart for motorbikes. I was lucky enough to be invited to go to a local [00:49:00] race in this super bike series, the Moto America, and I just saw a different world of racing. I saw riders who are so in tuned with these bikes.

There’s so much involvement, so much balance. It’s so much more physical than driving a car, with no disrespect to any race driver in the world. And I’ve been hooked. For the last four years I’ve been watching either on TV or going to the races because obviously they’re not two hours drive away always.

But I’ve been hooked. There’s different classes but each class has its own interest. You know there’s these early stage career classes where there’s a girl called Kyla Yakov and she’s kicking the butt of all these young boys. It’s so great to watch. And then at some races like Laguna, they’ll have baggers racing, you know, Harley Davidson type bikes, and they’re going around the track how they can break, how they can take those corners, how they can go down.

The corkscrew is just unbelievable. And then you’ve got the big boys doing the super bikes. You, that’s what I’ve got coming up. I’m gonna be going to two, uh, races in the season of that. And as I say before, before four years ago, I would’ve told you if you’d have said to me, Hey, Dan, go and watch some [00:50:00] super bikes.

I’d be like, you’ll be mad if I’ll enjoy that. But I love it.

Crew Chief Eric: On your first episode, you were talking about the bucket list guests or the interview or the goal for your show. So where do you envision yourself next season? You know, who is on your list of people that you really want to interview and get behind the microphone?

Danny Pilling: You obviously think about that when you conceive a podcast, right? You don’t just conceive a podcast because you want to talk about cars. You think about it because you know that there are cool people who you would love to have on your show. For me, I think the first thing I would love is someone that I don’t expect, but someone of notoriety reaching out to me to say, Hey, I’d love to go on your podcast.

I don’t know who that is, but I know when that email comes in, I’ll be like calling them within 30 seconds of the email coming in. So that’s kind of the first thing I think if I look at. My bucket list, or at least my mental bucket list, it’s people that I find interesting that I enjoy their content. So one example, I’ve talked about this on my podcast a bit, is there’s a lady called Sarah Entuned.

She has a YouTube channel. I think she’d be super interesting to [00:51:00] have. Because she kind of has her own quirks. I think she has an element of Britishness about her, even though she’s American. If you watch her YouTube channel, she evaluates each car and she has categories. And I kind of feel like some of that may be influenced by British TV, like maybe Top Gear or something like that.

So she would be one guest. I would love to have someone like Doug DeMuro, you know, someone who is your guy next door, but has managed to make a very successful career out of YouTube and now car auction sites, and I would love to get, although they say never meet your heroes. Imagine if I could get someone like Lewis Hamilton.

I mean, I think we’re probably talking episode or at least season six by then, but, uh, that’s the dream maybe. So maybe Lewis Hamilton would be the ultimate, but I wondered, like, if you were to recommend three episodes, which episodes would you recommend?

Crew Chief Eric: Would you like celebrities or regular people? Would you want something completely off the cuff?

Our show is a little non sequitur, so it all depends. I’m

Danny Pilling: thinking like, if I’ve never heard your podcast before, which three episodes best represent it? If

Crew Chief Eric: you’re a motorsports fan, I’ll give you the top five. Lynn St. James. Andy Pilgrim, Randy [00:52:00] Lanier, Mario Andretti. And if I throw in a collector car one in there, Dennis Gage.

I’m surprised you didn’t go with Joey Jordan. Joey’s is a Top Gear special. That’s the bonus episode you listen to because it is so different than everything else. That is a coming of age story. That is a man struggling with his own demons. It’s an amazing adventure that he went on basically by himself from LA all the way to Patagonia.

I don’t want to spoil it. Yeah. Listen to Joey Jordan’s great South American adventure. It’s called. Well, I know what I’m doing for the next few evenings. And there’s always episodes that will surprise you. And I don’t want to offend any of our guests because they’ve all been amazing. If you’re looking for those.

Oh my God moments. Some of those that I mentioned are just wow. Like I didn’t really know that person. Even Dennis Gage, you know him from afar, 30 years on the air of my classic car. But do you really know him? And he talks about his humble beginnings on a farm in Indiana and where it led from there, and he’s just like, wow, what a story.

[00:53:00] We shouldn’t be targeting celebrities, although there are a lot of fun to talk to, right? It’s sometimes it’s the thing that gets you to the next thing. And sometimes that guest will bring you to a place you never expected and introduce you to people that were behind the scenes that may be more interesting than that person that’s at the top of your bucket list.

So you never know. And that’s part of the adventure of podcasting, right? Aside from all the technical stuff that happens behind the scenes. Well, Dan, we have reached that part of the episode where I get to ask you our final question, which is any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far.

Danny Pilling: I’m an ambassador for the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA. Generally what that means is it’s kind of not really official, but I help them secure car collections up here. So we introduce them, I create networks. We videoed Peter’s collection of BMWs on an iPhone and it’s had 77, 000 views. So if you do a search for Peterson Automotive Museum.

BMW car heaven, you’ll see his collection. And we also filmed a rally car collection. So you talked about group B, we filmed dirt fishes, a rally school up here and the owner has a car collection. So we got to film that car [00:54:00] collection as well. Some of the group B cars that he’s got. If people are after an extra podcast, after listening to yours, then I’d ask them to check mine out.

And I would just put a quick nod to my mentors, Ryan and Doug from the steering committee. If you want a third podcast, check those out.

Crew Chief Brad: Eight years ago, Dan Pilling moved over to the U. S. and has been learning all about our car culture ever since. This includes road trips, car events, as well as becoming an ambassador for the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Dan launched his own podcast earlier this year, Danny P. on Cars, capturing the stories of people he’s met along the way. If you want to learn more about Dan, follow him on socials at D nine N N Y P on Instagram at Dan Pilling on LinkedIn and Dan Pi on Twitter. Be sure to catch his show, Danny p on cars everywhere you stream or listen to podcasts along with his YouTube channel.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks, Brad. And thank you, Dan, for coming on break fix and sharing your story with us and joining the mosaic of other stories that are in the [00:55:00] catalog. And we hope to do some future crossovers with you. Maybe have you back. Maybe we’ll be on your show, but you’re here in lockstep with a lot of us in this community, trying to get these stories out to people that have never heard them before.

It is an epic task. And I thank you for being part of this, for helping get this. information out there to people and more importantly, keeping the vehicle and motorsport enthusiast community vibrant. Because if we don’t share these stories, then it all just starts to fade to gray. So thank you for what you’re doing.

Danny Pilling: Yeah. Thank you for, um, the opportunity, you know, very honored to be on your podcast. And as I know, as I’m bringing my guests on, it’s not an easy thing to run a podcast and you’ve always got this kind of fear that is your guest going to be okay. You know, are they going to do okay. And. No, thank you for guiding me through the podcast.

And it’s been great fun. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, no worries. Thanks gentlemen.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on [00:56:00] www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at grandtorymotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. [00:57:00] com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without fans, supporters, and members like you.

None of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction to BreakFix Podcast
• 00:27 Meet Dan Pilling: From Porsche to Microsoft
• 01:32 Dan’s Early Love for Cars
• 02:14 Internship at Porsche and Career Decisions
• 04:18 Microsoft and Formula 1 Partnerships
• 09:38 Technology in Formula 1
• 14:15 Comparing Formula 1 and Other Motorsports
• 22:18 Danny P on Cars: The Podcast Journey
• 28:14 Car Culture: UK vs. USA
• 29:44 Exploring American Car Culture
• 30:04 Differences Between US and European Cars
• 31:58 The Intersection of Car Communities
• 33:16 Pacific Northwest Car Scene
• 36:53 Collector Car Market Insights
• 38:31 Criminal Record Cars
• 43:09 Guilty Pleasure Cars
• 44:30 Hero Cars and Disappointments
• 48:32 Upcoming Projects and Bucket List Guests
• 53:22 Final Thoughts and Promotions

Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

Consider becoming a GTM Patreon Supporter and get behind the scenes content and schwag!