spot_img

HPDEjunkie.com

We here at GTM are always amazed to discover that most people have no idea that track days exist. Sports car owners and driving enthusiasts are missing out on the best part… DRIVING! … Driving their cars fast in a safe and controlled environment! Well we aren’t alone, and the folks over at HPDEjunkie.com decided something should be done to promote High Performance Driving Events. So, they created a website with the goal of turning HPDE into a house-hold name, and Dave Peters, director of HPDEjunkie, is here to tell us all about it.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Listen on Apple
Listen on YouTube
Listen on Spotify

Spotlight

Dave Peters - Director for HPDEjunkie.com

We are a couple of regular car guys who quickly became addicted to High Performance Driving Events. We created HPDEjunkie.com because we felt the need for a comprehensive list of all track day events in the nation on one website. Our philosophy is that all drivers should be able to enjoy the exhilaration of driving their own car at speed, safely, without fear of getting a speeding ticket or thrown in jail.


Contact: Dave Peters at dave@hpdejunkie.com | N/A | Visit Online!

          Pit Stop Minisode Available  

Notes

and much, much more!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motorsports related.

We here at GTM are always amazed to discover that most people have no idea that track days exist. Sports, car owners and driving enthusiasts are missing out on the best part, driving their cars fast, in a safe and controlled. Well, we aren’t alone. And the folks over@hhpdejunkie.com decided something should be done to promote high performance driving events.

So they created a website with the goal of turning h hp d e into a household name. And Dave Peters, director of h HPD Junkie is here to tell us all about it. And as always, I’m your host, Brad. And I’m Eric. So let’s roll. Hey fellas. How are you? Good. How’s it going, Dave? Real good, real good. Thanks for having.

All right, Dave, well welcome to Break Fix. So from what we know, H P D E junkie was started in 2015 based out of North Carolina, but that can’t be the whole story. [00:01:00] Can it? Let’s unpack the who, what, where, when of H P D E junkie tell you. I, I started it with another guy, his name’s John Marsh, and I guess it was after our first track day and, and we both were car enthusiasts and road race enthusi.

pretty much our whole lives. So my dad had me at Watkins Glen in 1970 for a F1 race. So it started early for me. , you know, thought maybe I’d get into go, go-kart racing. But some things changed in in our lives and that didn’t really happen. But I basically grew up like wanting to be a race car driver and was smart enough to realize that my family nor I had the money to be race car driver

So it just, Yeah, so it kind of just remained a dream for me. And I, you know, was going to a lot of races at V I R and Road Atlanta with my dad and, you know, loved it. We always had a good time. Had a big group of guys that would go, but still I wanted to drive and I, at that point, I think [00:02:00] track days were already going on.

I just had no idea. So I guess it was around late two thousands I heard about it and I, I knew. , that was the thing for me, and I could afford to do it every once in a while. So finally got to do my first one in 2013, and I knew right away, one here and there wasn’t gonna be enough. John and I had tried to find businesses in the Motorsport field that we could start up and literally this kind of came to me sitting at the computer.

trying to find our second event. And I had, you know, five, six tabs open, clicking back and forth and comparing prices and times and which track we want, wanted most. And, and the light bulb went off and I, I was like, this is the business we start. So neither one of us were really computer experience in the IT sense or website sense.

We knew you could pay someone to do that. at least, [00:03:00] at least build it. That’s kind of what got it going. But it, it was also, we loved it so much that we wanted everybody to know about it and, and know you could do it, but I, I all adamantly wanted to be giving back something. So, yeah, I think that kind of sums it up, why it started, how it started, what type of information is HPE junkie collecting?

How are they updating this information and how are you getting it out to your visitors as far as collecting, you know, the first couple of years it’s pounding Google, it’s search and track days in H P D E, in, in any way, shape, and form I could think of. You know, looking at all the tracks websites, and on their calendars there would be track day companies and Lockton’s website.

I, I got a lot from there. And, . So basically it was, you know, just collecting it myself with help from my partner at the time. But yeah, it’s, you know, kind of manually searched every year and, you know, every year I get a little better at [00:04:00] it, I guess you’d say. More efficient. So, you know, I have my list of all the companies and usually they’ll start releasing calendars.

Some is, they should be starting to come out. In fact, it, wow, this has gone by so fast. I didn’t even it dawn on. I need to start looking at, at 2021 calendars and start putting ’em up. But they’ll start coming out around October. Mm-hmm. , and then it’ll kind of trickle all the way into kind of late February.

Um, so was the idea to evangelize high performance driving, or was it to correlate all the schedule information? Which came first? Actually, they came together. I mean, you know, right off the bat, the schedule was part. I guess I didn’t really feel like you could put an enough together as a website to get people out there if you didn’t have something a little more, and, and actually at the beginning we had worked a deal with a safety equipment supplier, you know, selling it through the site and we’re drop shipping.

We had some merchandise [00:05:00] and stuff. I think we thought we were gonna get rich selling t-shirts and stickers. But , , that doesn’t really happen. Felt like not only did people need to know about track days, but they needed the stuff to go and, and mainly the dates and the places. So they kind of came together at the same time.

As, you know, after a couple years, I realized that selling safety equipment, Doing us any good, and I’m fortunate enough that I don’t have kids and a wife, so I have a little more time on my hands, and he has kids and a wife. So it was just getting a little bit too much for him and he graciously backed out.

still does my taxes for me though. You know, we sold a helmet here or there, but you know, so we made different arrangements with that same company, which is Apex Performant Great folks, kind of a small mom and pop, but they’ve been with us since before we went live. Just really good. Good folks. So are you scouring the, let’s say, different calendars nationwide or you regional?[00:06:00]

Absolutely nationwide and. Somewhat expanded into Canada for 2020. Covid kind of, I don’t want to say made it impossible, but I was playing catch up with everything else so much that. I didn’t get to do the due diligence I wanted to do with adding Canada. I don’t see why in 2021 we wouldn’t have all of Canada up, but there are some of the tracks there and I basically ended up listing those events from PCA groups that were American, but doing a Canadian track day here or there.

So, so there definitely are some Canadian, uh, events. Well, it’s probably pretty slim now that it’s getting cold, but I mean, I feel like I’ve got everybody, every PCA region that does a de the BMW clubs, the Audi Clubs, but I’m always eager to find new ones and, and they’re popping up all the time. So yeah.

Anybody out there that’s got a new track day company or knows of one, we’re not listening, please shoot us an [00:07:00] email through the, through the website. We, we would love to have it. The other thing I kind of wanted to mention is, How many groups and how many events there are a year, and if you count, which I do PCA and the Audi Clubs and the BMW clubs as separate groups.

I mean, I think they should be, since they all have their own schedules and there’s about a hundred of those. And then there’s also about a hundred for-profit companies in the us. . I guess I wanted to mention it cuz it surprises people that ask, and typically the past three years has been right in the 15 to 1600 events a year, which kind of is telling me that we’re kind of capped out.

Unless somebody can make more days happen in a year or build more racetracks. There’s not a whole lot a opportunity Tracks are booked. I don’t, they’re booked, but I don’t know that we’ve met saturation yet. Right. So that’s a whole nother, that’s a whole nother thing. So let’s. You could have 200 cars in a weekend.

Yeah. So the calendar days [00:08:00] are full, but the number of participants is not, you got 80 cars on track for three days. It’s like, well, Hmm. Okay. No, I, I agree. I, I don’t think every event is filling. I mean, I know every event’s not filling. If we’re gonna talk about scheduling, it poses a whole nother scenario there, because I’ve preached for a while that groups that are, that continually complain that they’re suffering, that their numbers are.

There’s another group the next weekend also complaining that their numbers are down and I know that everybody wants to be able to make a profit in whatever it might be. I’m not here to dictate how they do business. It. It would make a lot of sense if those two groups got together. Pulled their resources, be it the coaches, be it the investment, whatever it might be to make that event successful.

But what ends up happening by doing that is now we don’t have two events that failed where the calendar is full. We freed up a weekend at v I r, we freed up a weekend at the Glen or wherever it is for another group to come in. So then to your point where the calendar can’t grow because it’s basically maxed [00:09:00] out by consolidating events and making the events more popular and more success.

You have basically opened the calendar. Yeah, I, I agree with you. Um, if, if there’s a couple groups that aren’t what we would call filling an event. Now I sure don’t like when a group overfills an event. Um, and that happens and, and I mean, that to me is, that’s just not fair to the drivers. You know, it, it just becomes a completely.

Different thing when you’re at v i r running with 30, 35 cars versus 60, it’s different. Makes it a less experience. But I But what you’re saying, I agree. You know, there’s a lot of groups that are, are not selling out and they probably, you know, maybe somewhat of, but they don’t wanna swallow their pride and partner with someone else.

I don’t really know, but it would be good for the. Hobby and industry, if that happened more often, I mean, I’ll, I’ll give an example, right? Cuz I came up through the autocross world and it got to a point there too, where as lots were drying up. The calendar [00:10:00] got full immediately, especially in the, in the dmv.

Right down where you are in the Carolinas might be a different story. I know still in the Southwest and in the south, like places like Texas, there’s still an opportunity to have big autocrosses and stuff like that. But here, as things changed and open oceans of asphalt started disappearing, it meant that clubs had to band together.

And you started to see it early on, especially in the late nineties, early two thousands, where you would all of a sudden have. Porsche Corvette challenge, and you would have the BMW Porsche challenge, and you’d have these groups cross pollinating because their events were suffering and the lots, it was a scarcity, right?

So it became a game of commodities, and at that point it made sense to merge together, get that weekend, get it full, keep the excitement of autocross going so that the sport wouldn’t die. Now, in our area, S E C A, capitalizes on autocross, I’ll just say that they own. Flat out. There are still other clubs out there that do stuff and we partner with them, you know, the Corvette Club, et cetera, but it’s not the same draw as going to FedEx Field, and [00:11:00] you’re still waiting around all day and there’s 250 cars waiting to get their turn to do the solo thing.

I don’t know, again, it, it’s economies of scale, but I see it in the track world with the smaller. Driving organizations where it would make sense for them to pull their efforts together and, and put on better events. And again, I would rather come away from a big event as a newbie and say, man, this was awesome.

All these cars, all this stuff. The math works out, right? 20 cars per mile, 24 cars per mile at v i r. You’re right, that’s 60 cars. That’s easy to do though. You still don’t feel like you’re driving around the beltway. So again, I’d rather go to an event that was full and full of energy than like, man, V i r and basically I drove around all day by myself.

No, I’m with you, man. I don’t, I don’t like driving around by myself. It’s just, there’s just one lap and I’m good . You know, I, I wanna, and not that I have to pass anybody, but at least have somebody that I can see in front of me. Am I gaining on ’em? You know, or they gain, same thing, letting [00:12:00] people buy, but man, I gotta tell you, I want too many cars.

It’s not that fun at b I. That’s true. I’ll give you that. It’s the same at Summit Point. I mean you get 40 cars in Summit Point, it’s a traffic jam, but and then being in the Miata and there were a lot of high horsepower cars and I, I had a sore arm. I literally had a bruise on the bottom of my arm from the windowsill, from putting my arm out the window all day so much.

But, um, all those point buys in Miada, you know, . Yeah, exactly. Well, no, exactly. But yeah, I mean, I want it to grow, and I agree with you. There’s room and there are some clubs doing that and some groups doing that. I, I know Daytona has a couple, but offhand, you know, I don’t really remember listing any this year that were a dual event except for some PCAs or some bmw.

And even some of those were, you know, not necessarily PCA and pca, but there were some PCA and B W. PCA and Audi. This year, 2020 has been a challenging year for everybody across the board. And [00:13:00] I’m, you know, I gotta tip my hat to all the organizations that have come back out to play when the tracks basically reopened in June.

They’ve been hitting it hard, you know, every weekend since. And I think turnout has been good, but let’s face it, turnout is, has also been scaled down, right? So I don’t want to get into politics of how all that’s working, but I’m hoping that 21 will be a better year for everybody and we’ll be looking forward to that new schedule coming out here maybe in the fall.

Absolutely. I, I mean, , I would think within the next month that we’ll have actually, I know I have one or 2, 20, 21 events already on the site, but I would think, you know, the regular schedule should be coming out starting in October. Is is typically when it happens. And you know, most of the established groups like hooked on driving and.

chin, they relatively are gonna have the same schedule. The, you know, the date number just changes by a day or two because of, you know, it’s a new year, but, so they’re all relatively at the same places? Uh, yeah. Even the newer guys, I mean, once they’ve get data under their belt, they [00:14:00] kinda hold onto it. Nice.

How often is the data updated? Like, how often are you getting in there? I go through about every two months and just check everybody’s schedules. And you know, I’m, I’m on a lot of their mailing lists, so I’ll catch stuff that way and just change it instantly. And I, I find a lot on Instagram, the, that they’ll post, they had updates or changes.

So it, you know, it’s really just paying attention. And then, and again, about every two months, I’ll just go down the list of all of ’em and double check the schedule. and usually they’re, you know, there might be one or two every time I check, but it, it stays pretty consistent. Do any of them reach out to you or do they come to you versus you having to look it up and everything?

Other than the email newsletters and stuff like that that come out, do they come to you asking for your help, I should say? Yeah. I mean, obviously in the beginning, I would say in the first three years, not so much. I mean, if you did, but. , we definitely have ’em reach out to us. They’re always very humble asking, well, how, how do we get, I’m [00:15:00] like, you just gimme your list.

Give me your list and where you want it linked, and uh, I’m happy to do it. Which actually leads into my next question. Are you linking through, or are people clicking through to Motorsport Reg or club registration.net or directly to, let’s say, Chin’s website? How does that work? Uh, you know, what’s the process like once you’ve landed on h HPD Junkie’s?

I link to all of the above. Basically each event listed, which you can look at on a calendar form, or you can look at it through what I call the track search, which we’ll have every event for each track for the year, and whichever the situation you can click on and it’s going to send you to either, you know, for instance, chin has their own registration.

Mm-hmm. , that’s where I send you. If someone uses motor sports reg or club. . I know that when I’m looking at stuff online, I want it to be the least clicks as possible. Why not just send them where they need to go? Let’s talk about Chin as an example. We have Mark Hicks on here not too long ago, and he told us all about their registration process and [00:16:00] how, you know, they’ve got it basically time gated, you know, X amount of weeks away from when the event is gonna occur.

The registration actually opens up. But a lot of us forget that, right? And even though we’re reminding our listeners of that right now, it would be nice to get an automated alert to say, Hey, there’s an upcoming chin event in my area. Have you thought about signing up? So is that a function of hpe? It is not at the moment.

That, and, and probably a hundred other things that I would love to do that I either don’t have the budget for or the time for . And, and again, I’m, I’m not an IT guy, so it’s not like common knowledge. to me, to, you know, this is out there that you could be doing, that’s really easy. But I’m learning and you know, I’ve got friends here and there that kind of will help me out occasionally with that kind of stuff.

So, you know, as it grows, these things will happen and, and, uh, will expand. But bottom line, it’s a, it’s a small budget business, and I have a, I have a day job. . Yeah. Ho. Hopefully someday it’ll take you to the [00:17:00] track itself, . Well, you know, it’s very fortunate because it often seems that in the Motorsport world there’s always a sect of either I engineers or IT professionals.

And so, you know, our listenership, there’s a lot of IT folks out there. So maybe there’s some people that are interested in helping out, right. And writing some code and, and whatnot. I’m not volunteering myself yet, but, uh, , I got plenty of code to write on my end. , but let’s talk about the kind of traffic that’s coming through the website.

What are you seeing on average? Like how many visitors are you seeing per month? Yeah, about 9,009. 10,000 a month. I would say it, it’s like a hundred, 120 a year. Last year, I can’t quite remember, but this year’s been kind of weird. It was definitely slow through the Covid. People just weren’t looking, you know?

Yeah. I, I, there was no real reason to, you know, and, and it did start to pick up once things were relax. Yeah, on the average it’s, you know, two 50 to three 50 a day. I think that works out to around nine, 10,000 a month. So for the organizers that are [00:18:00] out there, you know the Mark Hicks of the world and, and you know, the David Rayes of H O D, et cetera, and the guys over at S C C A that we talked to not too long ago as well, is there an opportunity for them to go in on a self-service portal and start adding the information themselves to H P D E junkie?

Or is it still something that you have to. It’s still set up where I have to do it. You know, actually it would be great to have it that way, but quite honestly, I think we’d end up with less events on the website because, you know, some of the groups are great about giving me their schedules before I ask, but some of them, you know, I, I don’t mean this in a, a bad way, but some of ’em don’t really care that much, I don’t think so, I don’t know that they would actually send them.

Got it. Or, or, or upload them themselves. So I’m kind of cool with doing it myself and I, I guess it’s, it is what it is for now, . Understood. So the scheduling part of HPE junkie is just one facet of the website. What are some of the other draws of coming to the website? I, I wish I could woo you with something, [00:19:00] but you know, it, it really, I, I’ve actually simplified it since the beginning because I don’t know, I just felt like that’s what most people want and, and that’s what I would want if I were a driver using the website.

I would want it to be as easy as possible to find my event. And so I really tried to focus on that. And even to the point of advertising, I don’t want, you know, people are like, well, you should do Google ads and you should do this or that. And. . I don’t like going to websites and seeing that, so I don’t want to do it.

So anything that’s on the site, I want it to be related to the site is something that I would use. So I guess that’s a, a bit of one is if you see somebody’s linking on my site, I, I, I recommend using them or going to them and, and I’m, I’m sure if it grows, like I’d like it to and like I think it will, I’ll continue to do more features and, and such.

Very cool. So one of the things I noticed, you know, coming around the. and, and checking things out. One of the big mottoes on there is drive fast, safely. So how does H P D junkie promote safety? You know, I, I think I should tell you [00:20:00] that when we started the website, it probably had a slightly different meaning.

Then I, I kind of see it now. When we started out, I, I think we both thought we would be attracting, you know, the new drivers and, and that was kind of a don’t go out driving on the back roads. I, I really get bummed out by, you know, street drag racing because to me that it’s even more dangerous because there’s so many other people around.

But it really, the start of it was, . And I guess that still comes into play because, you know, that’s kind of how I see an H P D is, it’s the safest way to drive your car fast, like, and, and really get the potential out of it. And I just see driving on the back roads now is really dumb. But I, I guess it also, now that I’ve done it for a while, I see it as.

Put your stuff on, on jack stands when you get back from the track and go underneath and, you know, check as many bolts as you can, touch and bleed your brakes often. And you know, that’s how I kind of see it now [00:21:00] as, as well is, is literally be a safe driver on the track for yourself and everybody else. So what is something you wish you knew as someone starting out in h p?

Something that, you know, looking back on it now No, I’m, I’m, I’m glad I, I’m glad you asked that. Don’t do anything to your car. Um, it’s a popular one. Yes. Go out there. Bone stock and, you know, I, I didn’t do it and, and I just, I don’t think you know any better until you’ve done it or unless you’ve really done some research.

Yeah. Cuz I mean, everybody shows up. with coil overs, an exhaust system, and a cold air intake. And, and I did in my z I mean, you know, you, you see all the newbies showing up like that and then do your brakes first. Cuz that was the first thing that I, I, um, butt puckered on Second Track day at Carolina Motorsports Park in the z.

in the rain coming down the straightaway and pedal went to the floor. Mm-hmm. , um, and turned one as a 90 degree left hand. I’ll never forget it. And I was, I felt pretty [00:22:00] humiliated. My instructor was like, so, um, what have you done to your car? Like mods? And I said, oh, Kohl air intake and exhaust system and lowering Springs.

And he was like, you do anything to your brakes? And I was like, no, it’s got big ACO bono, four piston brakes. They’re. So let’s go back to one of the things that you mentioned earlier, which was you’re talking about value for dollar and the fact that there’s a price comparison you can make on hbd junkie.com.

So what do you think if you’re starting out and you’re looking at this, track days are expensive. I mean, let’s call it what it is. Let’s call spade a spade. , but what do you think is the sweet spot in terms of track time for dollar? What should consumers be looking for? To me, it’s all based on the track because you know, v i r rental for the day is three to four times what?

A track like Robing Road or C M P costs. Coda, for example, is like $80,000 a day, I think it is Daytona’s, [00:23:00] $50,000 a. . You know, obviously the more it’s a pro track, the more you gotta expect to pay for it. To me, what’s a really good deal is if you’re getting more than four hours total a day, you’re getting a lot of track time, that that would kind of be my best judge of it.

But pricing really, I think is pretty close between the different groups at the same. , you know, you’re gonna find some that are drastically higher and maybe one or two that are drastically low, but they’re all pretty close. It’s just probably more a personal preference, you know, cuz some guys will like 20 minute sessions and you typically get six of those.

Some guys like 30 minute sessions and a, you know, a group will do four of those. So it kind of, you know, depends on what you like. If you could sit there with a few tabs open and compare one to another, and, well, this one’s more expensive, but I’m gonna get five. Track time, and this one’s a little cheaper, and I think it really boils down to minutes per dollar is kind of what you would break it down [00:24:00] to, or hours per dollar.

What do you think is a good starter track for people that are getting into this and getting addicted to H P D E? Wow. I mean, I think any, and it really is based on what’s the closest one to you. I think if you’re starting, and I guess I look at it because if you’re starting out, probably not pushing your car to anywhere close to its.

You’re likely gonna have an instructor in the car with you to keep you safe. So it’s at least going to give you the chance to, to see if you like it, which you will beware . But yeah, I think any, really, any track and, and I mean, unless it’s full of potholes, but they probably aren’t having events anyway. As a track junkie, <LAUGH> or H P D junkie, you’ve been in this now for seven plus years.

What has kept you going on top of just your love and passion for driving? Is there a piece of advice you could give a newbie to say, Hey, Don’t do 27 events a year, pace yourself. This is how you keep the magic alive. This is how you keep it going. Do you have any advice [00:25:00] there to say, you know, this is really how you should space out your calendar?

I, I guess the advice I could give is what I’ve kind of come to for myself. What, which. that I feel is comfortable. There were a couple years I was trying to do spring and summer every two weeks, and it just wore, just warming out. Um, but it wears the car out too. And you know, then you’re, you’re tired, you’re going through tires and breaking pads and oil and brake fluid faster.

So what’s been kind of the magic for me is, once a month, and I like to start around March or early April and then quit late November. And part of that is towards the end of the season, I get a little burned out. I kind of feel like the car needs kind of a good overhaul and I, I shouldn’t say overhaul, but it needs to be checked thoroughly.

You know, all the fluids need to be changed, checking your ball joints and all that kind of stuff. and, you know, maybe I get a little more burned out because I, I’m really busy at the track. I really try [00:26:00] to get around and meet people and talk to people and, but by November, I’m, I’m kind of ready for, for it to be done.

and then it takes a couple, two, three months and, and then I start itching again. And usually that’s about when my car’s coming close to being back on the garage floor. And yeah, there’s, there’s something known as like the three year hurdle, right? So a lot of, oh, oh, and you’re talking more in a long term.

I haven’t hit that yet, so I, I can’t really speak on it. I’ve been hitting the once a month for probably a solid four years, and I haven’t hit it yet, but I, I hope it doesn’t. Yeah, well maybe again, it’s, it’s because of a matter of convenience. You know, life changes, but, you know, we seem to go through these cycles of every three to four years, especially in Motorsport, where people kind of like, you just see new faces and the long timers.

Those of us that are extremely addicted to the sport, we hang around forever, it seems like. So, Dave, is there anything that we didn’t cover that you want to go over? Or is there anything new coming out that people might be interested in for the 2021 season? And also, you know, here’s [00:27:00] an opportunity for you to thank your sponsor, shout out to different people, et cetera.

As we get closer to the end of our segment here, you know, next year. I will have Canada added. The only thing I can promise is we’ll have every track day in the US that we can find listed and, you know, hopefully something else will grow from it. And I, I do, I would like to mention a, a few people that have, you know, really helped us get the ball rolling Apex performance, which I, I mentioned earlier, great folks and, and they’ve got some really good deals, right?

you know, it’s kind of close out. I kind of prefer to buy the five year old helmet and keep it for five years cuz it’s gonna stink like hell anyway and, and get a new one cheap. So I just got a 2015 helmet at a great price. I know there’s some other ones available and if you mention H P D E junkie to them, , they give you at least 10% off.

Probably not the closeout stuff, but anything else, really great people. I can’t say enough about him. Another guy that’s kind of been really cool and, and [00:28:00] helped me out a lot is Jim Trama. He runs with NASA Northeast. He’s got a, a blog called No No Money Motor Sports Blog. And to me it’s like the. Track day blog, especially for the newer crowd.

I mean, he hits all of the really cool, you know, things you need to know. The tires, the little triangles on your tires, why they’re there. Latest one came out today. It’s uh, like 17 things to know about your brakes. and I scan through it all. Great information. Glock brakes been good to us. Lockton Motorsports has been really good to us.

Another one that I don’t think a lot of people know about is track laps.com. There’s a link at the bottom of our, our homepage. It has all the, it’s just data of different guys track times across the country and all the different tracks. So you can either like compare what you’re doing or post yours and watch videos of other people at track.

I think it’s a pretty cool. and, um, you know, he, he’s kind of been one of those guys that’s been [00:29:00] with me since the beginning and, and just a really nice guy. Yeah. Visit the partners. They’re at the bottom of the homepage. I wouldn’t have ’em there if I didn’t think they were worthy of, um, an H P D E reader.

So what else about HPE junkie? Do you want to tell the audience or tell us The floor is your, Wow, you, you, you’ve kind of caught me off. This must be the trick question. Those are coming. Don’t worry, . Oh, great. You know, I guess I just want people to know that, you know, we’re trying to give an honest thing back to the sport.

You know, we don’t really get a lot from the website. We get some perks. We’re not getting rich by any means. Um, , it’s finally where we’re not coming out of pocket for it. Again, you know, it’s kinda like back to the advertising and the ease of using it. I just really want to provide track day, H P D E World with an easy way to find events and.

be as comprehensive about having everything that’s out there and, and I get a lot of emails that, hey, thanks for for what you do. And so for now I feel like [00:30:00] I’m doing what I can and just trying to do the best I can at it. Absolutely. I was gonna say, we hear a GTM fully approve of what you’re doing because we often say all the time that this sport is a sport of convenience.

And you’re not looking to, oh, I have to run with pca, or I have to run with with H O D or Chin or whatever you’re looking for. Who’s gonna be at this track at this day? And then I’m gonna run with them. So I think what you’re doing fits exactly with what a lot of the people. that do HPDs are looking for.

And I think it’s gonna help, or it has helped bring new people in just because you’ve simplified it so much for us. I mean, it’s simple to go to your website, pick a date that you wanna run, and that’s who’s running on that date. I think it’s perfect. I think it’s great. Well, thanks Brad. And you know, I, that’s my, was my goal.

You know, I looked at it like everybody knows the tracks they want to. . So we have that option of I want to go to v i R this year. Well, here’s 30 options. , you know, and you can click [00:31:00] on each one of them and, and compare the prices and you know, whatever’s makes you happy, how much run time you get, whatever it might be.

Then I also looked at it like, well, there might be a guy that is really busy and he finds out he has this particular weekend open and he lives on the East coast, what’s going on on the East Coast? So, you know, at least you got the two options of you can check it either. So Dave, I can’t thank you enough for coming on.

It’s been super educational and I’m hoping that, uh, more and more of our listeners will be using H P D junkie in the future to correlate all that scheduling information and get their schedule planned out for the year. Because like we say, and we’ve set often. Register early and register often. And the easiest way to get to that information is through a site like hvd junkie.com where you can check out what is close to you.

And it is a really unique way of searching out those track events that are close by to you. So again, Dave, I can’t thank you enough for putting that type of service together for the community. It’s a huge give back, and [00:32:00] it is definitely something that everybody should be checking out if they haven’t.

Well, thank you very much for saying that. Thank, thank you as well for having me on your, uh, podcast. It, it’s been great talking with you. Something I wanted to add really quick when you said about register early is I, I couldn’t agree more because the more the hobby grows, the faster they’re gonna fill and there’s so many, only so many racetracks and so many days in the year.

Exactly, and, and so, uh, you know, that’s, that’s been part of our mission since 2014 is to continue to spread motor sports enthusiasm. And that’s in all facets and all disciplines, right? Because if we don’t continue to spread, then all these tools and all this knowledge and, and the, and the enthusiasm behind Motorsport to the next generation or to people that just didn’t know and they got cars collecting dust, not being driven the way they were intended or the way they were built.

then the sport dies. Right? So it’s very important that we continue to evangelize all of this. And, and I don’t want the sport to die because I hate golf. . [00:33:00] Uh, I do. I need something to do on Saturdays and Sundays and, and I, I don’t like golf. , it’s boring. Me neither. There you go. And on that note, I think it’s time to end.

So thank you gentlemen. We will talk again soon. Thank you.

Hey listeners, did you enjoy this particular. Did you know you can learn more about what we just talked about by visiting the GTM website. If you want to learn more or just review the materials from this episode, be sure to log on to www.gt motorsports.org today and search for this particular episode from all of us at gtm.

Never stop learning. If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our Texas at [00:34:00] (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear. Hey listeners, UCCI Farrick here. Do you like what you’ve seen, heard, and read from gtm? Great. So do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it, but please remember, we’re fueled by volunteers and remain a no annual fee organization, but we still need help to keep the momentum going. so that we can continue to record, write, edit, and broadcast all of your favorite content.

So be sure to visit www.patreon.com/gt motorsports or visit our website and click in the top right corner on the support and donate to learn how you can help.

Learn More


Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

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


Do you like what you've seen, heard and read? - Don't forget, GTM is fueled by volunteers and remains a no-annual-fee organization, but we still need help to pay to keep the lights on... For as little as $2.50/month you can help us keep the momentum going so we can continue to record, write, edit and broadcast your favorite content. Support GTM today! or make a One Time Donation.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. That would help us beat the algorithms and help spread the enthusiasm to others by way of Break/Fix and GTM. Subscribe to Break/Fix using your favorite Podcast App:
Listen on Apple
Listen on YouTube
Listen on Spotify

There’s more to this story…

We had a great time talking with Dave Peters about how he built HPDEjunkie.com, but we felt like the listeners didn’t get to know Dave as a Motorsports and Car enthusiast, so as an encore to the original episode, we’ve put together this mini-sode based on our post-session happy hour. Sit back, enjoy.

Some stories are just too good for the main episode… Check out this Behind the Scenes Pit Stop Minisode! Available exclusively on our Patreon.


Better Together

Paddock Pal is our “Track Side Assistant” app linking YOU, the driver, to everything that’s going on during the weekend. Offering daily schedules, turn-by-turn and tips, weather conditions and other valuable information. And we’re proud to announce that HPDEjunkie has offered to sponsor GTM and share their technology with us by integrating into Paddock Pal. You can now access HPDEjunkie scheduling information directly in the app and through our Track Travel Guide!


This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Gran T
Gran Thttps://www.gtmotorsports.org
Years of racing, wrenching and Motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge, stories and information.
Previous article
Next article

Related Articles

IN THIS ISSUE

Don't Miss Out


Latest Stories

STAY IN THE LOOP

Connect with Us!