News – Gran Touring Motorsports

Follow the Money: F1’s Financial Support

November 20, 2024

Skip McGoun examines Formula One on-track and on-vehicle sponsorships through the post-WWII period to show the evolution of the cultural appeal of the series.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Bio

Elton G. “Skip” McGoun is an Emeritus Professor of Finance at Bucknell University and a former visiting professor at the University of Donja Gorija in Montenegro. He has presented and published on both finance history and culture and automobile history and culture and served as area chair of the Vehicle Culture Section of the Popular Culture Association.

Notes

Swipe left or right (or use the arrows/dots) to navigate through the presentation slides.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Brake Fix’s History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.

Follow the money. Formula One’s financial support as cultural indicator. By Elton G McGowan, Elton Skip McGowan is an emeritus professor of finance at Bucknell university and a former visiting professor of the university of Montenegro. He has presented and published on both finance history and automobile history and culture and served as area chair of the vehicle culture section of the popular culture association.

Skip examines formula one on track and on vehicle sponsorships through the post world war two period to show the evolution of the cultural appeal of the series. The title of this presentation is Follow the Money, which is a very familiar investigation approach. You know, if you really want to know [00:01:00] what’s going on beneath the surface.

follow the money. My observation has been that within motor racing, at least one transaction that appears to be ubiquitous is pay and display. So on the one hand, you have companies providing racing groups with some form of compensation and exchange. They’re allowed to display their name. It’s impossible to believe that anyone isn’t aware of this phenomenon.

Had they not closed the blinds, you could either look at this slide, or you could look out the windows and see numerous banners and billboards. Now, what’s interesting about this are a couple of things. First is, if you look at historic photos from the French Grand Prix of 1908, there are billboards. And there have always been billboards at races.

If you look at what’s on the [00:02:00] billboards, okay, so this is a Formula One event. You have an advertisement for a shipping company, DHL. You have a large international bank, UBS. You have an insurance company, Allianz, and it looks here like you even have a consumer electronics and appliance company, LG, none of which appear to have any direct connection with the company.

Motor racing. And in fact, I have to admit, I’ve been looking out the window since I’ve been here. And I can’t figure out what go bowling has to do with motor racing either. Another location for advertising now is on a tire. This was apparently a relatively recent phenomenon. I mean, we had billboards and banners for a long time.

And it took quite a while before we started seeing anything like this. And it appears to have started out, and this is based upon just looking over some historical photos, with [00:03:00] just a small name on the chest. Kind of like, I think, Eric was wearing yesterday with Pirelli. And then it seems that it’s evolved into something that’s pretty extraordinary from a fashion point of view or a functional point of view.

I’ll go back to this. And I noticed Eric is kind of following this trend this morning. I noticed at least two, Mobile and Porsche. Finally, what everyone has observed after it became legal in the late 60s, we see the logos and names on the automobiles pretty much everywhere it’s possible for them to be.

And again, as with the attire. It’s a little hard to imagine just what the point of something like that is. You know, it’s clearly not something that could ever be seen from any sort of distance. The location of these advertisements really does pose some interesting questions. Why do companies do this?

Obviously, they think that they must be obtaining [00:04:00] some sort of benefit from it. What are the potential benefits that a company might receive from these displays? The obvious one is kind of a traditional marketing benefit, attract new customers. Without having interviewed the folks at Martini and Rossi, this was one of the earliest consumer products to be advertised in Formula One.

And one of the assumptions, or at least part of my speculation, first of all, they’re an alcoholic beverage company. Perhaps they assumed that the audience for Formula One consisted of people who drank alcoholic beverages. You know, which may not be an inappropriate stereotype at the time. However, they weren’t drinking their alcoholic beverages.

Perhaps they thought that by advertising in Formula One, they could convince some of those folks in the stands to give a different drink a try. Okay, so attracting new customers. A second, more or less traditional marketing rationale is to [00:05:00] retain current customers. It’s very difficult for me to believe that anyone in the audience for this Formula One event did not know about Red Bull.

and had not already made a decision whether to drink Red Bull or not. However, you can imagine that maybe what Red Bull is looking for in something like this is that if the folks in the audience are fantasizing taking the checkered flag, you know, standing on the podium, even though they don’t have the car, they could have a can of Red Bull and that this can of Red Bull becomes part of this image, part of this fantasy.

And maybe they might have more than one, hopefully not so many that they’re going to have heart seizures. Now, I took a look at Google Scholar to see if any work had been done in this area and it appeared to me that most of what people have written about has been more or less traditional. You look at sponsorship of Formula One, you see [00:06:00] if revenue increased, if the stock price increased, if brand awareness increased.

It was very, very conventional. I think there are different benefits from something like this that perhaps explains some of the questions I posed earlier. Now I’m calling this social benefits, and if you want to kind of summarize this in a smaller phrase, it’s the opportunity to hang with the cool kids.

So you sponsor a Formula One team, you know, you get to shake hands with the drivers, you get to pose for pictures with them, you get invited to attend the receptions, okay, there are certain benefits to that. These benefits might be for you personally. Keep in mind, I mean, these are companies. Presumably they do have to answer to investors.

But of course, this is an opportunity to take clients and customers along with you. And something like this would be very, very impressive. And I use this as an example. I don’t know if any [00:07:00] of you have heard of Footwork, but Footwork was a Japanese logistics company. And like some of these other sponsorships that you see, it’s really hard to see any really direct connection with Footwork.

Formula One racing, but on the other hand, you can imagine that the customers of footwork would be fans of racing and would be interested in going to these events and having their photos taken with the principles. Another benefit, and I may be. Mistaken in referring to this as political benefits. But the idea is that there’s something else going on, not necessarily related directly to business activities.

Early on, there was certainly a very significant nationalism component to racing. So you could see in a situation like that, an Italian company might want to be showing its patriotism or its political commitment by advertising at an event like that. or advertising on a vehicle in that event. Another one, and [00:08:00] this occurred to me when I was watching the films on Thursday night, you know, we had the Sprint cars with a lot of advertisements on them of companies I had never heard of.

And I thought, well, maybe it’s kind of a way for the company to show its kind of more personal support. For a customer, okay, so that they’re willing to donate in a way to their venture and not just sell them a product. Of course, you could also look at this as being kind of a product discount as well.

But the reason I’ve used Parmalat here is that Parmalat is an Italian, I believe, dairy products company. And again, you’re thinking like, you know, what’s the connection? And I think maybe at this time a Parmalat was trying to become a conglomerate. They wanted their name to be known to potential investors, you know, when they’re looking to finance their acquisitions.

So this is a way of getting their name out there. That may seem a little elusive, but I’ll explain a little more in just a second. And another one, and I think this is becoming increasingly important, is the [00:09:00] idea of brand image. So we have The company Palantir, which as near as I’ve been able to figure out, is a data mining company trying to extract something from large databases.

I’ve never heard of their name in conjunction with motor racing. Usually Palantir is associated with the Department of Homeland Security, with a central intelligence agency, but here they are. Talent here. Ferrari team partner. Interestingly, two days ago I was looking at the CNN website and there was an identical banner on the website to this.

Same photo, same everything, different company. But again, a technology company. One thing that I’ve looked at in the past is the importance of making something tangible. Humans deal with physical objects. And obviously a company like Palantir is intangible. And I’m wondering if making the technology [00:10:00] association with Ferrari gives them some sort of visual substance or visual picture to their clients and customers.

Let me digress just a little bit. I had a friend from Germany visiting a week ago, and I told him I was coming up to the conference and he said, Oh, what are you going to do? And I’m making a presentation and I told him about the presentation. So he told me a story. My friend is with a German biotech company in Munich.

This biotech company, it’s very small, it has a very specialized product. What they produce are delivery systems for drugs. You know, drugs can’t all be administered in the form of a pill. It can be a very, very. very difficult process to get the chemical into the body and get it to the right place. And this is what his company does.

So, the customer for his company are drug companies. So, they hire this company to develop delivery systems for their new experimental drugs, which is [00:11:00] really way far removed from anything individuals are familiar with, and certainly far removed from sport. Now, he was able to use company money to make a contribution to a participant in a race called, and I think it’s called Funderglob.

It’s a solo around the world sailing race. That occurs every four years. One of the reasons I think he made this contribution from his company, he obviously had the influence to do this, is that he’s a sailor. So he kind of liked the idea. But the other reason is, Fond du Globe, I understand, is largely a French So most of the contestants are French, but it’s held every four years.

And four years ago, a German contestant participated and did really well, apparently ended up in the top five out of about 30. And this got huge publicity within Germany. And he thought it might be good to sponsor this [00:12:00] race because another German who was from Bavaria was going to compete. What’s interesting is I don’t know that he anticipated the consequences, but one thing that happened is that as a result of the sponsorship, his company’s representative in France, was invited to a reception where she was photographed with the German contestant in this race.

And this photo ended up prominent in German media. You know, saying, okay, here’s a representative from Sirion Biotech. So, that answered my question as to what the point of all those things on the jackets were. Is it so when someone gets photographed with a driver, they can see on the driver the logo for their company.

Now, the other interesting thing about this story [00:13:00] about my friend is that at the time They were in the process of kind of selling themselves. They were looking for a larger company to take them over. And what he found was their association with this race turned out to be significant. Potential acquirers that they were talking to thought it was pretty cool that the company was associated with this race.

And the thing is, you never know what people are going to bond over or what’s going to be an interesting topic of conversation. So rather than having to talk about antibodies, they were able to talk about I’m going to talk a little bit about sail racing, that story that he told me really gave me some insights into what might really be going on here, that this association can have very valuable, yet very indirect benefits, so that all of those little logos.

on the car are not going to be visible to [00:14:00] customers if any customer ever cares about them, but they provide other downstream benefits that can be extremely valuable. I thought, well, it seems as if there’s an evolution of sponsorships and advertising. It’s kind of gone through a series of changes.

Originally, racing was an important means of advertising the automobiles themselves. But what I found to be interesting here is that in the 1950s, that really wasn’t so much the case. Maybe it was because the cars had deviated so much from anything that people could actually purchase. So if you look at photos from Formula One cars from the 1950s, I saw only two, maybe three.

that had a logo, and it wasn’t very prominent. You know, Mercedes had the star, Maserati had the trident in the grille, and I think I saw a Ferrari logo. The only other thing was, you could spot the Gordinis by the shape of [00:15:00] the grille. They weren’t really advertising the car so much, but as you can tell from the billboard in the background, most of the advertising had to do with various sorts of automotive products.

Petroleum products, tires, spark plugs, those sorts of things. The next stage was really Tobacco advertising. Now, I think there were two reasons for this. One reason is there were fewer and fewer places where tobacco was allowed to be advertised. And in fact, in some cases, it wasn’t even allowed to be advertised on the automobiles.

In some countries, tobacco companies are looking for a place to advertise their product. Here’s where the stereotypes might come in. You know, I mentioned before, stereotype that maybe the Formula One audience at the time Well, maybe there was also a stereotype that the Formula One audience at the time was more likely to smoke than the general population, whether that was accurate or not.

So they had to find someplace to advertise. They chose this possibly because of the audience and also [00:16:00] because they were able to paint the car to look like their pack of cigarettes, which was pretty exciting. And I don’t know of any cigarettes that were green. Then As Formula One apparently became more popular and had a much broader audience, you started seeing advertisements for generic consumer products.

And by generic, I mean did not necessarily appeal to a unique market segment. That pretty much most people would be in the market for this sort of thing. You know, most people would be out and thinking about purchasing a camera, for example. Then from there, It kind of moved more into upscale products.

They were targeting what would probably consider maybe more wealthy people. Okay, so you see HSBC advertising. You see WorldCom advertising. Again, I’m not sure at the time how many of WorldCom’s products actually were under the name WorldCom. People purchase cell service. People purchase telephone service.

I don’t know if they know about WorldCom. And I don’t know [00:17:00] much about beer. I always associated BEX with being a little cut above. This was not bug. So we see them advertising more upscale consumer products. And then, of course, what we see nowadays is astonishing, is advertisements for technology companies.

And again, you can maybe make an argument that these were suppliers in some form or another. I’m not so sure. Okay, so in this case, you do see Palantir. You see Amazon Web Services. I looked some of these up, you know, one was like a Swiss cloud computing company. Okay, so these are companies you’d pretty much for the most part never heard of, kind of like Syrian biotech.

So I saw this as being kind of a progression of products that were being sponsored and wondered what the connection was between that and the audience, or at least that and the company’s perception of the audience. So do the changes in sponsorship correlate with changes in [00:18:00] the Formula One audience and kind of the cultural position of Formula One?

I thought, well, let me see if I can quantify that in some way, and honestly, I don’t know if I had, but what I was able to do was find a Wikipedia site where someone had looked at every Formula One team, and by year, they had the constructor, and that’s how it was listed. Then they identified what they called, at various places, the main sponsor, the delivery sponsor, or the principal sponsor.

And then they had a list of all the secondary sponsors, which obviously was pretty extensive. So I thought, well, let me see who was committed enough to be a main sponsor for three or more consecutive years. In other words, they really believed in something enough to really make a financial commitment.

And then what I did was I looked through and tried to classify them by industry. Take a quick look at who the sponsors were. Now, in [00:19:00] automotive, there weren’t many, where there was some sort of automotive automobile or automotive product associated with a different constructor. Now, I’m guessing that there’s probably a pretty close connection between Stewart and Ford and between HRT and Cosworth.

This is the one where there’s probably no connection. And I’m thinking maybe Infinity was willing to sponsor Red Bull because there was no other automotive name associated with it. Some of the other categories, these are the ones where the constructor was also the principal sponsor. On the one hand, you can see where the automobile company itself, obviously, tremendous resources, is its own principal sponsor, Alfa Romeo, Honda, Lotus, Mercedes Benz for a time, Renault, and some of the others, you can see, you know, some of the more Are less well known constructors.

Apparently couldn’t get another sponsor. So ended up being the principal sponsor themselves. [00:20:00] Here we have the consumer electronics sponsorships. Now again, the idea is principal sponsor three or more consecutive years. General consumer products. And it doesn’t appear to be any particular product category here.

It’s quite a wide variety of companies, you know, many of which I never heard of. Financial companies. Call this oil and chemicals. Actually, most of it’s petrochemicals. There are a few. I think this is a kind of a sugar company. I think Corto’s, you know, is more diversified products. But, you know, notice most of them are petrochemicals.

Technology companies. Tobacco companies. And here you can see, like, Marlboro, for example, sponsored in a wide variety of teams for extended periods of time. And, like, Imperial Tobacco was there for Gold Leaf, but then was there for John Player Specials. You know, there was some sort of break between these, so they didn’t sponsor for a while, and then did.

[00:21:00] transportation companies or logistics companies. So what? I’m not even going to try to necessarily make sense. You can look at these and you can see if this really can have any connection. Obviously, this was very preliminary, okay? So, most of them, constructors, tobacco and petrochemicals, We’re the largest sponsors, then you move into kind of consumer products, and now later into technology and transportation, the average beginning for these terms was highest for tobacco and general consumer products, and then oil and transportation, and later on financial technology.

More recent phenomenon and finally length of sponsorship. I kind of thought this was interesting is that consumer products tended to stick with team for the longest period of time, but tobacco was pretty loyal constructor. It seemed to me that, you know, you would finance yourself until you could find someone else to [00:22:00] provide the principal sponsorship.

So as I said, I’m not sure if these numbers really justify, however, the claim I’m making is that this evolution of sponsorships correlates with the evolution of F1 as a cultural phenomenon. 1950s, F1 was appealing to a subculture. You know, you look at the folks here, I think there are two women and one child in this photo.

Basically, it’s a lot of guys, many of whom appear to be of the same age. It moved from subculture to more mass cultural. A wider range of people were coming. They were bringing their families. You could fill the stands. So we see the transition from the automotive products and tobacco products to the general consumer products.

This is a transition I find interesting. And honestly, I was thinking, you know, maybe next year I ought to come up and do some [00:23:00] research on the cooling of Formula One. So when did Formula 1 go from being a mass phenomenon to being associated with James Bond? So this was where it kind of took the leap from the general consumer products into kind of the higher end products.

Interestingly, Formula 1 now is being used as a backdrop for fashion. It clearly has become very high end and very fashionable, although it does not look as if this has led to fashion sponsorships yet. So you don’t see fashion companies putting their name on the vehicles, but of course, what you do see more than anything else now is this formula.

One is the epitome of technological sophistication, and a lot of companies are taking advantage of that. Making the association and as I suggested giving some sort of tangible image to what is for the most part an intangible and in some cases almost incomprehensible product. It took [00:24:00] me a while before I ever imagined what Palantir did.

So, I think there’s something here. Now, we just saw a presentation which was a long series of clear violations of the statistical principle that correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things happen together doesn’t mean that one caused the other. In this case, I think that may be true.

The audience for Formula One, or at least the stereotypes of the audience for Formula One, or how Formula One is viewed culturally, then leads companies to exploit that with appropriate sponsorships. Therefore, if we’re interested in seeing where this is within the culture, we can look at this in order to do it.

Thank you very much.

Comment. Regarding sponsorship, you mentioned that Marlboro is there again and again and again. I get the impression that you don’t have a [00:25:00] sponsor ever sponsoring multiple teams in the same season. Is that correct? And if not, why not? I mean, it seems like you’d want your name splattered everywhere. You know, Marlboro never sponsored more than one car at the same time.

You’d mentioned you, uh, hadn’t seen a green car with tobacco sponsorship. Well, in North America, Cool Cigarettes was a major sponsor for almost a decade in Formula Atlantic and, uh, CART IndyCar. You started out talking, you mentioned the Go Bowling. I had a chance to interview the Go Bowling folks in August.

Demographics is their big interest in NASCAR because their demographic in bowling are very similar to demographics of what they find. In NASCAR. And so that’s why they come. And it’s not just about being on the signage or on a car. They do what’s called activation, which they bring a bowling alley here [00:26:00] and set it up and let people get involved and the clothing and that sort of thing.

But yeah, it’s not just about your name on the car. It’s what they call activation. and getting people involved and out to the track. You talked about cigarettes and alcohol sponsorship in the 70s. And you talked about, you know, the demographic, who they’re trying to attract. I think it’s also affected the memory of that era as well.

In my social media streams, I’m always getting these pictures of James Hunt smoking and drinking. It seems to be that when people think nostalgically about that era, It’s the smoking and drinking and, you know, leading to guys like Hunt being a little overrated. So anyway, I hope that doesn’t offend anyone.

Um, he kind of lucked into a championship, but that’s another story. But I think it’s also affected the memory. So not just the image of the time, but even how we think about the past. That’s wonderful research, Skip. You’re doing some great stuff there. I have a question about the role of the individual.

Like, we [00:27:00] see this in NASCAR a lot. A driver will come to a team with a sponsor, and that’s where they get their job. And it’s to the point where drivers will get fired because somebody else comes in with a more lucrative sponsor that’s sponsoring the individual, not so much the team. They’ll sponsor whatever car this guy or woman goes to.

I’m just wondering if you saw that with Formula One. Because I’m thinking of someone like Lewis Hamilton. We were all talking about the fashion industry. He seems to be connected with a lot of high end clothing companies, Tommy Hilfiger, and then like the watch deals that so many see drivers promoting watches that seems to be much more personal than a team or a manufacturer.

So just wondering if. There’s any correlation there. That’s clearly, that’s clearly worth doing. As I said, the source for that information was by Constructor. Call me a slacker. I didn’t go the next step to see what drivers were associated with those vehicles at the time and [00:28:00] then to see whether they had an influence on subsequent sponsorship.

But clearly, that would be worth doing. And actually, there’s a wealth of PhD dissertation material here. There really is. Unfortunately, motorsports could stand to be a much more acceptable topic of academic research. I think we’ve just seen Bernie Ecclestone lectures on Formula One with Jim Miller. Then we got Richard Haynes coming up.

Skip, wonderful presentation. Can’t say enough good things about it. A lot of great comments. Yay.

This episode is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center. Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history of motorsports, spanning continents, eras, and race series. The center’s collection embodies the speed, drama, and camaraderie of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world.

The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories of race drivers, race series, [00:29:00] and race cars captured on their shelves and walls and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events. To learn more about the Center, visit www. racingarchives.

org. This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians. They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers. Organizational records, print ephemera and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through the modern age and into the future.

For more information about the SAH, visit www. autohistory. org.

We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content [00:30:00] of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pitstop minisodes and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators.

Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gumby bears, and monster. So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without you, none of this would be possible.

Livestream

Learn More

If you enjoyed this History of Motorsports Series 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. Subscribe to Break/Fix using your favorite Podcast App:

Consider becoming a Patreon VIP and get behind the scenes content and schwag from the Motoring Podcast Network

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.

This episode is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family – and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Other episodes you might enjoy

Seventh Annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History

The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), partnering with the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), presents the Seventh Annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History. The Symposium established itself as a unique and respected scholarly forum and has gained a growing audience of students and enthusiasts. It provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers and writers to present their work related to the history of automotive competition and the cultural impact of motor racing. Papers are presented by faculty members, graduate students and independent researchers.

The history of international automotive competition falls within several realms, all of which are welcomed as topics for presentations, including, but not limited to: sports history, cultural studies, public history, political history, the history of technology, sports geography and gender studies, as well as archival studies.

Michael Argetsinger at a book signing at the IMRRC
Michael Argetsinger driving his brother, J.C. Argetsinger, around the original race circuit in Watkins Glen, New York.
Michael Argetsinger speaks at the Revs Institute
Michael and his teammates catch up on the racing world during a break at the 24-hour Longest Night endurance race at Moroso Motorsports Park on Dec 28-29, 1997

The symposium is named in honor of Michael R. Argetsinger (1944-2015), an award-winning motorsports author and longtime member of the Center’s Governing Council. Michael’s work on motorsports includes:

Walt Hansgen: His Life and the History of Post-war American Road Racing (2006)
Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed (2009)
Formula One at Watkins Glen: 20 Years of the United States Grand Prix, 1961-1980 (2011)
An American Racer: Bobby Marshman and the Indianapolis 500 (2019)

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

Formula 1 at Watkins Glen

IMRRC

November 19, 2024

Formula One raced at Watkins Glen for 20 years, 1961-1980. This was a still early time in post-war F1, when nearly everything was smaller scale, sponsorship was just beginning, a DIY ethos ruled the paddock and US media attention was limited. Yet these 20 years mark a crucial midway point between the Glen’s original road racing and the modern, corporatized F1 that has now developed into a global media spectacle. To mark 75 years of Watkins Glen motorsports, this presentation offers a sketch of this distinctive time and place, with emphasis on the local community engagement that made those glorious 20 years of F1 possible.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Bio

Dr. James Miller has a longtime interest in media technology, and this led him to the historical study of the automobile as an under-appreciated site of media consumption. From there, the highly digitalized modern race car presented itself as a possible precursor of future mobility. This was also an excuse to intellectualize the pleasure of motorsports, which has resulted in a connection with the IMRRC and membership in the International Motor Press Association. Miller is professor emeritus of communications at Hampshire College, a former member of the graduate faculty at UMass Amherst and a member of the Porsche Club of America.

Notes

Swipe left or right (or use the arrows/dots) to navigate through the presentation slides.

Transcript

Formula One at Watkins Glen. The Circus Days by Dr. James Miller. James Miller has had a long time interest in media technology and this led him to the historical study of the automobile as an underappreciated site of media consumption. From there, the highly digitized modern race car presented itself as a possible precursor of future mobility.

This was also an excuse to intellectualize the pleasure of motorsports, which has resulted in a connection with the IMRRC and membership in the International Motor Press Association. Miller is a professor emeritus of communications at Hampshire College, a former member of the graduate faculty at UMass Amherst, and a member of the Porsche Club of America.

Formula One raced at [00:01:00] Watkins Glen for 20 years, from 1961 to 1980. This was a still early time in post war Formula One, when nearly everything was smaller scale, sponsorship was just beginning, a DIY ethos ruled the paddock, and U. S. media attention was limited. Yet these 20 years mark a crucial midway point between the Glen’s original road racing and the modern, corporatized Formula One that has now developed into a global media spectacle.

To mark 75 years of Watkins Glen Motorsports, this presentation offers a sketch of this distinctive time and place with emphasis on the local community engagement that made those glorious 20 years of Formula One possible. Our next presentation is by Professor Jim Miller, and it’s a very much appropriate one.

Formula One at Watkins Glen Circus Days. So, Jim, when you’re ready. Thank you. So, sports car racing on the streets and roads of Watkins Glen took place between 1948 and 1955. It was the realization of a fantastic dream of [00:02:00] Cameron Argettsinger. He’d summered on the nearby family farm and learned to drive on these same streets and roads when he was just 12 years old.

Argettsinger teamed up with the village mayor, a newspaper man, a garage operator, the owner of the Seneca Lodge, and a bunch of other local business leaders, racing they thought would be fun for the Northeastern elite who could afford to do it, and the spectacle would extend the local economic benefits of tourism further into the autumn.

The races were successful beyond expectations, drawing thousands of spectators. The first permanent track was built in 1956 and a second in 1971. In 1961, Formula One came to stay for 20 years. This presentation is part of a larger historical study of Grand Prix auto racing. Last year, I presented a model of F1’s developmental stages with a media orientation and an emphasis on the U.

S. Watkins Glen seemed to me to be a worthwhile case study of what I’m calling the Circus Era. That’ll be my focus today, [00:03:00] although I can only skim the surface of what I’ve learned since last November. Let me begin with three key observations, which will help you appreciate the details that follow. First, the 13 years of racing at Watkins Glen very much prefigured the Formula One experience.

In terms of organization, success, community involvement, sanctioning issues, and financial challenges. My second takeaway is related to the first. F1 at Watkins Glen was a fluke of historical circumstances that came together almost kaleidoscopically. It was at once a logical step in the modernization of Formula One.

A remarkable local achievement in a situation whose apparent strengths were equally the source of its eventual failure, that is, bankruptcy and the loss of the U. S. Grand Prix. A last observation is that there’s no denying the importance of F1 at the Glen. Nearly half of all U. S. GPs attend F1. Watkins Glen hosted the race longer than any other [00:04:00] American venue.

Teams, drivers, the press, fans, all agreed on the special charm and beauty of the place, the warmth and skill of race organizers, and the joyous participation of the villagers. It was unique, and also more generally influential, in what people call the Watkins Glen Effect, meaning, Encouraging other early circuits, like Elkhart Lake, Lime Rock, and perhaps Bridgehampton.

Nor is the past forgotten locally. For 30 years, the village has hosted a one day Grand Prix festival. That’s a kind of reenactment of those long ago times. And the Argett Singer’s family, The gift of the International Motor Racing Research Center collects and preserves precious materials that document the past, available to anyone.

This was a period when F1 began to become something recognizable to our own time. Regular circuits and countries became legacy venues. Familiar teams established themselves. Champion drivers emerged, and there were serious technological advances. The sport also [00:05:00] became more commercial and actually depended on sponsorship, which changed car livery from national colors to corporate and product designs.

While new organizations like the GP Drivers Association and the F1 Constructors Association challenged both the authority of the FIA and the independence of local race organizers. It was also an extremely dangerous time. When nine drivers were killed, two of them here, these fatalities provoked drivers into a sustained program for safety that improved tracks and racecars.

Here’s a schematic representation of the circus era study as it’s coalescing. I won’t be talking about the media component today due to lack of time. My overall aim in this is to move outside the usual motorsport historiography into a more lived cultural context, a kind of arms length ethnography. The most abstract and all encompassing frame here is the carnivalesque.

By this I mean a zone of sanctioned fun, but [00:06:00] crucially, where inversions of the normal take place, where fantasy becomes reality. So, speeding is prohibited, except here, where it’s demanded. Where mythical gods turn into superhuman drivers. Where everyday safety and security are abandoned in favor of embracing danger.

And where celebration, without inhibition, prevails. takes place. Think of the bog. A side note, and there could be many of these, during this period, another related carnivalesque phenomenon, the Outdoor Music Festival, emerged. Holistic leisure, somebody calls it, complete with on site camping, merchandise, food, and all the rest.

In July of 73, there was Summer Jam, featuring the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, the band, and 600, 000 rock fans, and it took place here. Calling this the circus era goes beyond an affectionate metaphor. In fact, the circus and the county fair are predecessor cultural forms to Formula One. They afford ready made structures and cultural [00:07:00] practices that racing took as its own.

Both are mostly rural and small town. Fairs were meant to educate farmers about the latest agricultural techniques, and that required entertainment to get their attention, which looked a lot like circuses, some version of the rings and the midways. Locals collaborated to maintain an annual fair, and they mixed it up with the exotic outsiders that circuses brought to town.

Fairs sought to be community building. Circuses displayed advanced technologies, like electric lighting and travel by train. Fairs involved competition, animal building, and canned fruit. Circuses were mobile encampments, while fairgrounds had permanent buildings. Fairs most popular events were Included horse racing, which gave way to auto racing with circuits and grandstands auto thrill shows were a kind of circus spinoff.

There’s a great deal more to say about how circuses and faires foreshadowed automobile racing and maybe F1 in particular during this period, just not today. Watkins Glen is a rural village whose [00:08:00] population during the circus era was about 2, 500. People descend mainly from English and Irish immigrants and there’s a sizable Italian community.

The area then was mostly agricultural with a significant salt producing industry. Situated at the southern tip of Seneca Lake, Watkins Glen has a long history of tourism. Steamboats and the railroad brought the well to do to elegant hotels and a spa near a two mile long gorge, which at the turn of the 20th century Became a popular New York State Park was and it is pleasant working class town of small businesses and modest homes.

Its biggest neighbors include Ithaca, home of Cornell and Elmira, where there’s a small airport. There is nothing in any of these rather commonplace features, even hints that someday Watkins Glen would become globally synonymous with the pinnacle of international road racing and produce a 75 year heritage of motorsports.

The invention of road racing at Watkins Glen [00:09:00] was a top down affair. It would come to involve the genuine enthusiasm and active support of townspeople, but it was mostly the work of a social elite, men with the experience, education, time, and means to organize, operate, and compete in sports car racing.

There was a core of local founders. They were informed by pre war racing in the U. S. and Europe, and savvy enough to gain sanctioning to close the streets and roads, To stop the trains to attract contestants and all the rest. Drivers were gentlemen sportsmen with serious money, fame, or both. They might have played polo or sailed in regattas.

They attended the dropout of Ivy League schools. They were widely known in popular culture. They had resources for serious play. A modest 1948 MGTC cost twice the price of a basic Ford coupe. Many of them had experienced the Depression in comfort. They all, of course, had survived the war and were looking to live full lives.

Some were heirs and were especially [00:10:00] influential. The Collier brothers grew up on an estate next to the Rockefellers. The boys built a racetrack out of its service roads. In the years just before the stock market crash, teenage Sam built and ran a summer theater featuring vaudeville in movies. It’s seated 66 and was financed by his father.

The patriarch made his money in streetcar and subway advertising and then bought more than a million acres of southwest Florida, where Collier County is named for him. Briggs Cunningham is in a league of his own. His influence on American post war road racing is probably as immeasurable as his personal wealth.

It was Cameron Argettsinger’s dream to race cars through the roads where his family roots were generations deep. His father had gone to Ohio, where he became an officer of a Youngstown steel mill. Father and son drove Packards. At age 20, Cameron was co owner of a Packard dealership. After the war, he was a married father, and between college and law school, he seems to have been able to devote himself [00:11:00] to road racing.

It would not be unkind to call this a vanity project, one whose success was directly linked to Argettsinger’s philanthropy. From the start, he sought to bring Formula One to the Glen. Many teams, as many as 60, circulated through F1 during the circus era. Maybe 15 could be considered significant. What are today called team principles were then some combination of owner manager, fundraiser, and designer.

Colin Chapman was a university trained engineer. A number of these owners were former drivers. Bruce McLaren designed, built, and drove his own cars. Sometimes a mother company manufactured road cars. whose main purpose was to pay for racing. Ferrari and Lotus are examples. These men shared a single minded dedication to the sport.

Frank Williams called it a lifelong compulsion. Ginny Williams wrote this about her husband of nearly 40 years. I’m quite certain he never visualized himself as one of the world’s leading constructors. His motivation was [00:12:00] simply his love of Formula One racing. He was addicted, no lesser word will do, to all aspects of the Grand Prix circus.

He didn’t really mind whether he was on the trapeze or cleaning out the cages, so long as he was there. The owners were idiosyncratic. Williams never ate on race day. He didn’t drink or smoke. He was a serious runner, keeping very fit. His future wife loaned him her inheritance, infuriating her father, who stopped Jenny’s monthly allowance.

Williams barely made his own wedding, and lived his first married year without furniture. There were an eviction and a baby at about the same time. His personal driving was so dangerous, he was called a hooligan. Teams often operated on a shoestring and with a DIY mentality. Enzo Ferrari disdainfully called them garagistas.

It took Williams a good decade before his team found success. He started by buying and selling used race cars and parts. Sharing a London bachelor pad. Creditors circled and [00:13:00] mechanics were paid by barter. Ford would loan the team a van, and Frank would sell it for cash. Drivers avoided his team. Maybe out of pity, Ken Tyrrell loaned an engine.

But Williams made his team feel like a family. People worked for him for ages. And eventually, of course, during the circus era, Williams won 11 races and a driver’s and a constructor’s championship. Things got only better after that. But running a team was hit or miss then, and teams very much reflected their owners quirky, impassioned personalities.

There’s disagreement about who first remarked that F1 drivers are like interchangeable light bulbs. But you see the point. During the circus era, there were a great many drivers who passed through the sport. Teams then didn’t identify, train, and advance them. Careers were short, several years at most. And only a few rose to the glow of celebrity.

Among scores, even hundreds of dimmer bulbs. For most, even those who became stars, a driver’s life was often one of struggle [00:14:00] and danger. Jackie Stewart was three times world champion. Eventually, he ran his own team. He led the successful fight for driver safety. Roman Polanski made a film about him, and George Harrison recorded a single.

He provided TV race commentary, and was a spokesman for Ford and Rolex. The King of Jordan was Stewart’s buddy. Stewart’s calls his F1 experience and the life it engendered a rocket ship ride. That’s because he began as a mechanic in his family’s rural garage. Climbing the ladder he says, I drove whenever, whatever, wherever possible.

For his first Monaco race, To save money, he drove the round trip from Scotland. And while he felt he was up against the sons of rich fathers, he referred to death on the track as akin to an air crash and a medieval battlefield. Today’s drivers, Stewart says, have no understanding at all. of what we experience.

Mechanics are the essential grunts of Formula One. They may be dedicated to their team [00:15:00] and enjoy a winning relationship with a driver, but their anonymous life is hard, with 14, 16, and even 18 hour days not uncommon in the past. Steve Matchett, a Bennington mechanic for eight years during 90s, offers these unromantic recollections.

He recalls wearing bubble wrap on his feet during winter testing in the UK, plus a t shirt, race shirt, sleeveless sweater, heavy knit sweater, duck down body warmer, and wet weather anorak. The long hours, the all nighters, and the hectic workloads that we are sometimes forced to endure are terrible facets of work in F1, and at times, I felt we were little more than slave labor.

The reality is this. Formula One, for all its associated passions, is a job of work, another way of earning a living. The Grand Prix Drivers Association gave Watkins Glen its Best Stage Grand Prix Award in 1965, and 1970, [00:16:00] 1972. Ginny Williams said that Watkins Glen was my favorite place in the world. Jackie Stewart remembered the glorious colors of autumn in the Finger Lakes.

Rural America in the fullest sense, and unlike the other places we’d be traveling to. The team stayed at the Glen Motor Inn. And because of the Canadian and Mexican races, Teams might remain there for three weeks. There was a charity golf tournament for drivers. Drivers fished on the lake. Bruce McLaren waterskied.

Graham Hill said, In Europe, we don’t stay in the same hotels. We meet only at the racetrack. Here, it’s like a party. Well, there were actual parties. Before the race, at the Argettsingers home, where Bill Green screened race movies in the garage. Looking back, Bill Milliken said, The homespun hospitality led to permanent friendships and was never forgotten by drivers or teams.

There was a post race party at the Seneca Lodge, where Francois Severe would play the piano, and James Hunt picked up waitresses. In between, there was a [00:17:00] champagne party for drivers wives and girlfriends. When F1 was finished with the Glen, Rob Walker said, It makes me very sad to have to go. Local people sold parking places in their yards.

Kids sold race tickets to the lines of cars streaming into the track. Church ladies prepared boxed lunches. Concession stands were staffed by locals, and some of that money paid for the annual high school trip to Washington. Ferrari mechanics overheard Italian being spoken in a store, which led them to cooking with the Italian speaking villager in her kitchen.

Before there were proper facilities at the track, dealerships that ordinarily sold Detroit products turned their garages over to the F1 teams, and locals trucked the cars up the hill for the race. Rick Huey’s experience with Tyrrell Racing epitomizes the easy collaboration between the visiting circus and the villagers.

To put it way too briefly, as a teenager, Rick met Ken. This led to Rick’s becoming an invaluable local man Friday. And then for 27 years, at several North American [00:18:00] tracks, Rick worked when he could as a Terrell team member. Try that today. So, what remains to be studied? Well, there is the so called Watkins Glen Effect, a kind of ripple across U.

S. road racing. Local participation was a distinctive feature here. More specific examples would bring this more to life, like names of lodgings and shops that catered to the race crowd, stories about volunteering, memories about F1 cars at places like the Chevy Garage. That sort of thing. But that’s a tough challenge to get that kind of information so many years later.

And some sort of limited comparison with F1 in Europe during this period would demonstrate either how unusual Watkins Glen was or how certain Grand Prix qualities were universal. I would just say that there’s always more to be done.

Thank you, Jim. Some questions for Jim. We talk a lot about the glory days, the glory days at Watkins Glen. What are [00:19:00] ways that you can see us both preserving that heritage, but also adding to it? Well, I suppose there are different ways to come at that. My particular interest here is regarding F1. I have a broader interest in sports car racing.

And of course, NASCAR has been here now for a long time. So there’s still racing going on. The research center, where I’ve spent many hours, Both going through materials and talking with generous people is this living archive full of material, which just speaking for myself in this project, I now feel a responsibility to bring this to life in some way and publish it and see that it’s circulated.

So perhaps people can remember a past. Maybe the larger question is, you know, is there a future for auto racing as we’ve known it? I had this kind of cockamamie model that I presented last year, which suggests that maybe the next chapter in the life of Formula One, at least. Might be a kind of a simulated hyper reality experience where we don’t have to go to a race which actually isn’t taking place anyway.

Now that’s pretty extreme speculation. Those would be my initial responses to your [00:20:00] question. Vintage racing might be another way to help preserve and present historic race cars. Probably heard this, Sam Posey wrote a book, I think it was called The Mudge Pond Express. It’s a little hard to find, but it really describes a lot of the escapades that went on back in the day.

I haven’t read Posey’s book, but I live relatively close to Lime Rock, so the straight there is now named after him, and he lives in Sharon. The vintage racing is actually one of the principal activities during the annual Grand Prix Festival here in September. It’s a good point. It happened a weekend earlier annually at Lime Rock.

I have to say this, and I hope it’s not offensive to anybody, but I think we owe Bernie Eccleston for the decline of Formula One racing here at Watkins Glen, and I really regret that we’re moving to venues like Las Vegas, but money drives the world. Eccleston then was the leader of the Formula One Constructors Association.

He was a Brabham team owner at the [00:21:00] time, I think. His aim was to Get a better deal for the teams, and especially lining his own pockets. My recollection, and others would know this better than I do, is that he in particular put pressure, along with the drivers, on the track for more updated facilities. I think toilets in the paddock might have been one of the issues.

As well as safety. One of the dynamics going on at the time was a kind of general upgrade. It was just too expensive, as I understand it, for Watkins. Now Bill, don’t challenge any of my historical facts. What I’m going to tell you is the biggest rock concert was here. Bigger than Woodstock and bigger than the one that was at Ontario some years later.

I worked here. And so did Rick Huey. Rick was around. Bunch of us others. When it came time for Summer Jam, You couldn’t go nowheres in Watkins Glen. Montour Main Street was parked full of cars and there was cars all over the place in Watkins Glen. The only way you could go down through Montour Falls was down South Street, out and over the roadway to Burdett and all that.

But it was the biggest thing in the world. [00:22:00] And the pickup after that was a lot too of all kinds of things. Cars that would never, never go back where they had came from. And you’d find money on the ground. Food that was unable to be preserved because they didn’t have enough ice. But anyways, Watkins Glen was the biggest one.

Bigger than the other two that I mentioned. Okay, that’s interesting because in July of 72, there was a music festival held at Pocono Raceway. And it was about a quarter of a million people or so showed up, and it was like a Woodstock type of thing. And that’s just when he said that, and it’s like, wait a second, Pocono had one as well.

So it must just be a commercial endeavor for a facility. That takes in lots of people, has a lot of room, can hold campers, and I just wanted to see the construction. Well, those were the days, and these places are natural sites. The organizers here were serious professionals who had done other very successful gatherings.

This got totally out of control, as I understand it. And as in many cases, Woodstock would be the prime example. Many people paid nothing. They just overwhelmed the place. [00:23:00] My sense is that the local people were very upset by this invasion of 600, 000 people. The Pocono event did as well. Roads were blocked.

It was a rainy weekend, so it was mud and a lot of gate crashing. And again, crippling the community because there was such an influx going to the racetrack. Although some of us have a certain age kind of remember those things fondly. We won’t go there. How I’m trying to conceptualize. A historical moment and particularly in this place is convincing to you and whether you have suggestions for ways to fiddle with it Thank you, jim.

That was wonderful. That was a very different look. Thank you

This episode is brought to you in part by the international motor racing research center Its charter is to collect share and preserve the history of motorsports spanning continents eras and race series The center’s collection embodies the speed drama and camaraderie of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world You The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans [00:24:00] alike to share stories of race drivers, race series, and race cars captured on their shelves and walls and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events.

To learn more about the Center, visit www. racingarchives. org. This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians. They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers. Organizational records, print ephemera, and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through the modern age and into the future.

For more information about the SAH, visit www. autohistory. org.

We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. [00:25:00] And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies.

As well as keeping our team of creators fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gumby bears, and monster. So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without you, none of this would be possible.

Livestream

Learn More

Consider becoming a Patreon VIP and get behind the scenes content and schwag from the Motoring Podcast Network

This episode is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family – and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Other episodes you might enjoy

Seventh Annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History

Michael Argetsinger at a book signing at the IMRRC
Michael Argetsinger driving his brother, J.C. Argetsinger, around the original race circuit in Watkins Glen, New York.
Michael Argetsinger speaks at the Revs Institute
Michael and his teammates catch up on the racing world during a break at the 24-hour Longest Night endurance race at Moroso Motorsports Park on Dec 28-29, 1997

Walt Hansgen: His Life and the History of Post-war American Road Racing (2006)
Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed (2009)
Formula One at Watkins Glen: 20 Years of the United States Grand Prix, 1961-1980 (2011)
An American Racer: Bobby Marshman and the Indianapolis 500 (2019)

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

Screen to Speed: Anjali Vadgama Silva

INIT eSports

November 18, 2024

In Episode 30 of INIT Talks, host Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya (@LoveFortySix) sits down with the inspiring Anjali Vadgama Silva, a racing driver and ambassador for Team BRIT. Despite living with multiple sclerosis (MS), Anjali continues to defy expectations, breaking barriers in motorsport and advocating for greater inclusivity and awareness for those with disabilities.

Photo courtesy of Anji Silva-Vadgama, Team BRIT, INIT eSports

This episode explores Anjali’s journey as a racing driver, her work with Team BRIT, and her inspiring mission to support the MS community. Anjali shares her incredible goal of walking the London Marathon to raise funds for MS-UK, a charity dedicated to helping people with MS live healthier and more fulfilled lives. Her story is a testament to determination, resilience, and her passion for making a difference both on and off the track.

Whether you’re a motorsport enthusiast, touched by stories of perseverance, or want to learn more about supporting a vital cause, this episode is filled with inspiration and heart. Don’t miss this conversation with Anjali Vadgama Silva as she shares her racing journey, her advocacy work, and her incredible efforts to walk for a better future for those with MS.

Watch the livestream

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Highlights

00:00 Introduction to Screen to Speed
00:49 Meet Anji Silva-Vadgama: Racing Driver and Marathon Walker
02:13 Team Brit: The All-Disabled Racing Team
03:25 Innovative Racing Controls for Disabled Drivers
06:54 Anji’s Racing Journey and Team Brit’s Future
21:11 Women in Motorsport: Challenges and Inspirations
26:26 Personal Life and Future Plans
36:49 Final Thoughts and Farewell
38:39 About INIT eSports and Sponsors

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Welcome to Screen to Speed powered by INIT Esports. In this podcast, we dive into the journeys of remarkable individuals making waves in sim racing and bridging the virtual with the real. From the thrill of digital circuits to the roar of real life racetracks, we explore the passion, Dedication and innovation that drives the world of motorsports.

We’ll hear from athletes, creators, and pioneers sharing their stories, insights, and the powerful ways sim racing is connecting communities and creating pathways into motorsports. So buckle up, Screen to Speed starts now.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Welcome everyone. Hello to another INITalks. Today we got Angie Silva. She is a racing driver for Team Breed, known for breaking barriers, inspiring disabled [00:01:00] individuals in motorsport. And, uh, she’s going to walk the London Marathon next year to raise money for MSUK, so we can start talking about this, uh, So can you tell me more about this marathon?

Yeah, sure thing.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Uh, so hi everyone. I’m andrea Um, I will be taking part in the london marathon next year on the 27th of april, which is a sunday Um, I have ms. So My body works half the time. It doesn’t the other half. Um, I became paralyzed for about two weeks from the waist down, so I didn’t really have use of my legs.

Um, now I am able to walk. I use a walking stick, so taking on the marathon is a big, it’s a big challenge in itself, but I’m really excited to kind of work with MSUK and actually help them to hopefully get some funding as well. Um, MSUK have been great help with me, um, when I got diagnosed with my MS. So, um, it’s just me kind of saying thank you to them.

And also I think it’s an amazing [00:02:00] thing to actually be able to take part in a marathon and that being the London one.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Great. That’s, uh, that’s awesome that you, um, you know, trying to push your limits and boundaries also, uh, that’s awesome. Uh, I know that you, uh, part of the team breeds, uh, can you tell me more about the team, what are you doing here?

And I know that you’re, uh, racing the same team with your wife.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yeah, so, um, I’ve taken a bit of a step back from racing itself, but I’m still part of the team. So I’m a Team Brit ambassador. Um, my wife races for Team Brit, um, at the moment and will be next year as well. Um, I had the, I guess I had the, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, C1 Cup, which was amazing, but actually seeing her this year actually kind of go from strength to strength has been amazing.

Um, with Team Brit, I am there for kind of like events. I help out where I can. Um, I’m generally [00:03:00] I guess right hand lady. So if I can help her with anything, I’m more than happy to kind of do that as well. And kind of same with Team Brit as well. So if there’s anything that I’m able to jump in and help them with, more than happy to do that.

Um, I think it’s amazing to be part of the world’s only all disabled driver race car team. So, um, just, yeah, I think it’s a great thing that Team Brit does. And I’m kind of really happy to be part of that, the team.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Awesome. Um, So you get opportunity to race the, the racing car also, and, um, where do you disable and can you tell people more how is it to race with, uh, different controls on the car as we, uh, know that we’re using the pedals and you’re using, um, something special on your wheel?

So tell me more about this.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: So we have drivers who are paralyzed from their kind of waist down, who are missing limbs, who only have use of maybe one leg, one arm, or even like myself, I’ve got a, I’ve got a very weak left leg. So I wasn’t able to kind of use that [00:04:00] for pressure. And so the kind of great thing about Team Brit is we have a hand control that our race engineer designed.

You’re able to I guess you are able to drive the car with acceleration, brake, and change gear all on the steering wheel. So on a normal car where you have shift pedals, that’s where you would have your acceleration and your brake and you’ll have a um, kind of toggle switch for your up and down gear gears as well.

So not only are you able to completely not use your legs at all and use everything with your hands, you can also have the ability to use maybe partly hand control and partly pedals as well, which is amazing.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s awesome. Um, because, you know, a few times in some racing, I tried to use my hands, uh, on the wheel, uh, just for fun that was, uh, in, you know, found it, uh, quite easy after some time to just, uh, get used to things and it’s, uh, like kind of natural to use, uh, the throttle, uh, with your hands.

So yeah, that’s great that you got an [00:05:00] opportunity, yeah, uh, to just jump in the car and doesn’t matter if you’re disabled or not, and to be competitive and it’s really cool.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yeah, exactly that. With Team Brit, in order to kind of be part of the team, you do have to have a disability, whether that’s mental or physical.

Um, but they do do kind of academy days where our sponsors are able to kind of come on board. Um, and they will be able to get some of their kind of colleagues or individuals that actually sponsor, actually get them into the car and actually feel how the car does drive. I mean, we always test them out on our sim controls.

So all of our sim. Simulators at Team Brite HQ, they’re all powered by the hand controls, so there is no pedals there, so they get the experience of how our drivers actually drive the race car.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s nice. Awesome. Um, so speaking about the Team Brite, what kind of cars do you have? What kind of championships do you race in, in real life?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yep. So they’ve got, [00:06:00] uh, forecasts. So they’ve got two BMWs. They’ve got a BM BMW one series, and they’ve got BMW MT 40 I. And they’ve also got two, uh, McLaren’s five 70 SI believe. Mm-Hmm. five 20 s. But, um, there’s two of them, which is great. Um, so the championships are a part of, um, the McLaren was in the British GT Cup, um, and last, or this year it was in the Brick car Endurance, and both of the BMWs were in the.

Brick Car Trophy. So next year we are looking to enter in the Brick Car Endurance Slash Trophy. I think they’ve kind of bundled it into one, um, championship, which is amazing. Um, and we may even be looking at doing a European series as well, but not too sure on that as of yet.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Mm hmm. Awesome. Um, so yeah, uh, we’ve been speaking about the, the Team Braids and, uh, what you’re doing now for them, yeah?

Um, uh, can you tell me more about your past and how you started in racing, how you get [00:07:00] involved into the sport and, uh, how your passion started?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yeah, sure thing. Um, so I’ve always been kind of, Bought up around cars. My dad had his own, um, mechanics garage. So always, always around cars. My grandfather used to be a rally car champion out in Tanzania.

So I kind of like to say racing is in my blood. Uh, racing is obviously a very expensive sport. So never really kind of dabbled into it. Um, and then I got diagnosed with MS and I completely stopped driving. So my road car just didn’t have the confidence to actually drive that. And I was sitting at home with Usher and I saw a documentary on the, uh, one show, which was a TV show, um, on the BBC and, um, I believe I saw Aaron and Bobby there and I thought, hmm, okay, they’re disabled and not only are they driving cars, they’re also driving a race car.

So I got in contact with the team founder and he kind of sent a couple of emails back and forth, had a Couple of phone calls and then he invited me [00:08:00] down to a track day for me to kind of get a feel of what the team is about and he got me on the simulator and I just showed him what I could do and then gave me the experience to actually kind of take the car out for a for a couple of laps, which was amazing and did a little bit more work with them and then they said to me if I’m able to get.

a certain amount of sponsorship, and would I be willing to kind of be part of the team? And I kind of thought, Oh, this is really exciting. I never thought anything like that would happen. And, and, yeah, just joined the team in late 2021, I believe it was and haven’t really looked back. And I’m grateful that I found them because they They allowed me to actually enjoy driving a road car again and not be scared of kind of getting, getting on the road with a disability, which is, which is really good because I’m one of those people where if you’re stranded somewhere, call me, I’ll come get you.

And I kind of lost all of that. And now I’ve kind of [00:09:00] got it back again, which is really nice.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s awesome. Yeah. Then you got opportunities to return back and, um, That’s great. I got this. Um, so outside of the team breeds, are you doing something, uh, like to inspire the disabled people also, uh, like maybe some, you running the social medias and something like this?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: So, um, outside, not really. Um, I just kind of. do my thing I guess on social media. I kind of do, I do anything I guess charity wise or raising awareness is generally always for MSUK and they’ve just been such a great inspiration to me and I’m more than happy to kind of do what I can to kind of help them.

So, um, in October this year in London we’ve got a building known as the Gherkin, um, to climb that. So it was 39 flights of stairs. So I did it last year and I did it again this year for them as well. So I was able to [00:10:00] actually kind of step out of my comfort zone again and climb lots of stairs, which was great fun.

Um, but I’m, I’m a great believer in not letting your disability hold you back. Just because I am disabled doesn’t mean. That I should be I guess tarnished with that word Um, I want to just make sure that if anyone does have a disability or we’re all human at the end of the day So if I can just kind of get at least one person thinking more positively or help them out That i’m i’m happy with that

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s nice that you think in this way, uh, definitely.

Um, so can you tell me about your, uh, your future plans and, uh, plans for your team, what do you want to do in the future?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: So I know with the team and I. But be honored to kind of be part of that as well. They want to go to Le Mans 24, want to be the first [00:11:00] ever kind of all disabled team out there. I think it would be a great, uh, a great achievement to get Team Brett out there.

So, um, that’s what we’re aiming for. Um, I know we need to get a GT3 car first, um, in our, in our books. And then we’re able to kind of Hopefully get invited to Le Mans 24. So, um, yeah, I’m looking forward to that. And we’re always kind of growing, always looking for that kind of sponsorship, whether it’s for a person, individual driver for the team as well.

Um, and we’re always happy to kind of talk with organizations to talk with people as well. We do a lot of work with organizations on disability equality, um, acts as well. So we’ll kind of go into the workplace. We’ll kind of let them know, I guess, what it means to be a disabled person. And ways in which that we could hopefully help them as an organization as well.

So we’re, I guess, we’re there to kind of share things and spread the word.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Mm hmm. That’s a great [00:12:00] goal to take a part in Le Mans 24. That’s one of the biggest events, I think, in real life motorsport. And I’m doing some racing and everybody really likes it. Le Mans in 24 hour race as well. And so everybody like, you know, waiting for this event to happen.

Um, so yeah, that’s a great goal that would that, uh, that your team got. Um, um, so what do you think, when is it going to be possible for you to get into, uh, 24 hour Le Mans and, uh, also, can you tell me, uh, what’s your favorite track? Sure.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, so timelines, we, we don’t have a timeline. I think it’s like those things you can’t really put it on anything.

It just goes down to, I guess, funding the drivers that we have and also the cars that we have as well. Um, in order for us to kind of get on that, we do need to kind of get a GT3 car under our books as well. So, until we have that, we can’t really go into that. [00:13:00] Le Mans 24, and as for my favorite racetrack, everyone generally says it’s very boring, but I really like it.

Like, I really do like Silverstone, but I just think because it’s a very kind of patriotic and historic track. Like, I am happy to say that I may have gone off on a corner, but also Lewis Hamilton has gone off on that corner, so I don’t feel as bad. Um, so, um, yeah, it’s, uh, I just find it a really iconic track, and for me it’s about an hour away from where I live as well, which I love.

Um, but yeah, um, Ooh, I say that, but actually I had the pleasure of going to, uh, Porto Mayo at the beginning of this year for, uh, preseason testing and didn’t get to drive the track, but I got to be a passenger, um, while Asha was driving in the, uh, BMW M240i. And, um, that track was unbelievable. Like I couldn’t see the road at one point.

All I could see was sky. Um, And the ups and downs, [00:14:00] the turns, it was, oh, it was amazing, like, I think that was one of the kind of best experiences I’ve had on track, and I wasn’t even driving the car, which definitely made me feel a little bit green, but it was a great experience, and hopefully we get to do it again next year!

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, first of all, it was an amazing track. I’m also a big fan of the tracks with the uphills and downhills. Even in simracing, it gets you so excited. And in real life, I also drove one of the tracks like this. It was a Kazan Ring. It was awesome with some up downs, really fast track. About Silverstone, yeah, you know, it’s a, uh kind of unique track is not for everyone definitely because some people hate it some people love it and Yeah, it’s it’s really technical in the hard track to drive.

I think that’s why people just Struggle with it a little bit.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: No, I’m with you I I know a lot of people say because it’s very flat you don’t have the kind of gradients in there as well [00:15:00] but I I kind of enjoy it. So yeah, it’s each to their own.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, you mentioned Lewis Hamilton. Uh, what is your favorite F1 driver then?

And let’s, let’s talk about Formula One a little bit. Uh, what’s your favorite team and driver as well?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Team? I’ve always liked Mercedes and I’ve always liked Lewis Hamilton. Um, but I do also like Lando Norris as well, and McLaren. Um, I think there are some great drivers. I’m really excited to see kind of what next season brings as well.

Lots of change happening. But I mean, Yeah, I think I think there are some fantastic drivers and I’m actually looking forward to watching the Las Vegas race next weekend I got really excited and thought it was this weekend And then I double checked and I was like, nope, I am ahead of myself got another week to wait at least but um, yeah It’s gonna be exciting to see him whether Max is able to get is a fourth champion.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: [00:16:00] Yeah He’s really fast and got Just huge experience in racing and sim racing as well. And, uh, I’m pretty sure he’s definitely deserved this, uh, to win this championship. Uh, speaking about London Norris, I really like him as a person. I think he’s really good and open. Um, So in, uh, alongside with it, uh, awesome driver as well.

Um, so this season, definitely more interesting, uh, didn’t really follow it. Uh, but because my community watching some races, uh, they just share some news with me, uh, all the time. So, yeah, it’s, uh, actually, uh, I’m so happy to see, you know, different people winning races right now in different teams and it’s cool to see.

Because it was a little bit boring when it was all the way Red Bull or the all the way the Mercedes, at least for me.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: No, I’m with you. I agree with you. It got a little bit boring when it was just kind of the same winner and there wasn’t that much Excitement but the last kind of [00:17:00] races, I think probably the last kind of 8 10 races We’ve had has been really exciting because there’s always someone new Um, like last race with, um, Alpine getting kind of two podiums, which was fantastic to see as well.

So yeah, it’s, it’s nice to see the change up, which is always good. So definitely excited to see what next year is going to hold.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, exactly. Um, you mentioned that you’re living, uh, really close to Silverstone. Did you visit any in real life? Uh, racing events here, maybe Formula 1, maybe GT3’s Global Challenge, something like this.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yep, so I did the F1, didn’t do it this year, but did it last year, so yeah, great event to kind of go to. Um, yeah, I kind of love the atmosphere, kind of meet loads of different people as well, so yeah. Generally, if there is an event, kind of, car related and we’re able to go to, I’m always happy to kind of go there.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: What will be your, um, your series to go with, uh, do you prefer formulas over GT [00:18:00] cars or do you like GT cars as well?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, don’t mind GT cars at all. Um, I think it for me, the cars are nice, but I think also it goes down to the driver. So, um, I was lucky enough to be coached by a lady called a Gabby or quick Gabby.

And this weekend she is racing in the Indian premier leagues. It’s the last round of the racing there. So, um, she’s been doing really, really well out there. So, um, it’s nice to kind of see. Those different cars, but also for me, it’s about kind of the driver and what they bring to it as well So yeah, I know I know some people will say no It’s all about the cars and all of that But I think it’s also the person who drives the car in the way in which they drive it

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Exactly.

I absolutely agree with you uh, that’s about the driver not about the car because I’m a big fan of valentino rossi and he was driving in the moto gp. Now. He jumped into g3s driving You know Quite fast here as well. And it’s always [00:19:00] a really cool thing when you see, uh, you know, drivers switching from different categories and they still got great pace.

Uh, they fast and, uh, that, that really show the real skills of them. And it’s, uh, it’s amazing.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: No, I’m with you. We were, we were lucky enough to, um, the racing down at Brands hatch, um, Rossi was there racing, um, with the kind of GT three cars. So we were able to kind of. Be there. That was the kind of headline racing and the brick car endurance brick car and championship was able to actually race out there as well, which was pretty cool.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah. And, uh, quick Gabby, I know her from, uh, Twitch streams. Uh, so we met each other in the racing, uh, from time to time. I’m so happy to see that, uh, she returned back to in real life racing because she really wanted to do this. And that’s awesome. When you, um, you know, highlight somewhere and you got opportunity to jump back back into real.

Live racing, uh, because it’s crazy [00:20:00] expensive. Definitely. Uh, I did it in the past and, uh, I was driving the open wheelers and fortunately lost the financial, um, part. Uh, so my team just completely shut down the program here in Kazakhstan. Um, But, you know, like, uh, I really like that I switched to simracing and now I’m in it and got great community and everybody supporting me and, uh, that’s awesome that you, you know, can kind of, uh, stop something, then start it again somewhere in the future.

And here’s always, uh, opportunities and, uh, different possibilities as well.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yeah, exactly that. Like, just because something stops somewhere doesn’t mean that’s the end of the road. I mean, you know. Quick Gabby, she’s doing fantastic. Like she’s one of the drivers for the Jaguar E Type as well, I believe. So it’s amazing to kind of see that.

So she’s kind of going on the lines of like Abbey Pulling as well. Um, Abbey Powell as well. Um, I believe. [00:21:00] There’s a few others as well actually. So I think you’ve got, you’ve got some of the, the drivers at the moment who are racing under McLaren as well.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: So

Anji Silva-Vadgama: it’s, it’s nice to see. Yeah.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Um, how do you feel about, uh, female and, uh, male dominated sports?

Uh, do you feel that, uh, we already a part of this world or we, uh, have to inspire more, uh, girls to get into the racing and sim racing as well? Yeah.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Always inspire more. I mean, the championship that Asha was in this year, I believe she was the only girl in the championship. So it’s still kind of showing you that there isn’t enough female.

Yes, we’ve got kind of female like championships happening, happening like F1 Academy as well. Um, but it still needs more, still, still need more, more in there. So everything at the moment is still very male dominated. When you go to, I guess, race days, race events, you will generally see probably 80 to 90 percent males and then a few more [00:22:00] females.

So even with our team, it’s me and Oshara who are the only females at the moment. Yes, I’ve taken a step back. I’m not racing. So she’s the only female driver that we have for Team Brat at the moment. So it goes to show out of, I think there’s eight, eight drivers, well, eight, nine drivers. Only one of them is female.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, I think that’s, uh, we really need to You know, with, uh, our examples, we can show, uh, other girls that, like, they can go to racing, they can go to simracing, and, uh, Uh, just, uh, you know, feel welcome here, and, uh, this is what Ineed Esports doing also, and, um, That’s great, so actually I can see that we got more girls right now in simracing, and in racing also, and, uh, Girls also work in motorsports industry, which is, uh, which is great.

So I can, I can tell that, uh, you know, five, six years ago, uh, we didn’t have a lot of, uh, girls in industry right now. Um, so we, we getting, [00:23:00] uh, gaining a little bit more girls and that’s, uh, good to see. Yeah,

Anji Silva-Vadgama: definitely. I mean, we’re getting there. Slowly but surely, we’re getting there.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah. How do you feel, uh, to be a girl in, in this, in this racing, in this sport?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, that doesn’t really bother me, actually, in all honesty. I mean, I probably dress as a, as a bloke most of the time anyway, so it’s alright. Um, I mean, I kind of see it as my, kind of, I guess, my, my power being the, kind of, one of the few only females out there as well. Um, but I kind of see it as an honour as well.

Because there’s a reason why I’m doing it and hopefully by more individuals seeing that there are girls in this field It’s gonna open that door for other other girls to actually jump on board as well So yeah, don’t be shy just kind of jump in jump in headfirst as they say

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s true [00:24:00] As you in the team with your wife, uh, can you tell me more?

Uh, Where did you meet each other? And how was it and how was it to be? Uh with the two drivers in one, uh family

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Sure. Uh, so I I met her, um through one of our have been Her friend was actually looking for her, um, so we kind of met, um, online and then we started chatting, um, and then we both just kind of clicked and been together for about nine years now and married six.

So, um, yeah, we’ve been together a long time. Um, as for having two drivers, she’s definitely more competitive than me, but she is, I will say it, hands down, she is the BART far better driver. And she knows that to be fair. Um, she’s got um, ADHD and she’s autistic as well. So that is kind of her superpower. So she’s able to kind of calculate things much more in advance, whereas I’m still working on the first corner and she’s already on the fifth or sixth in her head.

So, um, [00:25:00] yeah, but, um, it’s, it’s great fun. And we kind of bounce off each other. And I know when she just started, uh, actually driving the race car, it was really nice for me to give her pointers on kind of some of some of the track and say, Oh, yeah, okay, this is what I’ve learned. This is what you’ve got to do here.

We’ve got to do this on that. It was really nice to actually pass that information on to her. And now she’s like, Yep, I know what I’m doing. You don’t need to tell me. I was like, Okay, that’s cool. You enjoy. So yeah, I mean, still a little bit of competitiveness, but I’m just really proud of her and everything that she’s done.

And I’m excited to see what 2025 holds for her.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, that’s great. Um, you know, I got a husband and he’s also, uh, into sim racing and we usually also share our experience with each other and trying to work on labs together. And it’s really cool to have a partner next to you who can help you anytime. And, uh, just, uh, you kind of can see the corners in different way.

[00:26:00] And it’s, it’s really cool opportunity.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: No, I’m with you. Kind of work with each other and learn from each other as well. That’s that’s one of the things that the drivers do as well. So like with each car, each driver has a driver pairing and normally you’ll find is that where one driver is struggling, the other driver can kind of conquer that bit.

So they kind of work with each other and it’s really nice to see. So yeah.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, outside of the racing, uh, What do you like to do? Like on your weekends, uh, with your wife, maybe you would, uh, you like to go somewhere or something?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, we normally generally just chill. We’ve got two dogs, so, um, we normally just kind of chill with them or kind of chill with family as well.

Uh, brother in law just had a little girl, so, um, it’s nice to actually spend time with the family and watch her grow as well. Um, which is always nice. Um, but we’re normally just very chilled. We’re busy working Monday to Friday. So sometimes on the weekends, you just want to just relax. Um, if there are some fun kind of [00:27:00] events happening, so maybe we’ll go to like a car show.

Um, the weather’s nice. It’s always fun to go to a car show when you’ve got good weather. Um, yeah, we’ll maybe do something like that.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: What kind of dogs do you have?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, so we’ve got two, we’ve got two Chow Chow crosses. So one is three quarters Chow Chow and the other is half Chow Chow. So I’ve got Nala, who is going to be four in two weeks time.

And we’ve got Cody, who is two and a half years old. So they are auntie and nephew, but brother and sister.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s awesome. I got also dog, uh, that’s a Sheltie, Shetland sheepdog. She’s really cute. She’s super active, uh, we’re doing some agility with her, uh, so running together and, uh, also doing some nose work, uh, where she’s finding, uh, smells and everything.

It’s really fun, that’s my first dog and, uh, she definitely, you know, teach me a lot of things and open, uh, like, my mind to a lot of things in this world. It’s, it’s really, really [00:28:00] cool and she’s so cute.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: No, I’m with you. It makes it so much more, I guess, rewarding when you can kind of see them enjoying the time that you kind of spend with them as well.

Like, I love it. Like, literally, probably about an hour ago, just trying to go upstairs, trying to get stuff ready. And they were like, no, where are you going? And I’m like, like talking back and I’m like, guys, come on now. I was like, you need to just chill for a little bit. My plan was to bring them up, but yeah, they both like to jump in front of the, front of the screen.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s awesome. Yeah, they, uh, you know, dogs really enjoy this life and, uh, they super positive about all things. Oh, you with me, we’re going for a walk. That’s great. Yeah, it’s like, oh,

Anji Silva-Vadgama: what am I getting? You’ve got a treat. Oh, you’re cutting vegetables. Let me have some. Yeah, always there.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s awesome. Um, What can you suggest to people who, um, want to get into racing?

What will be your advice for them? [00:29:00] Um, so

Anji Silva-Vadgama: don’t hold back, um, always ask questions, always kind of meet people, um, I know like in the UK, I believe it’s probably around this time, or maybe even next week, so around kind of the mid to late November time, um, I believe I think Silverstone holds it, where there’s different championships, different cars, and you’re able to actually, you know, Go and see them, get a feel for it, meet other team members, see other cars and people, and just kind of see what’s out there as well.

Always, I guess, connect with people, and I know I can say this for Team Brick, we’re very open, we’re very friendly. If anyone wants to have a chat with us, or they see us at a kind of race event, like, we’re always welcome. So, we’re a big family. So, um, yeah, just don’t be shy, reach out.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, that’s, uh, great advice.

Uh, we, we’ve been talking about, uh, this, uh, on other in the talks, uh, that sim racing community and Twitch community are really, uh, open and welcoming all the time [00:30:00] to newcomers. So people like trying to help you, trying to guide you, uh, for your journey into sim racing. And, um, so do you see that the same thing happening in real life racing?

Because unfortunately, when I race in, uh, open wheelers, I think it’s a bit different from GT cars. So, uh, I didn’t get a lot of, um, you know, welcoming people around me. They, uh, they all been, uh, really like competitive to focus on their self. Yeah. Really close. Yeah. Uh, do you see this also, uh, in GT community or not?

So.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: I wasn’t part of the, so I only went to a GT race, I believe, like one or two races. So it wasn’t really there for in the paddock and stuff, but, um, I haven’t seen any, anything negative kind of within that. Um, I know in like the smaller championships, everyone is always very welcoming as well. So I know, I think, I think it was, uh, I think in the garage next door to us, [00:31:00] one of their tools broke and they asked if they could borrow one of ours and our mechanics were like, yep, go for it.

So everyone was very friendly, very open and stuff as well. So I think it also goes down to which championships you go to as well. Um, certain ones are probably more not as open. Um, so you’re not able to kind of get into the pits and stuff. Uh, but I would always say, always try and all you can do is ask.

And if someone says no, there’s always next time as well.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, that’s true. Uh, all the time, like you, uh, you get no, uh, here’s opportunities that you’re going to get yes from someone else, uh, because, you know, actually, uh, most of the people, they’re really open, they’re really kind, and they’re happy to help you, uh, especially if you got, if they got a really big experience in racing, uh, or in some racing as well, um, yeah, they’re trying to help you if you’re new here.

No, I’m with you. Yeah, um, so [00:32:00] Can you tell me, uh, what do you enjoy the most about racing and, uh, do you like endurances or sprint races more?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: So for me, one of the things I kind of enjoy about racing, I think it goes down to, I guess, the team that you’re part of as well. Um, I said earlier, Team Brett is a big family, so it’s always a kind of enjoyable event.

Um, all the drivers kind of get on with each other, all the management as well. So it’s nice to kind of just, you see everyone. Um, when it comes to racing, I think it goes down to, I guess, which car you’re driving. Um, I enjoy actually watching both racing, to be fair, because in a sprint race, normally, you can kind of tell who’s going to win earlier on in the race.

Um, unless there’s a, there’s a blowout or a puncture and then it kind of delays it. Whereas in endurance, you just don’t know because the car has to run for such a longer time. You just don’t know that car’s going to make it or what’s going to happen in the meantime as well. So I think they’re [00:33:00] both different within themselves.

So I’m, I’m lucky enough to be able to kind of witness both, um, on a race weekend, which is always fun.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: I think endurance racing is, uh, really special. So that like whole team working on the strategies and how to, uh, count the fuel, count the steams for the drivers. And, uh, yeah, also, uh, make some repairs, uh, faster.

Uh, so from my side, I think that endurance races, they a bit more fun for me. So I really like to do them in sim racing also, uh, but spring races, uh, just, uh, give you kind of different mindset. Uh, so you, you have to start, you have to really push, push the car out of the limits and, um, um, just go as fast as you can.

Endurance, you have to think how to save the car. For other drivers to not get into the troubles and uh, it’s awesome that we got different Type of racing and uh, yeah people [00:34:00] can choose the best for them.

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Yeah. No exactly that I know with the kind of sprint races we had this year Um, sadly the the car in the first couple of races was suffering with a boost leak So, um, it was always a very quick kind of repair when it was, uh, driven driver change and the mechanics did great to kind of get that issue fixed and for us to actually finish the race and also get podiums as well, which is always good to see.

Um, and like you said, it’s, it’s not just about the drivers. It’s also about the mechanics and all the team as well. The whole team is involved on there. So you’ve got to make sure that if you’re only going out with a full tank, you’ve got to make sure that, that there is enough fuel in there for you to kind of cross the finish line as well.

Um, so yeah, it’s always a good thing. Always a nice environment to kind of see the way in which those individuals kind of work together.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely true. I agree with you. Um, can you tell me what’s your, uh, what’s your plans for the future in racing? Uh, would you like to jump into a car again?

And what series it will be, [00:35:00] uh, for you?

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Um, so I think if I do jump back in the car, I’ll definitely be with kind of team Brit. Um, future wise, I’m not sure if I see that happening, um, in the next kind of few years. And we’re, we’re kind of going through kind of fertility planning and adoption at the moment as well.

So for me, my focus is to kind of start a family as well. Um, I’m kind of happy to kind of be on the sidelines and kind of watch Asha kind of do what she does. Like I said, she is the far better driver. So if If it had to be between one of us, I’m, I’m just glad that it’s her doing it and she’s also able to kind of live her dream because it’s something that she, I know she always said to me that when she was younger, she said she either wants to be a race car driver or a pilot and she’s, she’s not a pilot.

So, um, she’s able to kind of be a race car driver, which is very cool.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: All right. Uh, so can you tell me 2025? For upcoming years, yeah,

Anji Silva-Vadgama: so, um still be with team brit So I [00:36:00] believe she is going to be um staying in the bmw m240i Um, not sure not entirely sure who she will be driving with I think there’s going to be announcement for that At the end of the year beginning of next year uh, but excited to kind of see what that driver pairing will be like as well and hopefully, um Get some more, um, first class podiums.

Um, no pressure Osha, but you know, we would like some more silverware. I know the team would like some more silverware. So, um, yeah. Um, if it’s going to, it’s going to be an exciting year, 2025, definitely.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, it should be great season. I hope you, uh, will get some podiums, uh, with the team breeds and, uh, As soon as possible, you’ll get to Le Mans 24, we’re going to cheer for you, uh, because that’s personally one of my favorite events, uh, so as I said before, uh, it’s awesome.

Um, so before we wrap up, uh, can you tell me what’s your motto of the life, like, uh, uh, So what do you think about that? Um,

Anji Silva-Vadgama: [00:37:00] for me, I’m generally a very kind of positive person, so I don’t let that negativity kind of hold you back. I think what I would say to people is, if there is something that is kind of digging at you, don’t let it kind of, you know, drag you into a dark hole, try and see the positive outlook on things.

Um, and we’re all here to kind of talk to as well. So if anyone ever wants to chit chat, I’m only a message away. So, um, yeah, always happy to kind of be a, be a shoulder or ear to kind of listen into. And, but yeah, just try and stay as positive as you can.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: That’s true, you know, I got kind of the same, um, thoughts in my head, so I’m trying to stay positive and, uh, try to look at things, like, in a positive way, even if something happens, uh, something bad happens, I always, uh, get, like, next opportunity, uh, next day to shine bright.

Exactly that. It’s

Anji Silva-Vadgama: [00:38:00] not the end of the world, there’s always another day.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah, so thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for this talk. I really enjoy that and wish you good luck for your future for the team breed and also Hopefully your marathon will go great and you’re going to enjoy it

Anji Silva-Vadgama: Thank you so much.

I will keep you guys updated and it’s lovely meeting you and thank you so much for having me.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya: Yeah. Bye bye guys. See you. Thank you so much for watching. See you later. Bye.

Crew Chief Brad: Innate eSports focuses on sim racing events and digital tournaments. They bring eSports content to fans and sponsorship opportunities to brands while maximizing audience reach across multiple sports, industries, and platforms. eSports is a woman-led company where diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility is in their DNA and their [00:39:00] platform aims to combat bullying and cheating to help make the eSports world as safe and fair as possible.

To learn more, be sure to log onto www.initesports.gg or follow them on social media at init eSports. Join their discord, check out their YouTube channel, or follow their live content via switch.

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast Network.

For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Brake Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.

patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media as [00:40:00] mentioned in the episode.

Copyright INIT eSports. This podcast is now produced as part of the Motoring Podcast Network and can be found everywhere you stream, download or listen!

More Screen to Speed…

Dive into the journeys of remarkable individuals making waves in sim racing and bridging the virtual with the real. From the thrill of digital circuits to the roar of real-life racetracks, they explore the passion, dedication, and innovation that drives the world of motorsports. They hear from athletes, creators, and pioneers sharing their stories, insights, and the powerful ways sim racing is connecting communities and creating pathways into motorsports.

INIT eSports focuses on sim racing events and digital tournaments. They bring eSports content to fans and sponsorship opportunities to brands, while maximizing audience reach across multiple sports, industries, and platforms. INIT eSports is a woman-led company where Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility is in their DNA, and their platform aims to combat bullying and cheating to help make the eSports world as safe and fair as possible. To learn more, be sure to logon to www.initesports.gg today or follow them on social media @initesports, join their discord, check out their YouTube Channel, or follow their live content via Twitch.

At INIT eSports, founder and CEO Stefy Bau doesn’t just settle for the ordinary. She creates extraordinary experiences by producing thrilling online competitions and real-life events that transcend the boundaries of the eSports universe. And she’s here with us on Break/Fix to share her story, and help you understand why you need to get more involved in the world of eSports.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Welcome to the Autoverse!

Gran T

November 14, 2024

There comes a point in every enthusiast’s life, where they ask themselves, “Am I alone in this? Does anyone even care about all these cars? Why do I care so much about cars? I really wish there was someone I could share all this with…”

It’s a dilemma that so many of us face. And our guest is no exception, he’s been a lifelong petrol-head, and always felt like he was the only person in his circles that took an interest in motorsports or cars.

Determined to make a difference, Paul Ragsdale decided to found The Autoverse, an organization devoted to spreading vehicle and motorsports enthusiasm … a haven for his fellow lost tribe members. And he’s here to tell us all about its creation, evolution, and why you might consider it your new home away from home.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Spotlight

Notes

How did you get involved in Motorsports? Did you come from a racing family? What drew you in?
What is The Autoverse?
Let’s break down the basics of the organization: Events, Giveways, Membership, etc
The big question – Price to become a member? Perks of Membership? Partnerships, ie: Fanatec, Official F1 store
One of the biggest challenges that exists in Car Clubs and even in Motorsports is diversity and inclusivity; in your opinion how do we make Cars (or Racing) more inviting to people (esp. Women, people of color, etc).
What’s next for Paul and the Autoverse?

and much, much more!

Transcript

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: There comes a point in every enthusiast life where they ask themselves, am I alone in this? Does anyone even care about all these cars? Why do I care so much about these cars? I really wish there was someone I could share all this with. It’s a dilemma that so many of us face, and our guest tonight is no exception.

He’s been a lifelong petrolhead, and always felt like he was the only person in his circles that took an interest in motorsports or in cars. Determined to make a difference, Paul Ragsdale decided to [00:01:00] found The Autoverse, an organization devoted to spreading vehicle and motorsports enthusiasm, a haven for his fellow lost tribe members.

And he’s here tonight to tell us all about its creation, evolution, and why you might consider it your new home away from home. And with that, let’s welcome Paul to BreakFix.

Paul Ragsdale: Eric, delighted to be here. I have children now, so I can’t say it’s my favorite subject, but it’s certainly one of my most favorite subjects.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Paul, like all good BreakFix stories, there’s a superhero origin out there. So tell us about the who, what, when, and where of you. Like you mentioned in the introduction, there’s always been this interest in cars, and you realize that so many people, as you got older, shared in this hobby. And so work us up from all the little lad who liked cars going vroom vroom to where we are today.

Paul Ragsdale: course, like most of us have loved cars from a fairly early age, and my mother swears my first word was Volkswagen. It certainly wasn’t, but I could pick out the Beetle when I was a toddler getting pushed around in a stroller. Definitely imprinted on that sound, [00:02:00] actually had a Beetle in college because I just had to, and then discovered that it was an absolutely terrible car to drive.

As charming as it might be, but it still made great sounds. Thanks. By that point, I was devouring car and driver primarily, but I was reading a lot of other automotive magazines as well. And I started watching every form of motorsport I could find, which included IndyCar, included M7, included NASCAR. And then I happened upon this series that was being broadcast in the middle of the night from all of these amazing places around the globe, like Japan and South Africa, and started following a young, young boy, Well, I guess not so young Brazilian driver at the time here in the Senate was absolutely hooked by that point.

I would not say it’s not my parents were against automotive passions, but they didn’t share them. And so it was really kind of hard for me to access. I discovered there was something called the sports car club of America. And I managed to drag my dad out to an autocross was happening in our local university.

I didn’t get to participate, but I, I got to meet some of the people, [00:03:00] but it was a long time before I got to do anything else like that. They did take me to a local go kart race. That was great. And we happens to be in France for New Year’s one year. I dragged them to the start of the Paris Dakar Rally. At midnight and freezing cold, which was just terrific.

But most of that time watching F1, watching rally and anything like that. Really the only source I was getting was from print magazines. And I would talk about cars. I would talk about motorsport and people would either look puzzled or like. I had said something really improper. I’m definitely one of the people who is thrilled that Drive to Survive has brought so many new fans into Formula One and into motorsport generally.

And again, those are some of the drivers, pun intended, for founding the autoverse so that people who don’t know where to find other petrolheads, where to find motorsport. Even to be able to experience it as a fan, much less to get out on a track in a go cart or shifter cart, or, you know, start doing high performance driver education.

How do you actually go down that [00:04:00] path? And so it took me a long time to get there. And I was like, I’m here. This is great. As I ever hoped, I would love more people to be able to share in that because of course I’m an extrovert and I just need more people around

Crew Chief Eric: it parallels. In a very similar way, the way we founded Grand Touring Motorsports in the early days, what we now call the clubhouse.

And so when we look back 10 years ago from today, as we celebrate our 10th anniversary this year, you know, our motto was similar to what you were saying, you know, never go to the track alone. We were a bunch of track rats, you know, starting out in HPDE with aspirations of time trials and club racing and involved in SCCA and NASA and hooked on driving and all these organizations that offer those types of services.

You started to kind of buddy up with people that had cars like yours and just like, Hey, uh, I just stripped a bolt. You have an extra one, you know? And then it gets you talking. And then suddenly it’s like, well, how do we stay in touch when the race ends? What do we do next? And that goes back to your idea of building community in the autoverse.

Paul Ragsdale: I knew I was looking for that. A lot of my [00:05:00] early professional career I was so focused on that that I really didn’t have the capacity to engage in automotive activities and a lot of car events are happening very far away. I met Dominion Raceway in our garage here was at Virginia International Raceway this morning.

Again, long distances from wherever you happen to be. But as I was. Trying to figure out how to connect folks. I think one of the inspirations for me was what was called DriveTribe. So Clarkson, you know, had formed, I thought it was a great idea, this automotive community where you could go and talk with people online, about your experiences, post your pictures.

I don’t think it ever fulfilled its promise and that’s not a criticism. And I was very sad to see it close. And so that was one of the big drivers. The other thing that was happening at the time, this was 2021, was the very strange phenomenon of NFTs, non fungible tokens. And I just remember being so mystified by it, like so many people.

There are some very interesting blockchain applications. People want to nerd out [00:06:00] about that and STEM is one of our passions, one of my personal passions, but the community that built up around Bored Apes and other things, I could not understand it. And then something just finally clicked and I realized somehow they’ve activated community.

And so that’s what we want to do. So we did have ties to NFTs in our early days, but then very, very, very quickly, we had to run and hide and never say that again if we wanted to be taken seriously in any setting. But the point was always about activating community. Finding like minded enthusiasts and most importantly, banning gatekeeping, because certainly I’ve experienced, or all of us have experienced this.

Oh, do you wrench on your car? Do you know how to do this? Do you know how to do that? It doesn’t matter what gender you are, what ethnicity, you still get those knowledge tests. And you know, that’s happening to this day. Also at the time we were woman owned, so we wanted to make sure that we were welcoming to female fans.

So new fans, female fans, and other people for whom it was difficult. And also one of the big barriers in anything automotive is. So we very deliberately have a free membership [00:07:00] tier. We do have a paid membership tier and I certainly don’t want to downplay the cool things and activations that come along with that, but it’s important for us to have a community where people can connect with one another without having to drop thousands and thousands of dollars for the experience.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, Paul. So what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? Like that’s what those questions feel like, right?

Paul Ragsdale: They do. Well, it’s like this scene in My Cousin Benny. It’s just unnecessary. One of our original ideas, concepts, I don’t know that we ever had it as a slogan, was connecting people around cars.

And people get excited about it. You go to events and little kids, boys and girls, parents, families, whatever it happens to be, get excited when they see just really beautiful machinery like this. I think people are, even if they’re, don’t have an engineering bent, they’re still very impressed by the technology.

And then of course, the art, the design represents, and then of course, there are a lot of adjacencies, like I said, for science, technology, engineering, and math education, and then of course, on ramps to motor sport. So it just, it touched on a lot of things [00:08:00] that just values we all deeply.

Crew Chief Eric: You’ve brought up the point several times already.

And I remember back when I was at PCA national and we campaigned the slogan, it’s not the cars, it’s the people. They’ve been hanging that on the entryways of every doorway at PCA forever. And other groups have picked that up as well. And it’s an interesting notion because unlike other sports, and we have to remember that motorsport is a sport like basketball or baseball, but it’s not stick and ball, right?

You’re behind the wheel. You’re still physically exerting yourself, all that. Motorsports fans are not the same as football fans. It’s a very different environment. I used to joke with my dad sometimes that it’s like the biggest collection of anti social people getting together, pretending to be social.

Really strange sometimes. But it leads into what you’re saying, but more importantly, you’re talking about the 2020 and 2021 timeframe. And I wonder, looking back, even at our founding in the mid 2010s, it was a lot easier to start a social group. You’re in the middle of COVID. How did that play out?

Paul Ragsdale: I [00:09:00] haven’t thought about it from that lens.

I will say that one of the first things that started to open up socially was track days. We were all cooped up. And here I had founded some brick and mortar automotive businesses either right before or at the very beginning of the pandemic, and then couldn’t get out and do marketing. Couldn’t meet people, couldn’t fundraise, couldn’t sell.

And then all of a sudden track started opening up because you were outdoors, you were going to socially Since it was interesting that you couldn’t have driver instructors in your own vehicle. So people had to figure out how to do things with radios and lead follow and so on. But I think there definitely was a big uptick in track day and motor sport participation.

I think mostly from people who had done it previously and found that it was one of the very few outlets that they could engage in at that time. And then, I would say COVID was probably very much in view in our concept of having a very robust digital [00:10:00] community. Again, with DriveTribe having recently had the plug pulled, certainly allowing folks to connect, want to be able to do.

F1 live streams and be able to chat with each other. And I’m amazed, like even to this day, at least on threads, if not Twitter and other social media, people are always asking, Hey, where am I F1 friends, who can I talk with about my friends think I’m a loon. There’s still a lot of people out there who I think are looking for this.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned drive to survive. You mentioned these new F1 fans coming up through the Senna Prost era of Formula One, like I did in the groupie era of rally and some of just the most iconic racing during those two decades there. Do you think that the new generation of Formula One fans are, I don’t want to say as passionate, as engaged as we were, or do you think they bring a new dynamic to the fandom?

Has it watered down the sport in a way? Like, I hear these arguments all the time, so I’m really interested in your perspective.

Paul Ragsdale: Viscerally, I think I push back against a lot of those ideas because they feel like the [00:11:00] same kind of gatekeeping that I experienced in Formula One. before. So first of all, I remember during a US Grand Prix a couple of years ago, I was picking up takeout and the server just came up and started talking to me about the Hamilton battle battle.

And I’m just like, what is happening? Like, why does a random person know anything about this sport? I mean, I was surprised that they actually had it playing in the restaurants, but when I’ve talked with folks and I realized that they don’t have a knowledge of knowledge yet, I’ve had to remind myself.

That they’ve got the passion and enthusiasm and I need to be one of those people who is welcoming to them. So I’ve taken a very conscious and deliberate step to try to encourage to try to welcome and just, Hey, this is great. What do you enjoy? I remember our very first brand ambassador I met at the Miami Grand Prix, someone who started binge watching drive to survive.

And then the next thing you know, she’s buying tickets to go to her first formula one race in person. And I remember asking her, I was genuinely curious. I expected I knew what her answer was going to be, but I was like, what is it that appeals to you about Formula 1? And she said, the technology. And I [00:12:00] was just like, Oh, we should talk.

Like what? She was a high school math teacher in the Chicago area. And we began a conversation. She actually went to a couple of races for us in 2020. She’s actually now gone on and works at the Fermilab in Chicago. So obviously fulfilling some of those STEM engagement goals. And there are a lot of the same sorts of challenges, barriers to access to STEM education as there are in the automotive industry and in motorsport.

So I would say definitely seems to be, I think the same level of passion and enthusiasm. These folks are just super excited about their crop of drivers. Like I got asked the other day, who was my driver? And I’m like, it was, and always will remain Senna. I like a lot of the modern drivers, but I just, I’m not going to have a driver like that.

I don’t think ever again. But yes, I think it’s something that I do have to remind myself, and I certainly try to encourage others to be that welcoming. If someone doesn’t know what DRS is, you know, someone who doesn’t know who won the last six, [00:13:00] Singapore Grand Prix. That’s fine.

Crew Chief Eric: This is great. The more the merrier.

Knowing what you know now, looking back over your experience and as you’ve matured as a petrol head, do you find yourself having that moment? And we have a gentleman in our organization that you know it’s coming. It always starts with that sigh, but you’re just like, okay, here comes an explanation. He’s trying to espouse his knowledge to you.

Can you absorb it? So do you find yourself now, like, sort of trying to break things down for people and be like, so DRS, this is A, first of all, what it stands for, and B, this is sort of how it works. Like, are you now in that role where you’re trying to educate people?

Paul Ragsdale: In a lot of areas of my life, I have that tendency.

I was trained as an academic. I’ve had the privilege to be in some leadership roles. There have been those times, but I think With respect to motorsport fandom, there’s also just, there’s this generational thing. There are those of us who, again, like we’re raised on the center post era and I’ve got a good friend who was of our vintage, you know, we can talk about that era and about [00:14:00] Schumacher and all these things.

I think I am not that tempted to break things down. If anything, I really kind of felt the need to carry the Senate flag for a long time, and I’m like, this is all great. There was Jim Clark before him, of course. There have been other just really phenomenal drivers. I really feel, especially after the 30th anniversary celebration, or recognition this year, that modern F1 fans, way more than I would have expected, get his greatness.

Again, go back, watch. So that I will do. I’m like, get your F1 TV premium subscription, go back and watch Dunnington 93, go back and watch Portugal 85, Monaco and the lap of the gods. Yes. And I try to do it in as friendly a way as possible so that I don’t do the mansplaining that I don’t want being done to me.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and I think that’s part of the sport though, that you have to embrace. And I’m not trying to justify it any way, but what I’m trying to get at is in football or in baseball, there’s really technical aspects to it, but then there’s the human element. You can’t talk [00:15:00] about, well, at this moment, the muscle in his arm is doing this thing.

thing. And in racing, it’s like, well, the shock absorber is under this load and this many newton meters and the tires deflecting. And there’s things that you can really geek out on at a minutia level. And so that’s where I think we get lost in the noise because there are some people that maybe their background is in science or maybe they do have a passion for aerodynamics or they come from another hobby where it relates to them.

And it’s like Well, let me explain to you how tire adhesion works. And you’re like, you can just see people’s eyeballs rolling into the back of their head, but there’s so many little facets to racing. And you mentioned this before about the young lady talking about how she was drawn into formula one because of technology.

And that brings up one of our favorite Pitstop questions, which is F1 versus WEC, who’s got the better tech?

Paul Ragsdale: One of my personal values and one of our corporate values is transparency. I don’t know enough about the tech in these two series to be able to give an intelligent answer. I, of course, was the young [00:16:00] person who was devouring car and driver and all of these things in my youth, and now I am enjoying cars in a different way, but I’m pretty much not spending that much time diving into the technical minutiae like I used to.

And one thing I wonder is I am trained as a scientist. I’ve had a technical career and my most recent W2 employment was in a very technical organization supporting the department of defense. So I definitely got my fill of the tech talks and so on, you know, in those four. Maybe that was a relief valve for me.

I’m not sure. And it could come back. And one of the things I do tend to nerd out about is tire chemistry. And winter tires, especially in this region. And I’m like, Oh no, but there are, I mean, I like, I try not to tell people you need winter tires, but I’m like, Oh, but they actually do have advantages.

They’re not just for these conditions and so on. The rubber is more pliable. And of course their eyes roll back in their head. And then I it’s like, okay, I’ll stop

Crew Chief Eric: talking. I’ll give you another pit stop question to make this question a little bit easier because it’s in the similar vein. So you’re sitting at the head of the boardroom [00:17:00] table.

You have the deciding vote and you have to choose between the Porsche 959. The Ferrari F40, which do you choose?

Paul Ragsdale: F40. When they came out, I loved both. I had posters of both on my wall and the Acura NSX, which poster I still happen to have found it in my parents basement. Certainly at the time, I think it was more blown away by the 959.

200 plus miles an hour. It wasn’t legal in the United States and so on. But that F40, especially as I’ve had the privilege of seeing several in person, just the visceral nature of that drivetrain, just the stunning bodywork. I mean, one of the most distinctive Ferraris ever. It’s way up there for me.

Crew Chief Eric: And the reason we like to bring that question up is it really parallels the difference between WEC or the 24 Hours of Le Mans or any of those endurance races versus Formula 1.

You can encapsulate Formula 1 in the F40 and you can bring all of endurance racing into the technologically more advanced 959.

Paul Ragsdale: Yeah, I just appreciate that.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s switch gears. Let’s get back to talking a [00:18:00] little bit more about the autoverse. So let’s talk about Tell us more about what is the autoverse.

You hear a lot about, you know, the old joke back in the old days when we used to go behind the Dairy Queen and talk about our Volkswagens, you know, we started a car club and they all sort of fizzle out. People go their separate ways. Life’s changes and things like that. The autoverse. Is it a car club? Is it more than a car club?

What is it all about?

Paul Ragsdale: I have to think about it from two very different lenses. So as an enthusiast, and also just, again, as one of our core values, it is a community. It is intended to be a distributed community, meaning be able to talk to people in Australia and Italy and the UK about things that are going on.

Because This is a very niche area and whatever your, your local community happens to be, whether it’s Fairfax County or it’s in Houston, wherever you are, it’s still hard to find those pockets of people, but there’s that piece from a business perspective, you have to think of it as a media company, not unlike online magazines or our favorites.

Car and driver, road track, motor [00:19:00] trend, these sorts of things. So in terms of being able to pay the bills, we have to have partnerships to be able to create and bring value to our community. And then we have to be able to demonstrate that value to advertisers. It’s a journey. I’ll just say that right now, but In terms of the types of things that we do, the other companies I was involved with before, and I still am, we were doing a lot of event based marketing, started seeing, you know, there was just a lot of enthusiasm around vehicles generally.

Why don’t we try to tap into that, connect people directly. So connect people around cars, and that is mainly through, local events. So participation in things certainly here in the D. C. Area. We’re regulars at Katie’s cars and coffee. And because of my own passion for track driving, try to get out to track days.

That’s actually exactly why we sponsored the D. C. Sports car club of America last year, specifically the mid Atlantic road racing series, where we had actually competed in 2022 through another business. But we wanted more people to be aware of that. It’s like, you know, Hey, you can drive an hour and there’s serious competitive motorsport happening.

[00:20:00] And Oh, by the way, there are these high performance driving events. You can get involved and wanted folks to understand how they could access that. We try to have again, free public events so that we can use that as a basis of helping people figure out, okay, how do you go to a formula one race? Where do you want to sit, you know, when you go to Miami or to Kodak?

Because this came up recently. Where are places that you should or should not stay in Milan? One of our local creative partners told us that we were not staying where we should stay, and we should get a different hotel. Super helpful. And there are other communities that do things like this, and we’re connected with some of them as well.

Um, there are like travel services specifically for going to F1 races, you know, some that focus on groups of women and so on. So find venues that either already exist or that we can organize ourselves. Cause we have hosted our own cars and coffees planning to do more of that as well. We’re at a point right now where we are participating in more events that are hosted by others.

But now that we have our own physical space here in the DC area, just outside Fredericksburg at Dominion Raceway, we will be able to [00:21:00] use this footprint for, you know, social events as well, and then planning to replicate the same kinds of capabilities in Houston. So focusing very local, but then also connecting to it’s like, Oh, okay.

You want to go to the Amelia Island Concord? This is what it looks like. Oh, and we’ll probably be there. Hey, let’s meet up. And then the same thing with, you know, Montreal and so on. So we’ve had creator partners at seven F1 races this year, and then we’ve done a number of track days. And so we’re looking at that as a core of being able to provide that community.

So it’s like, okay, you feel like you must go to Monza or Spa. Well, you know, here are people you can meet up with. They’re newer to the sport or actually maybe they’re not. And, you know, maybe they’re, you know, happy to share some of their experiences going to these races or participating in HPD events, whatever it needs to be.

Crew Chief Eric: So in a lot of communities or clubs, there’s an organization or a matrix or some sort of way it’s structured. Is the autoverse? a flat organization? Are there board members? Is there a way for people to volunteer when they become a member? [00:22:00] Like, how does the structure of the community work?

Paul Ragsdale: I

Crew Chief Eric: wish

Paul Ragsdale: it were big enough to have structure.

Hopefully Sunday, I think one of the good lessons that we observed From NFTs and those sorts of communities is I really was captivated by the idea of being creator led. So over the last year, I’ve worked on identifying like minded creators, because these are the folks who are creating all of our creator partners happen to be women.

We didn’t set it out for that to be the case for whatever reason, the creators who were working in the space, you know, where we have interest and have reached out to us, or we reached out to have all been women, we’ve certainly reached out to, you know, some male partners as well. Those haven’t come to fruition for some reason or another, but in terms of structure, I would say a lot of it is conceptual and something that we’re working to build.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s other components to the autoverse. And as I was perusing the website and looking at the magazine, you also have the garages, you have events, which you’ve talked about. But you also have some giveaways in there, you know, Formula One tickets. There’s all these different [00:23:00] things that you guys are promoting on social media.

How does that work and which part of the membership tier does that get allocated to you? How does all this work?

Paul Ragsdale: The giveaways, I mean, one, they’re obviously to drive brand awareness, but then also we just want more people to be able to experience F1. F1 has a monstrous financial barrier to entry. General admission pass to, you know, Miami or Dakota can be pushing a thousand dollars for one person for three days.

So something that, you know, I’ve just wanted more people to experience. I wish I could send lots and lots more people to F1 races. So we really enjoy doing that. And we enjoy meeting again, new fans, younger fans are coming in. So yeah, those are posted on social media. They’re available to anyone. And so we have specific giveaways site.

on our website. So we are the autoverse. io. We have recently gotten the autoverse. com domain. So we’re looking to transition to that in the new year, which will be fantastic. But right now the autoverse. io slash giveaways, you could see what we have running. We are also posting at happy hour. And I think there will be some other meetups.

[00:24:00] So definitely folks who are in Austin,

Crew Chief Eric: please reach out to us. We talked about the barrier to entry, which, you know, has gotten significantly worse in terms of like the ticket prices and all those kinds of things as Formula One has grown globally. Have you started to maybe look at other racing disciplines?

And I bring up IMSA as one of them here in the United States, because it’s still relatively inexpensive, but also it doesn’t have that at arm’s length to the fans. Like NASCAR can have, or Formula One can have, where you can still get down in the pits. Paddock passes are really cheap. You can talk to drivers.

You can talk to engineers, can be there in the action. So have you given any thought to other racing disciplines like IMSA or WEC, which also runs in Austin?

Paul Ragsdale: We very much have. In fact, I’ve been a club member at Virginia International Raceway for the last few years, mainly because of the opportunity to participate in their track days.

But they also have. privileges for members to go to the Michelin GT race or whatever the race is having to be. For folks like us, [00:25:00] that is like three of the best days you can possibly have. First of all, it’s multiple series racing over the course of three days. You can walk the entire complex. From Roller Coaster to NASCAR Bend to Oak Tree, soak it all up, hang out with other people who are like minded, and then yeah, walk the grid, talk to the teams, the drivers, the mechanics, some of the people you follow on social media.

I have had the dickens of a time getting people actually to come. Like, I literally can’t give away tickets.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you think it’s because endurance races are too long, but then the whole Catch 22 there is that they’re supposed to be long and Formula One and even now NASCAR with their new format is more digestible because it’s designed for TV.

I mean, Formula One races were never longer than 90 minutes, but it’s like a soccer match, right? It’s 90 minutes and it’s over versus man, six hours of the Glen, 12 hours of Seabrook, 24 hours of Le Mans. It’s all day.

Paul Ragsdale: That could be. For me, it’s also conflated with geography. It is extremely difficult to get people from Northern Virginia [00:26:00] to go to Virginia International Raceway.

And I had this conversation with a friend just the other day, we were talking about track driving, you know, people were like, Oh, Summit is Dominion. Obviously I’m a fan of Dominion, not least because of the access to the track. And of course, beautiful complex they built here at Dominion Lux. But when I was like, Oh, so you can go to one of these tracks with 10 turns.

This is, these are the kinds of speeds that you can do, or you can go to this like great, big historic track and it’s just an immediate, Oh, VIR is too far. And the same thing with the Michelin GT races. So I love Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta and places like that. They’re very far apart and far away from population centers.

To me, at least for the kinds of activities that we’ve done more grassroots, the geographic distances, the time, being able to get off work, etc., have been the biggest barriers to participation. Where I probably see the most unmet demand, at least among our creator partners, There’s a big bias. They’re European, they’re Australian.

We have a small number who are in North America. There’s a ton of enthusiasm around MotoGP. [00:27:00] And, you know, at one point in our history, we declared ourselves to be wholly focused on, it’s not just cars. You know, we like trucks and other things like that too. But our current tagline is four wheels more fun.

So we don’t do bikes. So we can’t quite connect to that MotoGP enthusiasm and fan base. I do think the digestibility is a really interesting point. About F1. And I remember when I went to my first race, which was at Coda in 2012, like I’d spent so many years watching the practice sessions, watching the qualifying sessions, and then watching the race itself and then did all of that in person.

And then I found like, basically it seemed like the race started and then it was over. It was like, wow, that was so quick. Like that was two

Crew Chief Eric: hours. Can’t be. That’d be worse. It could be rally. And it’s like a cricket match where it takes all week to get through it all. Right. Let’s get back to membership a little bit here.

So you’ve got a free tier and you’ve got a premium tier. What are some of the

Paul Ragsdale: perks? We say with our free tier, people get access to news events and special offers from our partners. We are affiliate partners of a number of fantastic brands. Those [00:28:00] include Fanatec, who recently been acquired, you know, still putting out amazing hardware under their new ownership.

The official F1 store and then Tire Rack and a number of other providers including NordVPN. I think an excellent service if you are thinking about, you know, security from hackers, ransomware, and all these other sorts of things. Again, we want to make as much available to our members. And we don’t consider people subscribers, we consider them members because we want people to participate and again, be able to engage.

Where the paid tier comes in, we’ve given a lot of thought to this because we want Value to be available to everyone, but there are sometimes experiences, call them exclusive, whatever it happens to be that not everybody’s going to be able to participate in. You know, I guess it’d be kind of the equivalent of, you can go to a Formula One race where you can get a paddock pass or you can get one of the team suites.

There are access to travel arrangements to behind the scenes conversations with motorsport teams and drivers to track days, and then the other thing is. We also offer a number of discounts from our brick and mortar automobile [00:29:00] partners. So things like detailing, paint protection, vehicle, shipping, and transportation, and our car buying service.

And I will plug the car buying service that when you work with most car buying services, you realize it’s a program to feed you to a dealership. And then you still have to do all the work, especially with the finance manager. But this one instead takes the consumers. Requirements and goes out and find some vehicles and helps them get the best deal on them.

What’s the cost

Crew Chief Eric: Delta from free to premium?

Paul Ragsdale: Right now it’s 333. That includes monthly meetups. We do road rallies. Obviously those are going to be focused on Washington, DC and the Houston area. We organize socials at F1 events. We’ve done Miami before, and like I said, we’re going to be hosting a happy hour in downtown Austin.

Come hang out with the Autoverse and nerd out about F1 or learn about new things. Or just talk to cool people. Vegas baby, Vegas. What about that? Yeah, we have found Vegas to be perceived as very inaccessible because of the price point for the [00:30:00] tickets and the experiences and the hotels. So I thought we were going to have massive interest last year.

And then we did it. So I know very few people who went to the race. Yeah. No one in our community that drives our own participation. If we don’t have a large group of people that are going to be there, then we’re going to invest our time and energy in other places. Kota is a special place in my heart. I family from Texas.

I live there now. And so there’s a lot that we can showcase while we’re there. We have a little bit of home field advantage in terms of restaurants, experiences, drives, able to show off some fun stuff. I mean, it’s by Daniel Ricardo, but in Texas, there’s a lot to enjoy.

Crew Chief Eric: So another Pit Stop question before we move into our final segment.

So Paul, you’ve been to a lot of races, you’ve traveled the world, you’ve raced on some tracks all over the place. If you had to pick a favorite, which one is it? And if there’s a bucket list track, which is it and what

Paul Ragsdale: car? Oh, great question. So favorite track has to be the IR. I’ve definitely not driven on as many tracks as I would like.

I have bucket list tracks I [00:31:00] want to drive. I’ve been to Watkins Glen, our team raced there. I’ve not had the privilege of driving it yet. I was actually supposed to be at the Monticello Motor Club yesterday for a track day, but then Motor Week was here doing interviews about the garage development. So we had a really fantastic time with a number of the other garage owners.

And we actually got to do an informal track day that they could get. some footage. So that, so that was fantastic. Bucket list track, without a doubt, Spa Francorchamps. So I’ve always wanted to drive there. And we actually were connected with the folks at RSR Spa and would love to put on a track day for fellow petrolheads like ourselves.

And the great packages, obviously the great organization where the autoverse comes in is RSR Spa handles Absolutely everything at the track. We help you get there. The flights, the local accommodations, and those sorts of things to, again, make it more accessible. So now you’re dealing with a language barrier, you’re in a new place, you know, how do you get ground transportation to no one?

So we figure all those out. In terms of what I would want to drive, the car that I selected, um, that [00:32:00] I would like to drive there, if I could, it’s in their current inventory, but it is the Boxster RS Spider. High revving, naturally aspirated Porsche with an open top format. For track driving, you can’t beat coupes.

They’re fantastic. But just in terms of visceral experience of a vehicle, the open top or even just with the canvas up brings so much more. That’s what I love.

Crew Chief Eric: What people aren’t seeing unless they’re watching this on the Patreon behind the scenes view is behind you is a Lotus. Tell us a little bit about the car, the story behind the car, why it’s in your garage.

But I also want to follow that up with the final pit stop question. One of our favorites, okay. The sexiest car of all time. Oh,

Paul Ragsdale: interesting. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Cause it’s a

Paul Ragsdale: beautiful car. Don’t get me wrong. Oh, absolutely. I definitely have a most beautiful car of all time, which I can throw out in a bit, but yeah, this car, so as a petrol head, I mean, obviously there are certain brands that are going to appeal.

Of course, there’s Porsches, Ferrari, Lamborghini, but then, you know, in terms of, you know, actually getting to start to. Own and drive some of these vehicles. You know, some of them are more accessible than others [00:33:00] and Lotus, just because there are relatively few dealerships in the U S it’s just been one.

That’s always been kind of remote for me. There have been a few occasions when I’ve looked at buying a Lotus and then I realized just how very far away, like there were times when the closest dealerships were like New Jersey or North Carolina, in fact, actually got this one from flow Lotus in Winston Salem.

And somebody was asking me about how is it to drive on the road? I said, well, I drove it five hours. From Winston Salem to DC when I picked it up and I was perfectly comfortable, which I cannot say in a lot of other cars I’ve owned. Yeah, it’s magnificent. And then, yeah, so Lotus has a mystique around it that very few other brands have in terms of its commitment to the driving experience.

And not to say that there aren’t fantastic machines made by other brands. There certainly are. But Lotus has always, I think, really dug in and made that their space. Mid engine, rear drive. They’ve been doing that for a long time. And then chassis tuning. And then their one of the very last holdouts with hydraulic steerings.

The steering feel of this [00:34:00] car is sublime. Those are big drivers. And then my hero once drove for Lotus. It’s definitely just a really nice tie in association as well. You need a John Player special livery on that thing, you know? We’ve thought about it. Probably going to get an autoverse livery before anything.

One of our partner companies is a detailing and wrap shop. We’re able to do those things both for street cars for protection purposes, but also liveries for race cars. In fact, we have a car racing at VIR at the Sports Car Vintage Racing Association.

Crew Chief Eric: So the Amira is the most beautiful car in your garage right now.

It is. But is it the most beautiful car of all time? For me,

Paul Ragsdale: the most

Crew Chief Eric: beautiful

Paul Ragsdale: car of all time is the Ferrari 250 GT short wheelbase. And it’s one of those things where it’s nice to get validation. Like, I was flipping through a car book one time and I was like, what is that car? I have to know what this is.

And I’m like, that’s my car. I had no idea how valuable these cars were. But again, it just speaks to you in a particular way. And I think there are a lot of lists that would name that the most beautiful car, certainly of the 20th century. So I’m not alone in that choice.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:35:00] Motorsports, car clubs, vehicle enthusiasm, it’s faced with all sorts of challenges.

We talked about some earlier, but I think one of the biggest ones that we’re faced with, it’s a harsh reality. We have to do a lot of introspection into this topic, which is, how do we make clubs, Racing the paddock itself, more diverse and more inclusive. And we need to make it more inviting, especially for women and people of color and all this.

So you highlighted some things that you’re doing in the autoverse, but if you were king for a day, how could we make racing and the vehicle enthusiast world better and more open?

Paul Ragsdale: And I’ve thought about this a lot as a scientist and, you know, being in STEM workforces, which are, there are a lot of underrepresented groups.

women, ethnic minorities, etc. One of the things that I have, I’m saying this is white male, middle aged white male. I think where I have seen the most camaraderie and welcome is organizations that are already [00:36:00] diverse. Like when you already have folks you can identify with in the paddock, it’s so much easier to connect.

And obviously, again, we have to literally have to keep the lights on. So we have to have revenue streams, whether they’re from advertising, Or for providing services through paint protection or arrive and drive racing services, driver coaching, vehicle transport, those sorts of things. We’ve been actually talking a lot about go karting.

We’ve thought a lot about sim racing, we’ve thought a lot about go karting because they have lower price points. And so, yeah, I’m really thankful to be able to drive this car and it’s magnificent on track. And on the road as well, but there are also, there are so many other cars that you can actually get out and experience.

And I would definitely not recommend something like this for regular track duty for all the reasons that are certainly going to be screamingly obvious in terms of risk to the vehicle and you’re going to make mistakes during your development. So I had some good advice on those points coming up myself.

But in terms of accessibility, we want to be able to provide pathways for people to get [00:37:00] engaged and not have to travel 45 or 50 minutes to be part of a sim league. Or in the case of carding, we have for a long time wanted to become, you know, more active and see some opportunities, especially now that we’re here at Dominion.

Providing some opportunities for people to get into a rental track cars, because I think one of the biggest barrier when people come to me and they want to know about doing a track day is they get interested in it, but then they start thinking about driving that car on a track and the risk that they may be exposing it to and even the insurance options that they have available to them.

I mean, it’s still damage to their car and potentially. Terminal damage to their car. So vehicle rental seems to be an area of demand that we’re actually looking to meet next year with, I would say, vehicles that are friendlier to a new track driver. Think about Golf GTI or an R, think about a GR 86, something like that.

You don’t simply jump into a vehicle like this and go out on your track day, much less, you know, an open way race car, but for the people who want to be able to do those sorts of [00:38:00] things, we want to be able to provide a defined pathway. And we do think that there’s more, we’re seeing unmet demand in the area and I think Dominion would be a fantastic place to do that.

So we’re hoping to have some exciting new things. along those lines in early 2025 and see more cars running around on track in the autoverse.

Crew Chief Eric: You opened the door to allow me to ask you, so what’s next, Paul? You mentioned a couple things. What’s next for you? Are you checking some things off your list and other things that might be going on at the autoverse?

Some exciting other news that you can share? The biggest

Paul Ragsdale: news is we have our first So we have this wonderful garage condo. You can’t see the whole thing here at Dominion Lux Complex at Dominion Raceway. We previously had a space at the Virginia International Raceway, just wonderful, great community, still part of the VIR club.

But in terms of accessibility for folks, especially in Northern Virginia, it’s simply too far. So this location offers a lot. I will also say it has. Let’s just say simpler zoning processes than the near suburbs at DC. We’ve had space there too. [00:39:00] I’ll just leave it at that. So in our enterprise, had a dealership previously.

Like I said, we do offer detailing, ceramic coating, paint protection, window tint, those sorts of things. So we’re going to be able to do those things here out of the garage. But because we have the garage, we’re also going to be able to do social events. Now, I realize most fans are not going to come to an F1 watch party.

An hour outside of D. C. But for those enthusiasts who are already here at an SCCA or other track event, we would love people to come over, hang out in the garage, be able to cool down, you know, on a hot day. We’ve got the air conditioning, have some refreshments. Talk about cars and then yeah, see where we can be able to do some things together, help people in their driver development path, help people into a track car, finding one for the first time.

That is a very involved process. I had help doing it and we want to help people do that as well. And would be remiss if I didn’t mention, I now live in Houston. We’re replicating a lot of these capabilities in the Houston area as well. [00:40:00] So vehicle sales and brokering, paint protection, ceramic coating. So basically the businesses that I have either founded or run cater to me.

Like I am, I am my target customer. I am the person who buys a car and immediately goes and gets paint protection film put on it. And then I’m going to go take it out to the track and do all of these sorts of things. And so those are the folks that. You know, we’re able to connect with, and then, like I said, provide excellent service as well, because again, just like with a lot of automotive services, you really don’t know what you’re getting and read reviews, but it’s much more helpful to be able to talk to people who’ve actually gotten services from that same business and you can have a lot more confidence in quality that way.

So yeah, so establishing physical spaces in Houston and the DC area where we can host people and then where we can also use as a jumping off point for track days in those areas. as well.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, paul of the episode where we l guests to share any shout anything else that you ha I mean,

Paul Ragsdale: the main thing I to be able to take away i and [00:41:00] you want to talk F1 w We can help connect that and if you want to get on track, go carts, whatever it happens to be, we can help you get there too.

Lots of great other providers like Sports Car Club of America who organize the events, but in terms of actually walking you through the knowledge and the hardware that you need, we have the capabilities and network to be able to do that.

Crew Chief Eric: The Autoverse is a community of gearheads, and thanks to Paul and his team, they live, breathe, eat, and sleep cars, and work to help you enjoy them too.

If you want to learn more about their awesome events, giveaways, and exclusive experiences, be sure to check out www. theautoverse. io or follow them on social at theautoversegroup. com. On Instagram, see for yourself, come out and join them and enjoy a curated network of providers who help you experience your vehicles to their fullest and have some ridiculous fun in the autoverse.

And with that, Paul, I can’t thank you enough for coming on break, fix, and sharing your [00:42:00] story with us and telling us all about the autoverse. I’m excited to see How you guys are growing, how you’ve grown over the years. I absolutely applaud people that are enthusiastic about motor sports and continue to promote that to other people, because it is one of those sports that if we don’t continue to perpetuate that excitement and get people involved and engaged, it will slowly die off.

And it is something to marvel. Like we talked about the technology, the artists, everything that’s involved. In vehicles, it’s more than just basic transportation. There’s a whole autoverse around these vehicles. And I applaud you for bringing that to people’s attention.

Paul Ragsdale: You know, we say we don’t like talking about ourselves, but we all do.

Right. Especially if you’re extroverted. So first of all, Eric, it’s just been, yeah, such a pleasure, obviously, to get to talk about one of my favorite topics. Appreciate all your prep and being able to get to key elements. And again, to connect with a like minded enthusiast, it is still something I’m actively working to do.

And then of course, that we want it to make available to our community. [00:43:00] So, Eric, thank you so much.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of break fix podcasts brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gumby Bears, and Monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash [00:44:00] gtmotorsports. And remember, without you, there would be no None of this would be possible.

Highlights

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
00:48 Meet Paul Ragsdale: A Lifelong Petrolhead
00:56 Founding The Autoverse
01:45 Paul’s Early Automotive Influences
02:14 Discovering Motorsports and Community
03:33 Challenges and Inspirations
04:53 Building the Autoverse Community
06:27 Navigating the Automotive World
08:50 The Impact of COVID on Motorsports
10:25 Engaging New Generations of Fans
14:50 The Technical Side of Motorsports
17:57 The Autoverse: More Than a Car Club
21:43 Structure and Future of the Autoverse
22:59 Social Media Promotions and Giveaways
24:13 Exploring Other Racing Disciplines
27:43 Membership Tiers and Perks
30:38 Favorite Tracks and Bucket List
34:59 Making Motorsports More Inclusive
38:17 Future Plans for the Autoverse
40:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Learn More

The Autoverse is a community of gearheads. And thanks to Paul and his team, they live, breathe, eat, and sleep cars – and work to help you enjoy them too!

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE AUTOVERSE TODAY

See for yourself, come out and join them and enjoy a curated network of providers who help you experience your vehicles to their fullest, and have some ridiculous fun in The Autoverse.

If you want to learn more about their awesome events, giveaways and exclusive experiences, be sure to check out www.theautoverse.io or follow them on social @theautoversegroup on Instagram.

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

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

Evening with a Legend: Lyn St. James

IMRRC

November 12, 2024

Lyn St. James’ illustrious career has distinguished her as one of the most successful female racecar drivers in history. She would take home titles in races like the 12 hours of Sebring, 24 hours of Rolex and 24 hours of the Nurburgring. And during that time she would attempt the 24H of LeMans twice and a pivotal time in its history. Later, in 1992, the mold wasn’t just broken… It was shattered, and at the age of 45, proving that neither gender nor age matter in Motorsports – she entered the Indianapolis 500, earning the title rookie of the year. And she’s here with us tonight, to share her Le Mans journey with you!

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Spotlight

Notes

For those that don’t know Lyn’s epic journey in Motorsports, you can return to Break/Fix Episode #142 – released on September 6th, 2022 for that; but we’re going to jump forward to the 1989 Season.
Talk to us through your “Road to LeMans” … You were known for having year-by-year contracts; how did you strike the deal for a seat at Le Mans?
You mentioned on our previous get together, getting advice from Jim Busby (the walk down the Pocono Paddock together) and being close with Doc Bundy at that time; did they help influence your journey to LeMans?
What was it like going to LeMans for the first time? It has been several years since Margie Smith-Haas entered LeMans (‘84/85). Were you met with any opposition (as a woman)?
1989 is a special year, because it was “the last” of the good ole days, meaning… pre chicane, pre reconstruction of the pits, pitlane, etc. Why is that important?
Your teammates were: Gordon Spice, Ray Bellm, Wayne Taylor – what were they like to work/drive with?
One of the biggest themes that has come up with other guests on this program is “mechanical sympathy.” Would you say that’s the most important part about endurance racing? Esp. at LeMans?
1991 – All female team, partnered with Desiree Wilson & Cathy Muller. Talk us through the return to LeMans? How did that come about? What had changed when you came back in 1991
Looking back, 1991 was also the year of the revolutionary “Mazda 787B” any thoughts on that car?
Do you think despite how ‘91 ended, it opened doors or maybe laid groundwork for future teams like the Iron Dames and others to come to LeMans?
What do you feel is the most challenging part of driving at the 24 hours of LeMans?

and much, much more!

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Evening with the Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the Famous 24 Hours of Le Mans, giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Le Mans, with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

Crew Chief Eric: Tonight, we have an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you, sharing in the legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over a hundred years of racing. And as your host, I’m delighted to introduce Lynn St. James, who’s had an illustrious career and is one of the most successful female race car drivers in history.

She would take home titles in races like the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 24 Hours of Rolex, and the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. [00:01:00] And during that time, she would attempt the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice at a pivotal time in Le Mans history. Later, in 1992, the mold wasn’t just broken, it was shattered. And at the age of 45, proving that neither gender nor age in motorsports matters, she entered the Indianapolis 500 and earned the title of Rookie of the Year.

And she’s here tonight to share her Le Mans journey with us. With you. And with that, I’m crew chief Eric from the motoring podcast network, welcoming everyone to this evening with a legend. So Lynn, welcome to the show.

Lyn St. James: Well, thank you very much. And I’m coming to you from Indianapolis. I’m from another historical race in the history of motorsports, but it’s great to be here and to talk about Le Mans.

Crew Chief Eric: To catch up on all the things I described in the introduction, if you don’t know about Lynn’s epic journey in motorsports, you can actually return to BreakFix episode number 142, which was released at On September the 6th of 2022, so you can get caught up, but we’re going to jump forward to 1989. So Lynn talk us through your road to Lamar.

You were [00:02:00] known for having year by year contracts. So how did you strike a deal for a seat at Lamar?

Lyn St. James: Wasn’t easy. It was like a dream. If someday I thought if I could even just go to Lamar and then obviously race at Lamar, and it really wasn’t part of my Ford deal at all. So in other words, it was under contract in 1988 and a few years before that, obviously, but.

In 1988, I was under contract as a racer for Ford Motor Company. Ford wasn’t doing any primary sponsorships or funding or anything at Le Mans at that time. They really had no interest in even having the conversation. I was going to have to go outside of that and do this independently. And even though I was under contract to race for them.

So a friend of mine who has been very, very instrumental actually, and helpful in my career and also many other drivers careers is John Gorslein from the Gorslein company. He handles a lot of insurance issues for race car drivers and professional athletes and high wealth individuals. He’d heard me going on and on and on about, I got to go to Le Mans.

I want to go to Le Mans. From what I know, he reached out to Gordon Spice. Gordon Spice obviously is legendary at Le Mans, legendary with [00:03:00] the Spice chassis that he has been building and competing. And so I guess he was receptive, but then the dialogue was okay. Well, where are we going to find the funding?

Well, in 1988, I actually had sponsorship from a company called DeRolt, which On my Trans Am cars and then my IMSA GT cars, interestingly enough, they were interested in not just international exposure, but international distribution. They had a fuel attitude that was very unique at the time, and they wanted to have international distribution.

And so they became very interested in wanting to sponsor and put together a package to race at Le Mans. Really, I mean, it was timing. It was. Having somebody help me to be able to reach out to the right people. And actually we put together, not only the funding to race over there, but also put together a whole activation reception and all kinds of things for DRALT for their fuels and so that they could meet the right people and, and all of that.

It was a matter of months, months and months of conversations and figuring it out. And finally, word was, yes, and we had a deal and we got [00:04:00] busy preparing all of the details that had to be worked out.

Crew Chief Eric: On our previous get together. If you jump back into that other episode, you mentioned two previous evening with a legend guests, Jim Busby and Doc Bundy, you talked about walking down the paddock together at Pocono and discussing the cars and learning from Jim and working with Doc over time.

So with their experience at Lamont, did that help draw you in? Did they help influence your journey? Did they give you any tips?

Lyn St. James: No, no, no, no. I never had a conversation with either of them about that, but knowing them and, and, you know, knowing Hulbert and Derrick Bell. And I mean, I knew these drivers that raced at Le Mans.

I mean, I followed racing as much as I did it, you know what I mean? And so I was a very aware of Le Mans and I studied and read everything. I mean, it was just interesting. Some drivers really that went there, Didn’t like it all that much. I mean, it wasn’t always on there. I mean, but it was also, if you are a professional race car driver, whether you’re Formula One, whether you’re IndyCar, whether you’re sports cars, Le Mans is on your radar.

I mean, Le Mans is one of those [00:05:00] races that at some point in time, you definitely want to do. And in fact, if you’re an engineer, if you’re a crew chief, if you’re a team owner, I mean, it is one of those. Iconic races that I think everybody wants to do, and everybody wants to go to, even as a fan. I didn’t need any encouragement.

I just needed the access and that I needed to find the financial support. And I mean, the timing turned out to be ideal, obviously coming off of having success at Daytona in 87. And I mean, my endurance racing career was starting to gain. You know, respectability at Sebring, at Daytona, at Watkins Glen. And so when you’re known to be a good endurance racer and a good teammate in an endurance race, then that helps when you are then talking to people on the other side of the pond about this opportunity.

So I didn’t really get any tips about the driving that I recall. No, the best advice I got was literally from Gordon and Ray. When I got over there, I mean, they were. incredibly helpful. You know, I had some friends, John Mecham, who had been a successful team owner at Indy, and we had [00:06:00] become very dear friends in the 80s.

He actually came over and there was like this positive energy in a circle around me that, that just really helped. I am, I’m, Such a good listener and I wean information from people, even when they don’t know that they’re actually giving the advice. So, you know, it’s just the way I operate. I mean, I’m always hungry for something that I can put into my bag of knowledge.

If I don’t have it personally, then how can I get it from somebody else?

Crew Chief Eric: Your story parallels a lot of other American drivers. Going to Lamar during this period, they’re sort of like drinking from the fire hose. First time there, I learned the track on my first outlap during practice, or I’m in a new car on a new track.

So what was it like going to Lamar? Did you have this sort of idea or illusion in your head or fantasy of what it was going to be like? Did that glass ceiling break when you got there? What was that initial experience like?

Lyn St. James: Let’s face it. We saw the movie, right? And we didn’t have simulators at all of the visuals that are available now.

First of all, it helped that I had prototype experience that I braced with the Ford Argo prototype in 84, and that I had had [00:07:00] the prototype, the GTP cars. So I had some downforce, high speed experience, but this is a long course. The other good news was that I went over there early because we had to do a lot of activation for DeWalt’s fuel, you know, so we had these parties and things and meetings that had been set up.

And so I did do a little bit of driving and. Talking to the drivers that I knew when I got over there, Brian Redmond. I mean, Brian Redmond is like an encyclopedia. I recall, I think I actually got some laps in a rental car because I remember the Porsche curves was really hard for me. And before I ever even got in the race car and to just get the timing, I’m a rhythm driver.

I really look for a rhythm and a racetrack and Le Mans is a little tough because you’ve got two racetracks. You’ve got the backside where you’ve got the long straightaway, but obviously before the chicanes and you have a more of the high speed. Corners until you get to the cake at the end of the straightaway.

And then you’ve got a real series of corners. So there’s almost like two different racetracks to me and from a rhythm standpoint. And I had a hard time with Indianapolis corner and Porsche curves. So I just broke it down bit [00:08:00] by bit. And when I was struggling, I would talk to any of the drivers that I knew that.

And I knew, unfortunately, a number of, as I said, a number of drivers that were my contemporaries, I’m going to call them, meaning they were American and they knew who the hell I was. And I would just pick their brains.

Crew Chief Eric: You talked about getting there the first time, getting oriented with the track. But what was it like culturally at Le Mans being not the first, but one of very few, especially American women to grace Le Mans, what was that like?

Were you met with any sort of opposition?

Lyn St. James: Well, you know, it’s funny because my first time out of the country was actually when I raced the 24 hours of Nurburgring, which was about a decade earlier, I did get a lot of strange. I don’t know, resistance, maybe, I mean, they called me an Amazon woman when they were interviewing me and I did get a real sense of cultural resistance and discrimination about nobody would really believe that I was doing what I was doing.

But that was 10 years before that. That was in Germany. In France, I didn’t really get that sense of an attitude about it. In the 80s, we’re talking a whole decade later, the 80s where things were starting to open up a little bit, even in [00:09:00] France. The only comparison I could make, the first time I went to the Indianapolis 500 in 1992 as a driver, the best way I’d describe that is it was like Christmas every day because every day I’d go to that track and I’m like, I am an Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a race car driver because I’d come there as a fan, but now I’m there as a race car driver.

At Le Mans, when I was there, and I hadn’t done Indy yet, this was like the highlight. This was like the top of the mountain. I am at the 24 hours of Le Mans as a race car driver. I’m not here as a tourist or as a fan or as a spectator. My feet were on the ground, but I had this sort of elevated, my sensories were just absolutely at the very top.

Which means that if there was probably a lot of stuff going on, that I was probably pretty oblivious to it. I was just so proud to be there and then so determined to learn that course and drive well. I just let a lot of stuff probably roll off me. I tend to operate that way. When I’m doing something that I really want to do and I really am committed to doing it really well, I stay so focused.

I only allow [00:10:00] things in that are going to contribute to that success. The other stuff, sometimes I don’t even hear it. It’s like, if you don’t have anything positive to say, or you don’t have anything you want to say to help me, just get out of my face, get away from me.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’ll put a pin in it and come back to that because this theme continues throughout your career and then your subsequent career after that, let’s go back to 1989 because it’s a special year.

And you actually alluded to this. Because it was the last of quote unquote, the good old days, meaning free chicane, pre reconstruction of the pits, pre new pit lane, all those kinds of things. Why is that important to Lamont’s history? 1989?

Lyn St. James: I didn’t know that it was all going to change. I mean, I was just there experiencing it, like watching the movie.

And I mean, it was everything authentically the way you’d always seen it. I think the thing that was the most appalling to me was when we would come down pit lane. Is how many people were in pit lane? I was used to racing over here in the U S where, I mean, you were restricted. There were a certain number of people allowed over the wall.

And you only, if you were getting ready for your car to come in the pits, that was it. I mean, the rest of the time the pits are clear and there, it just seemed like I [00:11:00] kept seeing from kneecaps down because, you know, from the prototype, it was like, I just kept seeing all these legs, you know, and these people, and I’m like, what are these people doing in the pits?

And of course the pits were narrow. And, you know, as you come out onto the track, it was pretty cowboyish, pretty old school, you know, but it’s like, okay, this is what it is, kiddo. So figure it out and make it work. It wasn’t until, you know, I left, I mean, it wasn’t until after the race and I come back to the United States and then I read about all the changes that were made.

And then of course, when I went back in 91, I didn’t even feel like I was at the same place. Huge building. I don’t even know what to call it. The structure where the pits are underneath, you know, with all of the hospitality, I guess, of meetings. I mean, it became a very stoic, harsh, cold, beautiful building.

And then of course, very professional with the pit lane. And then the way the victory stand comes out over the track. I mean, the whole thing was extraordinary. You know, the old way in 89, I mean, behind the pits where everybody walks to get to the other pits or do you have to go through to get out? It [00:12:00] was so narrow.

And I mean, it was kind of damp and kind of smelly. And I mean, it was like being in the locker room, but it was fantastic. I mean, none of that is a complaint, but I didn’t understand it until after the fact, I was really experiencing something I would know that I would never be able to experience again, you know, because it was changed.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s also important about that time is LeMans was still carrying the tradition of being one of the fastest tracks. On the planet outside of made the Nürburgring in terms of full length straightaways. And you are no stranger to doing 200 plus mile an hour at this point, but speeds down the Molson in excess of 230 miles an hour.

So what was that like in the Ford powered spice GTP? I mean, you’re in this, it’s a brand new car to you. So walk us through that.

Lyn St. James: You know, it was a brand new car. You’re right. But. The car worked, wasn’t wandering, you know, I mean, it was actually set up really well. I’m sort of numb to the numbers of speed.

I feel like it’s all relevant. And it’s just, you’re always trying to go as fast as you can. And yet I remember talking to Hurley Haywood [00:13:00] in particular saying to me, yeah, but what if a tiger goes? When you’re going 230 miles, I said, Hurley, why are you thinking about that? I mean, you know, it’s like, don’t think about that.

Speed is a number and it is a desire to go as fast as the car is going to go. And what’s beautiful about Le Mans, first of all, that Mulsanne straight’s not really straight. You’ve still got It’s movement there and then crown of the road is really weird. You know, it’s like when I ran at Talladega, which was really just before that, that I remember asking Bill Elliot, like, Hey, could you show me the line?

And he goes, I’m going to show you where not to go. And so I kind of felt that way at Lamal, particularly on the Mulsine straight, because you can get caught into thinking it’s just, let’s go down the middle of the road. And so you really have to pay attention. And again, weed information from Ray Bellum and.

Wayne Taylor and my co drivers and my teammates and really look at where not to be on the racetrack so that you’re not darting around because you’ve also got traffic, but where you do not want to place your car. And of course, having downforce, I had a responsive car. I wasn’t like [00:14:00] floating and trying to figure out how to manage it.

My recollection, it was a good ride. And this

Crew Chief Eric: was during the ground effects era too. Was this your first ground effects car?

Lyn St. James: No, the GTP car that I’d had, the Ford Mustang Grove, it had some ground effects and not as much, but sort of the Argo that I had. So I’d had some experience with that.

Crew Chief Eric: So you mentioned your teammates, Gordon Spice, Ray Bellum and Wayne Taylor, who’s still involved in endurance racing today.

What were they like to work with and drive with back in 1989?

Lyn St. James: Everyone’s got their own personality, a lot of different characters hanging out together. Ray and Gordon were so laid back cause they’d done them all so many times. I mean, and so to them, this was just another year of doing them all. I mean, I was like, so hungry to be, contribute and be on the track and all.

I mean, they kept, you know, you go out, you go out. I got a lot, actually a lot of seat time. And of course, didn’t know until it was over that Gordon had decided to retire. I mean, after that race, unfortunately the engine went and we broke, I think 16 hours in, but he had already decided that he was going to retire.

He was very helpful, but at the same time, just very laid back. It’s hard to [00:15:00] explain, but I’ve not been around racers that were that sort of casual about everything. Wayne, on the other hand, I’m not sure if this was the first time Wayne had done the law. I haven’t talked to him about that, so I don’t recall, because he seemed pretty wired.

I remember the one challenge that he had and I got a kick out of this because he’s a little guy. One of the tests that we all had to do was to be able to take the bonnet off for having access. Now that’s at the back of the car because that’s a big, big piece. And so we all had to be able to unlatch it and do it that we needed to have access to get to where the engine was.

The other guys were pretty big, so they were able to do it no problem. And Wayne was struggling and I’m thinking, holy crap, if he’s struggling, what am I going to do? He just about got it and got it okay. I was last, I was so lucky because I just had a little puff of wind at the end that just caught it and helped me, you know, I was a nervous wreck about that.

And so was Wayne. That was one of those that it was kind of nice to see somebody else struggling about something that I was having a hard time with. And the other two guys, they were from other countries, European from other countries. And, you know, they were kind of typically nice, [00:16:00] but arrogant. Yeah. You know, not positive or negative.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, the reason I bring up your teammates is because one of the themes that comes up with every guest, and this is true of endurance racing in general, is the concept of mechanical sympathy and with different drivers behind the wheel of the car for different lengths of stints and things like that. Not all of you drive the same, although you try to practice and get a rhythm down and try to get lap times down.

So did mechanical sympathy. Maybe play into the demise of the spice car.

Lyn St. James: I don’t think so because I’m not aware if it was, because those are conversations that too, when one driver’s driving, the other two drivers who aren’t driving could have that conversation as they follow somebody, they’ve noticed that, you know, something is now been abused.

Or is not functioning very well and could have been abused. So that conversation usually happens from the two drivers that are out of the cockpit, while the other driver’s in the cockpit. And I don’t recall that conversation having it with either with Ray or Gordon. And the other car, even though we were all teammates, when it came to the race, I mean, it was kind of like two independent [00:17:00] programs because the crews, they help each other, but they were really assigned and kept to the car that they were running.

Crew Chief Eric: So as we close out 89, one of the other big themes about driving at Lamar is how variable it can be. And there’s the sentiment that Lamar chooses its winner, right? If you believe in that sort of superstition, but. The weather is a big to do. Like you said, the crown of the road, the cars, all the different tires, the different drivers.

So when you put all that together, when you walked away from Lamont, the end of 89, what did you feel was the most challenging part of driving the 24?

Lyn St. James: Really? The most challenging was. accepting that we didn’t, because the car was running so well the majority of the time, and it didn’t just blow up. I wasn’t in the car.

I think Ray was in the car, because the car is still running. So I was trying to catch up. Okay. I probably just rested. And cause I went over to Gordon and I’m like, okay, you know, and then he goes, we’re done. And I’m like, what do you mean we’re done? He said, you know, the engine’s gone down and I don’t even know what actually had broke, but I mean, it was just, we’re done.

And I think the most challenging was Accepting that and, and walking away feeling fantastic [00:18:00] because I’d raced Le Mans, but at the same time, the air is out of the balloon of, Oh my God, we didn’t make it to the end when we were, we made it so far. And you know, the only other time, and I had a very similar at Sebring when I was at a 935, it’s the first time I’d raced a 935 turbo and just the turbo went, but the engine was still running and I’m out there.

And I remember Jim Bell was my crew chief and he’s on the. Radio and he goes, Lynn, you know, bring it in. We’re done. I’m like, what do you mean? We’re done. The car is still running. Fix it. You’ve got to be able to find a way to fix it. Accepting defeat, particularly when the car is still mechanically running, even though it may not be mechanically sound enough to continue in an endurance race.

Accepting defeat is, is one of the hardest things. It’s really hard. It’s hard to walk away after everything going so well, after all the fulfillment of a dream and all the excitement. You don’t want to have a bad taste in your mouth at the end. At the same time, that’s just the hardest, is dealing with that and trying to go back to, oh yeah, but we did this, and oh yeah, but we did that, you know, so it was that defeat.

Crew Chief Eric: That segues us right into 1991. And to [00:19:00] quote you for the last time we got together, you It’s the one you don’t like to talk about and for very good reason. So let’s set the stage. For those that don’t know, you return with an all Pink Spice GTP car. At this point, Ford powered, but this time it’s an all female team and you partnered with Desiree Wilson and Kathy Mueller.

Talk about this return to Lama. As we mentioned before, Lama had changed. Suddenly you get there, brand new buildings, brand new pit. They’ve got Chicanes on the mall Sun. It’s like a reboot. So walk us through 1991 and the return.

Lyn St. James: Everything was. Before we even got there. So, I mean, it was intriguing. Yes. Pink car, all female, Spice, Cosworth.

So that was the good part. I got to go to Japan. I’d never been to Japan. So I got to go to Tokyo. That’s where they made the announcement. So there was this woman, Tabika was her first name. She had put the deal together. And so there were a lot of things. Quoted, said, written down. There were a lot of statements made about this effort and I knew Desiree.

So I was like, [00:20:00] this’ll be perfect. Really fantastic. So it was going to be Desiree, myself and Tomika. So then we go to this racetrack in Japan, not Suzuki. It was one that I’d never heard of. It’s actually a beautiful racetrack too. I mean, it was, it was stunning. And so the car was there. We were going to just test, all get acclimated to the car and to the team.

And everything was wrong. Car barely ran, you know, we were having incredible troubles. It became very obvious that everything that was said and presented was not necessarily happening. You know, it wasn’t necessarily real, but you know, you want to be optimistic and you want this to work. So, you know, our radar was up like, I don’t know about this.

Hope that works out. So this was months in advance of going to Le Mans when we went to Japan. So, we show up at Le Mans, now we see, I see at least, all of the, oh my God, this is all different, you know, and I see all this part of it, but it was a different crew than that were with the car in Japan. The car was a disaster.

I mean, the car was not prepared for Le Mans. They had said it had raced in some other race. [00:21:00] Whatever it was, it was still had the setup for that race as opposed to being set up for Le Mans. And I just remember since I had, the most recent person had been to Le Mans, I took the car out first. I mean, I wasn’t at race speed at all.

At the end of the Mulsanne Straight, I went for the brakes and the brake pedal fell off. I mean, the pedal just fell off, it was rattling down on the, you know, on the floor. And I was livid on the radio, and of course, the entire crew were all Japanese, nobody spoke English. And so they’re like rattling, and finally Desiree gets on the radio, Boo!

You have a problem with the brake? I said, expletive, you know, The brake pedal fell off, you know, I said, I will try to get it back to the pits. So I got back. And I mean, that is what the start of our first out there. There were some crew guys and team members from another Spice team who had worked with me when I was with the Spice two years ago.

And they came over and tried to help. And they told us everything is wrong with that car. The suspension is wrong. The shock is wrong. Everything. And they let us know, we would help you if we could, but [00:22:00] we can’t because that car is so off and so wrong. And then the ACO or the Lamal people would not approve Tameka’s license.

So now she’s being told she can’t get in the car. So now we only have two drivers. And so that’s when it was really mostly Desiree put our heads together. Trying to figure out who could we get to replace Tameka. And that’s what we called Kathy Mueller. And so Kathy Mueller, cause she lives in Europe. So she was able to come out and join the team so that we could still fulfill.

There were all kinds of conversations that they weren’t even going to let us on the track and that they weren’t even going to let us run. Desiree’s husband was there, Alan. And he was, you know, everybody was just, it was total chaos. Total chaos. And Desiree, God bless her, would not give up. I mean, she would constantly, at one point I saw her, literally with her hand, with this little Japanese guy and she had him, she had him off the ground and his feet were going like this because she was so mad.

She was like, you know, trying to get him to do whatever it was that needed on the car. So, I mean, Desiree [00:23:00] just really, to me, was very, very committed to trying to figure out how to make the car run. And they did let us start at the back.

Crew Chief Eric: Neil says, In 91, Desiree crashed the race car in practice, which forced the team to switch to a spare car, but then she crashed in the race and caused the retirement.

How were things between the two of you? Knowing all this went down,

Lyn St. James: Desiree is one of the most talented race car drivers that I know. I’ve known her a long time, raced against her, raced with her. My criticism of her is that she doesn’t understand the limits of the car. She drives the car like it’s perfect and she’s going to drive the wheels off of it and doesn’t understand sometimes the car’s just not ready to do all that.

She was so dedicated to make this thing work. I do not at all. Criticize or angry. I mean, I think it’s amazing that she did as much driving and as much, she tried to get as much out of the car as she did, because I mean, we were definitely behind the eight ball the whole weekend. I just say, God bless her for working so hard.

It was just everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. And that’s when you just have a really bad pit in your stomach of saying, this is not [00:24:00] the way you want to race at all. And you certainly don’t want to race an endurance race. This way, when the car is volatile and not mechanically sound, I could go on and on about it.

I don’t even remember all the details. As I said, it’s one that I have practically tried to erase on paper. Yes, I was there. It is not one of the better races in my entire racing career.

Crew Chief Eric: No, but there’s a point to us bringing it up and it’s part of one of your quotes, which is there are more failures. Then successes in motor sports.

And so I think 1991 was a learning experience for you. So what did you walk away from in 91? What did you take away from that? Despite all the tragedy and the chaos and the calamity of this car.

Lyn St. James: Thank you for reminding me of my quotes. Cause it is failures. We’re going to have a lot of failures. You learn more from failures, but it’s what you do next.

It’s what you learn, but it’s also what you do next. For me, I was at the same time working on my indie program, but I think it was not being so vulnerable. I mean, what I learned was. You know, no matter how much you want to do something, you know, how much, how badly you want to do something is that you [00:25:00] just use your brain and when they, I mean, literally after Japan, I should have bowed out.

I just said, I’m sorry, this is, this is not right. So I’m not going to do it. Racers are the most optimistic people in the entire world. And many times your optimism will overcome bad stuff. But I think it was more of a Lynn, you know, when you really know and see something then use your brain and use your instincts and don’t be that vulnerable.

Don’t allow yourself to be that vulnerable because. Once we got there, I mean, other than the experience of seeing Le Bon in its current, revised, upgraded state, there was nothing else good that came out of it. There was no like, oh, well, you know, at least we accomplished this, or at least we accomplished that now.

I mean, so I think it’s just learn to trust your instincts and don’t be vulnerable. Allow somebody to pull the wool over your eyes.

Crew Chief Eric: Looking back at 1991 from a different trajectory, it was also a revolutionary year at Le Mans. Not just because of the course design, but there is a car that graced the stage that has really never been reproduced ever again.

And this is the infamous Mazda 787B [00:26:00] quad rotor GTP car. What was that like? What were your thoughts seeing this basically one of a kind LMP car out on track?

Lyn St. James: That was cool. I mean, it was killing our ears. It was exciting. You know, I’d forgotten about that, to be honest. I mean, I had actually raced an RX 7 at the 24 Hours of Daytona many years before, like a decade, I think, before.

And so to see that sort of, One off have success. This is why we do always want to be optimistic because even the things that you think are going to work, you know, sometimes can work. I mean, it was ear piercing. It really was. It was a beautiful demonstration of a commitment. And that’s where you come to that thought of that you brought up earlier.

Is that somehow the universe. Decides who’s going to win a race. That’s how it happened. You know, I think that their hard work or preparation, they earned that. But I think there was a little bit of the universe interception saying, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And it was definitely a pivotal moment for Mazda and put Mazda motorsports on the map.

And some mutual friends of ours have often expressed that that is the turning point. And it starts there at Le Mans. I mean, obviously that car ran prior to that, but that’s 787B. That [00:27:00] has translated into a legacy for Mazda that is absolutely incredible.

Lyn St. James: It is great to watch, you know, what Mazda has done.

And obviously a dear friend of mine is John Doonan. He really was in charge of a lot of that after that. I don’t think he was involved in that project. I don’t know, but I don’t, I’ve never talked to John about that. I should. It was definitely a tipping point for them to really embrace that Mazda could go racing and sell more cars and sell more products and make a statement and be successful in motorsports.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, as we transition into our last segment here, I was holding off on an audience question on purpose because it leads us into a deeper conversation about what you’re doing today. May pose the question that reads, what were the advantages and or disadvantages of being a female racer amongst the majority of male colleagues?

Lyn St. James: 99. 9 percent of it is really no advantage. You know, the only advantage If you want to call it an advantage is you do get more eyeballs. You know, you do get more people paying attention to you, observing you, but I don’t know if I’d call that even an advantage unless you can use it to your [00:28:00] advantage. If you can use that to your advantage in a positive way, meaning help a sponsor get more exposure or actually encourage.

others to show that somebody other than a male can do this. You know, you can justify some positivity out of that. I can’t see where I can say I’ve experienced an advantage. I can’t. And maybe I’m missing something that I would if I, but I can’t, I just can’t say, oh yeah, there’s this disadvantage, there’s this advantage.

But you have to look for how to make it work. And how to make it work for everybody, not just for you. You know, when you are the minority or the odd one out, whatever you want to call it, first of all, get used to it. If it makes you uncomfortable, then, you know, you better figure that out. Who wants to spend a lot of time being uncomfortable if you’re really pursuing your passion?

Become comfortable with it. Get over it. If it does bug you somehow, just figure out how to manage it and get over it, but then look for the positivity that you can make with it.

Crew Chief Eric: And the reason I chose this as our transition point is because thinking about 1991, despite everything we’ve already [00:29:00] highlighted and revolutionary things that were going on in motorsport because of Mazda.

There’s a younger generation of petrol heads of enthusiasts and of upcoming racers, looking at what you’re doing at Lamont, despite success or failure and going, there’s some team of all female drivers at Lamont. So it wasn’t an all female team. We’re not talking about, you know, the Beth Paretta indie team and things like that.

This was on a smaller scale and you guys were struggling and trying to make the car work. Again, there’s this audience watching from different angles, taking everything. And like you said, learning without really trying to learn. So I’m wondering, did 91 sort of open the door for what didn’t really happen again for 30 years, where teams like the iron dames stepped into the paddock.

And now you have all female teams running at Lamont. So do you feel like inadvertently you created this paradigm where people went, I can see myself there because I see Lynn there.

Lyn St. James: If we had been successful, yeah, but fortunately Desiree was already a respected race car driver, you know, so nobody put, [00:30:00] Oh my God, the girls, they can’t drive a freaking car.

You know what I mean? So we didn’t have to deal with that because I was a respected race car driver. Kathy Mueller would, you know, she was a respected race car driver. So the three of us were there carrying something that we just made the best effort. So the racers. The real people in the sport, I think, looked at it as, God, those gals tried.

If you talk to some of the crew that were around, I thought we just never gave up. You know, and I think there was some respect that gets earned when you, when you approach it that way. If I ever tried to figure out what the outside is thinking, you know, meaning the fans and the media and the people that I, I haven’t had this opportunity to have a conversation with, I would go crazy trying to figure out what people.

Are thinking. And so, I don’t know. I’m sure what you said, there’s some people that looked at it. I’ve talked to Deborah Mayer, but I, I don’t even think she knew that we did that. I would be very surprised that she knew that that even existed. I don’t wanna get ahead of us to say that that opened up the eyes for others.

And because it would be too easy to criticize. It’d be too easy to, I don’t know, to say, well, they couldn’t do it. They didn’t do it. They didn’t do, they didn’t get it done. And [00:31:00] unless you, people are motivated by what didn’t happen, that they’re gonna prove that it can, and, and I don’t know. It’s outta my league of understanding.

Crew Chief Eric: But it did open the doors for WMNA, Women in Motorsports North America, which is an organization that you co founded a couple of years back. And your charter is to help to prepare more women in all sorts of positions, not just driving, to become part of, let’s just say in this context, the Le Mans story.

So tell us a little bit about WMNA and what you’re working on.

Lyn St. James: Yeah, but wait a minute to prepare them to never ever get yourself in a position to do that, be smarter and better. So you’d never get yourself into that position. If anything, maybe that did have a lasting don’t, you know, don’t people anyway, so go ahead.

Sorry.

Crew Chief Eric: Tell our audience who may not be familiar with. WMNA, what it’s all about, what you’re working on, progress you’ve made in the last couple of years.

Lyn St. James: WMNA is Women in Motorsports North America, and we are a not for profit that I founded with Beth Perretta and about 40 other people in the industry in motorsports.

And it is about celebrating [00:32:00] and elevating and encouraging more women to pursue a career in motorsports and then to also be successful in motorsports. Because the more successful, then the more motor sports will grow. And, you know, we’re still figuring out all the ways that we can do that. And we can’t do it all.

Part of our goal and mission is to encourage others to actually reach out and do things that they can do. So you have the PNC, GDASI, they have a scholarship program every year that PNC sponsors for engineering. I was just supporting them. Michelle Della Pena, she had 27 high school girls after applying and they had 50 apply in high schools all over the, you know, central Indiana.

Come out to the track for three days and learn about all the different careers. So we’re doing a many different things, but our main pillar is to be educational. And we do that through our women with drive summit. This year will be the fourth year that we’re doing the summit and it’s taking place in Indianapolis in December 9, So spending a couple of days networking.

Yes, but also doing a deeper [00:33:00] dive into the challenges. And the successes of what women have experienced in the sport so that everybody could do it better. Racing is always about doing it better, right? Making it go better, making it faster, make it last lasted. So we’re really just networking. We’re expanding the knowledge base and we are capturing the knowledge base.

of people that are out there that are wanting to be in the sport who are in the sport and want to help others. It’s a really exciting time. I mean, I’ve made some efforts in the past decades. I can only say that the timing is right. Everybody in the industry, racetracks, sanctioning bodies, race teams, sponsors, everybody is reaching out and saying, what can we do?

Or this is what we’d like to do. Help us do it. The time is now. And it’s been really exciting just to see it get traction. That’s what WIM is about.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Neil writes, Which up and coming female drivers are you most excited about right now?

Lyn St. James: Well, there’s a long list, actually. If you’re paying any attention, know that Kaylee Bryson just won a USACS Silver Crown race last weekend.

Made history. Taylor Ferns is also running in that [00:34:00] series, and I’ve been working with her. Mia Lovell, there’s Hannah Greenmeier, there’s Hannah Grissom, who I’ve been trying to help over the years. I mean, there’s just, there’s so many that are doing really well. I’m so encouraged that we’re going to have some race winners out there.

I mean, and that’s what, I mean, Jamie Chadwick obviously stood on the podium in the next race recently. Chloe Chambers has really been improving and doing really well. So, I mean, there’s just, Quite a few.

Crew Chief Eric: So if one of the younger lady drivers came up to you and say, Lynn, I heard you’ve raced at Lamar, what do you say to them?

Lyn St. James: Get as much road racing and endurance racing experience. I’ll give you an example. This series that I am not familiar with. I haven’t gone to one, but I’ve, they’re like eight hours long and they have like two or three races over the course of a race weekend. It’s kind of more grassroots, but at the same time, it’s.

pretty well prepared cars. You know, do a lot of those so that you get a lot of time in the car and you’re dealing with different co drivers and you’re dealing with different racing conditions. Endurance racing is how you prepare to go to Le Mans to be a good endurance driver. You know, start networking and [00:35:00] read, read a lot.

I mean, I used to read a lot of publications and, you know, try to stay current about what’s happening over there because it changes a lot. The politics change, the race teams that are changing. Then the other I would say is to try to align as early as you can in your career with an OEM, because the OEMs are now really demonstrating and testing their products in endurance racing.

So whether they are racing here in the U S or whether they’re racing with the world endurance championship or at Le Mans, pay attention to what teams are there, what OEMs are there and start letting them know you exist. You know, the awareness that you need to have, and the knowledge you need to have, and then the awareness that they need to have that you exist, and this is your desire.

It may take two, three, or four years, but you know, you got to start somewhere, so start now.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s no secret you’ve had a long standing relationship with Ford Motorsports. As we wrap up, I want to get your thoughts on the last time Ford won at Le Mans, which was in 2016 with the Ford GT, and now they’ve just introduced the GT3 Mustang.

So where do you think the future of Ford is at Le Mans? Do you think [00:36:00] there’s a win in the future? Do you have hopes for Ford?

Lyn St. James: Absolutely. I mean, I think they did finally go back and win on, you know, that anniversary year. And that was important. And they always. All of them, and Ford for sure, they want to sell product, and they want to demonstrate their product in racing, prove it in racing, so that people then want to buy it.

People are smart, and at some point, if your race car is so exotic, and so over the top in technology, it doesn’t relate to the actual street car, they get excited about it, but they’re not necessarily going to want to buy the product, I don’t think, because they’re going to go to the races, and they’re going to buy tickets, and they’re going to cheer for you.

And they may buy the t shirts and the hat and all the other stuff. You’d become, you know, Ford race fans and they might buy a Ford product because of that, but more than likely, they’ll be a lot more likely to buy a Ford product. If they see a car very similar to the kind of car that they could buy out there racing and successfully racing.

So, I mean, I saw they raced at Laguna Seca and, you know, they’re not out of the box. They’re not winning yet, but they’re definitely showing that they can be [00:37:00] competitive. Ford is kind of stepping down, I think you would call it, or back a little bit and racing more of the relatable product, relatable to the types of the cars they’re selling.

And so Mazda has proven that beautifully. Porsche is proving that all the time. I mean, their race cars are still real race cars, but they can translate much closer to what you would buy to take out on the street.

Crew Chief Eric: In all this time that’s passed, you were in the heyday of the GTP class. It has come full circle again, as of last year.

Is that exciting? Oh yeah.

Lyn St. James: Oh yeah. The ultimate race cars you could say would be Formula One and IndyCar, because you know, you’re talking about, but that’s open wheel. And so to be able to see prototypes with the OEMs involved, most of them, it’s the engine that are powering it, but it’s also all of the engineering and technology that’s going on.

being developed of it. And let’s face it, those cars are fast. Those cars, they’re like magic. And I mean, now to me, they’re very complicated with the hybrid. And I mean, I remember when we were testing turbos back in the eighties, the turbochargers that we were [00:38:00] running in the Ford’s at that time, they were testing it to put those in the street cars.

Cause I remember when they didn’t work, I’m like, So what’s wrong? And they’re like, well, we don’t know yet. I’m like, you better figure it out. Cause you’re going to fix it for your street cars. So they’re kind of testing a lot of that hybrid technology and under heat, under vibration, all of the stresses that you put on a race car are much greater than you’re going to put on a production car.

And they’re sexy. I mean, they’re exciting. And, you know, I think the eighties of the prototypes was one of the highlights of motor sports and particularly in sports car racing. And we’re having another era of that now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, one other thing before we close this up, we have a special message from one of our ACO ambassadors, Margie Smith Husk.

Margie Smith-Haas: It’s all Margie out there. Hi, Lynn. I am so glad I get the opportunity to do this. I am so proud of you. I want you to know that I watched the video that Eric is talking about. I thought, well, I’ll watch for maybe five minutes and I got to go to bed. I couldn’t stop until it was done. I’m so, so pleased at what you’ve accomplished through your career.

and what you’re doing for [00:39:00] other women in racing. It’s just mesmerizing. I’d really, really like to encourage everyone to listen to your story. And I know you’ve got much more to go and I just want you to know, I’m so proud of you.

Lyn St. James: Well, thank you. Thank you. I mean, you were part of that whole process, Carol, with what you did too.

Thank

Margie Smith-Haas: you. We were comrades. Yes. And I remember whenever you wrote that first book and so forth, it was just to see where you come and how you fought to get where you are, but you deserved everything that you got. I know that you’ll be doing even more and congratulations on WMNA, what you’re doing for the women.

And you’re just a legend, ma’am. Thank you.

Lyn St. James: We got a whole crew doing the WMNA thing now, which I love, you know, I don’t feel the weight on my shoulders. It’s like great. Now we’re out. We’ve got ambassadors and we’ve got just talent coming out everywhere, volunteers and just some wonderful things going on.

So that’s all. That’s a great, which you’re helping too. So that’s great. Thank you. And

Margie Smith-Haas: best of

Lyn St. James: luck in

Margie Smith-Haas: everything you do in your future.

Lyn St. James: Thank you, darling. You

Margie Smith-Haas: too.

Crew Chief Eric: With 31 speed records earned over a 20 year span and many wins and titles in her logbook, Lynn [00:40:00] St. James reset more than just metrics in a record book.

She rebooted the way we look at and think about motorsports. And because of her perseverance and accomplishments, she has inspired generations of talented women to also get behind the wheel of a race car. And her continued efforts to expand and equalize motorsports Sports are far from over and we can’t thank her enough for all she’s done and continues to do for the racing world at large.

To learn more about Lynn, you can visit her website, www. lynnstjames. com, as well as Wynna’s website, www. womeninmotorsportsna. com. And on behalf of everyone here and those listening at home, thank you for sharing your story with us. We hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to even more Evening with the Legends throughout the season.

So with that, Lynn, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Evening with the Legends, sitting down with me, and I look forward to seeing you very soon this season.

Lyn St. James: Oh, thank you. Thanks so much, Eric, for bringing me back and let me talk about Le Mans. It’s a really, it was special, special. So thank you.

Margie Smith-Haas: Thank you.[00:41:00]

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club of the West. From the awe inspiring speed demons that have graced the track to the courageous drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance, the 24 Hours Le Mans is an automotive spectacle like no other. For over a century, the 24 Hours Le Mans has urged manufacturers to innovate for the benefit of future motorists.

And it’s a celebration of the relentless pursuit of speed and excellence in the world of motorsports. To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www. lemans. org, click on English in the upper right corner, and then click on the ACO members tab for club offers. Once you’ve become a member you can follow all the action on the Facebook group ACOUSAMEMBERSCLUB and become part of the legend with future Evening with the Legend meetups.[00:42:00]

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast Network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Brake Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.

[00:43:00] episode.

Highlights

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 the Legend of Le Mans
00:43 Meet Lynn St. James: A Racing Pioneer
01:56 Lynn’s Journey to Le Mans
02:31 Securing Sponsorship and Support
04:19 First Impressions and Challenges at Le Mans
08:16 Cultural and Personal Experiences
10:10 The Changing Landscape of Le Mans
14:21 Racing Dynamics and Team Interactions
17:04 The 1989 Le Mans Experience
18:56 The Return in 1991: New Challenges
21:57 Driver Dilemma and Team Chaos
22:41 Desiree’s Determination and Crashes
24:26 Lessons from 1991
25:42 Mazda’s Revolutionary 787B
27:25 Challenges and Opportunities for Female Racers
31:07 Women in Motorsports North America (WMNA)
35:42 Future of Ford at Le Mans
38:31 Closing Remarks and Acknowledgements

With 31 speed records earned over a 20 year span, and many wins and titles in her log book. Lyn. St James reset more than just metrics in a record book, she rebooted the way we look and think about Motorsports. And because of her perseverance and accomplishments, she has inspired generations of talented women to also get behind the wheel of a race car.

AND her continued efforts to expand and equalize Motorsports are far from over and we can’t thank her enough for all she’s done and continues to do for the racing world at large. To learn more about Lyn, you can visit her website www.lynstjames.com as well as www.womeninmotorsportsna.com

There's more to this story!

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

We hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more Evening With A Legend throughout this season. Sign up for the next EWAL TODAY!

Evening With A Legend (EWAL)

Evening With A Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

ACO USA

To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www.lemans.org, Click on English in the upper right corner and then click on the ACO members tab for Club Offers. Once you become a Member you can follow all the action on the Facebook group ACOUSAMembersClub; and become part of the Legend with future Evening With A Legend meet ups.

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

WSIB: Teens & First Timers!

Don W

November 5, 2024

Dear Abby: “my daughter Stacy is looking for her first car and has her heart set on a VW bug. Any suggestions?”

It’s not uncommon for us to receive an email or text like this one from friends or co-workers. As fathers of future petrol-heads, we couldn’t resist getting the band back together for yet another What Should I Buy debate.

Mind you, these messages are sometimes never more detailed than what you heard, but it’s enough to start the conversation. – And like all What Should I Buy (WSIB) episodes… we have some shopping criteria, so the next logical questions are obviously: how old?, how many miles? and what’s your budget?

Tonight we’re bringing together some of the “OG” What Should I Buy crew: Mountain Man Dan, Rob Luhrs, and Mike “Story Time” Crutchfield for this episode, but it wouldn’t be a What Should I Buy? without our panelists William “Big Money” Ross, Mark “The Data Cruncher” Shank, and Don Weberg from Garage Style Magazine.

And in this episode our panel of extraordinary petrol-heads are challenged to find our “first time driver” something that will make their friends go “YOU DROVE THAT AT 16?”

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Notes

Don – you set this all in motion, you’re actually shopping right now for your daughter Kaitlyn, so why don’t you refine your shopping criteria a bit for us?
Suggested Shopping Budget: the 16 year old buying it themself, parent assist in purchase, and silver spoon option; should we set a $10k limit?
Should we quickly talk about our first cars?
Consider the weather wherever your kid is going to end up in college, not where you live now. Not only the weather but the available dealerships. Not as much a problem any more, but domestics can be worked on anywhere in the country. Aren’t there still colleges/universities that don’t allow 1st year students (on campus) to have cars? Not all schools are commuter schools either.
Do you want your kid to be popular or the DD? (3p Hot Hatch, versus the Minivan) both have their social advantages and disadvantages.
Growing up the rule was “drive something that is 10 years old the day you got your license. So if 2024 is the year, we should be looking at 2014s. What is suitable for a 16-yr-old from 2014? Given a +/- 1 yr delta (2013-2015)
LIGHTNING ROUND – YOU’VE GOT $10K TO SPEND ON YOUR KID – WSIB?

and much, much more!

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing what should I buy debate. Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, where’d you get that, or what the hell is wrong with you, at the next Cars and Coffee.

Crew Chief Eric: Dear Abby, my daughter Stacy is looking for her first car, and has her heart set on a Volkswagen Bug. Do you have any suggestions?

Crew Chief Brad: You know, it’s not uncommon for us to receive an email or text like this, one from friends or co workers. As fathers of future petrolheads, we couldn’t resist getting the band back together for yet another What Should I Buy debate.

Crew Chief Eric: Mind you, these messages are sometimes never more detailed than what you just heard. But it’s enough to start the conversation, and like all What Should I Buy episodes, we have some great content. some shopping criteria. So obviously the next logical questions are how old, how many miles, and what’s your budget?

Crew Chief Brad: Tonight we’re bringing together some of the OG What Should I Buy crew. Not [00:01:00] Man Dan, Rob Lohrs, and Mike Storytime Crutchfield, but it wouldn’t be a What Should I Buy without our panelists, William Big Money Ross. Mark, the data cruncher shank and Don Weeberg from garage style magazine.

Crew Chief Eric: And in this episode, our panel of extraordinary petrol heads are challenged to find our first time driver, something that will make their friends go, wait, you drove that at 16.

And with that, welcome back to another. What should I buy guys?

Crew Chief Brad: Welcome. Welcome.

William Ross: Hello, Stacy’s mom. Got it going on.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

William Ross: And Scotty doesn’t

Crew Chief Eric: know

Crew Chief Brad: Eric alluded to off air. This is the first time I think everybody on the show is a parent.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right.

Crew Chief Brad: We’re all parents. So we all are going to go through this or have gone through this at some point in our lives.

Crew Chief Eric: This topic resurfaces every couple of seasons and it’s like, Oh man, we’re going to do this again. How are we going to solve this puzzle? I found it extremely challenging in doing the research because, you know, when we [00:02:00] do other What Should I Buy’s, we’re buying for fictitious collectors. We have these outrageous budgets.

We’re trying to add cars to our garages and it’s all glitz and glam. And then when you bring it down to earth and you’re like, what would I buy my 16 year old? I was like completely dumbfounded. You know, it’s almost like writer’s block. I’m like, I don’t know where to go from here. What’s funny is Don gave me a call out of the blue and he’s like, Hey, I’m shopping for my daughter and I’m struggling with this.

Would you guys mind helping me through the thought process? And I said, Oh my God, this is like the old. What should I buy? Yeah, let’s do this. Let’s rock and roll. So tonight Don’s in the hot seat. He’s the one with the shopping criteria and we’re trying to buy a car for his daughter. So why don’t you refine your shopping criteria a little bit for us now?

What’s the budget? How old, how many miles? What are you thinking?

Don Weberg: Okay, well, according to my wife, the budget is zero. We’re not going to spend any money, we’re not going to buy a car, we’re going to stick to what we’ve got in the driveway, which is a Honda Accord, a Ford Flex, and a Caprice Classic of all things.

And a DeLorean. [00:03:00] Well, yeah, but I’m not going to send that to high school with her, you know. So those are the three that would be as Eric says in the hot seat. I don’t want the caprice going all original paint everything, so I don’t want that thing sitting out. The flex is kind of a waste for that thing to go sit in a parking lot for nine hours of the day when my wife and I are zipping all over town and we usually have the dog with us.

And the dog wears the Accord because he’s just too big for it. The Accord, on the other hand, my daughter’s terrified of. It’s simply too quick. So she doesn’t like how fast that car does everything. So she doesn’t want that thing. So if my wife has her say. That’ll be it. One of those three cars she picks, or she keeps getting rides from us.

That said, what is the budget? I would say, you know, no more than 10 grand. We’d love to come in under that. I grew up the son of a contractor, so my first vehicle was a 74 150. It was fly yellow. You’ll be proud of that, William. I’m from, uh, Being literally a contractor’s truck to a contractor’s truck, [00:04:00] to our runaround truck, to my dad’s hot rod that I got to drive to high school.

Beautiful truck once my dad was done with it. You know, I was just happy to have a car. We’re of that generation. We were just thrilled. 16 years old. We got a car waiting for us and there it is. Would I have preferred other cars? Oh, hell yeah. Absolutely. But when I got to school and all the guys. Saw that yellow truck and they wondered what is Don driving?

Like, I mean, his dad’s a contractor, so he’s always had trucks around, but what is he driving? Why is it bright yellow? Who has a bright yellow contractor truck? Oh, because this truck was retired. It’s no longer in service. My sister had it before me. My dad was afraid of my sister’s driving. He painted it bright yellow so that everybody would see her coming.

Oh man, it’s like that

Crew Chief Eric: episode of Who’s the Boss. Did he strap tires to the side of it too? No, it wasn’t that bad.

Don Weberg: Wasn’t that bad. My dad did tell people he was worried that Holly, my sister, was a bit of an aggressive driver, a bit of an absent minded driver, a bit of a fast driver. Bright yellow [00:05:00] to let everybody know she’s coming.

Now it becomes my vehicle. I like it. It’s cool. It’s quirky. It’s a car. I don’t care. I’m 16. I got a car. I’m happy. But all the guys were smitten with it. They thought it was the coolest thing in the parking lot. Look at those white wheels. Who the hell puts white wheels on a car? Well, yeah, US Mags. They still had the white wheel with the red and blue stripe around the edge.

Under the hood is a four 60 with a four barrel with a crank. I mean, dad built the thing out at forget what it is now, but at the wheels, that thing was putting out somewhere around five 50 horse now, Dan, it was a single cab, eight foot bed. With 550 horse at the wheels. This was not a friendly vehicle to a 16 year old kid.

I was scared to death of that truck because I knew what it could do. And so me alone with this beast, believe me, I was not going over 30 miles an hour or going to school. I was just easing through stuff. Well, First day there, my best friend jumps in the truck, wants to ride home. Okay, this is [00:06:00] going to be fun.

Well, he sees I’m driving like a grandma. He’s like, dude, aren’t you? Okay. Well, my mom and dad told me, be careful because the brake booster is failing. So you don’t want to get in a situation where you have to slam on the brakes. Okay. What do you do at 16 years old when your best friend is encouraging you?

Holy Jesus wept that thing. I could not believe. The bolt, we were forced back into the seat. The rear end started barking, the rear end started fish tailing a bit. And me being the animal rights activist, a cat runs right out in front of us. I hit those brakes as hard as I can, straight down to the floor.

No master cylinder, no nothing. We’re just hosting along. So now I’m freaking out. I have no brakes. I’ve just killed a cat. I mean, I am blowing up inside. Well, my buddy, he says, that is fine. He laid down, the truck went right over him. We’re fine. How are the brakes? Well, pump them up, pump them up and you’re okay.

You’re fine. But I’ll tell you something. It scared me so bad. I took a long time to learn how to drive that [00:07:00] truck. It was out of respect that truck taught me a mess with me, kid. I’ll put you around a pole. And that was important.

Mountain Man Dan: It taught him to respect it and it made him gun shy. Every novice driver has some point that that’s going to happen.

Like, and for me with my daughter, it actually happened before she even got her license when we were up at pit race and did a carting event. Someone nailed her hard and yelled at her and it freaked her out. And for her actually getting in the car, driving a road or even getting on a track. Bricked her out for at least a year.

Like she was adamantly against it. I’m like, that was carding in a car. It’s completely different.

Crew Chief Eric: What it demonstrates Don is that these first cars, sometimes not necessarily by your choice are part of your story as a petrol head. That’s what we say. Everybody has a story. Every car has a story. And so, okay.

If cars just. Basic transportation, like a bicycle or any other appliances, then it’s just, Oh, I had a Toyota Corolla big deal. You know what I mean? But the adventures you had in the Corolla, like the things that allowed you to do, [00:08:00] that’s the thing that Dan and I talk about a lot is how do we bring that to the youths and say, This is why cars are cool.

It’s the freedom of driving and this and go, and you can do these things. And that car took you to that place where you met those people or you did that thing. And now it’s a memory and that car is part of that memory. And so I don’t want to say you want to start them off with the right car, because that’s the wrong thing, but you want to get them excited about what they’re going to drive.

It’s like, Oh yeah. It’s grandma’s Buick 88, like, oh, big deal. You know what I mean? There’s a lot to that. And then again, that goes into that social dynamic of the car and who your friend circle was. And maybe like you said about the truck, it drew people in because it was a point of attraction in the parking lot.

Don Weberg: I have fond memories of pickups as being first vehicles because you can beat the hell out of them. Honestly, there’s no repercussions or it’s a truck. It’s meant to take some abuse. You’re going to do fine.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I’m glad you opened that door, Don. So let’s talk about first cars before we dive a little deeper into some of our suggestions and pick [00:09:00] your brain on more of your shopping criteria.

So Rob, what about you? First car.

Rob Luhrs: Learned on an 87 Volkswagen Vanikin GL Synchro.

Crew Chief Eric: My man.

Rob Luhrs: With a manual transmission, but the first car I bought myself was an 8 valve Scirocco from 85.

Crew Chief Eric: See, this is why we bring Rob to the party.

Don Weberg: Yeah, I’m noticing a little bias here with the Germans, with Rob and Eric, and then there’s Mark in the background scouring at me.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, so Mark, what about you? What was your first car?

Mark Shank: 89 Chevy Cavalier. It’s a good car. It’s kind of an American. Turn, but it was a good car. I have genuine affection for it. The first one I really loved was a 94 Z28. Very different kind of car at that point.

Crew Chief Eric: William, what about you? First car?

William Ross: 1983 Mazda GLC hatchback.

Crew Chief Eric: my man. My man. Yeah, high speed. Brad, I remember your first car.

Crew Chief Brad: It was a 1991 red Honda Civic hatchback with four on the floor.

Crew Chief Eric: Since nothing ever leaves the mountain, I’m sure your first car is [00:10:00] still up there. Dan, what was it? Actually, it’s not here. What?

Mountain Man Dan: Are we talking first owned car or first car that actually was put on the road and driven?

Oh my god.

Crew Chief Brad: Dan still owns all of his first cars. My

Mark Shank: point. You thought my story was gonna be long? The first one that was yours, Dan. If you considered it yours, then it counts.

Mountain Man Dan: They were mine. So the first car I had was a 64 Chevy two Nova that I was in the process of fixing up and then unfortunately family got on part times and had to sell it.

First car actually put on the road was actually a 82 Toyota

Crew Chief Eric: Corolla. They could not be any more different. Those two. Yeah, and I’ll round it out. I had an 87 Audi coupe with five speed. I had the weirdest car in the parking lot at high school. That’s for sure.

Rob Luhrs: I don’t know that’s that much weirder than the Scirocco just to be clear.

Crew Chief Eric: Everybody knew what a Scirocco was though.

Rob Luhrs: Everybody knew what a Scirocco was, knew what an Audi coupe was. At least I did. All my friends did.

Mark Shank: Back then, Audis were in the doghouse. Nobody had Audis.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. And our resale value was printed right across the grill. You know, all zeros, worth nothing. Being the weirdest car in the world.

[00:11:00] Driven by the weird kid at school worked out. Dan, when you and I were preparing for this and talking about this, you made a very good point about the shopping criteria and kind of bracketed it using the way we do our new, what should I buy episodes, which is. Three tier, the parents assisting in the purchase, the 16 year old buying it themselves and funding it through, you know, side hustles and part time jobs and things like that, or the silver spoon option.

So I kind of wondered with your first cars, how many of you guys bought it yourselves? Well, myself. Okay. So that’s two. How many were a hand me down? Okay. So that’s two more. And then our parents bought it for us. Okay. And that’s the rest of us. And then there’s William. Okay. So that rounds us out. So we’re kind of evenly split amongst those three options that you mentioned, Dan.

So Don, this kind of leads back to you. How do you want this to work out? Do you want her to work for the car? Do you want to gift her a car to your wife? Once it’s been 0.

Don Weberg: Yeah, [00:12:00] honestly, I think how it’ll work is, I mean, if I get my way. And she doesn’t end up in the Caprice of the Flex. Michelle and I will buy a car for her.

And it’ll just be one of those ex rental Buicks or something that we can afford, that she can beat up, you know, learning how to not hit curbs, things like that. I think it would just be something like that. Now that said, she herself, Caitlin, is a bit of a car girl. She has a penchant for the modern VW Beetles.

She loved Beetles period. She doesn’t care how old they are, but she definitely has more of an interest in the newer Beetles. Outside of that, it basically goes a little wonky. She starts loving 50, 51 Hudson, like Doc Hudson. She really starts getting into the, uh, the Corvettes, which I think that’s She loves everything we have, the Fiat, the Mustang, the DeLorean, the Caprice has long been one of her favorites.

Literally, ever since she was a little girl, she’s just been a little gaga for the Caprice. She would love to take that to school, and we’ve actually talked about finding another brick to join [00:13:00] this brick, and She has my flavor a little bit with the Baguan paint. Definitely interested in having a little fun with hippie schemes or things like that.

Part of me says, yeah, an old brick could be perfect for that. And then there’s another part of me that’s like, you know, those bricks are starting to dry up and they’re starting to gain in some value a little bit. Getting a little harder for me to say, yeah, go ahead, honey. Go take that brick and screw it up.

Crew Chief Eric: Leads into another question, which is the next logical conclusion. And I’m sure I’m going to get a church nod for this one is. The maintenance part of this aspect, which is a lot of things a first time driver forgets about it was sort of the bill I was handed when I got my first car. It’s like, we’re going to buy you the car and here’s a bag of wrenches and you’re on your own after that point.

So I was there to figure out how to pay for my insurance. Anything that broke, if I wanted to do mods, it was on me. And it always seemed like on the Audi, the magic number was like 1100 bucks. Every time I turned around, I had to come up with a thousand dollars to replace suspension or do exhaust or whatever, because it was a 10 year old car by the time I got it.

Right. So it needed everything. What’s your thought [00:14:00] there? Is she going to go to work to pay for that stuff? If something breaks as a, Hey dad, I’m on the side of the road. How is that going to play out for you guys?

Don Weberg: It’s funny. That kind of brings us right into a secondary point that I always concerned about in my family, we were car people.

We grew up cars. We had my God at any given time, there were 10 cars hanging around the house. We just had the ones that were specific to us that we drove every day, but they were all, except for my mom and my dad’s dailies, All of them were old. They were all in some form of disrepair. It’s interesting, as I went through life, I had fun with that.

I bought the Fiat, I bought tons of Lincolns, tons of old Dodges, tons of whatever I could get my hands on. And this is where I start to sound a little un far guy. Earned up a ton of cash. I mean, just burned through it like a wildfire. And looking back, one of the last old cars was supposed to be a Mercedes.

It belonged to my grandmother. Things didn’t go right with me and my grandfather, so I ended up not buying the car. But I ended up with a very slightly used Toyota 4×4 pickup. Absolutely [00:15:00] gorgeous. Bright red. The whole in yard. That car. Got me through 15 years, something like that. I don’t even know, but it got me through everything.

Got me through three colleges. Got me through God knows, you know, how many friends, relationships, Hey, Don, what are you doing this weekend? I’m doing something else. The keys are on the shelf. I don’t want to help you move. That was the only problem with having a pickup. I’m sure Mountain Man Dan can attest to that as well.

But what resonated with me was the Mercedes was a 73. There’s no way in hell. Okay. That Mercedes would have gone through everything that Toyota went through day in, day out, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it hit me how little money I spent on that truck. Yes, there was the cost of it. That was one of the ones, you know, my parents were going to buy it.

I had to come up with the money. I had to make the payments. I was working at Paramount. Everything was good. So I was fine. But I think when all was done, interest everything, I think I was out the door 17, 000 and change. So 18, 000 for that truck. And yet, look at everything it got me through, trouble [00:16:00] free. I put one set of tires on that truck, one, that’s it.

I put no brakes on that truck, none. I always took it to the dealer because I was my father’s worst nightmare. Never put brakes on the truck, always downshifted. It needed one clutch, so that kind of makes sense. No brakes, but I replaced the clutch. Still, total everything up in that truck, I didn’t spend all that much money to get me through to the next vehicle, which was the Australian GTO, which was another absolutely fantastic car.

But we’ll go into that another time. So the thought is much as I’d love to get her an old beetle or. An old caprice to screw around with. I remember the thought of how well the Toyota served me. And I look at her and I think, okay, you’re just starting high school. You know, let’s go screw something up.

Let’s get the wrecks out of our system. Let’s get that and do that with some old jalopy. That’s not going to bother anybody if you wreck it. But I live in, and this is another part of the equation we need to take in very seriously. I have never seen worse drivers in my life. Then where I live right now, [00:17:00] where are you?

The Dallas area, Dallas, Fort Worth.

Rob Luhrs: But every road is seven lanes wide and dead straight.

Don Weberg: Pretty much. They are extremely emotionally driven, no pun intended, but what they love to do is get right on your back bumper. We all love the littler cars. They’re fine. They’re fun. They’re enjoyable all the way, but yeah, it does have to do with.

You drive those things around here, you’re gonna get bullied.

Rob Luhrs: I towed the tractor, I loaded the Miata everywhere I went. It would be hilarious to be next to someone’s, like, perfectly normal SUV and think, like, they can’t see me at all. I am below the window line of the visibility of that 18 year old who doesn’t know what they’re doing in their mom’s caravan, right?

So there’s a fear factor to saying, like, Get a BRZ or get a TC or Miata, like there’s a fear factor.

Don Weberg: Yeah, well, it’s funny though, you bring that up the rear view mirror. I can’t see the Miata. If it pulls up close enough to the flexes rear end, you can’t see it. You cannot see that car. So yeah, there’s a definite fear factor.

There’s little cars.

Rob Luhrs: So you need to roll coal so you can throw giant black. Yeah, so you can start rolling [00:18:00] coal and they’ll back off

Don Weberg: pretty

Rob Luhrs: fast,

Don Weberg: right? Now being from LA, it is a different driving style in California period compared to Texas. all the way around. So I had to relearn, okay, how are these guys expecting me to drive?

It kind of helped adapting to how they do things, but this is God’s honest truth. We had a friend visiting us, Sarah, two years ago, something like that. She came out for a weekend visit. In that three days that she was with us, nine car wrecks, nine that we counted just in Mansfield, which is the exact town where I live.

They are scary out here. They’re very emotional. Most of them drive massive pickup trucks with bumpers that weigh as much as the DeLorean itself. Pure steel sitting out there, just waiting to topple something. This is where the Flex is really, really fantastic because it’s not huge. It’s not a suburban, but it’s got that old dog sense to it.

You know, it’s there, you know, it’s big. You know it’s heavy, it’s gonna fight back if you nudge it. People know that. You put the Accord on the road, my god, you’re [00:19:00] getting bleed left, right, and center. They just cannot wait to shove you out of the way. Even if you’re in the slow lane doing 80, and I’m not kidding you, 80 out here is sort of the beginning of, this is our freeway speed.

They just lie out here. So it’s very unsafe. Bottom line, so when I look at the Beetle, when I look at even the Caprice, even though the Caprice is a solid piece of work, no airbags, it’s very unforgiving, in a wreck, it’s really not going to be your best friend. So I keep looking at vehicles that are a bit safer, a bit more solid, a bit more robust.

But my thought is, I’d love for her to have a car that’s gonna see her, assuming we go to college, at least get her halfway through her college education. And fortunately, we’re in this era right now, you go back to the 90s, some of these cars are tanks, the way they were engineered, because safety was a huge concern for everybody.

Mark Shank: I do think that you have to think seriously about crash safety standards and how they matured. Which challenges a lot of the [00:20:00] cars from the 90s, post 98, there was a big change in the crash safety standards and that’s why a lot of those cars got heavier after that.

Don Weberg: Hope that gives you a few of the parameters we’re thinking about.

Crew Chief Eric: All of us are in different parts of this journey, right? Even as fathers of petrolheads. So, you’re right in the middle of this. Rob’s right behind you. Dan just went through this and so did William. And then obviously Brad, Mark, and I are on the, still on the front end of this, catching up with you guys. So what I want to do is turn it to Dan and to William to say with your girls, what did you go through?

What was some of your thought process? What were the considerations that you made for your daughters picking their first car?

William Ross: Being in Ohio, one four wheel drive, two safety, It’s not like we get blizzards every other week or something like that, but it gets pretty shitty.

Don Weberg: When it snows, it doesn’t snow here, it just gets ice.

That’s all we get. We just get ice.

William Ross: Ice doesn’t matter if you got six wheel drive. Doesn’t matter. You’re gonna slide.

Don Weberg: Now, frankly, I had a ball learning how to fishtail and learning how to correct in my old truck. I thought that was more [00:21:00] fun than anything. You get that light rear end out there, it’s gonna be a little weird, but times have changed.

You know, the police are not so Open minded about a young person learning how to correct the skid and things like that.

William Ross: But the big thing was for me was just the four wheel drive. Kind of like how Don’s saying, you know, where he’s at. Your child’s a new driver. They’re not really adjusting themselves to environment and how they should be driving or whatnot.

It’s more like they’re just freaking out going, Oh, okay. What’s going to give them the most sense of calmness? So they feel safe. We had a 2014 Acadia just sitting there. So she wasn’t fond of it because of the size, but she got accustomed to it. She got used to it as what you do with anything. Yeah. And then she’d get towed her friends all around and everything like that.

But for her, that worked the best. We lucked out. So that’s what I had sitting there.

Mountain Man Dan: The initial plan was to get an older vehicle to restore with her. So she’d know every nut and bolt, but unfortunately budget didn’t allow that to happen for what she wanted. So she wound up commandeering one of my trucks and that’s what she drives the majority of the time.

And I have a car here that she’ll [00:22:00] eventually start driving once she gets a little bit better driving manual. Surprisingly, she’s really taken to my dually and every chance she gets, she steals that from me. It’s good having her in a bigger vehicle, but at the same time, it’s scary because I tell her all the time, like, the dually’s a lot wider than the other vehicles.

You hit something, you’re paying for it.

Mark Shank: I say the same kind of crap. Are you really gonna bankrupt your child if they hit something with your dually? That’s not worth that.

Mountain Man Dan: Luckily not, but I’ll definitely get some sweat and labor out of her if she weren’t a record.

Mark Shank: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Alright, honest answer.

I appreciate that.

Crew Chief Eric: That’d be a lot of cursing, that’s for sure. But

Mark Shank: the thing is, they don’t realize that, so it’s a valid threat. It’s a valid threat. They don’t appreciate the reality of the situation. You’re just trying to make a threat that registers. I get it.

Rob Luhrs: Is the truck that she does use, is that a manual or automatic?

Mountain Man Dan: It’s an automatic. It’s actually a 86 Chevy K ten four wheel drive. Square bucket.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice. Don, is manual an option or that’s off the table right now? Automatics only, right?

Don Weberg: It’ll go either way. Okay. Caitlyn and Michelle both wanna learn how to drive stick shift. [00:23:00] So now that the Fiat’s back and now that the weather’s getting a little better, we do have plans to go out in the neighborhood and run the fiat around and Okay.

Learn how to do that. So we’ll go. We’ll go either way.

Rob Luhrs: I want to ask, for the two of you who’ve already gone through this, were your choices and criterias based on your experience with your first cars, or what you wanted to correct from what you felt happened in your first one? Because my current thought with my kids are very different for very different reasons, so I really want to hear what’s going through there on that side.

William Ross: I wanted to get her a small car, it was a 5 speed or something, you know, she’d learn how to drive a stick in that, but It was weird because she wanted to get her driver’s license, but she was really nervous and scared about driving. I think it was probably five or six months that she had her license before she even got on the highway.

Rob Luhrs: Did she learn from you or from your wife or from elsewhere? My wife, I

William Ross: got zero patience. I helped her a little bit with the maneuverability stuff, kind of learning that. But other than that, no, she always went out with my wife. I was putting my foot through the imaginary brake in the floor in the passenger seat all the time.

And it would drive her nuts. She’s like, stop that. Like I said, I [00:24:00] wanted to get her a manual. Thought was, okay, Hand on the steering wheel, hand on the gears lever, she’s moving, she can’t be on her phone, da da da, you know, that kind of stuff. As a kid though, you’ll figure it out. I did. We all did, I had a manual.

You figured it out how to drive with big golf, whatever, and everything like that. Texted with manuals with a 9E

Rob Luhrs: phone.

Crew Chief Eric: With T9, you’re

Rob Luhrs: younger than I am. I had already long since learned to drive before like the first car phones were installed.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a rite of passage to learn how to drive with your one knee.

Rob Luhrs: Yes. The one thing I still do, my kids in the backseat, they’ll be like, dad, where are your hands doing? I’m like, I’m busy eating this.

Don Weberg: My knees got control of the car. You’re fine. Somebody just said it, and I think it was William. You do sort of get comfortable with the car. You do sort of figure out. The idiosyncrasy of the car.

Rob Luhrs: Dan, if you want to answer the same question that William answered.

Mountain Man Dan: No, the automatic just mainly having as to what was here, but having her drive a manual is definitely a requirement I had for her. Surprisingly, the first manual she drove was my race car up at pit race a couple of years ago. And I was amazed that she didn’t stall it out with the clutch that’s in it.

She’s [00:25:00] gotten better with manuals where she has a dirt bike and stuff like that. She rides, but initially she wanted an old Volkswagen bug. And then probably when she was about 12 years old, that changed and she decided she wanted an old fifties model truck. Yeah. But unfortunately, I couldn’t find one in decent enough condition for the prices they were asking.

Because initially I was going to get her the vehicle for her 13th birthday and I was going to give us three years to rebuild it. And my biggest concern was her knowing how to work on the vehicle. If something happened, she broke down alongside the road. It was more along the fact of her being a female and not having someone come take advantage of her not knowing the vehicle than whether it was manual or automatic car or truck.

With the truck, I’ve taught her damn near everything on it, and she’s been around square bodies since she was little because I’ve owned them since before she was born. It’s one of those things, luckily, that generation of GMs in general, whether it be car or truck, engine wise, are very similar if it’s a small block.

Crew Chief Eric: So Rob, all that being said, where’s your head at?

Rob Luhrs: So going back to sort of what William said, it’s definitely manual. I mean, my first driving experience was taking the whole family to upstate [00:26:00] New York in that Vanagon manual, and that was the first time I had driven the car, in any car. And I just remember, like, getting on the highway was fine, and then I get to these stoplights, and at one point, I was in the middle of New York somewhere.

I couldn’t get it started again in first. Turns out I was in third, finally figured it out. But I had cars behind me, you know, swearing, swinging around you and doing everything. Looking back, like, I loved that fear factor, because that fear factor, like, gave you a sense of what a privilege more than a right it is to drive, and to have to understand how the car works and how everything works.

In order to drive it. And it wasn’t an appliance, right? It wasn’t like I hit the power button on my electric vehicle and to step on the gas and it’s just going to go. It was no, no, I need to know how to do a few things and sort of earn the respect of this is how a car works and how I interact with other people on a road.

And I loved that experience. You know, I have the GTI now and I’ve considered getting something different. And I’m like, Nope, either that or a golf or something in that realm is what I want my kids to learn on. Whether I want that to be the first car is different. I think it’s a little too quick, but my head is 100 percent on it has to be a manual.

I don’t want an automatic. Even now, [00:27:00] right? I have friends who are like, Oh, can I borrow your car? I’m like, you don’t know how to drive stick. You know, you can’t help. Like I got a buddy who drives stick, but his wife doesn’t. And so whenever we try to trade off cars, it’s like this mental gymnastics. I’m like, no, my kids need to learn how to drive stick.

Crew Chief Eric: I agree with you there because I’ve always. idea that if you learn how to drive a manual, then you can pretty much drive anything, whether it’s a tractor or a truck or a motorcycle. If you understand the mechanics of how a manual transmission works, it’s not just about the car you have, but also older cars too, because if you end up in the collector world or if you, somebody goes, Hey, Let’s go for a spin.

And you know, my old nine 11 SC, well, you look down and you go, well, that’s an interesting anti theft device. You got to learn what the three pedals do and it makes you a better driver. And I agree with William with the distracted driving thing too. I mean, yes, you can defeat that, but realistically you’re more situationally aware when you drive a manual.

Because there’s more things you have to physically do when you’re driving. So I’m with you on all that stuff.

Rob Luhrs: When I got to college, I ended up driving buses. I drove transit buses and I ended up being an instructor of new [00:28:00] students who came in and even driving buses. And again, we’re driving those big transit buses around Western Massachusetts.

All the training was done on manual transmission, double clutching school buses. And so we got kids who had never driven a stick before that are coming in. They’re like, Oh, it’s, I want to learn how to drive buses. You know, they watch bus drivers with automatics. And they’re like, wait, I got to learn this.

Every one of them by going through that learning process, I would put up the drivers that we had, even in college as college kids, right. Who are just all a bunch of punks. We would go to these bus rodeos and we would always finish in the top part because we were one of the few groups in new England that would mandate only manuals for instruction purposes.

Mark Shank: Manuals with no synchros. That’s a big difference relative to what. People deal with 100 percent

Rob Luhrs: and I feel like even seeing it at the college level just made a huge difference in the abilities of all the drivers, but coming out of driving manual Volkswagen buses and stuff like I didn’t find it to be that big a deal because I understood the mechanics of it.

It was pretty easy.

William Ross: Really want to mess, get a three on the tree. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh boy. Or does Chaveau with that umbrella handle in the dashboard. [00:29:00]

Rob Luhrs: And that first VW. Plus even like this van against synchros have so much low end torque that like, you know, once we figured out the gear thing, like you don’t even need the gas.

You just slowly release the clutch and it’ll go 10 miles an hour. Fine. And so like, it’s a easy car to learn on. That was kind of a fun aspect of it too. But yeah, that’s where my head’s at was purely gotta be manual. I want it small. I also, I worry about this might be a cultural thing. I worry about a vehicle that has too much.

People storing ability because I know that my kids will easily get, you know, six kids in the back going crazy and boom, that’s, you’re going to have it. Like the one accident I ever had in my entire life as a kid was driving the bus back from an ultimate frenzy return with five people in the car and everyone’s talking and chattering and I’m like, okay, yep, okay, yep, I’m fine.

I’m fine. And, uh, Sideswiping a guardrail is you just get distracted from all the people. And it wasn’t phones or stereos, it’s the people. And so I’m a big fan of like, two doors, tight cars, smaller cars. Like I had the Scirocco, and it was one of those like, you gotta work to cram four people, and none of them are happy.

But I want less space. And so like, the idea of a pickup is great, because yes, as they get used to it, they put seven kids in the back to [00:30:00] go drive into the mountains to go do stuff, fine. But the drive into school and back, you’re not picking up seven people. You don’t have people throwing stuff in the back and distracting you.

So you’re actually a less distracted driver with having less people capacity in the car.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a very valid point. You sort of tripped over here because Don and I talked about this off air. There’s a sociological aspect to your first car. And do you want to be the cool kid from 90210 with the ZR1 Corvette and everybody goes, Ooh, look at him.

He’s the next James Dean. Or are you suddenly the designated driver because you have mom’s old minivan. And to your point, you can tote around nine or 10 of your drunk friends and you’re never having any fun at the party. Not saying that you should be doing that.

Mark Shank: Don’t drink anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s sort of this.

now social dynamic that builds around your first car because Rob’s the guy with the van. We’re going to go ask Rob and to Don’s point, well, you got the pickup. Can you help me move? And you’re like, I don’t want to do that. So to your point, choosing that first car actually puts your kid into a weird [00:31:00] social swim lane.

And I think you need to be careful about what you choose based on their personality, based on who their friends are. Again, this is why I said at the beginning, this is a very challenging subject because I never realized how many layers there were to buying a car, especially a first car.

Mountain Man Dan: So I have to disagree a little bit with the social impact there, compared to when we were getting our license, we were like dead set wanting it the day we were allowed to.

Today’s generation is not as. Press to get their license and my daughter wanted to get hers, but it was like it wasn’t near as much as me. I was like out the gates running as fast as I could. My daughter’s nonchalantly walking to get hers basically. And I’ve noticed more and more, especially dealing with all her friends.

They don’t care as much what the car is as we did. Which is surprising because it’s like a completely different dynamic to the way we looked at cars compared to how they look at it now. And I’m not sure how your guys kids are with how it might change by the time yours are getting their license, Eric, because that’s a couple years from now.

Mark Shank: I agree. It feels almost European in the sense that you used to say [00:32:00] Americans were house. Car clothes and Europeans were clothes house car in priority of spending, just kind of like a stereotype when not a lot of kids get their license. The fact that you have your license in a car in and of itself makes you unique.

It doesn’t matter what the hell drive period. End of story. And so the fact that you have a car stands out when you’re 16 or 17 years old in a modern context where we went from a, you know, 70 to 80 percent of 16 year olds getting licenses down to, it’s like something like under 40 percent or whatever today.

I think if you’re on this podcast, you obviously enjoy automobiles and you’d rather your kid’s first car be an N A or N B Miata. Look, it’s just two of you and it’s a manual and it’s a little car, but SUVs and pickup trucks are a thing. And I don’t want my kid to die. So that’s probably not going to be their first car.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s the other side of this too, Mark, where I look at some of the kids that are driving around the [00:33:00] schools that our kids go to, and I’m like, I would kill for the hand me downs that they’re getting. I’m like, you’re driving your dad’s old five series. Like, seriously, I had a 2, 000 piece of crap and that was expensive back then.

You know what I mean? So I look at some of these other cars and I’m like, you have got to be kidding me, but there’s a social dynamic to that too. Even if you’re receiving a 10 year old BMW, it’s a 10 year old BMW. It’s like, Holy cow. That’s a good car by the standards of cars that we drove. So it’s really awkward.

It’s really strange. And I’m not jealous, but on the same token, to your point, I want my kids to have like a cool car. But to Rob’s point, I don’t want it to be so good that then everybody wants to be on the party bus. You know what I mean?

Mark Shank: It’s tricky. It’s I do think for me, the killer feature for a 16 year old, I’m going to say dumb ass kid lovingly for my own children would be auto braking.

And if you look at who’s out there and who has good systems that can hit the brake on a car before your kid actually hits the brake on the [00:34:00] car. Toyota does really well. Obviously Tesla does really well as much as we love to hate. You know, I’m one of those haters too. Fine, fair enough, put me out there.

But they do well in that

Rob Luhrs: camp. The Subarus do pretty well in that too. The newer EyeSight one, you can get a Forester, which is a similar vehicle to a lot of this.

Mark Shank: But the newer ones, they got good at that in the last five years or so, at least according to my reading.

Rob Luhrs: I would agree, but you can get a five year old Forester for starting to get into this range, because people bought them as appliances.

Mark Shank: And so you have to start thinking about the killer app of what’s really going to be a big safety mechanism for that distracted kid who’s maybe listening to their friends as we’ve talked about the back or they’re getting a text message or Spotify notification on their phone.

Rob Luhrs: The other aspect besides that, which I hate to even mention, because I’m not a fan of this and kids are sort of forbidden from, Phones for a reason, right?

Is, and it’s only in the newer cars, making sure it has a head unit with CarPlay, being able to abstract the need to look at a phone, any of the newer ones, right, you hit a button and it just [00:35:00] reads you what the text message is. And you can, you know, do you want to reply? You just say, yes, tell Jill, LOL or something, and it just does it for you.

And they never need to actually. reach down and pick up a phone and take their eyes off of the road. To that point, that’s also a feature that we haven’t even discussed at all, right? Which is more whiz bang. So there’s the distraction, but it removes the, I’m going to physically pick this thing up and do this to answer my question, as opposed to just hit a button on a big giant screen in the center of the console.

Mark Shank: It’s not whiz bang to say, Hey Siri, give me directions to school or give me directions to home. Right. In Apple CarPlay or Google Android is infinitely better at that than the OEM systems. And you look at where generative AI is coming in relative to Apple coming out with, you know, there’s going to be huge advancements there.

Siri replying to me right now, mid podcast, because I made the mistake of saying her name. And that’s something we haven’t talked about either, which is Do you really want to eliminate distracted driving? Is AI a component of that and the [00:36:00] ability to have legitimate natural language interpretation and just say what you want your car to be able to do and it gives you those directions or it responds to you in that kind of way?

And is that inherently more safe? I think there has to be some legitimacy to that. I do think that CarPlay as a platform will help older cars be better at that very quickly, because you put a more modern iPhone plugged into an older Apple CarPlay implementation, it will inherit those capabilities. And so that will be a big boon to these kids in this type of situation.

Rob Luhrs: A lot of it depends on where you are too. That was going to be my next question for Don as we try to get closer to the actual answer, right, is like, I live in the city, I live in Capitol Hill, my kid is walking to middle school or biking to middle school every day, and the high school is closer than the middle school, like if he goes to the local one, right, so no one needs a car around here.

Now that said, my kids know that I’m a gear head that I work on. Like the GT I have is because I taught a friend how to do everything. And my kids ardently watched and my kid’s biggest joy is like getting onto an on ramp and seeing if I can get the car [00:37:00] sideways on an off ramp. And my kids love that stuff, right?

So they’re going to learn to drive the moment they can. They’re going to want me to. Thank God, get back to doing track days. And so I can bring them out and have them start learning. So I’m excited for that to happen, but their commuting side, isn’t going to be there. Right. So like in my case, I could totally make their first car an NB Miata.

The only purpose of this is to drive to an autocross spot or a drive to a track day, and then work on car control skills and drive home because their day to day life through high school, at least doesn’t going to involve a car.

Crew Chief Eric: You hit the nail on the head through high school. And Don sort of alluded to this earlier about the weather.

One of the things that I was thinking about is don’t buy a car. For your current situation, especially with a 18 year old. Maybe they’re starting to drive a little bit later. If they’re going off to college, think about the climate in that area. If you’re going to the middle of the country, go into Ohio or William is, or you’re going to new England where it’s going to snow, not inches, but feet.

You don’t want to show up with a Miata in the winter time when you’re in school, because you’re going to be bumming rides. From your [00:38:00] friend with the Toyota four by four. If you’re going to Florida, then a convertible is perfect. Think about where they’re going to be going and make the car buying part of maybe the college selection process.

These are other parts that suddenly made the equation way more complicated than, man, I’m really interested in an 82 Trans Am. It’s way more dynamic than buying a collector car. I

Don Weberg: mean, we can end it right now because there’s one car that fills every bill. Every bill is filled by one car, and that is the 89 Chrysler TC by Maserati.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought you were going to say the Cadillac Elante. Why is that not on your list? You should buy her an Elante.

Don Weberg: The Elante is a wonderful car, but it’s a little ostentatious. The Chrysler’s a little more sedate, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: A little unmodified. That Chrysler’s on my list. And what’s funny is we were hinting at the younger kids, like me and Mark and Brad, right?

What are they going to be driving six years from now? Let’s say that because they’re all in that, you know, 10 year old range. So for Brad’s kids, you’re catching up a little bit more. Yeah, I

Crew Chief Brad: think the car that my kids are going to drive hasn’t been built yet. It’s not around yet.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, [00:39:00] you’re hitting it right on the head.

So my math is always what was available new 10 years from the date that they’re going to start driving. So if we’re looking at 2024, We need to start talking about what was available in 2014, plus or minus a year 2013 to 2015 in that range.

Rob Luhrs: I consider those new cars, by the way, just to be clear. I’m old enough that, like, if somebody handed me a 2014, I’d be like, that’s the newest car I’ve ever seen, like, ever owned.

Crew Chief Eric: But, Don gave us a number. Ten grand. So we have some wiggle room to play with.

Mark Shank: Even when looking at under 10 K. There are so many really cool cars out there, and I actually love that. They think, you know, your modern cord is too fast, so it’s like, great, let’s go back to the nineties when everything didn’t have 280 horsepower.

There’s just so many cool things out there. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Don Weberg: I need you to put on your thinking caps here, boys. I need you to think of something that ain’t going to get bullied around in the bathroom.

Crew Chief Eric: So who wants to take a stab? At some suggestions for Don in the 10, [00:40:00] 000 and under category within, let’s say, maybe the last 10 years.

And if you got something outside of the 10 year window, I am curious, my

Mark Shank: default was we go so much older than 10. So I’m really saying, you know, if I’m going back to 2014. I’m saying 2014 and 10 grand. Is that what I’m

Crew Chief Eric: looking at? Yeah. Right. And there are cars that ended their lives in 2014. So it’s very fair to say I’m going to get the 2002 version of that because it spanned the whole gamut up to 2014.

So you can still kind of get the last version of that old car, which is actually a very smart thing to do if you’re a conscientious buyer. So I’m leaving a little bit of wiggle room, but I think the further you go back, the more problems you may run into with a new driver in a super old car.

Mark Shank: I think that’s totally fair,

Crew Chief Eric: man.

It’s tough.

William Ross: I mean, the nice thing though for him is that Being in Texas, you obviously have a very broad range of where you can go around and find the car, but two, you don’t have to worry so much rust [00:41:00] and that stuff, cars, not going to get beat up all that much in regards to stop and go and that, because you’re out there in the wide open spaces, higher mileages are really something to be too afraid.

Crew Chief Eric: And I spent way too much time on cars. com in this category. I’m going to throw one out. I’m going to chum the water for you guys. And then I’ll let you guys rip from there. And I know that Don is a huge fan of the Ford Flex. And he talked about maybe getting a second one because Caitlyn loves his Ford Flex, but he doesn’t want to give up his.

So he’d have to get another one, sort of like the Caprice thing, right? But Don, for your consideration, might I offer you for the low, low price of 8, 500, a Lincoln Mark T with the EcoBoost. Which is just a Ford flex with leather.

Don Weberg: Yeah, that would work. The only thing, and this happened to mine just recently, I just found out about the water pump on the 3.

5 liter Ford and perhaps even the 3. 7 liter, I’m not sure yet, the water pump on these 3. 5 liter Fords is internal inside the engine. So when it pops, I have the receipt somewhere. [00:42:00] It was 4, 100 to repair mine. It’s not so much the part and getting into the motor and changing it out. That’s not the problem.

The whole front end has to come off. The whole car basically comes apart when you do the water pump.

Rob Luhrs: That’s not true for every car. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: right.

Rob Luhrs: As somebody who belongs to the Audi club and owns Volkswagen, I thought the front end had to come off for all that stuff anyways in every car.

Crew Chief Eric: Service position is engine out.

Rob Luhrs: I was gonna say, isn’t that normal? I thought that was normal. I’ve seen people do that during a track day. They pull off the whole front end of the Audi to check the water pump.

Crew Chief Eric: We won’t talk about that, but it is true.

Don Weberg: What else I found what was interesting is 3. 5 liter in the F 150 because The engine is mounted longitudinally.

It’s a different water pump. Okay. So they only put it internal for the front wheel drive packaging, but it’s going to be narrower fit in between fenders rather than firewall and grill. So that’s apparently where the thinking was. So if you didn’t have one 50, you’re going to be okay with that V6, but yes, to your point, the MKT, the flex, both of them are great vehicles.

You just gotta be prepared [00:43:00] for when that water pump. Needs to be replaced.

Crew Chief Eric: That was what I call my cheap, chic choice. If you wanted to have something a little classy and go back to Lincoln, but I also will throw in there. And I didn’t realize that the bottom had fallen out of these cars. And my wife owned one is the Cadillac SRX.

You can get one of those. For around 6, 500 to 8, 500 bucks. Like the Lincoln. I saw Lincoln’s in that range as well. And the Cadillac was great. The only thing we experienced with it that was bad was their Q system, which is the infotainment thing. It would go numb, but other than that, the Camaro motor that’s in it.

Was rock solid. The all wheel drive was fantastic. It’s a haulback system from the UK. We had zero issues with the bunch of years that we had the Cadillac. But finally, when we got rid of it, the infotainment system, which controlled the HVAC, which was the bigger issue started to get wonky. And that’s a very expensive replacement.

It’s almost 8, 000 to include labor. Cause they have to rip basically the whole front of the interior part. If you get one that was blessed that doesn’t have the [00:44:00] defect, then those cars are amazing and they’re a lot of fun and they’re funky. They’re like the tall CTS too fast. Yeah, it’s true. 330 horse in that stole my 2 cents in manual diesel Jetta

William Ross: Hundred horsepower baby.

Rob Luhrs: Those are the newer, the TDI ones are quick as hell though. Off the line.

William Ross: New ones, but we’re talking. Oh, we’re talking, you know, 20 12, 20 14 ish. 110 horsepower. I think. Something like that. A

Rob Luhrs: lot of torque at the low end, though.

William Ross: But that thing will run forever. If you want something that’s gonna get her all the way through college, everything, there you go.

Those things are bulletproof.

Crew Chief Eric: But timeout, the only thing I wouldn’t do to a kid going through this experience myself, I would never recommend a German car, especially a VAG product, to a 16 year old. In Texas.

Rob Luhrs: The funnier part of this is that it’s diesel, which means they’re always going to go to the wrong pump and they’re going to screw that part up first, just to be clear.

Mountain Man Dan: First time my daughter took the dually, which is a diesel, and she’s used to driving the halftime, which is gas, I’d caught her for something right as she pulled up to the gas station. And she’s like, yeah, I’m about to throw gas in [00:45:00] the truck. I’m like, you’re about to put what in the truck? She’s like, gas.

I’m like, you better put diesel in it. She’s like, oh yeah. Had I not caught her at that point, there would have been full tank of gas in my diesel truck and I would have hated life. I love my diesels, but for a kid that age, sometimes they’re a little bit absent minded.

Rob Luhrs: I agree. My older one has ADHD.

Mountain Man Dan: Keep it simple.

Rob Luhrs: Keep it simple. It’s gotta be gas or for Brad’s kids, electric at that point.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s why the Mark T the reason I brought that up first is it breaks my sort of rule, no turbos for first drivers, because that adds a layer of complexity. That doesn’t need to be there. And I don’t want to have to explain forced induction or repair it, or why does it run like crap and all that kind of stuff.

So for me, it’s got to be normally aspirated. And I think Rob, you made kind of the side comment about Volkswagen’s in Texas and this and that dealership network or repair shops. It’s gotta be something domestic or domestically built. So we’re talking Honda, Toyota. The big three and maybe a couple other cars where there’s a decent dealer network.

Again, going [00:46:00] back to my thought about where are they going to college? Because suddenly you find yourself in Utah and it’s like, you’re the only gal in town with a beetle. And they’re like, well, that’s a pretty car. Where are you going to get that worked on? So you don’t want to be in that situation. I’m making a gross generalization, but it’s another piece of this.

Puzzle that you have to factor in is where can you get the car serviced when you’re not home with mom and dad?

Don Weberg: All of my trips back to california with the family. I’ve never counted them. I don’t think but it was always really nice You know, you’re busting down the freeway the ford blue oval the ford blue oval the ford blue oval There’s dealerships all along the way and right across the freeway, well, there’s the Chevy Bowtie.

Either way, you know, Chevy Ford seemed to be kind of the best way to go in terms of servicing. You got to think we are a traveling family. We go back to LA, we go to El Paso, we go up north to Kansas. So it is sort of something we need to take into consideration too, is yeah, if that puppy breaks down somewhere in the middle of the country, We’re hoping that, yeah, there’s a dealer network to take care of [00:47:00] it.

Now, Volkswagen, I’d have some confidence in, they’ve got a pretty good dealer network.

Rob Luhrs: They’re pretty big these days. Yeah. Them and Subaru are actually more places than you think now. Like you can be in the middle of podunk nowhere. There’s a Subaru dealership and a VW dealership. Like those are becoming ubiquitous.

Similar to Ford Chevy.

Mark Shank: So many parts share in the Volkswagen group. Yeah. I don’t mean to disagree with Eric, but it feels like a little bit of a 90s kind of Maybe in all these point of view, old fashioned, if we’re saying we’re looking within the last decade, there’s so much part sharing and Volkswagen group has alternated around the largest by volume factor in the world.

Rob Luhrs: Right. You have a golf or a Jetta or a Passat or this or that, or all those things use the exact same parts. That 10 year old beetle is basically a golf, which is the same as a Jetta, which is the same. Yeah. All those things are small.

Crew Chief Eric: That is true. But here’s the problem with the German cars. I know this firsthand.

When they break, even though they’re all the same, the same part breaks on all of them. It’s a stupid reason that it broke and then it’s idiotically expensive to replace. [00:48:00]

Rob Luhrs: I disagree. You end up learning yourself how to do it. Like, I remember driving home and that Scirocco in a rainstorm, replacing an alternator on the side of the highway.

It was like one of those rites of passage. It was kind of fun. Because

Crew Chief Eric: you could, Rob, but do that on a 2014 GTI. You don’t have the Schwaben XYZ tool necessary to take the alternator out now.

Mountain Man Dan: Other than that, the Scirocco had parts that were actually made of like, Cast aluminum or metal and stuff like that.

A lot of these new it’s all plastic.

Rob Luhrs: It’s all plastic and plastic. Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: Eric and I know firsthand for the fact when the Mark fours, the coolant lines that are made of plastic, like the Y pieces and stuff, and it’s like, it’s going to break, there’s no question about it. It’s just when so much of the stuff is made of plastic.

And then of course the electronics, like you guys were mentioned with some of those stuff. That’s another nightmare in itself for a 10 year old vehicle.

Mark Shank: So as much as you complain about plastic and crap falling apart, Cars are so much more durable and longer lasting than they have ever been. And you can see the average age of the fleet in the [00:49:00] cars registered in the United States getting older every year as evidence of that, and it does have to change your calculus.

Rob Luhrs: So you’re saying we should look at 20 year old vehicles is what I’m hearing. I agree with where you’re headed here, man. I like this idea. Let’s go older. Older is better.

Don Weberg: It’s kind of funny that I really don’t have much objection to finding another brick. Another Caprice. I really don’t.

Crew Chief Eric: Here’s the other problem.

The older the car is, the more difficult it’s going to be to insure, especially if you want full coverage. And then there’s a lot of companies that maybe don’t want to cover that. Now, do you need to get classic? It becomes a nightmare. So if you stay in a 10 year window, you’re still on GEICO or Allstate or Nationwide’s amortization tables so you can insure the car.

Rob Luhrs: Almost, I assume everybody on this call This is going to be the third to seventh to twelfth car on a plan. It’s not going to make a big impact to anybody. I only have two currently on mine. I had three for a while. Adding a third is not going to, like, it could be a 1950s car. It’s not going to make a huge difference.

Well,

Crew Chief Eric: you got boys and I hate to say it’s going to cost [00:50:00] Double.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, I know. And which is why they’re getting a manual transmission element or a old beat up Golf. But the insurance for those is not going to be a major consideration.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s going to be a lot.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, but we all have multiple cars. You’re going to go from two grand to 2, 800 a year.

It’s not going to be a big thing. What? Have

Crew Chief Eric: you looked lately? Dude! 30 years ago now, I was paying 2, 500 a year in insurance for a 10 year old car.

Rob Luhrs: What do you pay right now in insurance? For your fleet.

Crew Chief Eric: Three cars, it’s about that, with two drivers.

Rob Luhrs: Is it only three that are insured right now? Yeah, it’s only three.

Crew Chief Eric: Why would you insure a race car? This is a track insurance. I know. It’s separate. I didn’t know if

Rob Luhrs: you had other crap lying around somewhere else.

Crew Chief Eric: No,

Rob Luhrs: no. This doesn’t count the 914? No, no, no, no. This doesn’t count the TT? No, no, no, no. This doesn’t count the No, no, no. Okay. It’s just the Pacifica and the

Crew Chief Eric: stuff that actually has tags.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, okay. But

Crew Chief Eric: anyway. The

Rob Luhrs: point is, but you had a fourth of that, right? Let’s say the nine 14 was stock and you added it to that, right? That’s an older car. If you were to add that on there, it’s not going to make a, it’s like, I’m not going to double that or anything like that,

Crew Chief Eric: but you also have to factor in every state’s different.

Don in Texas has to go through all his inspections and [00:51:00] registrations. California is extremely, it’s Texas. So he’s going

Rob Luhrs: to make sure he’s got his gun rack installed and has his concealed carry permit attached to his window. That’s

Don Weberg: another reason I like the caprice. There’s plenty of room for guns.

Seriously. All

Crew Chief Eric: right.

Don Weberg: Sorry, had to go there.

Crew Chief Eric: But for everybody else that’s listening to this, 10 year old card. Anybody else have suggestions? Because I’ve got a list that we can kind of go through here if nobody wants to throw something up on the table.

Mark Shank: I’m really torn between the enthusiast aspect of it and the practical aspect of it.

In trying to thread the needle between those two things so that, like, I can hopefully engender, I’ll say engender instead of encourage, I can engender in my kid some degree of automobile enthusiast, while at the same time, not feeling guilty that, like, I’m in some way endangering my child because I put him in a.

Fox body convertible Mustang.

Mountain Man Dan: Are you endangering your child in the fox body or are you endangering all the civilians and speculators? Well, that’s true. It is a Mustang after [00:52:00] all.

Mark Shank: That convertible fox body is a bit of a death trap. Let’s just call a spade a spade.

Rob Luhrs: As a side note, I recommend everybody do what Eric did, and I didn’t do this.

Go to cars. com and try to look in that age range, like under 10 grand. It is everything from like Mercedes Benz GLKs to like

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, there’s a lot of cars.

Don Weberg: Yeah, that’s what I mean by we are in a wonderful generation right now, because the cars that are going back 10 years, even 20 years Are so nice compared to what all of us had is our first cars.

These cars are really incredible.

Rob Luhrs: If this was 500 podcasts ago, by the way, I’d have to pull out the fact that you can get an HHR from 2011 and call it a day.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re going to get there, but I’ll throw this on the table. Don, did you know? Because you’re a blue oval man, you could get a Ford Taurus Police Interceptor for 8, 500.

Don Weberg: Depending on the year, yeah, I know. Yeah, believe me, I looked at the Tauruses, but again, the fear factor of the modern Taurus is front wheel drive, 3. 5 liter.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s no fear factor, you’ve got rhino [00:53:00] bars on the front of that thing.

Don Weberg: You do. If you’ve ever actually looked at the police package Fords, they’re incredible.

Crew Chief Eric: Big brakes, sway bars, suspension. Yeah.

Don Weberg: Oh yeah. And there’s literally a division at Ford. That’s all these guys do. They develop, think about and build police cars. That’s it. But when it comes to the Taurus, if you’re going for the modern one, you’re looking at that 3. 5 liter again, and it’s going to be that funky little water pump, which all I’m getting at though, is I’m looking at the 3.

5. It’s in the Explorer, it’s in the Taurus, it’s in the Flex, it’s in all these front wheel drive application vehicles. I have a feeling in just a few years, we’re going to start seeing these things winding up at the junkyard because people just don’t want to afford to fix them. My mom and I talked about this the other day.

She has the Explorer with a front wheel drive and a 3. 5 liter. And I told her, you know, the comical thing about all of this, four grand we paid for that water pump. I’ve always wanted a Range Rover. I have always had a thing for Range Rover. I’ve always been. Terrified of them. Could I hear these horror stories all the time?

Guess what? I’m living the horror story. My wife’s [00:54:00] power window switch on the Honda went out because of my dog who kept stepping on the button and somehow broke something in power window world. Yeah, whatever it was, it was 900 just for the part. So when I hear this, I think to myself, okay, why do we not have an older Maserati and an older Range Rover in the driveway?

Why be scared now? Which goes back to the 2005 Buick LeSabre, the 85 Caprice, et cetera, et cetera. Those cars were tanks. Yes. They’re built better today than they ever have been, but the parts are so much more expensive.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s the availability. And here’s my litmus test for that. And I know where Mark was going to with buy an older car, but if you go to rock auto and the parts list is this long, that’s not the car you buy.

Because it means you cannot service it. It makes it really, really difficult to maintain. So that’s why 10 years is that sweet spot. They’re still making replacement parts. People are keeping those cars on the road. And to your point, Don, the junkyard, when I grew up, that was like every other [00:55:00] weekend. We’re going, going to find this, looking for that shit.

Dan and I still do that. Now looking for parts for the race car.

Mountain Man Dan: Good thing when it comes to salvage yard down in Texas and the Southwest, the salvage yards there are many times better than I hear on the East coast, because The weather’s better so the cars can sit there for longer and a lot of the guys have a lot more land

Crew Chief Eric: But the point is junkyard is a gold mine if you know what you’re doing But after a while even the junkyard starts to dry up and they stop buying those cars because they’re like they’re too old Because they’re working in a 10 year window So I think that 10 year window is super important to a first time car buyers decision making process

Don Weberg: Well, and you and I talked about this off camera.

We talked about the volvos And I’m a big Volvo fan. I’ve always loved Volvo. My daughter likes the Volvos. So it seems like it’d be a shoe and they’re very safe. They have a sort of bulldog ish nature to them, but you start pushing that 10 year mark, that 15 year mark, you talk about a small section of the parts catalog.

I mean, there’s nothing there. And if there is. [00:56:00] You better bring your wallet that they are not going to be cheap to find parts for those Volvo.

Crew Chief Eric: So the Taurus was my last three and a half liter special, the Cadillacs, a 3. 6 liter Camaro engine. So do you want to go into the Mopar camp or would you want to go to a car that would fit inside the flex?

Don Weberg: When it comes to Mopar, there’s really only one car to discuss.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So let’s go B spec for a moment. Rob, a car you might appreciate. The Honda Fit.

Rob Luhrs: I just looked, I saw Fits are available, and I’m, at first I was scrolling through it, I’m like, oh, Mini Coopers you could get for that much, and I was like, oh, the Fit.

That’s basically that, but slower and better parts availability.

Crew Chief Eric: 100%. The Mini is one of those you’re going to pay the BMW tax on, and you have to be ready for it.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, and the Fit’s the same car when it’s that old, for the purposes of a new driver. You can still get a manual or automatic, and they will run forever, and are bigger in the inside than they seem on the outside.

And so easier to parallel park and when you’re done, you can sell it for what you paid for it.

Crew Chief Eric: When you’re done, you strip it down and you go Sunday Cup racing with Gridlife. What are you talking about? You have a built in race car.

Don Weberg: Yeah, the other one would be the RAV4, [00:57:00] kind of the competitor to that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, if you want to go SUV.

Rob Luhrs: If I go to Toyota, I go like, I’m almost thinking like the Scion TC or something also sort of fixes this problem. So you get like, so the boxy two door action and you can go with the Matrix. It’s a little, that’s the bigger version of that.

Crew Chief Eric: Pontiac Vibe, right? Well,

Rob Luhrs: Vibe and Matrix, same car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Rob Luhrs: Again, it’s basically a Toyota.

So parts availability is easy and reliability is good.

Don Weberg: Again, though, we’re getting into that bully factor. Those cars, they’re gonna get bullied.

Crew Chief Eric: So if you don’t want to get bullied around, that takes a couple other cars off my list though, because I had the Dodge Dart on the list because you can get those for under 10k.

You can also get the Chrysler 200 on that list under 10k.

Rob Luhrs: I would not want that car.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t think anybody wanted that car. You can still get them new on dealerships. If you’re going to stay in a car, sedan, now you can start talking about Impalas. But if you want to go cheap chic, Chrysler 300 is an option with the 3.

5 liter Pentastar.

Don Weberg: That’s actually not a bad idea, the 300 or the Charger, either one of them. Yep.

Rob Luhrs: I haven’t seen a Charger yet scrolling [00:58:00] through here. I’ve seen the other one. 300’s

Crew Chief Eric: all day with the six cylinder.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, 300’s yeah, but I haven’t seen a Charger in here yet. And they’re

Crew Chief Eric: making 300 horse, but it’s heavy.

I really enjoyed those as rental cars. They were smooth. They’re like Paleozoic era, Mercedes chassis. They’re just nice and comfortable. You can put four people in it. You can put luggage in it. It’s not a hatchback. It’s not a truck. It’s kind of like, give me a little bit of everything and you’re good to go.

And again, I was surprised how cheap they were.

William Ross: I like that Chrysler 300. That’s a great car. My dad had one of those way back. You know, I love that car. I think it was great. Great on the highway. Great cruise. I think it was a great car. And knowing that she’s kind of afraid saying the cord’s too fast, and kind of how Don was saying when he’s driving down there 80s in the slow lane and whatnot, you’re going to want to have something.

I mean, I don’t know if she’s going to be driving on the highways, but you know, she’s going to want to have something. It’s going to have some oomph to it. Because she’s gonna have to get out of the way. She’s gonna have to move or do whatever, you know, so it’s you don’t want to have something that’s got 110 horsepower that she puts her foot to the floor and, you [00:59:00] know, she’s got a F 350 Dually behind her, rolling coal, he’s got his stacks going, he’s laying on his air horn, freaking her out.

It’s kind of like you got to have something that’s going to have some get up and go also now. You start getting Jeep Renegade, Ford Escape.

Rob Luhrs: All that RAV4, CR V, every car in that class is available. Nissan, Rogue, I mean, they’re all the same. Yeah, you can have any of those.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Well, and I’m glad you went there, because I also considered The Jeep Patriot.

Rob Luhrs: As a car guy, I hate the existence of that along with the compass. I can’t in good conscience recommend any of that crap.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the Patriot looks awesome if you slam it down and put it on big wheels.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, if you do a bunch of stuff to it that turns it not into a Patriot, then it’s great. Yeah, that’s true for a lot of things.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, because it’s a Neon, right?

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, but no, no. It’s like a Jeep Liberty. Like, don’t, don’t. Yeah. Get a Grand Cherokee or a Wrangler or stay out of that.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly, exactly. Now, that’s another option, Don, if you want to go a little bit bigger. The Grand Cherokee. Is a very similarly appointed interior to the 300, especially in that age [01:00:00] rage, when it became the later WK twos shares, a lot of the same parts.

It’s the same Pena star. You’re going to get the same gas mileage. It weighs about the same as the 300. So you kind of have your choice. Do you want the sedan or do you want the SUV? Do you want the all wheel drive or do you just want two wheel drive? So the grand Cherokee is definitely something to consider.

And I think they’re quite a handsome looking SUV. Now you can go a little ways back. Brad had an early WK2, which was a little bit more stodgy and Mercedes with the more utilitarian interior. If you like it a little bit more boxy. But shares the same chassis. Now, Brad, the only thing you worried about was the Hemi tip.

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t have any issues with that, but I had premature water pump failure, which is known problem with those Hemis, but it was only a 700 fix

Crew Chief Eric: and that’s on the V8. That was the V8, but the V6, those things are bulletproof. There are early

Crew Chief Brad: pen and stars. They had problems, but they worked out the kinks. So now the pen and stars are really good.

Motor

Mountain Man Dan: cost is an issue. Instead of going with the grand Cherokee, just a regular Cherokee would be a little bit cheaper.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s true. But I will say the Grand [01:01:00] Cherokee is super easy to work on. It’s built like a truck, just wrenches and screwdrivers and hammers and you’re good to go. I mean, it’s not hard to work on at all.

Don Weberg: The nice thing about those jeeps specifically, it’s like we were saying early, early, early in the conversation, the beauty of having a truck. You don’t have to worry about it too much. It’ll take a beating and keep on going. The Jeep is in that same boat. They are built fairly solidly.

Crew Chief Eric: The Jeep to me is like a Swiss army knife.

It’s the reason I chose one and I love it. And I have zero complaints. Knock on wood. It’s been really trouble free. It’s something definitely to put on the list. Now you’re probably going to pay a little bit more for a grand. You’re probably gonna be 10, 12, 14, but you’re going to get something lower mileage, probably adult maintained.

It’s not a bad buy for what it is. If you stretch your wallet just a little bit, but the 300 comes in under 10 grand pretty easily.

Don Weberg: Yeah, the sister to that, of course, would be the Durango, the Dodge side of the family.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah,

Don Weberg: basically the same exact car, it’s just a different body.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

Don Weberg: All three of those are good ideas.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, if you notice, I stuck to a no turbo [01:02:00] rule except for the Lincoln, which had the EcoBoost.

Don Weberg: Yeah, and I agree with that.

Crew Chief Eric: But I’m also staying away from V8s because I want to think a little bit economically to Mark’s point from earlier. I don’t want to bankrupt my kid every third day at the gas pump at 4 a gallon because you got to run premium in your Hemi or whatever it is.

So a V6 is this nice compromise between torque. And horsepower and being able to rev up and go and not be a slug in traffic because a Honda fit as fun as that is for us enthusiasts, you know, rowing the gears and burning it up at 8, 200 RPM with the VTEC on and all that stuff. That’s fantastic, but it can’t get out of its own way.

So a nice three and a half liter, let’s just say V6. Is a great all around engine. It’s not going to set the world on fire from an economy standpoint, but it’s also not going to bankrupt you every time you go to the pump.

Rob Luhrs: When we were kids, one of the good starting cars was like a Saturn cause it was all plastic.

Cause I’m thinking any kid is going to be door ding central. And so like you just sort of pop it out and therefore things weren’t a thing. You didn’t really have to worry about a lot of that kind of stuff. Thinking about which of these cars [01:03:00] have. easier repellability which ones have like the trim stripe along the door that sort of helps prevent some of those door dings those kind of Things for some of the minor crud that’s going to happen in a high school Parking lot right in the college parking lot as they drive into it Because at some point that car is going to be in your driveway and as a car guy Having the beat to hell scratched up car that your kid comes home and it’s like what did you teach that kid?

My wife’s dad is a huge car guy And every time we come in if my wife’s gotten a scratch on her car He literally is like i’m almost ashamed to have you park in my driveway like that What did I teach you? This should have been taken care of.

Crew Chief Eric: And that goes back to the point earlier about the German cars and why I’m not recommending a single one of them.

Because as enthusiasts, we buy a GTI and I got to have the blue iridescent pearl magic paint, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you buy that as a hand me down from somebody. If you want to do paint correction, open your wallet because it’s not just red or blue or white like a Honda or Toyota or whatever it is.

And I’m not saying they don’t have their special colors, but the German stuff is always sort of over the top and to replace a fender [01:04:00] on a GTI, if you get into a scrap, let’s just say something even happens in the parking lot or you get hit by a shopping cart or whatever. How many Jeeps were produced in a single year versus GTIs?

You can go get a fender for 20 bucks versus 250 or 2, 000 for something that is quote unquote, exotic, like a GTI would be in comparison,

Don Weberg: bringing back the 300, the charger, the flex. You have a slab side. If a very flat sided are, they show everything, every little thing that can happen on the one of those cards.

You’re going to see it because it’s so flat. That’s where we kind of go back to. There were Jeep Cherokees. I don’t know. Grand Cherokees. They had plastic cladding on the side. The Chevy Avalanche invented the whole concept of that.

Rob Luhrs: Some of the Grand Cherokees did, too. That’s what I was trying to remember, if that The earlier ones.

Yeah, the earlier versions all had that plastic, which made it easier, because it was ridged in a certain way, and The Aztec perfected the plastic clasp.

Crew Chief Eric: It was ahead of its time.

Rob Luhrs: My Scirocco, my [01:05:00] mom’s, you know, GTI and GLI and such. I mean, they all had that nice black sticker rubber on the side, which worked so well for preventing the bullshit dings.

And actually, my current 2012 GTI Every time I look at it, I’m like, I wish this had that little raised door ding bar on it. Cause otherwise every little scratch that somebody should like, you see it. Whereas if you had that little bit of rubber, it just preserves it that much better from that sort of stupid crap.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we were talking about kids driving later, but there’s also a lot of kids that are a little bit more earth conscious or eco friendly. I started thinking about, you know, are there any hybrids available for under 10 K? The only thing that comes up on the list is probably going to be very, very obvious.

But you can get Priuses for that kind of money if that’s what you’re into. From what I understand, you know, some of those second and third gen Priuses, a lot of them are just unbreakable. I mean, they just run forever and they don’t seem to have a ton of problems.

Rob Luhrs: Much to the sadness of everybody who’s stuck owning one of them.

That’s a different definition of slow.

Crew Chief Eric: True, but then there’s the other side of that that makes me worried in that the people that have their Priuses and love them aren’t [01:06:00] getting rid of them. So if you’re selling a Prius, why are you selling it? What’s wrong with it? So that was my only word of caution when I saw those come up on the list.

And there’s other cars like that, where you’re like, that car is so good. What’s the story here? Why are you getting rid of it? There’s reasons and seasons for everything. Usually Prius folks are very, very

Mountain Man Dan: faithful. You know, if we’re going to go with the 10 year mark, the Camry had the hybrid during that time.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, anything in the Toyota family that’s a hybrid. If you’re eco conscious and not interested in a diesel or anything like that, and you want to save money on gas, I would definitely look in that camp. As much as, as an enthusiast, those cars, they irk me a little bit, but there’s, I don’t find anything wrong with them.

They’re just stylistically, uh, you know, whatever. But, uh, For their purpose, for their reason, they make a thousand percent sense. Camrys

Mountain Man Dan: are known to be just a plain Jane vehicle. In the dictionary, it’s just a car. It’s a

Rob Luhrs: picture of a Camry.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right. A hundred percent.

Mountain Man Dan: I recently saw one of the new TRD Camrys.

Yeah. And had to do a double take because it caught my eye. And I was like, that looked sharp. And I didn’t think I would ever say that about a Camry.

Crew Chief Eric: It needs to [01:07:00] be a GR Camry. When they come out with that, then you got my attention. There is another car that I think we’ve avoided, and it’s sort of the last one on my list of cars under 10 grand I would give a kid, that I think are sort of, not Tonka toys, but you know, they’re sort of, you’re looking for a car that’s bulletproof, right, you’re looking for an engine that’s bulletproof, like we said, a car that can take maybe a slight fender bender, that can take a couple door dings, that can live through high school, shenanigans, can go through college, and there’s one car, we joke about this on the drive thru pretty often, they’re absolutely indestructible, you see them everywhere you turn around, And that’s the Nissan Altima.

Mountain Man Dan: I have to disagree slightly there because if it has the 3. 5 liter V6 in them, they were known because the Kelly converter was part of the downpipe. Yeah.

Don Weberg: Right.

Mountain Man Dan: If it had enough miles on it would start to suck debris back in and it would wipe the rings on it and then you had issues with the engine.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but those people still kept

William Ross: driving them.

Don Weberg: Yeah, that’s why they were smoking.

William Ross: Stouted taxes, they’re gonna think you’re running drugs from, uh, Mexico.

Rob Luhrs: I was about to say, you also have to not live in [01:08:00] Maryland. So if you live in Maryland, you have one of those, it’s probably a temporary tag, and you’ve probably slammed it into a telephone pole, or multiple other cars, and then ran away.

Crew Chief Eric: But it’s still

Rob Luhrs: Every accident in D. C., every accident in D. C. is like a Nissan Altima with temporary Maryland tanks.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Rob Luhrs: Like, every one of them. They’re probably all the same car.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re all like the original Eleanor from Gone in 60 Seconds. You just cannot kill those things. I know. At the end of Nuclear Holocaust, There’s going to be cockroaches and Nissan Altimas.

So that’s a solid buy. They are indestructible.

Don Weberg: And remember too, the 3. 5 liter was a fantastic engine. When that thing came out, it blew everybody away. How quick it was, how rev happy it was.

Rob Luhrs: They put that in the Maxima first. Those Maximas were super fast with that. It bloody was one of those. Those were crazy quick.

Don Weberg: But when the Altima came out, they also had the 2. 5 liter, the four cylinder. And if you drove one of those, believe me, you were not disappointed. Good. That little guy would really get up and put, and you [01:09:00] didn’t quite have all the problems that the 3. 5 that was the

Rob Luhrs: same 2. 5 ended up putting in the little, uh, the center of SCR.

Yes. It’s the same motor yet, which was pretty peppy in that

Don Weberg: kind of agree with what you’re saying though. There’s a certain or, uh, It goes with the Altima ownership. And believe me, when I worked at Stillen, I was introduced to these cars at Motor Trend when they first came out with the big Altima 3. 5 liter, blah, blah, blah.

I was hooked. Oh my God. I thought these were the greatest cars in the world. And when I worked at Stillen, we had the orange car, which you can look that up on Google if you want to. It’s the Stillen Orange Altima. It’s an incredible car. Amazing cars. They really are. But today, as life goes on. And sadly, I think it’s most of the Nissan family.

And it’s really weird, but they’re very accident prone.

Crew Chief Eric: Nissan only sells Altimas and then the Z, that’s it. Because the Murano’s a Taltima, right? And the Rogue is, it’s all the same. I

Rob Luhrs: mean, to be clear, I had a Pathfinder for a while that was spectacular. But that’s different.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, so that kind of rounded out my punch [01:10:00] list.

I think the only honorable mention, and I said I was going to talk about German cars, but the only one I brought up was the American made Passat with the five cylinder, because you can get that with DSG, with the automatic, or with the five or six speed manual on that. Those five cylinders, they’ve been perfected, they’ve got 30 years of evolution in them, they will literally run forever.

Rob Luhrs: They were rust prone though, those Passats were, I don’t know why, but like, not the Jettas, not the Gulls, but those Passats were rust prone.

Crew Chief Eric: That is the Achilles heel to the American made Passat, but as far as the sheet metal around the engine, the engine is amazing. Yeah,

Rob Luhrs: the engine’s fine, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the only reason I was like, this is an honorable mention, if you had to have something German, that would be your option.

And those ranged wildly from like, 5 grand to 9 grand, they were all over the map, and it was just like, okay, it couldn’t really pinpoint an average there.

Mountain Man Dan: As Don will mention, it’s not bad because, once again, Don’s in Texas, the rust issue won’t be near as bad. Yeah, that’s true.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s very true. That sort of rounds out my punches.

Anybody else have something that they came across that would fit the [01:11:00] bill here? I

Crew Chief Brad: have a joke list.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I do too, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Rob Luhrs: My generic answer to what car I wish I could get my kids, because my brother had one, but stupidly sold it because I wanted to give it, was a manual transmission Honda Element.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh.

Rob Luhrs: Enough room to haul crap. It’s a Honda. He doesn’t know shit about cars. Ran it into the ground. The car still worked perfectly fine when he sold it because that’s the way they work. Great on road trips, fine on gas, they have that funky two doors, you have to have like, the side doors, you have to have friends who are comfortable climbing the back, you can sort of help people move, but you don’t have to, you can sort of have four passengers, but you can also fold the seats up into the wall and say, no, I’m taking my mountain bike, or I’m taking this, or I’m off to hockey practice and I have all my crap in it.

And it’s high enough off the ground, has enough safety features, has all wheel drive, has the manual transmission, and it’s still kind of cool and funky and different and isn’t going to get boxed around by trucks. Like to me, if I could find one, like that’s the perfect starting vehicle right there is a manual transmission element.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s an ultimate Halloween car. If you get it in silver, you put brown foam. It looks like a toaster. If [01:12:00] you get an orange, it’s. The Great Pumpkin, you know, the whole nine yards.

Rob Luhrs: I got a friend in Boulder who just bought one. She found one because she’s married, but she frequently goes by herself on climbing trips and she’s like, I needed something I could sleep in and put all my crap in that would never break down and could drive over the passes in Colorado and be perfectly fine.

Cause she lives in Boulder and she’s like, it’s wonderful. She’s taken it all last winter, all the way to Crested Butte, all over the place and says like, can’t find a better car and they’re cheap. They’re well in the price range.

Mountain Man Dan: How hard is it to find the elements of a manual? It’s not

Rob Luhrs: as hard because there’s sort of bulletproof engines on those things because they’re used in everything.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a Civic motor.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, so it’s not hard to find those things. My friend in Boulder said she could choose between like 10 of them when she bought hers and that’s out in the mountains out there and I’ve seen them around here. If you want to go newer, you could also go with the Toyota Matrix. Nope, like an element.

Crew Chief Brad: Venza?

Rob Luhrs: No, no, Venza’s too new.

Crew Chief Brad: The XB? The FJ. Oh, the FJ, yeah. So you can

Rob Luhrs: find like a FJ. In manuals, they’re actually cheaper than they are in automatics. I have a buddy who owns one who’s going to sell it and I was going to buy it off him and then he’s like, I [01:13:00] decided to keep it. And so, but I mean, it was going to be sub 10K.

And both elements and FJs can go either way, but in terms of like the all wheel drive safety aspect, a little higher up and also less people space, but enough space, I still like that class of vehicle. They’re taller. I don’t know that that class seems good for first cars.

Don Weberg: And they’re both not so high.

That they’re going to be prone to tip over?

Rob Luhrs: No, it’s not a Wrangler, but it’s also, yeah, it’s not quite a Subaru Outback or Forester or Impreza. It’s a little bit higher than that. But as we said, with all the trucks and big SUVs in the road, it’s nice to have that little bit more height for the younger drivers.

Crew Chief Eric: I will say, Rob, you hit something on the head there. I’ve teased my wife for years now that my girls will get two choices. And they will both be manual. They get to pick from either a Wrangler or a Veloster, one or the other. That’s it. Because both are extremely uncomfortable to your point, but they can kind of go anywhere.

So if you’re going South, the Veloster is awesome. If you’re going North, the Jeep will take you anywhere you need to go.

Rob Luhrs: My kids love Jeeps. We have a buddy with a farm down in Charlottesville that has. A Wrangler he keeps there and we get down there immediately. They bugged my buddy. They’re like, Mr. Paul, take us to the Jeep, [01:14:00] take us to the Jeep.

Cause he’ll just, you know, go up the sides of things and they love it.

Don Weberg: Yeah. I got it. I gotta be real blunt here with that. When you brought up the element, I don’t think I’ve ever even thought about the element. And I got to tell you that really struck me. I thought that’s a damn good car. It’s a Honda.

It’ll run forever. It’s utilitarian. The interior is completely plastic. The side body cladding, like we’re talking about door dings in a high school parking lot, backpacks, whatever, it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna get too damaged up. That’s actually a really sharp idea. It really is. The element really turned me on.

I thought that was a good idea.

Rob Luhrs: That was, yeah, literally my first thought. I mean, looking through this list, I mean, strangely, you can get a ton of Odysseys in this price range, but if you want the giant minivan, but for anybody who’s seen, uh, Deadpool and Wolverine, you can’t really suggest an Odyssey without laughing.

And if you haven’t seen it, you’ll get that joke when you watch it.

Mark Shank: So the Odyssey is a horrible driving car. Yes.

Rob Luhrs: It’s a miserably, which again, if you’ve seen the movie, it gets a lot of Funnier and funnier. But yes, the element I think is sort of the key. You can get a pilot in that same price [01:15:00] range. What

Crew Chief Eric: was that?

The passport, which was the Isuzu rodeo.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah. But I think the element just makes more sense for that sort of phenomenal college car,

Crew Chief Eric: right? Like

Rob Luhrs: you’re moving from a dorm room to off campus housing. Like you don’t need the pickup. You just fold those seats up and throw all the crap in it. Do a couple of runs if you want.

Don Weberg: Well, and the nice thing too, you’re not going to have friends banging on your door saying, Hey, help me move.

Rob Luhrs: No, because it looks like a really small box. It does. My brother’s wife had one teacher in Massachusetts and she’s like, I needed a car I could put a full timpani in. And it doesn’t look that big, but I have no problem fitting full size timpanis in that you can’t fit in most wagons.

Like you need a pickup, even minivans have trouble with it.

Don Weberg: And then judging by its boxy nature, it’s gotta be the easiest thing in the world to park.

Rob Luhrs: Yeah, they are. Cause they’re shorter than you think they’re not the wheelbase.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah,

Rob Luhrs: but nice and slow and boxy. And I don’t know,

Mountain Man Dan: my neighbor’s daughter was given an element by her grandparents.

When she was like 17 and she drove that thing till it had like 380, 000 miles on it before they finally decided to just sell it and it was still running, but they [01:16:00] decided she didn’t want it anymore. And I think she used it at least 2 to 3 years into college before she switched vehicles. Mileage wise, they’ll go forever as long as the maintenance is done.

Had a couple of little things here and there that helped them fix on it, but it was nothing extreme and major that broke the bank

Rob Luhrs: easy to work on to real simple cars to work on.

Don Weberg: And I think we can safely assume just by virtue of being a Honda, being a civic, blah, blah, blah. You’re not going to have any trouble finding parts for that thing, because even though the element is a little bit weird unto itself, so the body parts might be a little hard to find, but everything else mechanically chastity, et cetera, has got to be pretty simple.

Could it solve just in the Honda family? Yeah. Okay. Maybe that let’s just say for a number, they built a hundred thousand elements. They built. A million civics.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Don Weberg: So you’ve got that million that you still have to serve with those parts. The element just takes advantage of it from the bottom and it just happened to be able to still get parts for.

And

Crew Chief Eric: there’s actually some hot rod elements if you look and you want to spend a little extra. What is it? The element SE, which is like, Their version of like a type R or whatever it is. And it [01:17:00] came with different wheels and there were some options in there in the last couple of years of that thing. If that’s what you’re into and you’re geeking out, take a look at the packages.

Now, I had a friend that owned one of those, like the hot rod one. The only thing I thought was weird was the stadium seating that they had inside where the passengers in the back are up higher than, than the front. So that way the idea was that if you’re talking, then you don’t get drowned out or something like that.

I was like, okay, cool. To me, it was a little awkward, but to Rob’s point, it If you’re a hobbyist of any hobby, you just take them out, move stuff around. What was the joke? That you could just power wash the inside of it because it’s all rubber? You can’t. Yeah, you can hose

Rob Luhrs: out the interior. We have to take it to beach frisbee tournaments and literally afterwards you’d hose out the whole interior and just call it a day.

Mountain Man Dan: With the fact of trucks being in Texas, it’s not uncommon for people to be driving them, but If you don’t want her to get into a full size thing, I guess, compared to older trucks, it would be considerable. So something like a Colorado, since they don’t like to make S10s or anything anymore. And you’re worried about the rear end on it being light, but majority of the Colorados nowadays are crew cab.

So a lot of that weight is very similar [01:18:00] to that of like a crossover or an SUV for the weight displacement on the chassis. Like Honda did, like the Ridgeline. There’s those options as well, if you’re looking for something. We’ve mentioned most of the others that I thought of. Oh, we forgot one. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: super

Mountain Man Dan: special.

Rob Luhrs: The biggest I would go is sort of like that element size is similar, but like the RAV4, the CRV style sort of world that I find if I go up my front door right now, there are 30 of those, right? There are 30 Mazda CX 5s, CRVs, RAV4s, they’re everywhere. I don’t like having what everybody else has so my brain immediately is like back to those, you know, the FJ and the Element and some of the stuff that’s a little more fun.

And if you, you know, sounds like you don’t want the smaller cars. I think a lot of the smaller cars are awesome in this price range for those kids, right? I mean, as we said, the Scion TC or the smaller Golfs, the Honda Fit is an amazing car for that, right? You can get some of those. That size car I think is great, but to your point, if they’re all driving around with people with F250s, it’s not going to work.

You need something a little bigger. And again, it brings me back to that Element FJ pseudo truck ish sort of but still [01:19:00] cool and still small enough to park and not worry about but can hold its own and not get pushed around.

Crew Chief Eric: Well I found a car that we’ve all forgotten about and it fits in our window because it ended at the beginning of our window.

You’re not going to get bullied because people are going to be too busy laughing at you. You’re not going to have to worry about being like everybody else on the road because you haven’t seen one of these in a while. It’s roomy, you can haul people, you can haul things, it’s versatile. Some would argue that it’s stylish.

And if you got the right package, peppy enough. So for your consideration, I will throw out The PT cruiser. I hate

Don Weberg: to admit it, but I thought about that.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark’s like falling out of his seat.

Don Weberg: I thought it was HHR. I had mentioned that one earlier. Yeah, I did. I thought about the PT and I thought about the HHR.

I think both of them are cool. I got to use both of them at Motor Trend. Michelle and I actually had one for multi thousand mile journey around California and HHR. We loved it. We really did. It was a fantastic little car.

Mountain Man Dan: The PT surprisingly had more space than it looked like from the outside.

Don Weberg: And yeah, I don’t think people will believe [01:20:00] it.

I think they’re scared of it. Exactly. I don’t know how you’re going to respond. So I’m going to give you some space because you’re a weirdo. But you know, it’s funny going to the, either one, the HHR has, if you’re worried about performance, you’ve got the SS. And that is one serious little machine, especially if you have the, uh, six speed manual transmission, that is a really, really fast car on the Chrysler side of life.

You got the GT 2. 4 liter turbo, but we’re breaking that rule of turbocharging.

Mountain Man Dan: They were known for the turbo seal inside getting bad to where oil and corn would mix.

Crew Chief Eric: The same as the

Don Weberg: neon. Yeah. Yeah. It’d be fun, but it is an element that is going to break at some point.

Crew Chief Eric: Versus like the 300 and the Jeep and some of the bigger stuff that we talked about.

If you’re looking at an element, I would really consider, especially in the right paint scheme, a PT cruiser. She might enjoy that. It’s different. It’s quirky, but on the same token, it doesn’t have enough power to get you into trouble. It’s pretty insurable.

Rob Luhrs: You can’t hose it out.

Crew Chief Eric: No, you can’t. That’s for sure.

Rob Luhrs: You’ll get a convertible though. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: true. [01:21:00] You can’t get a PT convertible. I forgot about that.

Don Weberg: Yeah, those were kind of cool. I kind of like those.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark’s making this face like he just wants to hang up the call. Like, all right, lay it on me.

Mark Shank: We’re in an interesting spot. I’m definitely not a PT cruiser fan, in spite of it being the TARDIS of vehicles, apparently, according to Mountain Man Dan.

And honestly, I think that this whole conversation has gone in an interesting direction that I wouldn’t have anticipated prior to coming into it, where I’m now legitimately thinking about buying my kid a Honda element. Um, Rob is definitely hitting it out of the park tonight. Right. And FJ Cruze is totally cooler, but it is a challenging space to try to operate in.

And so I am thinking that at least for my kids. I struggle going back more than 20 years, you know, that kind of 2000 to 2020 time range in that space. I want something with a little higher belt line. That’s going to take a [01:22:00] hit from another vehicle with a higher belt line. And so, you know, you just kind of add these requirements up and it starts to winnow the list down and it takes out a lot of the cool stuff that I love as an enthusiast, but I struggle to put my 16 year old inside of and so is the magic spot one of these midsize SUVs that we’ve kind of keep coming back to and talking about.

Yeah, sure. Maybe I just don’t get rid of my X five and my kids, that kid that drives their dads old X five. I don’t want that to be the situation, but I don’t know, maybe that, maybe that’s the most pragmatic situation. And I was, Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: Zs are going to come off that thing real quick though.

Mark Shank: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fine.

Maybe they don’t need Italian wheels, but I’ve gotten more out of this conversation that I’ve contributed to it. It has made me think a lot more about it than maybe originally I was.

William Ross: You know, here’s a question, Don, is it going to be your decision or is she going to be have input in this?

Don Weberg: Oh, I think [01:23:00] there’ll be input from both Michelle and Kaitlin.

William Ross: Yeah. I mean, all three of you sitting down going through auto tempest or whatever and kind of, Hey, what about this? You know, and try and feel it out. You’ll, you know, try and gauge, you know, to make her happy.

Don Weberg: Yeah.

William Ross: I was, you know, you put in your two cents, I mean like that, but Kind of boils down to is you kind of want your kid to like the car.

Don Weberg: She’s interesting because she has quirky taste. I mean, she really does. She is a bit of a car gal. Caitlin is similar to Rob in that she sees too many of a certain car. She suddenly gets turned off by them. She doesn’t really want to have anything. And yet, you know, flip side of the coin, she likes Mustangs.

Mustangs are belly button cars. Everybody has one, but she likes them. So it’s kind of interesting, but yeah, that’s where, again, I think the element would really be interesting. I, that one, Rob really, really struck a chord with that car because it, it is durable. It is tough. It does have that bulldog sort of nature where you’re not quite sure, can you bully this thing around psychologically?

It’s going to last forever. It’s [01:24:00] all wheel drive. You can get a manual transmission if you want. You hose out the interior. It swallows up grand piano. There’s no problem. It’s really, really an interesting choice. And it’s quirky enough that somebody like Caitlin would probably enjoy this car. It’s different enough.

You’re not going to see another one in the high school parking lot. Her other friends are going to really enjoy it.

Crew Chief Eric: As is tradition with all of our, what should I buy episodes? We’re going to do a little lightning round here to close out all the things we spoke about, but this one’s a little bit different as enthusiasts, as dads, we’re going to play the selfish dad lightning round.

And that means if you were 16 today and handed 10, 000 bucks to buy your first car, what would it be? And it could be from any era, any age, any decade, you got 10 grand to spend on your first car. Are you going to buy?

Mountain Man Dan: Facing up to today’s prices. Okay, I’ll have to think about this.

Don Weberg: Can you do something like you buy something, you’re going to build it up?

Crew Chief Eric: You know that’s how this game works, so you just go ahead. If you want a Corvette [01:25:00] engine

Don Weberg: Miata

Rob Luhrs: and you can do it for 10 grand, have at it. I like him.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, who wants to go first?

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve got a list of six cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, Brad, Brad coming in swinging. Go ahead.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m going to go back through the years. All of these I found for less than 10 grand.

I’m going to start with the newest car and work my way back to the oldest car.

Crew Chief Eric: All right.

Crew Chief Brad: So the newest car is a 2015 Lexus RX 350. Probably get the Lexus RX 300 for even cheaper. 2013 Land Rover LR4. I’m ignoring mileage

Crew Chief Eric: and maintenance. Cause you’re gonna need 10 grand of maintenance on that land rover right away.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, here’s where the, here’s where it starts to get fun. A 2008 Porsche Cayenne.

Rob Luhrs: Those are surprisingly cheap, by the way.

Crew Chief Brad: 2003 Mercedes CL 500. One of my all time favorite cars. I love those cars so much.

Mark Shank: The suppository model. Yes, yes,

Crew Chief Brad: yes. Is the big giant tic tac. I love it. Here’s the one I think Don’s going to resonate with the most 1995 Jaguar XJ VandenPlasse.

Don Weberg: And

Crew Chief Brad: then an [01:26:00] 86, nine, four, four, all of these are under 10

Mark Shank: grand. I love Brad’s recommendations. You can’t get a nine four, four turbo anymore for 10 grand. Is it just that guy? I’m sure that’s not a thing. Yeah, it’s not possible. You

Rob Luhrs: can, but you have to fix it up. My brother in law has one and just went to nine 44 fest out.

It was the track in Ohio,

Crew Chief Eric: Mid-O,

Rob Luhrs: not Mid-Ohio, the smaller Nelson ledges Nelson ledger, the dead flat one. So he has a nine 44 turbo. He got it for less than 10, but has it put another like five in to get it. Remo, it’s now beautiful, like it’s a gorgeous fun car, but you can’t get a well sorted one for under 10 right now.

Fair enough 15. You could pull it off 10 more.

Crew Chief Eric: William’s buying a mondial t for 10 grand, right? Yeah, put 50 into it to keep it running

Mark Shank: All right. I mean, I think buying an english car as a 16 year old pretty low income is pretty horrible idea

Crew Chief Brad: But you’re 16. You are the epitome of horrible ideas at that age.

Mark Shank: Yeah. You’re not making good decisions. This is an optimum [01:27:00] scenario where I’m taking my 43 year old self to being 16 in 2024 and I get 10 grand to buy a car. I think it’s American muscle. It has to be something that’s. Fun, fast, easy to maintain and sustainable.

Probably tough on gasoline. I’ll give

Crew Chief Eric: you that.

Mark Shank: You can get a Cobra from 99. Yeah. I mean, I’d love an old predator Cobra prior to COVID. Those were totally doable for 10 grand, but that’s not true anymore. So I think I would probably look for an SS Camaro just because, you know, the V8 there is just in a different class in that price category than the Mustangs.

Sorry for the four people. I’m not really affiliated one way. I love them both equally. I’m going to say in this generation, if I’ve got 10 grand, it’s probably an SS Camaro and I might not make it to graduation. It’s a horrible idea. I’d never buy that for my 16 year old kid, but if I was 16 and I had 10 grand, that’s totally what I buy.

Don Weberg: Kind of agree with Mark. The Z28, when did that body style [01:28:00] come out? Like 90,

Crew Chief Brad: the LT1. You can do better than an LT1. Do an LS1 was 98 to 2002.

Don Weberg: Yeah. I mean, that, that was, that still is one hell of a package for the money. I mean, what you’re getting in that car, it’s a lot of car. It really is. And yeah, you’re right.

You might not make it to graduation. I had a friend in high school who had, uh, two, he had the RS was the car to have back then that

Crew Chief Eric: really slow. That’s what that stood for

Don Weberg: really slow. Car was actually very, very scary, quick, fast. He wrecked two of them. Challenge over what the car can do. But yeah, I think you’re going to be hard pressed to go bad with one of those Z28s.

The Mustang, always a good option. 16, 10 grand. I do, I think I’d find a Mustang GT or a Camaro Z28.

William Ross: V8 manual. So either a Mustang, C4 Vette or a Camaro. Oh yeah, I’m killing myself before I get to graduation.

Don Weberg: You’re gonna look good doing it.

Crew Chief Eric: Rob, are you in the same camp? 10 grand, you’re 16 again?

Rob Luhrs: I’ve always [01:29:00] wanted a V8 Mustang because I love the sound of it, but I don’t think I would choose it.

It’s just not in my nature. I’d want to have one to drive, but I wouldn’t want to own one, if that makes sense, because I wouldn’t take it. So, just scrolling through, the first one that jumped out at me is you can get a Fiesta ST for under 10 grand, which is a pretty ridiculously fun choice. If I lived where I lived when I was 16, my answer would have been either a WRX or a Wrangler.

I want the WRX because I grew up in Massachusetts and I wanted to go just sliding around mountain roads and rally style driving. Even now I have friends who own a house in Davis, West Virginia, and they’re like, The guy with the mini countryman would be like, Rob, you know what you’re doing here? Take the key.

Then I just slide up the mountain roads and have a complete blast. I love that feeling of just sliding the cars up those roads. And the WRX fits that bill really well. The other one growing up again in Massachusetts is I, I always as a kid wanted a Wrangler, I love the idea of, I could go skiing in the mountains with it.

And then I could go to the beach and take off the top and the doors and fold the windshield down and cruise around in it. It’s a pretty big range, but one of probably a Wrangler or a WRX [01:30:00] are my two Top choices for those reasons, but I cannot possibly disagree or have any shade whatsoever on the people choosing the V8 because even now as a, you know, I drive sort of sportier cars and love them.

And my dad’s got a, you know, 911 SC, the air cooled that I drive around, but I get a chance to, I still roll down the windows to listen to somebody in a V8 Mustang just rev, just the sound of that just makes me happy. And I’d love to have one of those under my right foot for a little while. Don’t know if I’d want that as much as I’d want to be sliding around roads in a WRX.

Or off roading it up in a Wrangler.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, Dan, did we buy you enough time? Are you just going to say some year plus square body?

Mountain Man Dan: Of course I would always add to the square body collection, but so here’s the thing I have to say, I’m glad we weren’t doing this three years ago when the used car market was insane.

Rob Luhrs: But you could buy an old Nissan and that’s about it.

Mountain Man Dan: So I’m glad that the market has corrected some. But the 16 year old me, back when I was 16, it would have been that 68 Camaro, with that as that not being the option. Modern day me, if I was [01:31:00] 16 today, I definitely like the idea of WS6 9802 Trans Ams. I like the Trans Ams better than the Camaros.

Also, I love the CTS V with the 6 speed.

Rob Luhrs: You get those for 10k? No. I haven’t seen one yet. If I saw one I

Mountain Man Dan: had to window shop for them every so often. They normally need a little bit of work, but you can get them at that price. A little bit of work.

Crew Chief Brad: I will say, to Rob’s point there, I feel like we’ve all been doing this We were all going to cars.

com, where we really need to hang out, is Dan’s favorite site, Facebook Marketplace. You can find a treasure trove of shit on Facebook Marketplace. You

Crew Chief Eric: mean Craigslist?

Crew Chief Brad: I swear, that’s where we need to be for all the fun stuff.

Rob Luhrs: I agree. I did find a Quattroporte. On, uh, Autotrader, by the way, for under 10k. A Maserati.

But you’re right. My brain was like, I should be going to Craigslist, and I should be going to Facebook Marketplace. And then all of us are like, Oh, I’ll take a, you know, a 986 911, or I’ll take a RS5 that for some reason somebody misposted at a [01:32:00] different number. I mean,

Crew Chief Brad: they’re all 6. Exactly.

Rob Luhrs: Me, when I was 16, though, I did try to buy a 914 and still kick myself that I didn’t buy it.

Because that would have been a dream car back then that you can’t get for 10k now. Otherwise, that would be on my list.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I’ll wow you guys with my selfish dad. If I could be 16 again with what I know now for 10 grand, it would have to be black. Is the 3. 8 liter Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

Rob Luhrs: That’s a fast, fun car.

Genesis are pretty cool. Those are fun cars.

Crew Chief Eric: At 16 and I got 10 grand to blow on a car. Something different in the high school parking lot for sure. And on that bombshell, Brad, it’s time to take us home.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a tough call to make on behalf of a young driver. Not only are the economics of the situation, a challenge or an additional burden, so this particular type of car buying, we hope that this episode gives you some food for thought.

And if you’d like to continue the conversation or expand on some of the topics here, don’t be shy. podcast, Facebook group, or discord, where you can get in contact with the panelists you heard here tonight. And I want to thank our panel for another great, what should I [01:33:00] buy debate? Oh, you know, we haven’t heard from my Crutchfield and it’s a shame we’ve run out of time and we’ll have to get to them next time on the next, what should I buy?

Crew Chief Eric: Well guys, for most of the general public, it’s safe to assume that in their lifetime, they will probably own a total of five cars, max per person. And that’s based on our very scientific method of talking to non car friends and asking about their car buying history. But as we talked about earlier. It’s those first impressions that are lasting impressions.

So helping to pick that right first car is really important to the future of your petrol heads and their story. As they look back on what they imprinted on. So remember everyone has a story and it’s this point, this very moment, when you decide on that first car, that’s going to Second trajectory of where their story’s gonna go.

Consider that when you’re purchasing a car for your first time driving.

Don Weberg: Well, thank you guys. This has been helpful.

Crew Chief Eric: Was it, Don? Did you get something out of this?

Don Weberg: It was, I think Rob hit it out of the park actually really feeling a gravitational pull [01:34:00] toward that Honda. The question is, can we find one, can we afford it?

And. Is the wife and daughter on board with it.

Crew Chief Eric: I very much appreciate this. And I look forward to getting back together with y’all very, very soon. Obviously we do these all the time. This is

Rob Luhrs: a blast. I feel like it’s both been only like a day and yet it’s been a decade since I was last on. And like last time it was a lot of more HRR talk, just to be clear.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Yes. But we’ve matured since those days.

Don Weberg: All right.

Rob Luhrs: Well,

Don Weberg: thanks you guys. Take care. Thanks.

Rob Luhrs: And make sure you got to make sure you report back with what she ends up getting.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, for sure.

Don Weberg: Okay. We’ll do.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article [01:35:00] at GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

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 the Debate
00:55 Meet the Panelists
02:34 Don’s Dilemma: Choosing a Car for His Daughter
09:02 First Car Stories: Panelists Share Their Experiences
23:09 Manual vs. Automatic: The Great Debate
30:12 The Social Impact of Your First Car
31:14 Generational Differences in Car Enthusiasm
33:42 Safety Features for Teen Drivers
37:26 Choosing the Right Car for College
39:26 Affordable Car Options Under $10K
44:05 The Debate on Older vs. Newer Cars
46:22 Practical Considerations for Teen Cars
01:03:27 The Cost of German Car Enthusiasm
01:05:20 Affordable Hybrids for Eco-Conscious Drivers
01:07:04 The Indestructible Nissan Altima
01:11:04 The Versatile Honda Element
01:24:22 Selfish Dad Lightning Round: Dream Cars for $10K
01:32:34 Final Thoughts and Farewell

There's more to this story!

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Thanks to our panel of Petrol-heads!

It’s a tough call to make on behalf of a young driver, not only are the economics of the situation a challenge (or an additional burden), but also the social aspects of this particular type of car buying. We hope that this episode gives you some food for thought. And If you’d like to continue the conversation or expand on some of the topics here, don’t be shy. Check out our Break/Fix podcast Facebook Group or Discord where you can get in contact with the panelists you heard here tonight. And I want to thank our panel for another great What Should I Buy? To learn more about each of our guests, you can revisit their episodes on Break/Fix below.