Welcome to the Autoverse!

Paul Ragsdale - Founder for The Autoverse

We’re a community of gearheads. We live, breathe, eat, and sleep cars – and we work to help others do so. We host events, give things away, make exclusive experiences available, and provide access to a curated network of providers who help us experience our vehicles to their fullest.

Contact: Paul Ragsdale at paul@theautoverse.io | N/A | Visit Online!

       

• 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!

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.

Of

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.

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

Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

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