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140: Bret Voelkel of RideTech explains how his company emerged from the 2008 recession stronger than ever Jun 18, 2018

Show notes

Bret grew up in Jasper, IN and dabbled with cars during high school. After high school, he worked various jobs in Jasper and then took a job in Florida as a tech rep for the NHRA Drag Racing circuit. A few years later, he started working for a company in California to work for Blower Drive Service. He had been traveling about 300 days per year and decided to settle down back in Jasper with his new wife. He worked a tool truck and was building his own pro-street hot rod. He wanted to be able to adjust the ride height so he could drive the car to the track and then lower it to race. He took inspiration from semi-trucks with their air springs and sourced one small enough for his project. He built a few more of these systems for his buddies and incorporated Air Ride Technologies in 1996.

Within a couple years, things were really starting to take off. Bret's wife was able to quit her normal job and come work with Air Ride Technologies and they quickly grew to 20 employees. The company continued to grown until the economic downturn in 2008. Through hard work and streamlined business practices, Bret was able to keep the company open and survive the tough times. He did have to lay off some employees but has been able to bounce back strong and now employs 60 people. They have made a big push in the last few years to engineer and build new products and bring them to the market. Now, they are working on marketing and demonstrating the products.

139: Steve Dinan, Founder and former owner of DINAN, made the best products possible and backed them with a warranty and recently started a new service shop called CarBahn Jun 11, 2018

Show notes

Steve has known he was going to work with cards since the first grade. His dad was an engineer and his mom was a pianist and they encouraged Steve and his siblings to pursue any passion they wanted. This even includes Steve attempting to build a submarine as a kid. He ended up getting drafted to the Vietnam War and worked as an electrical engineer supporting the airplanes. Once he got out, he went to college and got an engineering degree. While at school, he worked at a BMW repair shop. It was then that he started doing performance and aftermarket installs in his free time.

He quickly went out on his own and grew the company constantly over the years. Within 5 years, he had several employees and was manufacturing many parts specifically for BMW's. He gained a reputation worldwide as the go-to engineer and tuner for BMW's and even caught the attention of corporate. They came and visited his shop and Steve hoped they would begin sharing engineering data, but that wasn't the case. But, they did allow him to sell his parts through the dealerships as long as he personally warrantied all of the work. He continued this relationship with corporate for many years and raced for them as well. At it's peak, DINAN employed 70 people, did $1 million in revenue per month, and built 3,000 cars each year.

In 2015, he sold DINAN and went on to work for Chip Ganassi Racing to head the Ford GT racing division. He then started on his next venture, CarBahn. It is a service, repair, and modifications for high end vehicles that he plans to expand nationwide. He currently has two locations in northern California. He also has a racing division and a street car engine development division. He has invested a lot of his own money into the business to get it going and will be looking for private equity funds in the future to eventually open 100 locations across the country.

138: Jason Gauci of Lund International talks product development, marketing, and patents for their products in the off-road truck market Jun 04, 2018

Show notes

Jason grew up in upstate New York and spent his childhood around cars. For college, he went to Clarkson University and got his Mechanical Engineering degree. He had every intention to go work for an auto company in Detroit but he just couldn't commit to the cold weather. So, he moved south to work for Home Depot as a mechanical engineer. He worked his way up the ranks and eventually moved on to work for Newell Brands (makers up Rubbermaid and other household items) as a product engineer. While working there, he relocated from North Carolina to Atlanta.

By chance, he was approached by Lund's recruiter using LinkedIn. He was excited for the opportunity to work in the automotive industry again so he took a job as a Product Manager. He has worked in Sales, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, and now as the VP of Branding and Products. Lund International is a holding company that is comprised of about 1200 employees and they focus on manufacturing through 10 companies.

137: Brent Picasso of Autosport Labs discusses the process of using crowd funding to make RaceCapture and Podium May 28, 2018

Show notes

Brent is a first generation American and his parents immigrated to the states after WW2. He spent a lot of his childhood playing with electronics. During high school, he practically took over the computer lab in the mid 80's to code and tinker however he liked. He went to college to get a Computer Science degree and worked for Microsoft after graduating. He then moved over to GE Capital to do software support for them. At this point, he discovered Autocross and fell in love immediately!

He ended up buying an MR2 to race and wanted to turbo charge it. The MegaSquirt was available to control fuel but could not do ignition advance. So, he took it upon himself to build a controller himself and called it the Mega Jolt. He used the archaic Yahoo mailing list to post up about his idea and began selling them very quickly. To help ramp p production, he began purchasing electronic assembly equipment and installing them in the garage.

They eventually moved out of the garage to a real commercial space to house all of their equipment and parts. While working on their next project, the Race Capture Pro data acquisition system, they utilized a crowd-funding service called IndieGoGo to raise funds. After the success of this first campaign, they decided to do it again for their RaceCapture Track which was more affordable for the weekend enthusiast.

To continue to expand their offerings, they changed the product line name to Podium and began to offer live telemetry data that can be streamed over the cellular network. Their Podium Connect system allows you to transmit existing data acquisition system information back to the pits (and anywhere else) so that others can monitor your car.

136: Dave Rowe of EPS Motorsports travels all over the world tuning various race cars using his MoTeC expertise May 21, 2018

Show notes

Dave grew up in Melbourne, Australia and has always been a petrol head. He knew from an early age that he wanted to work with cars and left school at 15 to get an apprenticeship at a local dealership. During that time, he began racing go carts to satisfy his need to race. Once he finished his apprenticeship program, he became qualified to be hired as a mechanic. He then got a job at a shop that focused on motorsports and he began racing cars himself. After that, he took a job at MoTeC in Melbourne for 5 years before being transferred to MoTeC Europe for 8 years. He then transitioned out and started EPS (Electronic Performance Systems) to be his own boss.

He started the business in his garage and continue to operate that way! He uses a couple rooms as an office and for building looms and then uses the garage for injector testing and installs. He sells MoTeC hardware, builds custom looms and travels around the world to tune cars for various customers. Be sure to check out his immaculate Audi Quattro car that he has built and is racing up Pikes Peak again this year!

135: Lance Stander, the owner of Superformance, tells how he moved from South Africa to the US to pursue his passion for cars May 14, 2018

Show notes

Lance is from South Africa and he grew up working with his dad at his dealership and salvage yard. When he grew up, he took over part of the business and spent years growing it. Eventually, he decided to make the move to America and attempted to continue with the auto salvage business. He came over on a holiday visa and quickly discovered how hard it is to become an American citizen. After 3 rejections, he was able to finally make it legal and he and his family got their citizenship. Along the way, he started in North Carolina, then Abilene (in Texas), then went to San Bernadino. After many failed attempts, a friend convinced him to become a dealer for the Superformance cars in southern California. Being that Superformance is located in South Africa and Lance having dealership experience, this was a logical fit so they went with it!

Superformance provides a "Turn Key Minus" vehicle which consists of a body with suspension and a rear diff. The EPA allows this because it only contains 1 of the 3 components required to be considered a car (the other two being the engine and transmission). This allows for customers to choose whatever engine and transmission they want to complete their car and make it their own. After a long legal battle, Superformance became the only manufacture that is licensed by Shelby to create the cars. They have also expanded to offer different models recently including a modern Ford GT40 and a special edition Bondurant car.

Lance purchased Superformance USA back in 2007 with the goal of creating more cars and expanding the business. While the Cobra is still the biggest seller, he is pushing development and production to continue to grow the business. They have leveraged the expertise of Kahn Media to take on the task of marketing their company. This has helped raise awareness of their brand and bring in new customers.

134: Jim Ring shares how he and his brother Mike expanded RingBrothers to include manufacturing billet assemblies and specialty body panels May 07, 2018

Show notes

The Ring brothers grew up around their dad's fueling station and spent their time tinkering with whatever they could get their hands on. Jim moved around a few times and eventually moved his family back home to Spring Green, WI (2 hours west of Milwaukee). He saw a 1969 Camaro Indy Pace car for sale in the paper and had to get a loan from a bank to purchase the car. He fixed it up and ended up selling it for a profit. This was the catalyst for starting his own shop. Jim found a vacant car dealership and bought the building with a friend to begin working on and restoring cars. Several years later, he sold that building and bought a piece of land with his brother to start Ring Brothers.

They were doing collision repair to pay the bills and bring in steady revenue. But their passion has always been for the customer and restoration side. On each one of the restorations, they would find more and more products that they didn't particularly like. So, they would make these pieces in house! They built another building to house all of their CNC machines and now manufacture around 1000 SKU's. In total, they have 3 buildings that take up about 15,000 sq ft to house all of their jobs and machines.

133: Kris Miller has helped Powerstop Brakes increase their brand's recognition through strategic sponsorships and by creating excellent content Apr 30, 2018

Show notes

Kris grew up in Chicago and stayed there to go to college. His family has always been enthusiasts and he grew up tinkering with anything he could get his hands on. He got a degree in Aviation Flight Management and got his A&P License. He never worked in the aerospace industry because he got offered a job at a fuel management company. This company was buildings components of Holly's EFI throttle body. His next move was over to AMS Performance as their 4th employee. He helped them grow the business.

He decided to make a career changed and moved to Las Vegas to dabble in the fitness and then finance industry. He even lived in China for a while! Then he moved back to the states and bounced between Las Vegas and Chicago to help with web development and marketing. Totally shifting gears again, he partnered with a friend and started an app development company in Austin. Sadly, their product didn't make it and Kris had to switch gears yet again. This time, he headed back to Chicago to do photography with a friend. This is where he got introduced to Powerstop Brakes. They were shooting Powerstop's catalog for a while and learned that Powerstop wanted to grow their social media presence.

He has helped grow their online presence by creating videos, taking pictures, and attending events around the country. And right when Kris came onboard, Powerstop was working on their TrackDay product line. These products are geared towards the enthusiasts who drive their track car to the track. They teamed up with the Bondurant Racing School to develop pads for their cars and have been using Powerstop Brakes exclusively for a few years now. They also sponsor the GridLife Time Attack series, the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge, and the new Spec Corvette series.

The off-road market is another segment where Kris is pushing heavily. They organize an event called The Trial where they travel from Chicago to Las Vegas for the SEMA show.

132: Gary Carbono left his job as a lawyer in Panama to pursue his passion for cars and founded Race Lab Motorsports Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

Gary was born in Panama but grew up in the United States. His father had a machine shop and Gary was always around cars. He worked at his dad's shop at a very early age and learned the importance of hard work. His parents ended up getting a divorce and Gary moved to Panama to live with his mom when he was 9. In his early 20's, he bought a truck and began modifying it immediately. He increased the power with a supercharger and did basic tuning adjustments. He went to law school and became a lawyer but he never lost his passion for cars. So, he began installing parts and tuning in his free time.

He eventually teamed up with MAPerformance to get parts to Panama and worked with tuners and engine builders from the US to grow his business. He also took tuning classes from EFI University to expand his knowledge. Race Lab Motorsports now occupies 8000 sqft and has a dyno, a fab area, a marketing department, and parts sales. There is a second floor in the building where he will be teaching classes on fabrication and installs. He employs 8 people to keep the business going.

131: John Nguyen quit his day job to pursue Track Spec Motorsports and has parlayed that into the Spec Corvette racing series Apr 16, 2018

Show notes

John was born in Florida but moved to Philadelphia when he was 10. His dad and he were always tinkering and fixed things rather than replacing them. He stayed in the area and went to college at Penn State to get a Mechanical Engineering degree. Even though his passion for cars never went away, he got a job at a beverage company and ended up in California managing a facility.

During that time, he had a side hustle of selling other people's parts online. It became more and more difficult to make a profit and he wanted to take the company a different direction. He had a list of parts that he wanted and needed personally for his 05 Mustang GT which he road raced. The first one was to deal with an overheating and front-end lift problem he was experiencing. So, he came up with the Track Spec hood vents by using Magnahelic Differential Pressure Gauges to find the optimum location to evacuate heat and equalize pressure. He now operates the entire business out of a 2-car garage! He has found companies to manufacture his products and focusses his efforts on R&D, sales, and customer support.

Onto his next adventure, John was talking with a racer friend who was reminiscing about racing C5 Corvettes when they first came out. Within a 3-hour drive, they had formulated a plan to create a Spec Corvette series! The idea was to have a very reliable and available car that can be race-ready (including the car) for around $20,000. They have had a few races so far in 2018 and plan on expanding to areas outside of California. They teamed up with a race coordinator called Speed Ventures to actually conduct the race and now have 27 drivers in SoCal and 10 others spread across the country.

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