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130: Scott Molitor of MoFab takes us through the process of acquiring a performance shop to grow his business Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

Scott grew up in Minnesota and enjoyed tinkering and making stuff as a kid. He played with dirt bikes and 3 wheelers anything else he could get his hands on. His dad got transferred for work and ended up in Colorado. After high school, he enrolled in an automotive program while working at a construction job. After graduating with his Associates Degree, he went hunting for a job. He had bought a Mitsubishi Galant VR4 and fell in love with imports and turbos. During this time, he meets Nick who's dad ran the performance shop in Denver and they were going to get the first AWD dyno in Colorado.

Scott spent the next few years working at another shop and begin honing his fabrication skills. He built a turbo Eclipse and took it to Mac's for tuning. They were really impressed with Scott's work and offered him a job. After working there for a few years, Scott decided he wanted to go it alone and started MoFab. He would do any fabrication work he could get his hands on. He moved the shop a couple times as the work increased and was making a good business at it! But, he was still sending customers to Mac for tuning.

Scott really wanted to grow the business so went through the process to get a loan for a dyno and look for a bigger space. At this same time, Nick said he wanted to join Scott in this new venture. When Nick told his dad about this, Bill offered up to sell him Mac's equipment. Through a few rounds of negotiation, they decided the best and easiest option was to have Scott just acquire Mac's and run it as MoFab. He moved into Mac's space and kept all of they guys. They changed the name over to MoFab and pointed the phone, Facebook, and website to his business. After overcoming a few growing pains, the business is thriving and growing!

129: Dennis Overholser, co-founder of Painless Performance Products, takes us through the ups and downs of growing his wiring and accessories company Apr 02, 2018

Show notes

Dennis grew up on a farm in Indiana and went to Nashville Auto Diesel College before getting drafted to the Air Force during Vietnam. He took a position as a mechanic for their vehicle maintenance division and spent his time repairing equipment. When he got back to Indiana, he met a girl whose family lived in Ft Worth. During one of their visits to her family, he realized there were a lot of jobs in Ft Worth and made up his mind that is where they wanted to move. He got a job as a tractor dealer as a mechanic and worked his way up the ladder for the next 20 years.

In 1989, he met Jim who was building wiring harnesses for the conversion van market. Jim wanted to expand the business and start making a harness for hot rods and Dennis was perfect for the job! They built a universal wiring harness that could be used for any hot rod. During their first swap meet, they sold out immediately and knew that had a great product! A year later, Dennis quite his job at the tractor company to build wiring harnesses full time.

They got their big break when an editor of Hot Rod Mechanics was building a roadster and needed a wiring harness. The title of the ad was Painless Wiring and this is how they got their name! Over the years, the began making other products to compliment the wiring harnesses and changed the name to be Painless Performance.

Now, they are in a 43,000 square foot facility and have around 55 employees. They do all of their manufacturing, assembly, engineering, and tech support in house. Even though they started with hot rods, the off-road truck market has become their biggest seller. And the C10 truck market is quickly growing.

128: The Bondurant Racing School just celebrated its 50th year in business! Tune in to hear what Pat and Bob are doing to make it thrive for another 50 years. Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

Bob has been racing his entire life. He got started in small Morgans and Triumphs in California and was jealous of the loud and fast American race cars. He stepped up to Corvettes and started winning immediately. He caught the eye of Carol Shelby who was trying to get Bob to race in the Shelby Cobra. After Bob had to race against a Cobra, he was convinced it was superior and went over to Carol's team to drive. He won a bunch of races that year and then they took the Cobra to Europe with Dan Gurney to dominate there as well. This led to a stent with Enzo Ferrari racing and testing in Formula 1. Then Peter Revson of the Revlon Company lured Bob back to the US to race in CanAm Series. During one of the races, there was a mechanical failure which sent Bob into the wall and crushed both his feet. The doctors said he would never walk, much less race, again. From this tragedy came the opportunity to create the Bondurant Racing School.

He has been at a few locations over the years. But he fell in love with Arizona because of the very predictable weather patterns. This means that he has the best chance to get people out on the track and teach them how to drive. Their programs range from 1-day short courses to a full 4-day open wheel racing school. They have teamed up with Dodge to offer driving schools for anybody who purchase an SRT vehicle and even have a new Demon school where they teach you how to drag race. And yes, Bob was able to heal from the crash and still drives on the track. Even at 85 years young!

127: Tim Palazzolo of GAP Racing earned his reputation as a world-class builder by paying attention to the little details Mar 19, 2018

Show notes

Tim was practically born into working on cars. His dad worked at an automotive repair business and Tim immediately took a liking to cars. When he turned 14, he got a compact truck and began modifying it for the mini-truck scene. He built the car all by himself and was happy to show it off at high school. He got his associates degree and got a job at O'Reilly Auto Parts as a delivery driver. Over the years, Tim worked his way up through the ranks, managed his own store, and even worked at the corporate office.

Tim's dad, George, eventually went out on his own and opened up George's Automotive Performance which was a mix of general repair and simple performance mods. Tim decided to make a career switch and go work with him. They began doing more and more restorations and performance upgrades for muscle cars. After a few years, Tim decided he wanted to compete for the Riddler Award and spent 4 years working on a Mustang which ended up making it to the Great 8 at the show.

Eventually, Tim bought the business from his dad and named it GAP Racing. He now rents a 4,000 square foot building and has 5 employees. He has added modern muscle cars to his work load but still focuses on a couple really large muscle car projects each year for special customers and SEMA. He already has plans for a much larger building and just needs to find the space and coordinate with the city to get it going.

126: Trevor and Travis Hill of TWOth Autosport want to take novices and turn them into professional racing drivers Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

As kids, Trevor and Travis saved up their money and spent it on go carts. With a matching contribution from their dad, they were able to get pretty serious and eventually toured around the US and Canada to race go carts. They both ended up going to college but continued to race. Their goal the whole time was to be professional race car drivers and they thought of school as their backup plan. Travis ended up working at the race track in Calabogie as a driving coach and began developing a business plan to educate drivers at various skill levels. He was also racing with a Porsche team.

The track ended up buying several Mustangs to use as learning vehicles and they needed a mechanic to take care of all of them. Since Trevor had a background in working on cars, Travis invited him up to work together!

When the R34 GTR came out, Trevor and Travis worked with Switzer Performance in the US to import engines and upgrade GTR's in Canada. This was the beginning of TWOth Autosport. They worked closely with Switzer to develop and test parts and kits geared toward road racing.

When Chump Car (now Champ Car) got started, the brothers saw an opportunity to really push their driver development plans. So, they built a Honda Civic for the series and began selling seats and training their drivers. They have expanded the business over the years and now build and manage several cars and go to lots of races each year. They are finalizing a new path to take a novice driver who has never been on track and train them to be a professional endurance racer over a few years.

125: Dirk Starksen from Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT) tells how he got started and how he continues to innovate Mar 05, 2018

Show notes

Dirk has always been a builder and tinkerer. He started working for a clutch company called Kennedy Engineered Products that built engine adapters and clutches for VW's. He was working as a clutch assembler and was in college for a Mechanical Engineering degree. He worked his way up the ranks at KEP. In 1994, Dirk was working on a project for the Japanese import vehicles and asked his boss if he could take the idea and run with it. In 1996, he started Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT) and started branding the pressure plates himself.

He has steadily grown the business over the past couple decades and sees no end in sight. He currently rents a 22,000 manufacturing facility and has 40 employees. They have been a strong proponent of having a strict pricing policy. This was a tough decision in the beginning, but it has turned out to be the right choice. It has allowed shops and sellers to make a good margin on the parts and keep the industry going.

124: Doug and Brad DeBerti build crazy vehicles, race trucks, and have a new show on Discovery called Twin Turbos Feb 26, 2018

Show notes

Description: Doug and Brad DeBerti, the father and son duo, have a new Discovery Channel show called Twin Turbos. Doug was born and raised in Montana and moved down to Bakersfield, CA when he was 18. In the late 80's, Doug got a new truck and began making custom parts for it. He wiggled his way into a building lease and took out 4 credit cards to raise capital for the new business. In an ingenious move to project inventory, he would buy empty boxes from manufacturers and weighted them down! He would just purchase the actual products when the customer would buy them. He sold off that business and started an accessories business that was very successful.

During this time, he and his son started DeBerti Designs with the purpose of building custom show vehicles. They would build vehicles, show them at tradeshows, and then sell them to fund the next project. They switched gears and bought a truck to race off road. Very soon, they began defeating the odds and winning races. They leveraged their story and success to pitch a TV show idea to The Discovery Channel.

They have a 10,000 square foot shop with about 6 fabricators that help them make anything they can imagine. They are building super cool custom vehicles and continue to go racing. You can check out more information about there show Twin Turbos and catch the first episode on Feb 28th at 10pm ET/PT.

123: Glen Reid of Futura Trailers brought his innovative idea of a lowering trailer to reality Feb 19, 2018

Show notes

Glen is from New Zealand and his dad actually used to own a trailer company. His dad sold the company in the mid-eighties and it was a couple decades before Glen got back into trailers. After high school, Glen got into construction and went off to create his own construction company. Glen then moved to Dubai and did construction there as well. Over the next decade, he built a very large business with around 700 employees.

His next adventure went down a completely different path. He took his wife and two small children to the United States. They bought an RV and toured the US for 6 months to take a break from it all. After the adventure, they moved back to New Zealand and Glen decided to get back into building trailers. He had bought a race car and struggled with loading and unloading it. So, he decided to fix the problem himself! He started with a motorcycle trailer that lowered to the ground to make it easier to load.

The next phase was building a single-axle trailer that was capable of carrying a small car. Eventually, he created a tandem-axle trailer that could carry a full-size vehicle. At one point, they were making 50 different trailers and things were getting more and more complicated. After a trip to SEMA, he realized that they needed to streamline operations and focus on their core products. They shed 48 of their 50 different trailers to do this. Now, they only focus on the products that provide the most value.

122: David Schardt of Forgeline Motorsports continues to push the envelope with their carbon+forged wheels Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

David was born and raised in Ohio and has been there his entire life. Growing up, he was very active in outdoor activities and his dad was racing. By the time he was 18, he had his SCCA license and was racing pretty regularly. When he went to college, he started off in Accounting but changed it to HR and Psychology. During school, he wrote a business plan to distribute wheels in the Midwest. His dad owned Dayton Wire Wheels and he noticed there was a void in the market of distributing wheels. After working in a wheel & tire store after college, he decided to make his business plan a reality and begin distributing wheels.

Steve (David's twin brother) and their dad originally had the idea for a custom welded 2-piece wheel that they could cater to the needs of their customers. This business also took off quickly and Steve brought David in as a partner to help manage the business. They now use their own skill sets to work together to continue to grow the company.

David had to shut down the distribution business in 2007 because they couldn't compete with the Chinese manufacturers who were selling wheels for much cheaper and consigning wheels to their customers. It was just not financially viable to continue to compete in that space so they closed the business to focus on the manufacturing wheels.

Recently, they have begun using a carbon fiber barrel and their machined center section to make an extremely lightweight wheel. It drops about 10lb from their lightest wheel previously offered. These wheels are very enticing for electric car customers looking to change the look and performance of their vehicle.

121: Bob Boileau discusses how he became President of Pikes Peak International Raceway and how they have outlasted the previous owners Feb 05, 2018

Show notes

Bob grew up in Colorado and has been around racing his whole life. His dad raced with SCCA and then became the chief driving instructor in Colorado. His dad brought the family to a race and they met another family of racers. It was at this time that Bob would meet his future wife (she was 11 and he was 13). Bob went to college for a business degree and ended up in California after graduating to become a stunt driver. He ended up moving back to Colorado when he and his wife got married.

Back in Colorado, he managed one of the Acura dealerships and created a racing program. A group of investors came to Colorado Springs looking to purchase the abandoned Pikes Peak International Raceway and were looking to have a local person manage it. Bob was then chosen to come on as the General Manager. He has become an investor and is now the President of the track.

Over the years, Bob has vastly expanded the offerings and revenue sources for the track. Typically, it is easy to fill up the weekends with enthusiast events. But, he has pushed to get other activities during the week to rent out the track. He went after OEM's, military contractors, and research programs to fill up the week day spots. This has helped them be successful in keeping the track open and expanding the offerings!

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