Garage Heroes In Training

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GHIT 0129: Review of Our NASA Great Lakes HPDE at PittRace 2020 Jul 31, 2020

Show notes

Jen, Vicki, and Bill review how the NASA Great Lakes HPDE event at PittRace went last weekend. It is our team's most anticipated HPDE event of the year and we were not disappointed. Jennifer had our friend Chris as her instructor for the entire weekend and it showed as she progressed dramatically through the event in her ND Miata. Vicki was also in HPDE 1 with another friend Jim as her student partner and also learned a ton, especially related to weight transfer in her NB Miata. Bill was in the HPDE

2 group with both Chrissy and Jeff in the E36 race car and the stock Toyota

86 for this weekend. With COVID 19 controls in place, there was no right seat driving instruction option, but NASA Great Lakes is continually learning, adapting, and responding with improvements that allow for a great amount of instruction for every student.

The Dominating with Dawson segment for this episode was initially in the area of coasting but we quickly wandered off into proper use and application of the throttle and aspects of controlled or over controlled track driving as opposed to pushing the limit and getting out of a comfort zone.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) Our group of 7 brought 7 cars with us and Chris did his best Randy Pobst impersonation by driving almost every one of them during the weekend.

2) Our teams struggle with car preparation and timing continued and we agree they must be addressed going forward.

3) Jen, Vicki, and Bill all had goals going into the event, largely as we discussed after our last HPDE at GingerMan several weeks ago.

4) Track learning/prep is very important to allow us to focus on our driving and not be distracted by "learning" the track at the same time for a new to us track

5) We discuss the Saturday event and the Sunday event and how we did not prepare our meals as well as normally because we were way behind. Sorry to our camp sharing friends.

6) Vicki converts Jen's RV sink into a disposal, for a short time.

7) We compare and contrast HPDE 1 and HPDE 2 from this event.

8) We individually cover the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the event

9) Vicki "surveyed" the track extensively after turn 10 during her spin on Saturday. Vicki did get to wave to Jennifer as she drove by a bit later.

10) Chrissy, Vicki, and Chris encountered a handling issue on the NB Miata that was easily fixed by adjusting the adjustable shocks in the rear. Who knew? PS We are sorry for not listening to you earlier Chrissy.

11) Jen solved her downshifting issue going into a turn that has plagued her to this point. This was solved by slowing down by letting out the clutch, especially on track. The best part is that Jennifer can also practice this on the street during her daily driving.

12) Jennifer failed miserably by not getting her training partner over to our podcast. Lol.

13) We learned a lot from this event both about our prep and our driving.

14) Bill admits we have too many cars and need to downsize significantly.

15) Vicki summarizes our teams learning and progress to this point.

16) Vicki's "ah ha" moment included understanding weight transfer and improving her down shifting/sequencing going into turns. Hopefully, this will help when she races a front wheel drive car again.

17) Jennifer's "ah ha" moment included shifting and especially downshifting and actually her hearing tires "sing" through the turns for the first time ever on track.

18) Bill's "ah ha" moments included 1) Bringing Lemons "skills" and HPDE "skills" together into a complimentary driving style utilizing both, 2) Comparison and E36 race car and the Toyota 86 street car, and 3) How significant the difference between sticker tires and scuffed tires. We won't be sending any of our newer drivers out on track with sticker tires ever.

19) Vicki did not get out onto the track in the E36 BMW race car due to an accident in the prior session closing the track on Sunday prematurely.

20) Some of the advantages of lead follow and some of the difficulties we saw. NASA Great Lakes addressed these by actually switching the lead follow to what is essentially a switch of the cars into a "follow - Lead" where the student is in front of the instructor at several points.

21) Goals for our next HPDE event for each of us.

GHiT 0127: Our Team Answers the Fast and Furious Question - By Request Jul 24, 2020

Show notes

We try to give answers to questions our listeners want to know, usually to help them progress as drivers, but sometimes we get requests to answer questions that are not going to help you drive any better, ever. This is one of those times and one of those episodes. Several of you have asked us these questions at the track or via the inter webs, so here they are, as requested.

Throttle steering is the subject for our Dominating with Dawson segment this episode. This is one of the ways that you can make a car turn without using your steering wheel.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) Somehow we combined the Fast and Furious questions with the Newlywed Game during this episode.

2) Who has driven the fastest on our team. Any guesses? Unfortunately, not all have hit triple digits, yet. New team goal for our next HPDE!

3) Alan wanders off during the podcast with his wireless microphone. Can't even herd cats on the podcast.

4) Jennifer stretches the limits of what a car sound is, just a bit.

5) What were some of our team members "Ahhh Hahhh" moments.

GHIT 0126: Breaking "Barriers" That Are Keeping You Off Track or From High Performance Driving Jul 19, 2020

Show notes

Christian "Mental" Ward joins us for a very special episode where we try to break down any barriers that are keeping you from getting started and trying high performance driving or going out to a track or autocrossing etc. As with every Mental episode, we have tons of stories and go very, very long.

So strap in for a great episode where we show various ways for you, YES YOU, to start TODAY! PS this will also apply to getting some improved training opportunities for the new drivers in the family. Avoiding an accident is the best safety system. If you enjoy taking the fun way home from work/school, if you enjoy going around exit ramps, but you haven't tried anything further, this episode should show you how to break through any barrier that prevented you from REALLY enjoying your car.

"That guy can sure spin a yarn" - Jeff Wakeman

Barriers Broken during this episode:

1) I don't have a racing license

2) I don't have a car to race with

3) My car isn't ready

4) It's too far away

5) I am too intimidated by the people or the other cars/may car, or the track

6) I don't know how to get started (Hint you can contact us or E1R etc.)

7) I'm a ______ e.g. Girl, too young, too old, out of shape, the wrong shape etc. etc. etc.

8) I will one I _____ (insert any number of wonderful wish list items)

9) It costs too much

10) I don't have time

11) Ego issues

12) Where can I find where I can ______

Our Dominating with Dawson segment for this episode goes into the often overlooked art involved with downshifting, how and when to do it properly, how to practice during your daily driving, and how it can help your car last quite a bit longer during a race.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) References to Hamsa and Matt

2) Hot tub rule #1 at the track

3) Details of the Deer Incident/Inside Joke can be found at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TS0Ve1sUL8

4) Your race car is never, ever finished. Ever.

5) Waiting to get your car faster or a faster car will actually impede your learning progress. Counterintuitive but absolutely true.

6) Teen driving training discussion and resources (a few links below)

7) This episode may contain some tough love, but it's all with love.

8) We take advantage of the opportunity and hit Mental with the Fast and Furious questions, finally

Descriptions:

Autocross: Racing usually in a large area around a temporary course usually composed of orange cones

HPDE: High performance driving education - Where you can learn to drive better, usually on a race track Track Night in America: an event held at a local track where you can drive your car around a race track and dip your toe into the pool

iRacing: a brand of sim racing on a computer that the focus is on more realistic racing than a traditional racing game.

Lots of links:

SCCA: https://www.scca.com/

NASA: https://www.nasaproracing.com/

Track Night in America: https://www.tracknightinamerica.com/

Go Carting: Lots, use Google

24 Hours of Lemons: https://24hoursoflemons.com/ Lucky Dog:

https://www.racelucky.com/

AER: http://americanenduranceracing.com/

Champ Car: https://champcar.org/

WRL: https://www.worldracingleague.org/

Race Seats for Rent: Lots (Google) including The Dog Pound for Lucky Dog and OK Stupid for Lemons seats and Kingpin Motorsports.

Driving Experiences: Lots, use Google

Grass Roots Motorsports magazine Link: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/guest-blog-open-letter-lgbtq-car-enthusiasts

No Money Motorsports: https://nomoneymotorsports.com/2020/06/09/the-14-most-effective-tips-to-spend-less-on-track-days-and-racing-maximize-your-track-time/

Motorsports Reg: https://www.motorsportreg.com/

Teen driving Training near Atlanta: https://atlantamotorsportspark.com/teen-driving/

B.R.A.K.E.S: https://putonthebrakes.org/

Race Image: http://www.raceimage.com/

Racers Parts Wholesale: https://racerpartswholesale.com/

GHiT Handy Links: https://garageheroesintraining.com/racing-resources/

EVO School: http://evoschool.com/

Team O'Neil Rally School: https://www.teamoneil.com/

Skip Barber Racing School: https://www.skipbarber.com/

DirtFish Rally School: https://dirtfish.com/

Bondurant: https://bondurant.com/

The "Marks" clubs, e.g.

BMW CCA: https://www.bmwcca.org/

PCCA: https://www.pca.org/

Audi: https://audiclubna.org/

No Man's Land Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c0dj11dn98

The Wraith Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC1DRl26Guo

GHIT 0125 Lucky Dog Is Coming East to Charlotte with Cathy McCause Fuss Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

Cathy joins us on the podcast again to talk about the first ever Lucky Dog endurance race on the east coast that will take place in 4 weeks at Charlotte Motor Speedway on their Roval and we will be under the lights! There is no way we would miss this race and it will likely be our teams only wheel to wheel race this season. Cathy discussed how the Lucky Dog season has gone this year and what updates to the race procedures that they adopted to assist with COVID 19 compliance. If you haven't been to Lucky Dog race yet, this may be a great opportunity. There are still a few spots left to enter a car and there may be seats available on their website under the "Dog Pile" area. We simply cannot wait.

Dominating with Dawson covers the term throttle steering and helps us to understand what it means and how it can be used on track to add a little more to your driving repertoire.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) Cathy's history at the Charlotte Motor Speedway

2) How COVID 19 has changes the Lucky Dog paddock procedures and how everything is still very fluid and changes day to day and especially track to track

3) Changes that have been tried so far include no pitting on pit row, requiring a face mask or a racing helmet at all times, limited track access for kids and spectators/visitors.

4) The details of the Charlotte race include over 18 hours of racing, The BBQ event is still a go for Saturday evening, and a 10-hour race Sunday.

5) There is over $10,000 in prizes and awards available during the weekend, not counting the $10,000 in watches from Rebel Watches (We Are Rebels!) and the $3,000 d in tires from Hankook tires, hopefully our much preferred RS-4's.

6) We may be able to debut the new 196 Honda Civic is all goes well with the prep and cage.

7) Attendees will include traditional west coast Lucky Dog entries as well as many east coast and midwest teams.

8) Horse trading seats as a way of trying new tracks and events

9) Potential tracks that may appear on the 2021 Lucky Dog schedule.

10) How Lucky Dog works with a flexible qualifying model to balance competitiveness and still allow for new and experienced drivers in a single event.

11) Randy Pobst will be racing his Volvo at the Charlotte event. He will be much faster than we are.

12) The mystery of the Fuss Fantom E46 continues.

13) Greg and Bill may have similar car buying issues. But on the bright side, Bill may have solved a race car solution for both coasts. Greg, call us.

14) Bill is confused between goats and sheep and everyone is confused with Lucky Dog racing and racing dogs.

GHIT 0124: GHIT Flashback to Thompson 2018 with the 24 Hours of Lemons Jul 10, 2020

Show notes

On this flashback episode, we cover our team's second ever race at Thompson with the 24 Hours of Lemons series in 2018. How did the race go? Well, it was our first ever two car race. It was the first ever race for half of our team (Alan, Jennifer, Casey, and Pete). It was our first time on track with the SpiderStang and our friends at Prompt Critical showed Liam and Cassian how to "adjust" the boost on the SpiderStang. The Capri died and is still dead to this day. We won the "I Got Screwed" award. Details of our weekend and what we learned shall be provided. PS Never show your new to racing teen age team mates how to adjust the boost. Also, on this episodes Dominating with Dawson, we go over car control and what it means when someone refers to a car "rotating".

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) We quickly gloss over the new raspberry additions that Alan and Bill added to Vicki's garden area.

2) We cover from post-race of our first race at NJMP to the conclusion of our second race at Thompson

3) How our team grew from our first race with 4 drivers to where we had a two-car team with 8 drivers. Our preparation was not quite up to what it should have been. Especially with 4 additional drivers, two of which that had never driven a manual transmission before.

4) The advantages and disadvantages of a teen drivers on a racing team

5) How a perfectly performing a running car from our last race did not stay that way during the trip back from the track, to the great surprise of all involved. Carburetors are not our center of expertise and decided to let us know.

6) How the SpiderStang theme came to be and what we learned in doing it. It ended up looking great, but the process was not one we would recommend. Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do. We also mention how we built "Bondo", a PVC and spray foam version of a mannequin to be used as Spiderman on our car.

7) Vicki's trials and tribulations for her first time driving to a race with a race car trailer. It did not go very well.

8) How our first time trying to stay at the track went. In a word: poorly. We have come up with much better sources for renting RV's to stay at the track since then.

9) How our new drivers first time driving went. Quick checklist, panic attack at being strapped in, panic attack about going on a racetrack in the pit lane, first ever racing in the rain and heavy fog, and how to be a rolling chicane on the track.

10) Prompt Critical helped us with our cars but gave away a bit too much information to Liam and Cassian. They now knew how to adjust (read as increase to maximum) the boost of the turbocharger. After all, more is better, lol.

11) How to dial in a brake proportioning valve during testing.

12) Alan's chipmunk powered internet popped up again, a few times. Bill had no idea on how to edit this, but it seems pretty funny.

13) How we became an award-winning racing team at this event. It all started with Jennifer and her license in driver tech inspection. Well on our way to minor internet celebrity status. Still on the way to this day.

14) Things we learned at our first ever rain race and our first ever fog race, all at the same race.

15) The story of the death of the Capri and the birth of El Jeffe, The Bad Hombre.

16) We share the secret concoction to keep fog off your windshield that was shared with us by the Three Pedal Mafia.

17) Alan treats his body like a temple? And we finally found the root cause for why Alan doesn't want to work on the Capri.

18) Bill tries to avoid sleeping in the bathtub even though we won the coveted "I Got Screwed" award.

19) Finally, we go over the post-race awards and the trials and tribulations we went through to get home afterwards.

GHIT 0123: Bill Griffin NASA Racing Driver and Jennifer's HPDE Instructor from GingerMan Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

Bill Griffin has worked his way up to through the HPDE ranks to where he is a racing driver as well as an instructor, actually Jennifer's instructor from GingerMan a few weeks back. We talk with him about his history and progression from having zero experience in performance driving to where he competes regularly with NASA and Grid Life as well as instructing when he can. Bill grew up liking racing as many people who grew up near Indianapolis did and eventually began driving himself when his work and family life allowed, proving again that it is never too late to start to enjoy performance driving and even racing. He is a very relaxed and knowledgeable driver and Jennifer loved having him as an instructor. We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instruction and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19. The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything. You can follow him on Instagram at Bill Griffin.

On one of our simplest episodes of Dominating with Dawson we review crabbing or cheating into a corner.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) We cover Bill's progressions from newbie track driver and not terribly mechanical to a regular racing driver and instructor (who has been to the track 5 weeks straight and counting) (Very jealous)

2) What is a competition (or race) license, as well as several methods and paths towards getting one.

3) Bill seeks guidance to how to schedule a season of racing with the rest of our team. Perhaps an appointment for hearing testing is in order.

4) Bill also goes into a quick review of some of the exotic sports cars he gets to drive with Extreme Experience and their clients. This is especially useful if you are taller, like Bill who is 6' 4".

5) Bill (the other) also goes over the potential limits in size for a driver in a Mazda Miata MX-5. We have seen one with a cage that fits the owner that was 6' 8" and swallowed Bill up quite easily.

6) Bill even goes over why he chooses to remain instructing the HPDE 1 group of students.

7) We cover how the NASA Great Lake GingerMan HPDE classes went without being able to have in car instructional and offer several options that may be ways to improve the teaching methods without right seat instruction as an option due to COVID 19. The event was awesome, but as with everything else, you can always improve, in everything.

8) Suggestions included 1) potentially using in car radios to communicate to the students, 2) lead follow groups of only two students, 3) only using partial lead follow (allowing students to assume lead position and instructor to follow), 4) perhaps grouping the instructors and cars to match performance, 5) using better/more universally defined hand signals, 6) more use of different cones for initial track learning, 7) perhaps adopting an unofficial "HPDE 1.5" level/group within the HPDE 1 population, 8) incorporating the use of in car video, 9) positioning instructors with notebooks around the track to view at significant turns or areas of the track to provide feedback to the classroom or debrief sessions, 10) potential pathways to getting increased options for right seat/in car instruction.

9) The tricks and differences in being an instructor in a lead follow environment versus being in the right seat and the potential for lead follow groups to become longer groups, which can make some of the instruction into a bad game of telephone.

10) Riding a bike vs walking the track during a track walk.

11) Several tips for new to track or high performance drivers.

12) Bill unprompted supports Bill with the prep required before coming to the track as well as using 2-3 max goals and a few comments for each track session, especially during an HPDE event. Now if we could only get the Wilson sisters to agree, lol.

13) How your first few HPDE events can feel like your brain is drinking from a fire hose and how to potentially reduce this effect (like following the ideas from #12 above)

14) Bill F. tries to sneak in a Good, The Bad, and the Ugly segment on how Jennifer did during here HPDE event. Bill G. is much too nice to comply, but we will keep trying.

15) How driving in a lead follow instruction environment make lengthening your vision particularly difficult.

16) Tips for everyone (and us) on their next HPDE event. Ours will be at Pitt Race in late July with NASA Great Lakes.

17) The importance of focusing on consistently hitting your track marks and letting the speed build naturally. Because it will.

18) How teaching and instructing has helped Bill's racing and how Racing has helped him as an instructor. Hopefully, it will help our Bill when he gets there, lol.

GHIT 0122: NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan - Post HPDE Review Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill check in to review how the recent HPDE at GingerMan went with NASA Great Lakes. We are not in our usual location and are recording under a roof in a KOA near Traverse City Michigan so there may be a bit more background noise than normal but we wanted to record while everything was still very fresh, even though we were all pretty exhausted.

On this week's Dominating with Dawson, we go into a discussion to clarify apexes and Ben's approach and how the point of rotation can apply to your driving, including a discussion of Ken Hill s podcast and how we should approach this during he (at that point) upcoming HPDE at GingerMan.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) We compare the structure of this HPDE which focuses on drills and with the COVID 19 separation not allowing for in car instruction at this point.

2) The advantages and disadvantages of a lead follow, especially if it was a group of three this became more of an issue.

3) How quickly NASA Great Lakes is responding to the new rules and conditions on track in a rapidly evolving climate and imposed rules by each state and track.

4) What aspects of racing Vicki and Jen learned at this HPDE and what skills they refined during the weekend.

5) How HPDE track days allow for focusing on the correct and repeatable line vs our racing where we rarely use the line and handle traffic while driving both on and offline.

6) The drills we used during the weekend, including running the track in reverse.

7) How a great track walk with a very large group led to great discussion and options for approaching several sections of the track that even some national champion drivers learned more about racing options at GingerMan.

8) Ways to practice on your daily drive to help improve your track driving.

9) Apex everything!

10) The comparative differences between the HPDE 2 and HPDE 1

11) The skid pad - Winter driving event we had scheduled for earlier this year is again one of the negative highlights for our season

12) Vicki and Jen both had issue with getting their vision farther down the track, especially in the lead follow used during their HPDE 1 group.

13) Both Vicki and Jen both felt their speed progressively increased on the track throughout the weekend. It really was almost as if we needed a 1.5 level for these COVID impacted events.

14) In car video issues during the weekend impacted our results but we discuss what we think the video will show of our driving through the weekend. We shall see once we download our videos later this week.

15) There were some pretty spectacular cars at GingerMan this weekend and we could not help but pick a few of our favorites that came to mind in our racing hangover induced state.

16) Bill tries to work through Jennifer's acceleration issues during the weekend and hos hypothesis is that she isn't fully revving

17) Bill inserts his foot fully into his mouth. He will likely be sleeping in the bathtub for the rest of the week.

18) Vicki almost got arrested for stealing as one night by mistake.

19) Somehow, Vicki and Jennifer were introduced to the term Camber during our track walk for the first time. Not sure how we missed it up to this point but apparently we did.

20) We also went through our thoughts on the track and several of our favorite and more difficult turns for each of us.

21) Vicki's favorite track of the weekend was NamregNig (GingerMan backwards)

22) Bill tries to get out of the hole he dug with John Pagel.

A few hopefully helpful suggestions for NASA we think are:

1) Groups of two students with each instructor max

2) Group cars and instructors by style, i.e. low HP cars with low HP instructor cars etc.

3) Perhaps a 1.5 level with less lead follow and more with the instructor in the position watching the student from behind.

GHIT 0121: GingerMan HPDE with NASA Great Lakes - Our Goals Going In Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill are going to be attending the NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan, a new track for our team. This is a short episode where we cover our preparation for the HPDE and our goals and areas of focus going into the HPDE event. In addition, we cover coasting on a race track (Hint: Don't) and how to avoid it in this episode's Dominating with Dawson segment.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0120: Christina Lam is our special guest driver Jun 20, 2020

Show notes

Christina Lam is a racing driver for several series, is an instructor for Skip Barber and NASA, as well as a frequent contributor to Grass Roots Motorsports magazine. We first started following her as her "After A Crash" 9-part series started a few months back and became instant fans of her approach and her dedication to racing, education, and giving back to the racing community. On this episode, we go over how she started to be involved from a point of little knowledge and car/racing influences to where she is not only competing at national events, podiuming many times, and instructing others to improve their skills. It is a fantastic and quite rapid journey from newbie to racing veteran and her latest challenge last season will inspire you and hopefully get you to reach further towards ever higher goals.

On our Dominating with Dawson, Ben goes over the difference in driving approaches for endurance racing, autocross, as well as various types of sprint racing.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) We have had a long, long work week in the garage, so long that Vicki blanked on her name for a moment and Bill can't spell SCCA, lol.

2) How she started off racing in Autocross one weekend and then had the opportunity of a lifetime drop in her lap a short time later (driving on a little place known as The 'Ring).

3) Christina's first time on track was her first time driving a stick. This may be a good rival for what we ended up doing to Jennifer at her first race at Thompson Speedway. Not our best plan, but we did learn from it.

4) We share post-race hangover stories and several great ideas for further race cross training. Rally, V8 supercars, Ice racing, so much fun to be had, so little time.

5) What is involved with being a one-person team and how she accomplishes all that is required for a race weekend. The big key is prep. Second rule, prep. If you need a third rule, be prepped early.

6) We go into her accident last year and how she recovered, both physically and mentally, as well as her new race car.

7) What is involved with an SCCA protest

8) How Christina found her #46 M3 shell to start her new build

9) How much sleep she lost while working to prep for new car the upcoming 2019 national SCCA Runoffs in 60 days.

10) Christina goes into the plusses and minuses of an E46 M3 vs E46 330's etc

11) Christina shares some of her nerves and almost PTSD after the wreck, what she had to work through and getting back into the car on track at VIR

12) What it is like being a female in a predominantly male sport at the track.

13) How Christina's first car quickly turned into a second car.

Honorable mentions and sponsors that have helped Christina along the way:

Drive Gear Racing: for arrive and drive ice racing. Seems like a terribly great idea.

Hugh Stewart from High Speed Motorsports: http://www.hispeedmotorsports.com/

Katherine Legge @ www.KatherineLegge.com

Simona De Silvestro @ www.Simonadesilvestro.com

TC Designs @ www.tcdesignfab.com

Hoosier Tire @ www.hoosiertire.com

Epic Motorsports @ www.epicmotorsports.com

Racing Harness Technologies (856() 912-1237

Skip Barber Racing @ www.skipbarber.com

GHIT 0019: Eric Meyer - NASA Great Lakes Chief Instructor Jun 12, 2020

Show notes

Just in time for the upcoming NASA Great Lakes event at GingerMan, Chief Instructor Eric Meyer was kind enough to join us and discuss his past and current association with racing and instructing, as well as the genealogy and philosophy that has led to the current NASA Great Lakes HPDE program curriculum. It is by far the best of the HPDE instruction we have attended across the country and we think highly enough of it that we regularly attend their HPDE events that are sometimes well over a 10 hour drive each way from us. Eric also is another great counterexample of the false age-old adage about "those who can do, and those who can't teach" as he has won a ton of racing trophies in Grand Am, World Challenge, and Touring cars, among others. Our Dominating with Dawson segment goes over the practice of left foot braking, its potential advantages, and how to try to begin to incorporate it into your driving repertoire.

We hope you enjoy the episode and we would love to see you at the upcoming NASA Great Lakes event in GingerMan!

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and team members in the GHiT Immature Endurance Racing Team

Highlights from the episode include:

1) How he originally started racing at a track and how quickly and deeply the hook was set.

2) Some of the issues that he encountered when first entering the sport and how they shaped his interest in helping others

3) Where he sees opportunities to continue to improve our sport and how he can give back to the racing community.

4) How NASA Great Lakes history has led to their focus on the educational path has led to the current HPDE structure. It is a great balance of driving on the track with the classroom and download education.

5) Eric turns the table on Bill to answer Bill's own question. It was tremendously fun and allowed Bill to brag about the NASA Great Lakes HPDE.

6) A discussion on the priorities of teaching driving skills and situational awareness as foundational aspects of the NASA Great Lakes HPDE.

7) We believe that we may have uncovered Eric is secretly competing in sewing. We may be wrong.

8) Eric also goes into some of the philosophy of what his team is looking for to progress through the levels as well as some of the criteria in transitioning from level one to level two, as an example.

9) We discuss several of the drills that you will do within the various HPDE levels, some of which we have lovingly stolen and use on our track day practice sessions.

10) We even go into some of the educational techniques former podcast guest John Santiago uses in the HPDE 1 classroom and track sessions. Vicki and Jen will be getting the full experience next weekend. Bill is jealous and will attend as many of their classroom sessions as his HPDE schedule permits.

11) How has the COVID related challenges and rules impacted the event and the HPDE sessions specifically, especially the traditional right seat style in car coaching and the various group classroom sessions. It sounds like things may be even better than the prior structure.

12) One of the surprises we may see at GingerMan may have been revealed.

13) Eric says that we need to add Mosport to the track bucket list and Bill is already pondering how to possibly get to the Chin event at Barber in November.

14) Tips and tricks to the upcoming GingerMan event, both on track and off. Jen is thrilled with the runoff areas GingerMan affords to assist with learning with less potential detrimental impact.

15) We have an informal agreement to meet at the local microbrewery. Now we just need to have time and energy.

16) A Pinto makes a podcast appearance again, much to Vicki and Jen's pleasure.

17) We aren't absolutely sure if Eric really liked our Fast and Furious questions but he really faked it well if he didn't.

18) Eric has a weakness, and apparently it is Mazda rotary engines.

19) If you are ever at a bar and need to know how many kegs you can fit into a 1964 Oldsmobile Cutlass, this is the podcast for you!

20) Bill forgets to thank Eric for an earlier long conversation they had related to Bill's goal of becoming a qualified instructor as soon as possible.

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