WEBVTT - Ep12 Stephan Papadakis 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.520 Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.319 Sun King and Amelia Hartford. And today we have a 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.720 legend in the racing world. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.480 When people bring up his name, they talk about this 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.880 guy as like a real life, fast, fierce. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:28.000 Character, starting from street racing to professionally building and racing 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.440 in the drag racing world, to then transitioning to Formula 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.519 drift and having so many wins and worlds, firsts, you. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.240 Know, all the ogs. When they bring up this dude's name, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.760 they talk about first how amazing he was, and actually 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.120 how smart he was. He would take all the knowledge 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:47.519 and actually constantly innovate totally. 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.640 I don't think you can talk about the history of 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.560 automotive and the future it is today without his name 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.200 coming up in conversation. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:01:03.800 Without further Ado Stephan Papadochius originally Stephan. You're from New York, 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:04.760 I read somewhere. 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:06.680 Born in New York. My mom's family's from New York, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.440 but I was just basically born there. 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:12.720 And you grew up pretty much in Huntington Beach. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.200 Yeah, my dad is Greek from Greece, and he actually 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.880 when my parents got divorced, moved back there. So in Greece. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.080 In Greece, Wow, yeah, I mean, Papa Doccas is a 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:24.920 pretty dope name. 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:26.120 Yeah it is. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.360 It's like, what is that name, Papa Doocus. 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.440 It wasn't that fun growing up with that one. But 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.240 at the time there was a show called Webster where 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.600 the football dad was Papadopolis. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:36.319 Oh he was. 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:38.759 That's right, you're a staple name in this industry. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.680 Yeah i am. I've come from the world of experience, 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:45.200 but I only have some college I don't have an 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.160 actual engineering degree. But when I find things that I 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:49.880 don't know about and I want to learn about, I'll 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.600 just go on eBay and find a used textbook that's 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.480 an edition or too old that you can for twenty dollars. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.360 Then I'll start reading through the chapters that I want 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.960 to know. And you've combined that with YouTube videos and 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.360 even some lectures that are on YouTube. You can really 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.160 get a good base understanding enough for me to have 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.160 a good conversation with an actual engineer and then end 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:10.960 up with some good solutions that we can use in 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:11.520 the race cars. 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.000 Anytime Stephan's name comes up in the OG world, right, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.000 they always go He's like the smartest person in the room. Right, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.520 So he takes the information that makes it better, and 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.720 it adapts it and he just keeps growing, you know. 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.760 And I don't know if you know that they talked 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.280 about you like that, but that is your reputation. That's flattering. Yeah, okay, yeah, man. 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.280 And I think that kind of ethos and that perspective 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.960 on life is what kind of brought you into the 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.800 forefront of where you are in your career today. You know. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.440 Yeah, that helps. I mean it's being realistic of where 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.320 I'm at and what I know and where I'm trying 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.320 to get to, and then understanding that gap and then 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.640 trying to build a bridge to get to the goals. 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.040 What do you call the seeing the force through the trees? 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.720 I guess that's one of my attributes. Yeah. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.160 Were you always into cars? 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:57.880 Totally? 0:02:58.040 --> 0:02:59.440 Yeah, since the day you're born. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.040 My mom said, I liked little cars when I was 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.800 growing up. I remember building legos when I was really 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.240 young and crashing them into each other and putting them 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.560 back together, and then building little model cars, and then 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.360 originally getting into radio controlled cars and so RC cars 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.440 from you know, when I was you know, eight or 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.480 ten years old, I was really into it. Dressed in 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.040 and then in my round thirteen or fourteen, I really 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.680 got into the off road RC car scene, which was, 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:28.120 you know, there was a bit of a scene here 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.040 in southern California, and I said, I want to be 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.680 a professional RC car driver. And I actually there was 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.240 a scene of RC car drivers here in something California, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.360 because that's where they were manufacturing the cars and testing 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.120 them at the local RC track, And so I was 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:46.840 actually around professional RC car drivers and engineers. And I 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.360 remember specifically my mom telling me, I don't know what 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.200 kind of social life you'll have if you do that. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.440 And I didn't understand that until years later. But once 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.520 I realized around fifteen that you can modify real cars 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.600 and change the suspect and do these different things engine upgrades, 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.360 and then enjoy driving them and be in the car, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:07.600 I totally got out of the RC thing and went 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.320 straight into the real cars. 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.760 So nobody in your family actually planted the seat for 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.040 cars in your life. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.760 Not at all. It's crazy. Nope, And I don't know 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.400 if that's a benefit or not, but for whatever reason, 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:21.080 I just went that way. 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.440 Well, you're talking about learning off of YouTube and buying 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:30.080 textbooks and whatnot, But when you started sure textbooks around, 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.320 but there was no YouTube. This was before social media. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.240 How did you start learning about modifying cars? 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.279 So when I was sixteen, I got my first car 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.760 and it was a nineteen ninety one Honda Civic SI. 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.840 And the reason I chose that one was, you know, 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.320 I wanted a Mustang or a Camaro or something with 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.159 a bunch of horsepower, but I wasn't going to get 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.000 that in my family. And I actually had some friends 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.640 that had to see YOURX and Civic and they were 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.719 modifying and lowering it and putting exhaust, and I was like, oh, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.520 this is something that you can have fun with an modify, 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.480 but at the same time, it looks responsible enough for 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.520 you know, my family to get me that car. And 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.080 the day I turned sixteen, that morning I went to 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.520 the DMV and took my driving test, got my license, 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.760 and then that afternoon drove the car to my buddy's 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.640 house where we took the suspension off, cut the springs, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.279 lowered it, and you know, went cruising around. And so 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.400 I had this you cut the springs on it, Yeah, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:27.240 that's how we would do it. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.000 Yeah, who taught you how to do that? 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.240 I had RC car buddies who had performance cars. They 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.400 had a Sera ax A Civic, and they knew how 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.000 to work on cars because they knew how to work 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.160 on their RC car, and then so they also knew 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:40.280 how to work on the real car, and so I 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.120 wanted to hang out with them as much as possible 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:43.560 to learn how to do that. 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.880 The only car I've ever cut springs on was on 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.120 a Honda Prelude, and it destroyed the ride quality entirely. 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.520 But it lowered the car, and if done incorrectly, can 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.719 be very sketchy. But that's so fascinating to hear that 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.320 that's what you guys did the day you bought your 0:05:58.320 --> 0:05:58.880 first car. 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.080 Yeah, And it was one of those situations where you 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:02.680 lowered it and it looks so cool and you drive 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.440 around and it's bouncing. I'm like, this is fun. I'm 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.000 old now and one of the good gride quality and everything, 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.640 but like, it was sort of like this exciting car 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.599 that you drive around and sometimes you go around turns 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.240 and it would bounce around, or you'd have to slow 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.040 down for driveways and all these different things. It was 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.359 super low, but that was part of the experience. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.560 What was the next mod after that? You're like all right, 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.360 I got this bouncy suspension. My car's low. I feel cool? 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:24.880 Was it speed? Next? 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:30.080 Yep? So the next was HKS Powerflow air filter. So 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.520 it's this green air filter that you replace the airbox 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:40.080 with NNGK blue spark plugs, wires and plugs. So those 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.440 are the next two. And then later I got an 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.440 HKS exhaust for the car, and then later a header 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:46.800 for it. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.719 For the people out there listening that don't know anything 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.240 about cars, why would you do something like that? 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.080 Because you wanted to make more power. So the theory was, 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:57.560 you know, each one of these mods might give you 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.960 another two to five horsepower. In my car made one 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.560 hundred and eight horse power originally, and so you do 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.680 some calculations. Well, if I've got my exhaust and the 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.279 header and whatever, and then now I'm up to one 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.560 hundred and twenty five horse power. So when I go 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:12.400 out and try to raise these guys, I'm going to 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.280 be quicker. And they also make a cool sound because 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.360 that was part of the scene. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.400 Right, So at what point did your reliable daily not 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.480 become your reliable daily anymore? 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.000 It took a few years, so you know, I eventually 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.640 went to this place called Dynamic Autosport in Irvine and 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.360 got a different performance camshaft installed in the engine that 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.840 opens the valves more to get some more horse power. 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.160 I then put nitrous on the car and hid that 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.320 so when we'd go to the Stree races and stuff, 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.560 you could, you know, get that extra fifty or sixty 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.680 horse power shot of nitrous. 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.240 And this is early nineties, right. 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:53.760 This would have been mid nineties. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.920 Mid nineties, So I'm assuming you're talking around three hundred horsepower. 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.000 No, no, no, we're talking one hundred and okay horsepower car 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:02.760 that maybe makes now one hundred and sixty. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.640 Yeah, because back then, like these are, this was kind 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.679 of like groundbreaking. Like sure, like some of the muscle 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.640 guys had done it, but with these tuner cars in 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:11.960 that era, not a lot of people were modifying them. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.880 Not a lot of people were going fast, and there'd 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.520 be like stories like, oh well there's this guy here 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.360 who's got this modified car, and oh well this Civic 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.600 S size got this much horse power. 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:23.720 And that's a front wheel car. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.600 Yeah right, yeah, back then, with these one point six 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.080 liter Honda engines, they were still trying to break two 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.280 hundred or two hundred fifty horse power. That was sort 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.679 of like the upper limit of the guys rebuilding the 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.240 engines and putting turbo chargers and stuff. The understanding I 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.559 had to make power out of these small four cylinders 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.319 for the automotive aftermarket that we were in was minimal. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.559 It was it was just beginning. But in the scene 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.400 that I was in where we were going to the 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.880 street races and trying to earn some called street cred 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.840 or whatever and just having a string credit, Yeah, it 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.640 was about in my perspective, was trying to be as 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.720 sleeper as you could. So you show up, you pop 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:07.320 the hood. It looks very simple and unmodified, and then 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.360 you would set up the race. Right you'd say, okay, 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.080 well you've got more modifications. Why don't you let me 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.040 start ahead of you? Set me out a little bit. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.600 As you have that nitrous bottle hidden in a bag 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.120 in the backseats, no one can see it. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.600 Yeah, So we had all these different strategies. Or you'd say, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:24.160 you give me the move, so instead of using like 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.360 a flagger with a person you know is there with 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.320 his hands up and then he drops his hands and 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.079 both cars take off at the same time. There's a 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.280 thing called the move. So if you've got the faster 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.200 car and the maybe negotiate to where the slower you're 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.680 racing the slower car, you would say, all right, when 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.640 you move, then I move. That's called the move. So 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.040 they get like a head start. Oh and handicap a handicap. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.200 So there's these ways that you would negotiate different handicaps 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.440 to try to make it a better race, to try 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.920 to get them to race. And then there might be 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.120 some wagers there, but usually pretty small, under twenty dollars 0:09:58.160 --> 0:09:59.839 most of the time, and then some of the bigger 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.280 one might be fifty or a hundred dollars. But you 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.920 got to remember these are kids from sixteen to twenty 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.400 two years old and spending most of our money on 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.880 the mods for the cars, so we didn't have much 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.480 to try to bet. It was almost like just a 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.360 reason to have the race, just to make it more interesting, right. 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.360 So then I eventually started racing the car on the track, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.319 Like there was a track here in Long Beach called 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.520 Terminal Island that was run by a guy named Big Willie, 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.120 and it was ten bucks to enter, and they had 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.440 an open Friday night Saturday nights. And I eventually turned 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.520 with the nitrous too much and burned one of my 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.679 valves in the engine, and that's when the car started 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.200 becoming less reliable. I had to rebuild the engine and 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.959 it kind of snowballed from there. But that's another story. 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:42.760 And how that thing turned into a race car? 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:44.320 Was that your first engine rebuild? 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:45.960 I didn't do the rebuild, but I went to a 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.600 place called JG Engine Dynamics and they did the build 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:51.319 for me, and I would hang out there as much 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.120 as I could to try to learn because, like you said, 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.240 there wasn't YouTube or there wasn't much information on how 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.480 to modify these cars back then, so you had to 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.640 surround yourself with people that knew more than you and 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.720 that would help, that would maybe share that information. So 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.080 I'd go there during the summer and try to hang 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.400 out at that engine building place. And then right when 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.400 I got high school, right when I graduated high school, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.200 I would start going there every day and I literally 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.880 just was sweeping the floor, doing enough so they wouldn't 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.040 kick me out. And eventually they're like, we might as 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:21.960 well just hire this kid. 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:23.080 You got a job there. 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:24.679 Yeah, So I ended up getting a job there for 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.560 you know, minimum wage whatever. I didn'tven care. They could 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.200 have not paid me. I was just wanted to be 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.120 there and learn what they were doing with these engines. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.360 And one of the perks was I was able to 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.720 bring my car there and start working on it at 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:36.320 the facility. 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:36.720 Wow. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.840 What a great mentorship to have at that age too. 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.839 Yeah, So what I learned was a combination of working 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.040 at that location and the mutual friends that were building 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.760 drag racing hondas and modifying them, and just within that 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:55.120 scene everything was these cars. And so I'd get done 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.760 with work and then go to this shop called Pitcrew Motorsports, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.360 and then we'd hang out while our buddy Charles and 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.360 some of the guys were finishing were up work, and 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.400 then we'd go to dinner together and then talk more 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.480 about cars. Like it was a full immersion into the scene. 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.440 Do you feel like with EV cars coming, it's just 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.599 kind of killing this community. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.480 I think that's a big question in my experience. The 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.040 EV car works well for commuting and sitting on traffic 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.839 on the freeway, and I think it does that well. 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.440 But as far as performance goes, I would a much 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:35.600 rather a lower number, like a slower accelerating car. But 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.160 that sounds cool and has that feeling with a manual 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.080 transmission and just the whole experience in it, because I 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.199 think that the numbers of the accelerations and everything are 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.000 so out in the stratosphere that I can't actually enjoy 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.199 that on the street anymore without potentially getting pulled over 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.319 and getting handcuffed and taken away for such crazy speeds. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.320 So now I've kind of gone towards the older cars 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.760 more of an enjoyment sort of aspect of the performance 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:03.960 and the feel of it, and my friends in the industry, 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.760 and I think maybe you can speak to that for 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.640 you for your experience, But the enthusiast friends I've had, 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.079 it's not about going as fast as you can on 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.400 the free where it's racing people in the street. It's 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.880 about having an enjoyment in the drive. Yeah. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.840 And also the process, like a process of building a 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.280 car gives you know, people a reason to come together 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.320 and have community and break bread and talk shit, you know, 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.040 tell old stories, you know. So I love when I 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.800 meet guys from your era because they have all these 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.920 war stories, you know, and it's like we were talking earlier, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.480 Like a lot of it seems like, you know, the 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.040 movies like Fast and Fears has taken bits and pieces 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.959 of your guys's life and your experiences and put them 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.040 into the movie. And I think, you know, people always 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:50.920 ask this question, is like, you know, how come the 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.360 franchise has been able to go so long. It's like 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.520 because it was rooted in something that was real, you know, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.840 and it is pretty amazing that you get to actually 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.240 meet these like living legends, you know, like meeting you 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.120 in person like this and sitting down, it's like it 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.640 is like kind of my like Elvis Presley moment, because 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.959 I hear all these stories about you, you know, and 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.400 it's it's like I wish I could. I wish there 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.040 was a time machine where I could go back and 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:18.800 be like a fly on the wall and be at 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.200 these street races. You know. I know we don't like 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.640 to promote it, but it is fascinating for people that 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.640 weren't able to experience that era because it was, like, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.560 you know, it was an amazing time from what I hear. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.120 You know, you were the first to in a front 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.240 wheel drive to break one fifty miles part or one 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.000 sixty one seventy one eighty, Like you were kind of 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.480 the front runner to the forward the front wheel drive 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:46.240 drag cars. I guess I'm just thinking if drag racing 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.600 in general of you know, what it was in the 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.320 nineties compared to what it is today, it's a lot 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.200 higher price tag to get involved. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.040 Yeah, it is, but I think it's a bit relative 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.040 because I remember I remember being at Battle the Imports 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.720 in could be nineteen ninety seven and watching these guys 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.960 doing thirteen or twelve second quarter miles, which at the 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.360 time where the front will drive quarter mile records globally. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.560 Did you believe people would be going sixes at some 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.760 point at that time? Would you believe it if someone told. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.520 You no, even nines? Yeah or tensre was like yeah, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.760 they said, well, there were long term drag racer guys 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.440 that had these theories, Well, you're going to be limited 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.280 with this front will drive configuration at twelve second quarter 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.360 mile because what's going to happen is as you accelerate quicker, 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.480 the weight's going to come off the front tire and 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.280 then you won't have traction and then there's literally a 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:41.800 wall that you're just not going to be able to 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.800 get past. And they couldn't be more wrong, right, because yeah, that's. 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:46.640 So interesting to hear that as an argument back then. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.120 Yeah, and for someone that doesn't understand, you know, physics 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.200 well or just listening to this old guy with experience, 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.360 you might believe it. But at the same time we're like, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.240 this old guy doesn't know what he's talking about, and 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.560 you just kind of keep going down what your path 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.040 that you're on. And I think that's what was an 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.640 advantage for a lot of us that came up in 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:13.640 that alternative motorsport scene was we weren't we didn't have 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.760 these guardrails, we didn't know what we didn't know, so 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.640 we just said, this is the direction we're going. We're 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.440 just going to keep going faster, and we're just going 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.760 to keep putting more power and keep putting a bigger tire. 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.240 And we just kind of learned what that meant on 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.240 the track and then started developing this front will drive 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.000 type of drag racing where we were trailblazing like there 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.000 was nobody else that knew how to do it because 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.640 no one had done that before, right, And that was 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.560 what was so exciting, and it taught us a lot 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:48.960 on how to build cars. 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.440 What's the draw for the foks that are into drag racing. 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.600 You know when I go to these events, like I 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.560 see it in their eyes, like there's this fire burning. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.600 You know, it's like they have to keep breaking these records. 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.520 Do you think it's a way like the human being 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.399 leaves their legacy or their mark on this earth, Like 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.480 you know for the people out there that have never 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.320 been to drag race events, you know, the energy is 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.040 like I don't even know how to describe it. It's 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:30.159 like this, like it looks from half the people look intoxicated. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.400 They probably are, it's. 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.119 Right, and it was like nothing else matters, nothing. I mean, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.720 they put all their money into these cars to like 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:41.880 break the next record. Where does that come from? 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.840 Yeah? I think it's, Uh, there's parallel there with addiction, 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:51.080 right where you're addicted to I love working on this 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.119 car and then getting it running and then trying to 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.159 get it to go faster, and then thinking about what 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.080 it is that I can do to attain the like 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.359 this next goal and so whatever it is, like it's 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.199 this part that I need or I've got to put 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.760 this time into it, and like I can see it's 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.480 like chasing the dragon. It's like, oh my god, it 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.760 was so good, Like it went down the track and 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.159 it had this fast quarter mile time and all my 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.200 friends saw it and they gave me props for it. 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:18.720 And it's like, no, but I know I can go 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.040 a little bit quicker or this other guy that's faster 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.000 than me, but I have an idea of how I 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.560 can make more horsepower and then build the engine that 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.520 way and then get back to the track and beat him. 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:30.800 I think addiction is a good way to put it. 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.040 Yeah, you can call it a hobby, and I think 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.680 if it goes maybe in an unhealthy way, that can be, 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.320 you know, a bad addiction. But man, thinking about my motivation, 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.960 just I loved building cars and you would prove that 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.520 you were really good at it by what it did 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.200 on the track, and that was a way of justifying 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.520 the time and effort put into it, or like a 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.800 street cred kind of thing, and like showing other people, 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.960 like look at what I can do, and there's this 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.359 Some people just have that competition competitive spirit built within 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.960 them and that's the way that you know it comes out. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.080 Can I just read some of your accomplishments out loud, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.679 because this is so freaking impressive. First Honda's in the Nines, 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.919 first front wheel drive, in the eights World's fastest sport compact, 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:21.920 first drag Honda to break two hundred miles per hour 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.760 rule drive, First Honda in the seven's reel drive, First 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.399 Honda in the six is reel drive, World's quickest Honda 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.960 rual drive. Like, this is freaking incredible. You were such 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.000 a trail you are a trailblazer, and to really focus 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.600 on the Honda platform. What made you take the shift 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.240 from front wheel drive to rule drive? Was it a 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.160 limitation of speed performance? Was it just a new passion 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:46.040 in a different space. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.680 I wanted more competition. I wanted to do something more. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.920 Difficult because there's such a gigster and you're winning everything. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:57.719 Yeah, yes, yeah, So I'm looking at your resume right now. 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.560 I can see it and. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.520 The guys that were racing the pro Import with those engines, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.719 I was like, that looks really challenging. It was a chassis. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.560 I didn't understand the engines made more power. We would 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.840 use an engine platform that people hadn't developed yet. It 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.280 just looked like something really difficult to do. And I 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:17.240 realized over the years that's what I like to do, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.240 was go, you know, develop new things that are difficult 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.679 and hopefully have success at it. And I kind of 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.000 was looking forward within the series, the NHA series, and 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:27.960 I said, you know what, I think the future for 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.639 me and sponsorship and keeping this thing going would be 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.919 at the highest fastest class within this sport compact NHA series, 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:42.200 and that was the rear wheel drive sixteen hundred horse power. 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:43.359 And I said, I think it needed to make a 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:44.879 transition from the front whee drive to the real wal 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.320 drive to be the fastest car within our series at 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:48.760 the track. 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:50.240 And what kind of horse party did you have in 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.200 the front whel drive car before you made that transition 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.080 to shooting for sixteen hundred. 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.640 About eight hundred and fifty, that's wild. Yeah, So we 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.439 were in the front wheel drives. We were running a 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.800 four cylinder turbocharge engine with alcohol fuel methanol. 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.080 Methanol, yeah, methanol for those listening, it's actually very dangerous 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.040 because it burns clear and if you're on fire, I 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:10.800 don't know, if you guys put an additive in the car, 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:11.879 you can't really see it. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.320 Yeah, And I've had that happen, really caught on fire 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.399 in the engine bay. And so we had built this 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.240 new rearal drive tube chassis drag racing car for the 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.840 top Pro Import class and we were still working it out, 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:27.879 but the goal was sixteen hundred horsepower. 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:28.280 Wow. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.600 And we're just doing some initial shakedowns of this new car, 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.400 all built, and we go to the Irwindale Speedway here, 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.119 which has a drag strip and eighth mile drag strip, 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.280 and literally like one of the first times we've run 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.040 this car, and I'm out, I do a burnout and 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.840 the car stalls and then all of a sudden, I 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.040 feel like this heat and I'm in the driving seat 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.240 right and I'm in my helmet and strapped and everything. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.240 Feel this heat coming through like the windshield almost and then. 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:57.040 Was it PLEXI glass? Could you see it melting? 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.119 Yeah? I started seeing the hood start bubbling, and I'm like, oh, 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:01.560 I think there's a fire. And so I hit the 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.240 fire extinguisher and as a built in fire extinguisher with 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.840 a little pull lever that you pull and then you know, 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:09.840 five pounds of fire extinguisher goes out on the engine 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.879 and inside the driver's compartment, and all of a sudden, 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.159 I feel like like the wind getting knocked out of 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.440 me and I can't breathe anymore. And so like there's 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.360 a fire. I feel like the like there's no oxygen. 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.040 I just get the wind knocked out of me, and 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.040 just like I'm on the brakes, I start pulling my 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:27.960 seat belt off. I pulled the windownt down. I popped 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.000 the door open, and I jump out and I was 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.040 totally safe. It came over with some fire extinguishers and 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.159 realized what was going on and put out the fire. 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:36.880 But there was no flames. 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:37.920 Yeah, you can't see. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:39.600 It was just it was pretty intense. 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:41.560 And that was the first time driving the car. 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.320 That was first time driving the car. Yeah. We made 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:47.359 a mistake on the fuel pressure regulator that wasn't large enough, huh, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.439 and the fuel pressure spiked and it blew some fuel injectors, 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.520 basically the fuel rail off of the fuel injectors, and 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.159 there was raw fuel spring in the engine bay and 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:00.560 I got onto like the hot exhaust and that's ignited 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:01.280 it right right. 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.320 So how far did you guys get with this new 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:04.520 Reual Drive chassis. 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:08.600 Yeah, within within three years, we had several wins within 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.720 the NHRA Sport Compact Series, second in the championship the 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.760 third year, and eventually ran the quarter mile in six 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:19.240 point five to two seconds. At two hundred and fifteen 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:19.880 miles an hour. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:21.080 How long ago was this? 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:22.880 That was in two thousand and five. 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.200 That's insane, that's fast. Two thousand and five you also 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:29.800 won Rookie of the Year for Formula Drift. 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:31.920 Yeah. So all I can say is I was kind 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.199 of fast moving and always kind of looking forward on 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.160 the next kind of adventure that I was going to attempt. 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:41.760 And so it went from front walll drive drag racing 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.040 to reel drive drag racing. And after a little bit, 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:45.840 I was like, I don't know if this Ntra Sport 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.040 Compact series is really going to have longevity. Sure, but 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.240 I want to keep racing. I want to keep you know, 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.119 having fun at the track, and I don't want to 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.239 die with the series. And at that same time, I 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:58.240 had been drag racing now for you know, over a decade. 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:02.840 I was traveling to these really remote areas of America 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:06.600 where these drag racing tracks existed in like the areas 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:08.840 of Kentucky and Florida and stuff like that, to where 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:10.399 you'd fly in, you go to the hotel, you go 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:11.960 to the racetrack, you go back to the hotel, and 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:13.720 you fly back home. Yeah, and once in a while, 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:15.480 would we go out and have some fun. But every 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:18.320 time I traveled to this new location, it was another 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.040 quarter mile drag strip that was straight made out of 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:24.960 concrete or asphalt, with a giant parking lot, you know 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.040 for all of our stuff, and it just became a 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:29.760 bit redundant. And at this point I had probably a 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:34.920 false sense of my driving ability and thought, oh, well, 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:37.479 I should be able to parlay this into something more difficult. 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:38.919 I should go road racing. 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.040 Or did you personally pilot the car into the sixes? 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:44.560 I did, Yeah, So I'd been driving the car, you know, 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:48.480 through all of this, and then also helping to develop 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:51.760 it as well. And there was a lot of partners 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:54.040 that we had with in that program that made it successful. 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:58.160 AM Electronics developed the engine program initially when we built 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.000 the rear WORL drive car in around two thousand and three. 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:01.719 They said, hey, we love sponsoring you, but we'd love 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.560 to have more of our engineering expertise in your car, 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:07.680 not just a sticker on it, some of our products. 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:10.480 And I said that sounds great. Because the founder of 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:15.159 AEM was a gentleman called John Concialdi, and he was 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:19.960 a mechanical engineer with tons of experience with everything from 0:25:19.960 --> 0:25:23.159 car raiders to fuel injection to building engines, and he 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:26.960 had a personal and a company interest in building this 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:30.760 sixteen hundred horsepower turbochard to be six engine. So yeah, 0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:33.080 they were there, were and still are an excellent partner 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:34.760 with the program that we have today. 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:37.399 You know, when I talked to the ogs, they always 0:25:37.440 --> 0:25:40.880 talk about how John was one of those folks that 0:25:41.320 --> 0:25:45.360 was so open to the kids that were from the streets, 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:48.440 like you know, street racing, to allow them to come 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:52.359 into the garage and support them. Without people like John 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:55.760 and AEM, I don't think a lot of these guys 0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:58.479 from the street racing scene would have been able to 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:01.600 go into the pro circuit. I mean, anytime somebody brings 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:05.200 up like John from Am, they speak of him as 0:26:05.240 --> 0:26:08.280 like a you know, like a godfather, as like an uncle. 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:11.040 So I just want to make sure we give John 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:12.240 from Am some props. 0:26:12.760 --> 0:26:15.359 Yeah. And as a sidebar here, you know, my parents 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:17.359 got divorced when I was when I was young, you know, 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.439 five years old, and he moved My father moved back 0:26:20.480 --> 0:26:22.199 to Greece where he was from. So I grew up 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:26.440 pretty much in a single mother household and no one 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:28.480 was in the cars in my family, which we talked about. 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:31.719 Uh so I'd find these kind of father figures. There 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:34.960 was Javier, the guy that owned JG ended at Dynamics, 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:36.879 the place that I got my first job out of 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:39.439 high school. We've got John Concialte that was the founder 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.879 of AM and then so, you know, not having a 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:44.720 father around, I kind of looked around at these different 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:46.720 men that were older that knew a lot more than me, 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:48.800 and I kind of picked like this thing that I 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:51.920 really liked about him, Like John was very intelligent or 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.239 still as very intelligent and a mentor as far as 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:57.679 the technical side. And so I had these different, you know, 0:26:57.840 --> 0:27:00.480 kind of mentors over the years, and it was definitely 0:27:00.520 --> 0:27:00.920 one of them. 0:27:01.040 --> 0:27:03.520 I do want to hear about the formula drift stuff. 0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:07.119 So you start seeing the shift and you want to 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:11.200 transition into drifting to get you know, a fresh taste 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:16.440 of a different category in sports, and you start building 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:17.600 drift cars. 0:27:18.480 --> 0:27:20.520 So in two thousand and four, I got the itch 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:23.879 to do some drifting because I was trying to, you know, 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:26.880 what else can I do other than drag racing. They 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:30.800 had the one of the first D one drift events 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:33.760 here in Los Angeles where they brought a bunch of 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:37.360 competition drifters from Japan, which their main series out there 0:27:37.440 --> 0:27:39.359 was D one and I was kind of like rolling 0:27:39.359 --> 0:27:40.520 my eyes out and when I watched, I was like, 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:42.240 oh my gosh, this is pretty impressive what they're doing 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:44.719 with the cars and what the drivers are doing, and 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:49.320 it was very engaging show. And I was like, oh, man, 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:50.679 I think that's a better show than what we're doing 0:27:50.720 --> 0:27:53.160 with the drag racing. And I was looking for something, 0:27:53.240 --> 0:27:54.720 you know, different to do, and I was like, Okay, 0:27:54.960 --> 0:27:57.040 this could be something I should look at. Had some 0:27:57.080 --> 0:27:58.639 friends that were into it and talked to them and 0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:01.280 it turned out the easy Ford car to build was 0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:07.399 a Nissan two forty SX. Yeah, and coincidentally, that was 0:28:07.440 --> 0:28:10.520 a car that my mom had in the in the 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:13.520 mid nineties. She had a nineteen eighty nine to forty 0:28:13.600 --> 0:28:14.920 SX automatic. 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:16.920 Did you take your mom's cars? 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:20.600 That's awesome. Yeah, So my mom got a new car. 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:22.800 I got her old car nineteen eighty nine. It was 0:28:22.840 --> 0:28:25.960 burgundy color that was S thirteen is it S thirteen yep, 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:27.680 which had over two hundred thousand miles on it because 0:28:27.720 --> 0:28:29.520 she was communing with it all over to these different 0:28:29.520 --> 0:28:32.880 depositions for her job and pulled the little two point 0:28:32.880 --> 0:28:34.880 four leader to twelve valve engine out in the automatic 0:28:34.960 --> 0:28:38.760 transmission and got a JDM SR twenty engine from the 0:28:39.120 --> 0:28:42.600 importers and basically converted it to a turbocharged, you know, 0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:47.920 drift car, painted it, put different suspension on it, racing rollcage, 0:28:48.160 --> 0:28:50.120 and in two thousand and four I had basically my 0:28:50.160 --> 0:28:52.800 mom's old commuter car turned into a drift car that 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:54.960 I was going to go learn in. That is so awesome, 0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:57.040 and so I started doing some of the local drift events. 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:00.880 I was definitely not early into the drifting here. I 0:29:01.000 --> 0:29:04.040 was the drag racer guy building a drift car. And 0:29:04.040 --> 0:29:06.480 they're like a lot of the guys were. They were 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:08.600 actually pretty easy going, but in some ways it's like 0:29:08.760 --> 0:29:10.680 you should stay in your lane, you know, know pun intended, 0:29:10.720 --> 0:29:12.800 but like, you know, you're the drag racing guy. What 0:29:12.800 --> 0:29:13.960 do you guys? What are you doing over here in 0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:16.840 the drifting? But they they knew they had they had 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:18.800 been driving drift cars enough to they knew this is 0:29:18.840 --> 0:29:22.240 really difficult. That was really difficult to drift at a 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:25.640 competition level. And pretty quickly I learned like, ooh, A 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:27.800 lot of the drag racing skills that I had didn't 0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:30.440 carry over to the drifting, Like we could make the 0:29:30.440 --> 0:29:32.520 horse power, we could build the car. I wasn't scared 0:29:32.520 --> 0:29:34.520 of the power. I wasn't scared of the car, but 0:29:34.640 --> 0:29:37.320 counter steering and all the little tricks with driving. It 0:29:37.360 --> 0:29:39.520 took a while to try to get up to speed. 0:29:40.360 --> 0:29:43.440 So Tanner Faust drove for you on the first championship 0:29:43.480 --> 0:29:46.200 win with your team. Was it a tough decision to 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:49.440 have a driver instead of using the person in the seat? 0:29:49.560 --> 0:29:52.800 Yeah. So from me building that two forty and really 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:55.680 spending some time trying to learn how to drift, I 0:29:55.760 --> 0:29:59.040 quickly realized the amount of effort it would and practice 0:29:59.040 --> 0:30:01.960 I'd have to do to be at a top five 0:30:02.120 --> 0:30:05.240 level to carry on being a professional driver. But in 0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:08.760 drift what would have been really challenging and maybe something 0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:10.680 at twenty seven years old or whatever I was at 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:13.440 that time would be hard to do in my mid twenties. 0:30:13.920 --> 0:30:16.760 And at the same time in two thousand and five, 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:19.360 I met, you know, an up and coming driver named Tanner. 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:20.520 Faust, who how do you guys meet? 0:30:20.960 --> 0:30:24.720 He was driving a car in Formula drift and we 0:30:24.760 --> 0:30:28.000 met at the racetrack and he kept having engine problems 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:29.880 with the car that he was driving for the team 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:32.080 that he was driving with, so he would Tanners and 0:30:32.200 --> 0:30:34.680 smart guy, he'd start asking around and get some advice. 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:37.720 So we kind of hit it off and we saw 0:30:37.720 --> 0:30:40.040 some synergies there, like he knew I could build a 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:41.960 good car, and I knew he was an excellent driver, 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:44.880 maybe being held back by the car. And so we 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.360 made a deal for two thousand and six that we 0:30:47.360 --> 0:30:49.560 would do a two car drift team where he would 0:30:49.560 --> 0:30:51.360 be in the A car and I would be in 0:30:51.400 --> 0:30:54.680 the B car. And so for two thousand and six 0:30:54.760 --> 0:30:59.520 we retired from drag racing, basically took those sponsorship funds 0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:02.320 and pivoted over to drift. And for the amount of 0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:04.720 money we were spending in drag racing, we were able 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:07.640 to do a two car drift program. So we built 0:31:07.760 --> 0:31:12.400 a three point fifty Z Nissan drift car for Tanner, 0:31:13.400 --> 0:31:16.719 and I was in a two thousand and four ish 0:31:17.840 --> 0:31:20.400 Honda S two thousand, but I was still learning how 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:23.080 and getting up to speed on becoming a you know, 0:31:23.240 --> 0:31:25.800 a good drift driver. But Tanner was already there. So 0:31:25.880 --> 0:31:27.440 within the first year we had a couple of wins 0:31:27.480 --> 0:31:29.840 with Tanner. In two thousand and six. The second year 0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:31.680 with Tanner, we won the championship. In the third year 0:31:31.680 --> 0:31:34.360 with Tanner, we won the championship again, and I retired 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:37.440 from basically driving at that point where I said, I'm 0:31:37.480 --> 0:31:39.200 not coming up to speed quick enough as a driver, 0:31:39.960 --> 0:31:42.200 and really I've got to choose whether I'm a driver 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:45.160 or a team, you know, owner manager. And I said, 0:31:45.360 --> 0:31:47.560 I think I'm better at running the team and building 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:50.400 the cars than driving. And I made a conscious decision 0:31:50.520 --> 0:31:52.080 to say, you know what, I'm just going to retire 0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:55.120 from driving and I'm going to focus on building cars 0:31:55.120 --> 0:32:10.720 for Tanner and running the program. 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:12.880 You make me feel like such an underachiever by the 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:15.200 way you're doing this at twenty seven. 0:32:15.600 --> 0:32:19.400 Yeah, So another sidebar here is is you really you 0:32:19.400 --> 0:32:21.360 really can't go to school for a lot of this stuff. 0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:24.000 And so what I learned is sometimes you got to 0:32:24.000 --> 0:32:26.720 make investments into doing racing. I'm like a doer, like, 0:32:27.040 --> 0:32:30.560 let's go do this thing. Let's ready fire aim, let's 0:32:30.560 --> 0:32:33.040 go do it. We're not exactly sure that this is 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:35.200 going to pan out, but we're gonna learn a lot 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:38.200 doing it. And it's gonna cost us some money, and 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:42.000 I'm gonna consider that an investment. And the plan is 0:32:42.040 --> 0:32:44.760 that whatever we learn in this endeavor, we're gonna take 0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:47.840 it and apply it to our main focused business and 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:51.000 we're gonna get steps ahead where normally we couldn't. And 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:53.360 I think that's where one of our advantages is is 0:32:53.400 --> 0:32:55.480 instead of staying within the bubble of what we do, 0:32:56.160 --> 0:33:00.280 look around, try some stuff somewhere else, Take what we've 0:33:00.360 --> 0:33:03.600 learned outside of our main focus, and then apply it 0:33:03.600 --> 0:33:06.000 to that many focus and take another step ahead, hopefully 0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:09.360 being on the forefront of technology, speed, whatever it is, 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:12.920 and continue to be, you know, a leader in the 0:33:12.920 --> 0:33:14.320 motorsports and the class that we're at. 0:33:14.360 --> 0:33:17.920 That's great advice to reinvest into yourself and to keep 0:33:17.960 --> 0:33:20.080 growing right, think outside of the bubble. 0:33:20.280 --> 0:33:22.560 I was about to ask if that's something you're you 0:33:22.600 --> 0:33:25.400 feel your mom instilled in you growing up, maybe as 0:33:25.640 --> 0:33:30.080 a single mother, watching her hard work and driving all that. 0:33:30.320 --> 0:33:31.680 Do you feel that I had a big impact on 0:33:31.720 --> 0:33:32.880 your Well. 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:35.640 She was definitely out of box thinker, driving a too. 0:33:35.520 --> 0:33:40.760 Fo she was secretly driven, honest. 0:33:41.480 --> 0:33:45.320 So she grew up in a household where education was first, 0:33:45.720 --> 0:33:49.280 and you followed all of the rules and you have 0:33:49.400 --> 0:33:54.320 a successful professional career after that. And she looked around 0:33:54.400 --> 0:33:58.480 at at maybe her family or herself and said, uh, 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:01.840 this is not necessarily there about to happiness. You need 0:34:01.880 --> 0:34:04.680 to follow a passion. You have to have some fundamental 0:34:04.880 --> 0:34:08.080 you know, education and ethics and things like that, of course, 0:34:08.600 --> 0:34:11.200 but follow your passion and you know, hopefully that leads 0:34:11.239 --> 0:34:13.520 you in a place where you enjoy your life because 0:34:13.560 --> 0:34:15.840 getting things on what you might say, Okay, I'm going 0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:17.759 to go to school and I'm going to kick butt 0:34:17.800 --> 0:34:19.839 and I'm going to become a doctor, and now I'm 0:34:19.840 --> 0:34:22.760 going to you know, live my life you know, on call, 0:34:23.000 --> 0:34:25.640 and you know that's not necessarily where you're going to 0:34:25.680 --> 0:34:27.800 be the happiest. And she let me follow my passion 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:31.120 of motorsport. She helped fund an initial business that I 0:34:31.160 --> 0:34:34.239 started where we were performance business, you know, in my 0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:37.120 early twenties, and you know, it all panned out in 0:34:37.160 --> 0:34:41.440 a good way. But I've used that as a as 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:45.160 a north star, you know, my whole life now, which 0:34:45.239 --> 0:34:48.399 is is this direction that I'm going going to lead 0:34:48.440 --> 0:34:51.680 me somewhere that I'm going to enjoy waking up and 0:34:51.760 --> 0:34:55.080 look forward to going into the office or the shop 0:34:55.200 --> 0:34:57.920 or whatever it is that I'm doing that day, because 0:34:58.040 --> 0:35:00.840 at the end of the day, that's what's going to 0:35:01.320 --> 0:35:03.600 give me and the people that are close to me 0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:07.400 enjoyment in life. And that's the misconception that I found 0:35:07.400 --> 0:35:09.600 where I want to make a bunch of money because 0:35:09.680 --> 0:35:11.600 the idea of I want to get a job that 0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:13.279 I make a bunch of money so that I can 0:35:13.320 --> 0:35:15.919 go spend that money on things that I enjoy. I've 0:35:15.920 --> 0:35:18.600 seen people get in that trap where they end up 0:35:18.880 --> 0:35:22.360 working so much for that money and for that payday 0:35:22.440 --> 0:35:24.839 that they don't actually get to enjoy the payday. They 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:28.480 find that the ratio is off where I'm spending most 0:35:28.520 --> 0:35:30.880 of my week making the money is a little bit 0:35:30.920 --> 0:35:33.160 of my week actually doing the things that I love. 0:35:33.640 --> 0:35:35.920 So I'd rather just make enough to get by, but 0:35:36.040 --> 0:35:37.560 really enjoy waking up enjoying my life. 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:40.520 You know, in a way, passing the baton off to 0:35:40.640 --> 0:35:43.640 Tanner as the driver and you being the builder. You know, 0:35:43.920 --> 0:35:47.920 it's pretty impressive to me because it sounds like, you know, 0:35:48.000 --> 0:35:50.560 you grew up and you're a hyper competitive and you 0:35:50.640 --> 0:35:53.560 probably still are, and to be able to give up 0:35:53.640 --> 0:35:56.840 the steering wall to another driver and to be behind 0:35:56.880 --> 0:35:59.880 the scenes says a lot about a person, you know, 0:36:00.280 --> 0:36:02.280 and I'm sure that was hard, Stephan. 0:36:02.880 --> 0:36:04.399 There was some there. I mean I was still racing 0:36:04.400 --> 0:36:07.600 in the background. But the reality is my focus was 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:13.760 on I really enjoy building successful, competitive, winning race cars 0:36:13.800 --> 0:36:17.239 and having a winning, competitive team, and the guys that 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:20.439 we work with on the team also enjoy that, and 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:24.399 I'm not going to sacrifice that if I'm not the 0:36:24.440 --> 0:36:27.000 best tool or the best driver for that. We knew 0:36:27.000 --> 0:36:29.359 that Tanner was. And at the end of the day, 0:36:29.400 --> 0:36:31.440 it's a team sport. I like cars and I like 0:36:31.520 --> 0:36:35.320 building them. And if my place, you know, isn't driving, 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:38.600 then yeah, and Tanner was so much better than me, 0:36:39.040 --> 0:36:41.080 and I couldn't. I felt that I couldn't get to 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:43.239 that level like this is where we needed to be. 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.080 I don't know, it just seemed like a natural. 0:36:45.200 --> 0:36:47.880 That's awesome. I mean that's a rare trait too. Speaking 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:51.200 of Tanner, you being a driver and then you seeing 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:54.880 him being a better driver. What made him a better driver? 0:36:55.160 --> 0:36:56.080 What were those traits? 0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:59.800 So there's a thing called getting into the zone, and 0:37:00.360 --> 0:37:03.160 it would take me a day or two sometimes to 0:37:03.200 --> 0:37:06.120 get into the zone, and driving like I'm really there 0:37:06.200 --> 0:37:08.960 and I'm ahead of the car. I want the car 0:37:09.000 --> 0:37:11.440 to do a certain thing, and it just sort of 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:14.239 happens naturally. I'm not having to think about how much 0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:16.840 throttle I'm giving it or what gear I'm in. You know. 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:19.600 I was never really becoming one with the car, and 0:37:19.680 --> 0:37:22.719 eventually I could, but it didn't work well with the 0:37:22.719 --> 0:37:26.319 format of drifting where you're sitting at the starting line 0:37:26.320 --> 0:37:28.920 and it's like, Okay, perform and you come back, and 0:37:29.040 --> 0:37:32.359 like you had to perform immediately each time, and I 0:37:32.400 --> 0:37:35.799 wasn't consistent enough doing that, and I didn't feel like 0:37:35.840 --> 0:37:38.480 I had the mentality to be able to get in 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:42.200 that focused zone. And Tanner just could. You'd put him 0:37:42.239 --> 0:37:45.400 there in a very high stressful situation and said perform 0:37:45.960 --> 0:37:48.680 and then he could drive the car to the highest level. 0:37:48.719 --> 0:37:50.399 And he had this not just knew how to drive 0:37:50.440 --> 0:37:52.640 the car, but he could feel what the car was doing. 0:37:52.920 --> 0:37:55.880 I need more front grip because the car is understeering, 0:37:56.480 --> 0:37:59.120 it's over rotating, and it's over spinning, so we needed 0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:01.440 to make a change to this suspension. He just was 0:38:01.480 --> 0:38:03.640 really good at not only driving it, but giving feedback 0:38:03.680 --> 0:38:04.080 as well. 0:38:04.200 --> 0:38:06.840 Not a lot of drivers can give feedback like that. 0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:09.359 Either that's a big trait to have, yep. 0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:12.399 And then that synergy that that combination of him having 0:38:12.480 --> 0:38:15.560 that driving skill and that feedback for the car and 0:38:15.600 --> 0:38:18.279 then me listening to it, and then our team being 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:20.759 able to then make changes to the car to give 0:38:20.800 --> 0:38:25.000 him what he wanted was very very competitive combination. And 0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:27.400 it's rare when you can have a team that's you know, 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:29.120 at the top of their game building cars and then 0:38:29.160 --> 0:38:31.680 a driver that's at the top of his game driving them. 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:34.680 It's an almost unbeatable combination when that comes together. 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:37.160 Yeah. And then for folks that have him met Hannah 0:38:37.200 --> 0:38:40.280 in person, he's like the sweetest dude, like the nicest 0:38:40.280 --> 0:38:41.120 guy who will ever meet. 0:38:41.239 --> 0:38:44.359 You know, him and Frederick Osbo, I'd also say, are 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:47.759 two incredible people who, along with you and so many others, 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:49.360 are great influences on this industry. 0:38:49.440 --> 0:38:52.280 Yeah, And that's what allows us to be a professional team, 0:38:52.600 --> 0:38:55.480 right is at the end of the day, we work 0:38:55.520 --> 0:38:58.759 with great partners and you know, companies like Toyota, Rock 0:38:58.800 --> 0:39:01.120 Share and any drink, you know, Nato Tire, like these 0:39:01.120 --> 0:39:04.360 different companies work with for years that they want to 0:39:04.560 --> 0:39:07.280 work with us because they say these folks. They're passionate, 0:39:07.640 --> 0:39:10.960 they're competitive, and they have similar values to what we 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:12.919 have in our company. And so, you know, I guess 0:39:12.920 --> 0:39:15.600 you could say remarketable, right having a professional team or 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:17.920 professional business or whatever it is, you really want to 0:39:18.000 --> 0:39:18.920 check all those boxes. 0:39:19.400 --> 0:39:23.040 Yeah, shout out to Nato Tires their vice tire sponsor too. 0:39:23.560 --> 0:39:24.280 I love Nato. 0:39:24.680 --> 0:39:25.560 Harry is my guy. 0:39:25.760 --> 0:39:29.840 You know, good people, they're passionate, you know. So we're 0:39:29.880 --> 0:39:32.440 fortunate to have a great group of not just sponsors, 0:39:32.480 --> 0:39:33.600 but the team guys and everything. 0:39:34.120 --> 0:39:35.960 What's the next ten years look like for you? What's 0:39:35.960 --> 0:39:36.480 the future? 0:39:36.920 --> 0:39:39.160 So form of the drift is where we compete right 0:39:39.200 --> 0:39:43.200 now with Frederick Osbo. Frederick Osbo drives our GR Supra. 0:39:43.440 --> 0:39:48.120 It's a turbo charged twelve hundred horsepower drifting machine. And 0:39:48.600 --> 0:39:51.360 we have a second car which is a GR Corolla 0:39:51.440 --> 0:39:54.319 that Ryan Turk drives. Both that are a sponsor with 0:39:54.480 --> 0:39:57.960 Toyota and Rockstar Energy Drink and Nato. And then there's 0:39:58.000 --> 0:40:00.280 a third car that we handle for Jonathan ca Astro, 0:40:00.360 --> 0:40:03.359 which is a GR eighty six Toyota. And so that's 0:40:03.400 --> 0:40:05.799 the core of our business is handling all of those 0:40:05.880 --> 0:40:08.000 drift cars and going to the form of the drift events, 0:40:08.320 --> 0:40:10.840 and the series is doing really strong their live attendance 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:13.040 and also the live stream is really good. So I 0:40:13.680 --> 0:40:15.920 think we're definitely continuing that road for at least the 0:40:15.960 --> 0:40:18.799 next you know, two to five plus years beyond that. 0:40:19.320 --> 0:40:22.560 I really like building things that don't have instructions and 0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:26.239 no one's built before. I've seen other motorsport teams, like 0:40:26.320 --> 0:40:30.120 all American Racers that have gone into building in aerospace 0:40:30.239 --> 0:40:33.920 or you know, very cutting edge R and D projects. 0:40:34.560 --> 0:40:37.279 Hollywood is big into that right where they'll be a 0:40:37.320 --> 0:40:39.960 concept and then they'll take it to a builder and 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:41.960 he'll turn it into reality something that actually works, like 0:40:42.000 --> 0:40:42.880 the Batmoom bill. 0:40:43.080 --> 0:40:45.399 M That's cool. So that's what you want to be doing. 0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:47.759 Yeah, I like doing stuff that's difficult, and I think 0:40:47.800 --> 0:40:50.240 that building stuff that doesn't have instructions. Like my kid's 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:53.839 doing legos right now. He's eight, and it's fun watching 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:56.080 him read the instructions and kind of going through that process. 0:40:56.320 --> 0:40:58.080 But I really want him to take the next step, 0:40:58.120 --> 0:41:02.040 which is understand the different pieces and understand the different 0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:03.719 combinations that you can do that are not in the 0:41:03.719 --> 0:41:06.200 instructions and building his own creations. 0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:10.400 How has you becoming a father kind of change your 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:11.400 approach to racing. 0:41:12.120 --> 0:41:15.240 It's gotten me to be a less one hundred percent 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:18.799 focused on the motor support and the team, and yeah, 0:41:18.960 --> 0:41:20.760 try to turn it off, you know, on the weekends 0:41:20.800 --> 0:41:23.920 and when I'm doing other things. And it's helped me 0:41:23.960 --> 0:41:26.440 to become less of a micro manager in the shop 0:41:27.040 --> 0:41:29.560 and allowing the great people we have, like Sean Andaldo 0:41:29.640 --> 0:41:33.560 and everybody to actually, you know, let them do their job. 0:41:34.080 --> 0:41:38.000 Understand that if I was doing something myself, I make mistakes, 0:41:38.160 --> 0:41:40.920 and allowing the guys to make mistakes learn from that, 0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:44.200 and you know, like giving up control over certain parts 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:47.160 of like the car bills or whatever, heading logistics for 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:50.160 the team and just let them do their job without 0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:51.360 me looking over their shoulder. 0:41:51.440 --> 0:41:53.399 It's incredible that you have a team that you can 0:41:53.440 --> 0:41:55.919 rely on and trust like that, because finding good help 0:41:55.960 --> 0:42:00.319 is very challenging, especially anyone who is as passionate it 0:42:00.360 --> 0:42:01.000 as you are. 0:42:01.280 --> 0:42:04.319 Yeah, and the guys at the shop, you know, we've 0:42:04.360 --> 0:42:07.760 been working together for you know, over ten years now, 0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:12.080 from drag racing to drift, through multiple drivers, through multiple 0:42:12.080 --> 0:42:16.480 sponsors and everything. So you know, once you work with 0:42:16.520 --> 0:42:19.239 somebody that is really good at what they do. You 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:21.440 do everything you can to retain them. And it's not 0:42:21.480 --> 0:42:23.319 always with money. It has to do with you know, 0:42:23.360 --> 0:42:26.319 you're working with people that have similar passions and make 0:42:26.320 --> 0:42:27.600 sure that you're fulfilling that for them. 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:30.759 Yeah. I always say, at least for myself. If I'm 0:42:30.760 --> 0:42:33.239 not learning, I'm not having fun. That's so important to 0:42:33.239 --> 0:42:35.719 continue to challenge yourself instead of just doing the same 0:42:35.760 --> 0:42:37.879 routine day to day. Do you have anything you want 0:42:37.920 --> 0:42:39.960 to promote or anything you want to leave the audience with. 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:41.839 If you want to check us out on YouTube, it's 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:45.600 our channel's Papadocus Racing. I've got some videos that I 0:42:45.640 --> 0:42:47.160 post there once in a while, a lot the last 0:42:47.200 --> 0:42:49.000 few years on some builds. So if you're interested in 0:42:49.040 --> 0:42:51.759 seeing the guts of how a drift car or one 0:42:51.840 --> 0:42:55.040 of these engines work, we've built some content around that. 0:42:55.560 --> 0:42:57.360 If you want to see us competing, that would be 0:42:57.400 --> 0:42:59.879 in Formula Drift, So you can go to Formula D 0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:03.560 and I get I think this is important if you've 0:43:03.600 --> 0:43:06.600 made it this far, and if you're an enthusiast and 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:09.200 you want to, you know, have a career in motorsport, 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:11.759 or you're interested in how to do kind of what 0:43:11.800 --> 0:43:13.799 I do. I get this question a lot, to get 0:43:13.840 --> 0:43:15.600 emails and you know, ask a lot of this track. 0:43:16.160 --> 0:43:19.560 My best advice is to get hands on a car 0:43:20.080 --> 0:43:21.879 so you can go to school for some of the stuff, 0:43:21.880 --> 0:43:26.080 which is good, but go buy a car that's low consequence, 0:43:26.160 --> 0:43:28.520 not the one that you're driving to work every day. 0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:31.000 And it could be a maybe an older subru that's 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:32.520 unreliable and that breaks a lot. 0:43:32.800 --> 0:43:36.600 You'll definitely learn too, I'll tell you that. 0:43:36.239 --> 0:43:39.600 And and there's tons of information on the web on 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:41.239 how to fix these and work on it and just 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:43.920 get some tools and start taking something apart and put 0:43:43.920 --> 0:43:45.840 it back together, get it running again, and then go 0:43:45.880 --> 0:43:47.480 a little bit deeper, and go a little bit deeper, 0:43:47.520 --> 0:43:49.960 and you're eventually gonna end up with more experience. And 0:43:49.960 --> 0:43:52.000 then when you find the thing that you're passionate about, 0:43:52.200 --> 0:43:55.279 keep going down that road and learning more. And if 0:43:55.320 --> 0:43:57.400 you keep your head down, you know, the hope is 0:43:57.440 --> 0:44:00.000 and the expectation is that you know you're enjoying them, 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:02.640 and then you know people can see that and you 0:44:02.680 --> 0:44:04.160 can hopefully turn that into a career. 0:44:04.360 --> 0:44:07.799 Yeah, And also a takeaway from your story is, you know, 0:44:07.880 --> 0:44:10.560 don't be afraid to go out there and ask for 0:44:10.600 --> 0:44:14.000 what you want. Like you went into the garage JG Motorworks, 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:16.440 right and you were sweeping floors. I mean, And for 0:44:16.920 --> 0:44:20.640 young folks out there, people want to help. Those who 0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:24.040 want that are asking for help, right, So don't be 0:44:24.080 --> 0:44:26.600 afraid to ask for it, and don't be afraid to 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:30.080 get your hands dirty, because I mean, those are that's 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:33.080 those are winning attributes, you know. And it seems like 0:44:33.120 --> 0:44:36.480 the younger Stephan was that kid, you know that went 0:44:36.560 --> 0:44:40.000 after what he wanted, you know, and so somebody to 0:44:40.120 --> 0:44:43.520 really emulate and you know, kind of use as like 0:44:43.560 --> 0:44:46.520 a north star if you will. So thank you for sharing. 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:48.840 It was a real honor to sit down and be 0:44:48.880 --> 0:44:49.600 able to talk to you. 0:44:49.719 --> 0:44:51.759 Yeah, thanks for coming on and joining us today. 0:44:51.840 --> 0:44:53.239 Yeah, thanks for having me guys. It was fun.