Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with.
Speaker 2: Sun King and Amelia Hartford. And today we have a
Speaker 2: legend in the racing world.
Speaker 1: When people bring up his name, they talk about this
Speaker 1: guy as like a real life, fast, fierce.
Speaker 2: Character, starting from street racing to professionally building and racing
Speaker 2: in the drag racing world, to then transitioning to Formula
Speaker 2: drift and having so many wins and worlds, firsts, you.
Speaker 1: Know, all the ogs. When they bring up this dude's name,
Speaker 1: they talk about first how amazing he was, and actually
Speaker 1: how smart he was. He would take all the knowledge
Speaker 1: and actually constantly innovate totally.
Speaker 2: I don't think you can talk about the history of
Speaker 2: automotive and the future it is today without his name
Speaker 2: coming up in conversation.
Speaker 1: Without further Ado Stephan Papadochius originally Stephan. You're from New York,
Speaker 1: I read somewhere.
Speaker 3: Born in New York. My mom's family's from New York,
Speaker 3: but I was just basically born there.
Speaker 1: And you grew up pretty much in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my dad is Greek from Greece, and he actually
Speaker 3: when my parents got divorced, moved back there. So in Greece.
Speaker 1: In Greece, Wow, yeah, I mean, Papa Doccas is a
Speaker 1: pretty dope name.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is that name, Papa Doocus.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that fun growing up with that one. But
Speaker 3: at the time there was a show called Webster where
Speaker 3: the football dad was Papadopolis.
Speaker 1: Oh he was.
Speaker 2: That's right, you're a staple name in this industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah i am. I've come from the world of experience,
Speaker 3: but I only have some college I don't have an
Speaker 3: actual engineering degree. But when I find things that I
Speaker 3: don't know about and I want to learn about, I'll
Speaker 3: just go on eBay and find a used textbook that's
Speaker 3: an edition or too old that you can for twenty dollars.
Speaker 3: Then I'll start reading through the chapters that I want
Speaker 3: to know. And you've combined that with YouTube videos and
Speaker 3: even some lectures that are on YouTube. You can really
Speaker 3: get a good base understanding enough for me to have
Speaker 3: a good conversation with an actual engineer and then end
Speaker 3: up with some good solutions that we can use in
Speaker 3: the race cars.
Speaker 1: Anytime Stephan's name comes up in the OG world, right,
Speaker 1: they always go He's like the smartest person in the room. Right,
Speaker 1: So he takes the information that makes it better, and
Speaker 1: it adapts it and he just keeps growing, you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you know that they talked
Speaker 1: about you like that, but that is your reputation. That's flattering. Yeah, okay, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: And I think that kind of ethos and that perspective
Speaker 1: on life is what kind of brought you into the
Speaker 1: forefront of where you are in your career today. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that helps. I mean it's being realistic of where
Speaker 3: I'm at and what I know and where I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get to, and then understanding that gap and then
Speaker 3: trying to build a bridge to get to the goals.
Speaker 3: What do you call the seeing the force through the trees?
Speaker 3: I guess that's one of my attributes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Were you always into cars?
Speaker 3: Totally?
Speaker 2: Yeah, since the day you're born.
Speaker 3: My mom said, I liked little cars when I was
Speaker 3: growing up. I remember building legos when I was really
Speaker 3: young and crashing them into each other and putting them
Speaker 3: back together, and then building little model cars, and then
Speaker 3: originally getting into radio controlled cars and so RC cars
Speaker 3: from you know, when I was you know, eight or
Speaker 3: ten years old, I was really into it. Dressed in
Speaker 3: and then in my round thirteen or fourteen, I really
Speaker 3: got into the off road RC car scene, which was,
Speaker 3: you know, there was a bit of a scene here
Speaker 3: in southern California, and I said, I want to be
Speaker 3: a professional RC car driver. And I actually there was
Speaker 3: a scene of RC car drivers here in something California,
Speaker 3: because that's where they were manufacturing the cars and testing
Speaker 3: them at the local RC track, And so I was
Speaker 3: actually around professional RC car drivers and engineers. And I
Speaker 3: remember specifically my mom telling me, I don't know what
Speaker 3: kind of social life you'll have if you do that.
Speaker 3: And I didn't understand that until years later. But once
Speaker 3: I realized around fifteen that you can modify real cars
Speaker 3: and change the suspect and do these different things engine upgrades,
Speaker 3: and then enjoy driving them and be in the car,
Speaker 3: I totally got out of the RC thing and went
Speaker 3: straight into the real cars.
Speaker 1: So nobody in your family actually planted the seat for
Speaker 1: cars in your life.
Speaker 3: Not at all. It's crazy. Nope, And I don't know
Speaker 3: if that's a benefit or not, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: I just went that way.
Speaker 2: Well, you're talking about learning off of YouTube and buying
Speaker 2: textbooks and whatnot, But when you started sure textbooks around,
Speaker 2: but there was no YouTube. This was before social media.
Speaker 2: How did you start learning about modifying cars?
Speaker 3: So when I was sixteen, I got my first car
Speaker 3: and it was a nineteen ninety one Honda Civic SI.
Speaker 3: And the reason I chose that one was, you know,
Speaker 3: I wanted a Mustang or a Camaro or something with
Speaker 3: a bunch of horsepower, but I wasn't going to get
Speaker 3: that in my family. And I actually had some friends
Speaker 3: that had to see YOURX and Civic and they were
Speaker 3: modifying and lowering it and putting exhaust, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is something that you can have fun with an modify,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, it looks responsible enough for
Speaker 3: you know, my family to get me that car. And
Speaker 3: the day I turned sixteen, that morning I went to
Speaker 3: the DMV and took my driving test, got my license,
Speaker 3: and then that afternoon drove the car to my buddy's
Speaker 3: house where we took the suspension off, cut the springs,
Speaker 3: lowered it, and you know, went cruising around. And so
Speaker 3: I had this you cut the springs on it, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's how we would do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who taught you how to do that?
Speaker 3: I had RC car buddies who had performance cars. They
Speaker 3: had a Sera ax A Civic, and they knew how
Speaker 3: to work on cars because they knew how to work
Speaker 3: on their RC car, and then so they also knew
Speaker 3: how to work on the real car, and so I
Speaker 3: wanted to hang out with them as much as possible
Speaker 3: to learn how to do that.
Speaker 2: The only car I've ever cut springs on was on
Speaker 2: a Honda Prelude, and it destroyed the ride quality entirely.
Speaker 2: But it lowered the car, and if done incorrectly, can
Speaker 2: be very sketchy. But that's so fascinating to hear that
Speaker 2: that's what you guys did the day you bought your
Speaker 2: first car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was one of those situations where you
Speaker 3: lowered it and it looks so cool and you drive
Speaker 3: around and it's bouncing. I'm like, this is fun. I'm
Speaker 3: old now and one of the good gride quality and everything,
Speaker 3: but like, it was sort of like this exciting car
Speaker 3: that you drive around and sometimes you go around turns
Speaker 3: and it would bounce around, or you'd have to slow
Speaker 3: down for driveways and all these different things. It was
Speaker 3: super low, but that was part of the experience.
Speaker 2: What was the next mod after that? You're like all right,
Speaker 2: I got this bouncy suspension. My car's low. I feel cool?
Speaker 2: Was it speed? Next?
Speaker 3: Yep? So the next was HKS Powerflow air filter. So
Speaker 3: it's this green air filter that you replace the airbox
Speaker 3: with NNGK blue spark plugs, wires and plugs. So those
Speaker 3: are the next two. And then later I got an
Speaker 3: HKS exhaust for the car, and then later a header
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 1: For the people out there listening that don't know anything
Speaker 1: about cars, why would you do something like that?
Speaker 3: Because you wanted to make more power. So the theory was,
Speaker 3: you know, each one of these mods might give you
Speaker 3: another two to five horsepower. In my car made one
Speaker 3: hundred and eight horse power originally, and so you do
Speaker 3: some calculations. Well, if I've got my exhaust and the
Speaker 3: header and whatever, and then now I'm up to one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty five horse power. So when I go
Speaker 3: out and try to raise these guys, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be quicker. And they also make a cool sound because
Speaker 3: that was part of the scene.
Speaker 2: Right, So at what point did your reliable daily not
Speaker 2: become your reliable daily anymore?
Speaker 3: It took a few years, so you know, I eventually
Speaker 3: went to this place called Dynamic Autosport in Irvine and
Speaker 3: got a different performance camshaft installed in the engine that
Speaker 3: opens the valves more to get some more horse power.
Speaker 3: I then put nitrous on the car and hid that
Speaker 3: so when we'd go to the Stree races and stuff,
Speaker 3: you could, you know, get that extra fifty or sixty
Speaker 3: horse power shot of nitrous.
Speaker 2: And this is early nineties, right.
Speaker 3: This would have been mid nineties.
Speaker 2: Mid nineties, So I'm assuming you're talking around three hundred horsepower.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, we're talking one hundred and okay horsepower car
Speaker 3: that maybe makes now one hundred and sixty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because back then, like these are, this was kind
Speaker 2: of like groundbreaking. Like sure, like some of the muscle
Speaker 2: guys had done it, but with these tuner cars in
Speaker 2: that era, not a lot of people were modifying them.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of people were going fast, and there'd
Speaker 2: be like stories like, oh well there's this guy here
Speaker 2: who's got this modified car, and oh well this Civic
Speaker 2: S size got this much horse power.
Speaker 1: And that's a front wheel car.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, back then, with these one point six
Speaker 3: liter Honda engines, they were still trying to break two
Speaker 3: hundred or two hundred fifty horse power. That was sort
Speaker 3: of like the upper limit of the guys rebuilding the
Speaker 3: engines and putting turbo chargers and stuff. The understanding I
Speaker 3: had to make power out of these small four cylinders
Speaker 3: for the automotive aftermarket that we were in was minimal.
Speaker 3: It was it was just beginning. But in the scene
Speaker 3: that I was in where we were going to the
Speaker 3: street races and trying to earn some called street cred
Speaker 3: or whatever and just having a string credit, Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was about in my perspective, was trying to be as
Speaker 3: sleeper as you could. So you show up, you pop
Speaker 3: the hood. It looks very simple and unmodified, and then
Speaker 3: you would set up the race. Right you'd say, okay,
Speaker 3: well you've got more modifications. Why don't you let me
Speaker 3: start ahead of you? Set me out a little bit.
Speaker 2: As you have that nitrous bottle hidden in a bag
Speaker 2: in the backseats, no one can see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we had all these different strategies. Or you'd say,
Speaker 3: you give me the move, so instead of using like
Speaker 3: a flagger with a person you know is there with
Speaker 3: his hands up and then he drops his hands and
Speaker 3: both cars take off at the same time. There's a
Speaker 3: thing called the move. So if you've got the faster
Speaker 3: car and the maybe negotiate to where the slower you're
Speaker 3: racing the slower car, you would say, all right, when
Speaker 3: you move, then I move. That's called the move. So
Speaker 3: they get like a head start. Oh and handicap a handicap.
Speaker 3: So there's these ways that you would negotiate different handicaps
Speaker 3: to try to make it a better race, to try
Speaker 3: to get them to race. And then there might be
Speaker 3: some wagers there, but usually pretty small, under twenty dollars
Speaker 3: most of the time, and then some of the bigger
Speaker 3: one might be fifty or a hundred dollars. But you
Speaker 3: got to remember these are kids from sixteen to twenty
Speaker 3: two years old and spending most of our money on
Speaker 3: the mods for the cars, so we didn't have much
Speaker 3: to try to bet. It was almost like just a
Speaker 3: reason to have the race, just to make it more interesting, right.
Speaker 3: So then I eventually started racing the car on the track,
Speaker 3: Like there was a track here in Long Beach called
Speaker 3: Terminal Island that was run by a guy named Big Willie,
Speaker 3: and it was ten bucks to enter, and they had
Speaker 3: an open Friday night Saturday nights. And I eventually turned
Speaker 3: with the nitrous too much and burned one of my
Speaker 3: valves in the engine, and that's when the car started
Speaker 3: becoming less reliable. I had to rebuild the engine and
Speaker 3: it kind of snowballed from there. But that's another story.
Speaker 3: And how that thing turned into a race car?
Speaker 2: Was that your first engine rebuild?
Speaker 3: I didn't do the rebuild, but I went to a
Speaker 3: place called JG Engine Dynamics and they did the build
Speaker 3: for me, and I would hang out there as much
Speaker 3: as I could to try to learn because, like you said,
Speaker 3: there wasn't YouTube or there wasn't much information on how
Speaker 3: to modify these cars back then, so you had to
Speaker 3: surround yourself with people that knew more than you and
Speaker 3: that would help, that would maybe share that information. So
Speaker 3: I'd go there during the summer and try to hang
Speaker 3: out at that engine building place. And then right when
Speaker 3: I got high school, right when I graduated high school,
Speaker 3: I would start going there every day and I literally
Speaker 3: just was sweeping the floor, doing enough so they wouldn't
Speaker 3: kick me out. And eventually they're like, we might as
Speaker 3: well just hire this kid.
Speaker 2: You got a job there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I ended up getting a job there for
Speaker 3: you know, minimum wage whatever. I didn'tven care. They could
Speaker 3: have not paid me. I was just wanted to be
Speaker 3: there and learn what they were doing with these engines.
Speaker 3: And one of the perks was I was able to
Speaker 3: bring my car there and start working on it at
Speaker 3: the facility.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: What a great mentorship to have at that age too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I learned was a combination of working
Speaker 3: at that location and the mutual friends that were building
Speaker 3: drag racing hondas and modifying them, and just within that
Speaker 3: scene everything was these cars. And so I'd get done
Speaker 3: with work and then go to this shop called Pitcrew Motorsports,
Speaker 3: and then we'd hang out while our buddy Charles and
Speaker 3: some of the guys were finishing were up work, and
Speaker 3: then we'd go to dinner together and then talk more
Speaker 3: about cars. Like it was a full immersion into the scene.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like with EV cars coming, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of killing this community.
Speaker 3: I think that's a big question in my experience. The
Speaker 3: EV car works well for commuting and sitting on traffic
Speaker 3: on the freeway, and I think it does that well.
Speaker 3: But as far as performance goes, I would a much
Speaker 3: rather a lower number, like a slower accelerating car. But
Speaker 3: that sounds cool and has that feeling with a manual
Speaker 3: transmission and just the whole experience in it, because I
Speaker 3: think that the numbers of the accelerations and everything are
Speaker 3: so out in the stratosphere that I can't actually enjoy
Speaker 3: that on the street anymore without potentially getting pulled over
Speaker 3: and getting handcuffed and taken away for such crazy speeds.
Speaker 3: So now I've kind of gone towards the older cars
Speaker 3: more of an enjoyment sort of aspect of the performance
Speaker 3: and the feel of it, and my friends in the industry,
Speaker 3: and I think maybe you can speak to that for
Speaker 3: you for your experience, But the enthusiast friends I've had,
Speaker 3: it's not about going as fast as you can on
Speaker 3: the free where it's racing people in the street. It's
Speaker 3: about having an enjoyment in the drive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also the process, like a process of building a
Speaker 1: car gives you know, people a reason to come together
Speaker 1: and have community and break bread and talk shit, you know,
Speaker 1: tell old stories, you know. So I love when I
Speaker 1: meet guys from your era because they have all these
Speaker 1: war stories, you know, and it's like we were talking earlier,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of it seems like, you know, the
Speaker 1: movies like Fast and Fears has taken bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of your guys's life and your experiences and put them
Speaker 1: into the movie. And I think, you know, people always
Speaker 1: ask this question, is like, you know, how come the
Speaker 1: franchise has been able to go so long. It's like
Speaker 1: because it was rooted in something that was real, you know,
Speaker 1: and it is pretty amazing that you get to actually
Speaker 1: meet these like living legends, you know, like meeting you
Speaker 1: in person like this and sitting down, it's like it
Speaker 1: is like kind of my like Elvis Presley moment, because
Speaker 1: I hear all these stories about you, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's it's like I wish I could. I wish there
Speaker 1: was a time machine where I could go back and
Speaker 1: be like a fly on the wall and be at
Speaker 1: these street races. You know. I know we don't like
Speaker 1: to promote it, but it is fascinating for people that
Speaker 1: weren't able to experience that era because it was, like,
Speaker 1: you know, it was an amazing time from what I hear.
Speaker 2: You know, you were the first to in a front
Speaker 2: wheel drive to break one fifty miles part or one
Speaker 2: sixty one seventy one eighty, Like you were kind of
Speaker 2: the front runner to the forward the front wheel drive
Speaker 2: drag cars. I guess I'm just thinking if drag racing
Speaker 2: in general of you know, what it was in the
Speaker 2: nineties compared to what it is today, it's a lot
Speaker 2: higher price tag to get involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, but I think it's a bit relative
Speaker 3: because I remember I remember being at Battle the Imports
Speaker 3: in could be nineteen ninety seven and watching these guys
Speaker 3: doing thirteen or twelve second quarter miles, which at the
Speaker 3: time where the front will drive quarter mile records globally.
Speaker 2: Did you believe people would be going sixes at some
Speaker 2: point at that time? Would you believe it if someone told.
Speaker 3: You no, even nines? Yeah or tensre was like yeah,
Speaker 3: they said, well, there were long term drag racer guys
Speaker 3: that had these theories, Well, you're going to be limited
Speaker 3: with this front will drive configuration at twelve second quarter
Speaker 3: mile because what's going to happen is as you accelerate quicker,
Speaker 3: the weight's going to come off the front tire and
Speaker 3: then you won't have traction and then there's literally a
Speaker 3: wall that you're just not going to be able to
Speaker 3: get past. And they couldn't be more wrong, right, because yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: So interesting to hear that as an argument back then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and for someone that doesn't understand, you know, physics
Speaker 3: well or just listening to this old guy with experience,
Speaker 3: you might believe it. But at the same time we're like,
Speaker 3: this old guy doesn't know what he's talking about, and
Speaker 3: you just kind of keep going down what your path
Speaker 3: that you're on. And I think that's what was an
Speaker 3: advantage for a lot of us that came up in
Speaker 3: that alternative motorsport scene was we weren't we didn't have
Speaker 3: these guardrails, we didn't know what we didn't know, so
Speaker 3: we just said, this is the direction we're going. We're
Speaker 3: just going to keep going faster, and we're just going
Speaker 3: to keep putting more power and keep putting a bigger tire.
Speaker 3: And we just kind of learned what that meant on
Speaker 3: the track and then started developing this front will drive
Speaker 3: type of drag racing where we were trailblazing like there
Speaker 3: was nobody else that knew how to do it because
Speaker 3: no one had done that before, right, And that was
Speaker 3: what was so exciting, and it taught us a lot
Speaker 3: on how to build cars.
Speaker 1: What's the draw for the foks that are into drag racing.
Speaker 1: You know when I go to these events, like I
Speaker 1: see it in their eyes, like there's this fire burning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like they have to keep breaking these records.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a way like the human being
Speaker 1: leaves their legacy or their mark on this earth, Like
Speaker 1: you know for the people out there that have never
Speaker 1: been to drag race events, you know, the energy is
Speaker 1: like I don't even know how to describe it. It's
Speaker 1: like this, like it looks from half the people look intoxicated.
Speaker 2: They probably are, it's.
Speaker 1: Right, and it was like nothing else matters, nothing. I mean,
Speaker 1: they put all their money into these cars to like
Speaker 1: break the next record. Where does that come from?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's, Uh, there's parallel there with addiction,
Speaker 3: right where you're addicted to I love working on this
Speaker 3: car and then getting it running and then trying to
Speaker 3: get it to go faster, and then thinking about what
Speaker 3: it is that I can do to attain the like
Speaker 3: this next goal and so whatever it is, like it's
Speaker 3: this part that I need or I've got to put
Speaker 3: this time into it, and like I can see it's
Speaker 3: like chasing the dragon. It's like, oh my god, it
Speaker 3: was so good, Like it went down the track and
Speaker 3: it had this fast quarter mile time and all my
Speaker 3: friends saw it and they gave me props for it.
Speaker 3: And it's like, no, but I know I can go
Speaker 3: a little bit quicker or this other guy that's faster
Speaker 3: than me, but I have an idea of how I
Speaker 3: can make more horsepower and then build the engine that
Speaker 3: way and then get back to the track and beat him.
Speaker 2: I think addiction is a good way to put it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can call it a hobby, and I think
Speaker 3: if it goes maybe in an unhealthy way, that can be,
Speaker 3: you know, a bad addiction. But man, thinking about my motivation,
Speaker 3: just I loved building cars and you would prove that
Speaker 3: you were really good at it by what it did
Speaker 3: on the track, and that was a way of justifying
Speaker 3: the time and effort put into it, or like a
Speaker 3: street cred kind of thing, and like showing other people,
Speaker 3: like look at what I can do, and there's this
Speaker 3: Some people just have that competition competitive spirit built within
Speaker 3: them and that's the way that you know it comes out.
Speaker 2: Can I just read some of your accomplishments out loud,
Speaker 2: because this is so freaking impressive. First Honda's in the Nines,
Speaker 2: first front wheel drive, in the eights World's fastest sport compact,
Speaker 2: first drag Honda to break two hundred miles per hour
Speaker 2: rule drive, First Honda in the seven's reel drive, First
Speaker 2: Honda in the six is reel drive, World's quickest Honda
Speaker 2: rual drive. Like, this is freaking incredible. You were such
Speaker 2: a trail you are a trailblazer, and to really focus
Speaker 2: on the Honda platform. What made you take the shift
Speaker 2: from front wheel drive to rule drive? Was it a
Speaker 2: limitation of speed performance? Was it just a new passion
Speaker 2: in a different space.
Speaker 3: I wanted more competition. I wanted to do something more.
Speaker 2: Difficult because there's such a gigster and you're winning everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yeah, So I'm looking at your resume right now.
Speaker 2: I can see it and.
Speaker 3: The guys that were racing the pro Import with those engines,
Speaker 3: I was like, that looks really challenging. It was a chassis.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand the engines made more power. We would
Speaker 3: use an engine platform that people hadn't developed yet. It
Speaker 3: just looked like something really difficult to do. And I
Speaker 3: realized over the years that's what I like to do,
Speaker 3: was go, you know, develop new things that are difficult
Speaker 3: and hopefully have success at it. And I kind of
Speaker 3: was looking forward within the series, the NHA series, and
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, I think the future for
Speaker 3: me and sponsorship and keeping this thing going would be
Speaker 3: at the highest fastest class within this sport compact NHA series,
Speaker 3: and that was the rear wheel drive sixteen hundred horse power.
Speaker 3: And I said, I think it needed to make a
Speaker 3: transition from the front whee drive to the real wal
Speaker 3: drive to be the fastest car within our series at
Speaker 3: the track.
Speaker 2: And what kind of horse party did you have in
Speaker 2: the front whel drive car before you made that transition
Speaker 2: to shooting for sixteen hundred.
Speaker 3: About eight hundred and fifty, that's wild. Yeah, So we
Speaker 3: were in the front wheel drives. We were running a
Speaker 3: four cylinder turbocharge engine with alcohol fuel methanol.
Speaker 2: Methanol, yeah, methanol for those listening, it's actually very dangerous
Speaker 2: because it burns clear and if you're on fire, I
Speaker 2: don't know, if you guys put an additive in the car,
Speaker 2: you can't really see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I've had that happen, really caught on fire
Speaker 3: in the engine bay. And so we had built this
Speaker 3: new rearal drive tube chassis drag racing car for the
Speaker 3: top Pro Import class and we were still working it out,
Speaker 3: but the goal was sixteen hundred horsepower.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And we're just doing some initial shakedowns of this new car,
Speaker 3: all built, and we go to the Irwindale Speedway here,
Speaker 3: which has a drag strip and eighth mile drag strip,
Speaker 3: and literally like one of the first times we've run
Speaker 3: this car, and I'm out, I do a burnout and
Speaker 3: the car stalls and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 3: feel like this heat and I'm in the driving seat
Speaker 3: right and I'm in my helmet and strapped and everything.
Speaker 3: Feel this heat coming through like the windshield almost and then.
Speaker 2: Was it PLEXI glass? Could you see it melting?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I started seeing the hood start bubbling, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I think there's a fire. And so I hit the
Speaker 3: fire extinguisher and as a built in fire extinguisher with
Speaker 3: a little pull lever that you pull and then you know,
Speaker 3: five pounds of fire extinguisher goes out on the engine
Speaker 3: and inside the driver's compartment, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I feel like like the wind getting knocked out of
Speaker 3: me and I can't breathe anymore. And so like there's
Speaker 3: a fire. I feel like the like there's no oxygen.
Speaker 3: I just get the wind knocked out of me, and
Speaker 3: just like I'm on the brakes, I start pulling my
Speaker 3: seat belt off. I pulled the windownt down. I popped
Speaker 3: the door open, and I jump out and I was
Speaker 3: totally safe. It came over with some fire extinguishers and
Speaker 3: realized what was going on and put out the fire.
Speaker 3: But there was no flames.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't see.
Speaker 3: It was just it was pretty intense.
Speaker 2: And that was the first time driving the car.
Speaker 3: That was first time driving the car. Yeah. We made
Speaker 3: a mistake on the fuel pressure regulator that wasn't large enough, huh,
Speaker 3: and the fuel pressure spiked and it blew some fuel injectors,
Speaker 3: basically the fuel rail off of the fuel injectors, and
Speaker 3: there was raw fuel spring in the engine bay and
Speaker 3: I got onto like the hot exhaust and that's ignited
Speaker 3: it right right.
Speaker 2: So how far did you guys get with this new
Speaker 2: Reual Drive chassis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, within within three years, we had several wins within
Speaker 3: the NHRA Sport Compact Series, second in the championship the
Speaker 3: third year, and eventually ran the quarter mile in six
Speaker 3: point five to two seconds. At two hundred and fifteen
Speaker 3: miles an hour.
Speaker 2: How long ago was this?
Speaker 3: That was in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: That's insane, that's fast. Two thousand and five you also
Speaker 2: won Rookie of the Year for Formula Drift.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So all I can say is I was kind
Speaker 3: of fast moving and always kind of looking forward on
Speaker 3: the next kind of adventure that I was going to attempt.
Speaker 3: And so it went from front walll drive drag racing
Speaker 3: to reel drive drag racing. And after a little bit,
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know if this Ntra Sport
Speaker 3: Compact series is really going to have longevity. Sure, but
Speaker 3: I want to keep racing. I want to keep you know,
Speaker 3: having fun at the track, and I don't want to
Speaker 3: die with the series. And at that same time, I
Speaker 3: had been drag racing now for you know, over a decade.
Speaker 3: I was traveling to these really remote areas of America
Speaker 3: where these drag racing tracks existed in like the areas
Speaker 3: of Kentucky and Florida and stuff like that, to where
Speaker 3: you'd fly in, you go to the hotel, you go
Speaker 3: to the racetrack, you go back to the hotel, and
Speaker 3: you fly back home. Yeah, and once in a while,
Speaker 3: would we go out and have some fun. But every
Speaker 3: time I traveled to this new location, it was another
Speaker 3: quarter mile drag strip that was straight made out of
Speaker 3: concrete or asphalt, with a giant parking lot, you know
Speaker 3: for all of our stuff, and it just became a
Speaker 3: bit redundant. And at this point I had probably a
Speaker 3: false sense of my driving ability and thought, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I should be able to parlay this into something more difficult.
Speaker 3: I should go road racing.
Speaker 2: Or did you personally pilot the car into the sixes?
Speaker 3: I did, Yeah, So I'd been driving the car, you know,
Speaker 3: through all of this, and then also helping to develop
Speaker 3: it as well. And there was a lot of partners
Speaker 3: that we had with in that program that made it successful.
Speaker 3: AM Electronics developed the engine program initially when we built
Speaker 3: the rear WORL drive car in around two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: They said, hey, we love sponsoring you, but we'd love
Speaker 3: to have more of our engineering expertise in your car,
Speaker 3: not just a sticker on it, some of our products.
Speaker 3: And I said that sounds great. Because the founder of
Speaker 3: AEM was a gentleman called John Concialdi, and he was
Speaker 3: a mechanical engineer with tons of experience with everything from
Speaker 3: car raiders to fuel injection to building engines, and he
Speaker 3: had a personal and a company interest in building this
Speaker 3: sixteen hundred horsepower turbochard to be six engine. So yeah,
Speaker 3: they were there, were and still are an excellent partner
Speaker 3: with the program that we have today.
Speaker 1: You know, when I talked to the ogs, they always
Speaker 1: talk about how John was one of those folks that
Speaker 1: was so open to the kids that were from the streets,
Speaker 1: like you know, street racing, to allow them to come
Speaker 1: into the garage and support them. Without people like John
Speaker 1: and AEM, I don't think a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: from the street racing scene would have been able to
Speaker 1: go into the pro circuit. I mean, anytime somebody brings
Speaker 1: up like John from Am, they speak of him as
Speaker 1: like a you know, like a godfather, as like an uncle.
Speaker 1: So I just want to make sure we give John
Speaker 1: from Am some props.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And as a sidebar here, you know, my parents
Speaker 3: got divorced when I was when I was young, you know,
Speaker 3: five years old, and he moved My father moved back
Speaker 3: to Greece where he was from. So I grew up
Speaker 3: pretty much in a single mother household and no one
Speaker 3: was in the cars in my family, which we talked about.
Speaker 3: Uh so I'd find these kind of father figures. There
Speaker 3: was Javier, the guy that owned JG ended at Dynamics,
Speaker 3: the place that I got my first job out of
Speaker 3: high school. We've got John Concialte that was the founder
Speaker 3: of AM and then so, you know, not having a
Speaker 3: father around, I kind of looked around at these different
Speaker 3: men that were older that knew a lot more than me,
Speaker 3: and I kind of picked like this thing that I
Speaker 3: really liked about him, Like John was very intelligent or
Speaker 3: still as very intelligent and a mentor as far as
Speaker 3: the technical side. And so I had these different, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of mentors over the years, and it was definitely
Speaker 3: one of them.
Speaker 2: I do want to hear about the formula drift stuff.
Speaker 2: So you start seeing the shift and you want to
Speaker 2: transition into drifting to get you know, a fresh taste
Speaker 2: of a different category in sports, and you start building
Speaker 2: drift cars.
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four, I got the itch
Speaker 3: to do some drifting because I was trying to, you know,
Speaker 3: what else can I do other than drag racing. They
Speaker 3: had the one of the first D one drift events
Speaker 3: here in Los Angeles where they brought a bunch of
Speaker 3: competition drifters from Japan, which their main series out there
Speaker 3: was D one and I was kind of like rolling
Speaker 3: my eyes out and when I watched, I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, this is pretty impressive what they're doing
Speaker 3: with the cars and what the drivers are doing, and
Speaker 3: it was very engaging show. And I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I think that's a better show than what we're doing
Speaker 3: with the drag racing. And I was looking for something,
Speaker 3: you know, different to do, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this could be something I should look at. Had some
Speaker 3: friends that were into it and talked to them and
Speaker 3: it turned out the easy Ford car to build was
Speaker 3: a Nissan two forty SX. Yeah, and coincidentally, that was
Speaker 3: a car that my mom had in the in the
Speaker 3: mid nineties. She had a nineteen eighty nine to forty
Speaker 3: SX automatic.
Speaker 2: Did you take your mom's cars?
Speaker 3: That's awesome. Yeah, So my mom got a new car.
Speaker 3: I got her old car nineteen eighty nine. It was
Speaker 3: burgundy color that was S thirteen is it S thirteen yep,
Speaker 3: which had over two hundred thousand miles on it because
Speaker 3: she was communing with it all over to these different
Speaker 3: depositions for her job and pulled the little two point
Speaker 3: four leader to twelve valve engine out in the automatic
Speaker 3: transmission and got a JDM SR twenty engine from the
Speaker 3: importers and basically converted it to a turbocharged, you know,
Speaker 3: drift car, painted it, put different suspension on it, racing rollcage,
Speaker 3: and in two thousand and four I had basically my
Speaker 3: mom's old commuter car turned into a drift car that
Speaker 3: I was going to go learn in. That is so awesome,
Speaker 3: and so I started doing some of the local drift events.
Speaker 3: I was definitely not early into the drifting here. I
Speaker 3: was the drag racer guy building a drift car. And
Speaker 3: they're like a lot of the guys were. They were
Speaker 3: actually pretty easy going, but in some ways it's like
Speaker 3: you should stay in your lane, you know, know pun intended,
Speaker 3: but like, you know, you're the drag racing guy. What
Speaker 3: do you guys? What are you doing over here in
Speaker 3: the drifting? But they they knew they had they had
Speaker 3: been driving drift cars enough to they knew this is
Speaker 3: really difficult. That was really difficult to drift at a
Speaker 3: competition level. And pretty quickly I learned like, ooh, A
Speaker 3: lot of the drag racing skills that I had didn't
Speaker 3: carry over to the drifting, Like we could make the
Speaker 3: horse power, we could build the car. I wasn't scared
Speaker 3: of the power. I wasn't scared of the car, but
Speaker 3: counter steering and all the little tricks with driving. It
Speaker 3: took a while to try to get up to speed.
Speaker 2: So Tanner Faust drove for you on the first championship
Speaker 2: win with your team. Was it a tough decision to
Speaker 2: have a driver instead of using the person in the seat?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So from me building that two forty and really
Speaker 3: spending some time trying to learn how to drift, I
Speaker 3: quickly realized the amount of effort it would and practice
Speaker 3: I'd have to do to be at a top five
Speaker 3: level to carry on being a professional driver. But in
Speaker 3: drift what would have been really challenging and maybe something
Speaker 3: at twenty seven years old or whatever I was at
Speaker 3: that time would be hard to do in my mid twenties.
Speaker 3: And at the same time in two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: I met, you know, an up and coming driver named Tanner.
Speaker 2: Faust, who how do you guys meet?
Speaker 3: He was driving a car in Formula drift and we
Speaker 3: met at the racetrack and he kept having engine problems
Speaker 3: with the car that he was driving for the team
Speaker 3: that he was driving with, so he would Tanners and
Speaker 3: smart guy, he'd start asking around and get some advice.
Speaker 3: So we kind of hit it off and we saw
Speaker 3: some synergies there, like he knew I could build a
Speaker 3: good car, and I knew he was an excellent driver,
Speaker 3: maybe being held back by the car. And so we
Speaker 3: made a deal for two thousand and six that we
Speaker 3: would do a two car drift team where he would
Speaker 3: be in the A car and I would be in
Speaker 3: the B car. And so for two thousand and six
Speaker 3: we retired from drag racing, basically took those sponsorship funds
Speaker 3: and pivoted over to drift. And for the amount of
Speaker 3: money we were spending in drag racing, we were able
Speaker 3: to do a two car drift program. So we built
Speaker 3: a three point fifty Z Nissan drift car for Tanner,
Speaker 3: and I was in a two thousand and four ish
Speaker 3: Honda S two thousand, but I was still learning how
Speaker 3: and getting up to speed on becoming a you know,
Speaker 3: a good drift driver. But Tanner was already there. So
Speaker 3: within the first year we had a couple of wins
Speaker 3: with Tanner. In two thousand and six. The second year
Speaker 3: with Tanner, we won the championship. In the third year
Speaker 3: with Tanner, we won the championship again, and I retired
Speaker 3: from basically driving at that point where I said, I'm
Speaker 3: not coming up to speed quick enough as a driver,
Speaker 3: and really I've got to choose whether I'm a driver
Speaker 3: or a team, you know, owner manager. And I said,
Speaker 3: I think I'm better at running the team and building
Speaker 3: the cars than driving. And I made a conscious decision
Speaker 3: to say, you know what, I'm just going to retire
Speaker 3: from driving and I'm going to focus on building cars
Speaker 3: for Tanner and running the program.
Speaker 2: You make me feel like such an underachiever by the
Speaker 2: way you're doing this at twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So another sidebar here is is you really you
Speaker 3: really can't go to school for a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 3: And so what I learned is sometimes you got to
Speaker 3: make investments into doing racing. I'm like a doer, like,
Speaker 3: let's go do this thing. Let's ready fire aim, let's
Speaker 3: go do it. We're not exactly sure that this is
Speaker 3: going to pan out, but we're gonna learn a lot
Speaker 3: doing it. And it's gonna cost us some money, and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna consider that an investment. And the plan is
Speaker 3: that whatever we learn in this endeavor, we're gonna take
Speaker 3: it and apply it to our main focused business and
Speaker 3: we're gonna get steps ahead where normally we couldn't. And
Speaker 3: I think that's where one of our advantages is is
Speaker 3: instead of staying within the bubble of what we do,
Speaker 3: look around, try some stuff somewhere else, Take what we've
Speaker 3: learned outside of our main focus, and then apply it
Speaker 3: to that many focus and take another step ahead, hopefully
Speaker 3: being on the forefront of technology, speed, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: and continue to be, you know, a leader in the
Speaker 3: motorsports and the class that we're at.
Speaker 1: That's great advice to reinvest into yourself and to keep
Speaker 1: growing right, think outside of the bubble.
Speaker 2: I was about to ask if that's something you're you
Speaker 2: feel your mom instilled in you growing up, maybe as
Speaker 2: a single mother, watching her hard work and driving all that.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that I had a big impact on
Speaker 2: your Well.
Speaker 1: She was definitely out of box thinker, driving a too.
Speaker 2: Fo she was secretly driven, honest.
Speaker 3: So she grew up in a household where education was first,
Speaker 3: and you followed all of the rules and you have
Speaker 3: a successful professional career after that. And she looked around
Speaker 3: at at maybe her family or herself and said, uh,
Speaker 3: this is not necessarily there about to happiness. You need
Speaker 3: to follow a passion. You have to have some fundamental
Speaker 3: you know, education and ethics and things like that, of course,
Speaker 3: but follow your passion and you know, hopefully that leads
Speaker 3: you in a place where you enjoy your life because
Speaker 3: getting things on what you might say, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 3: to go to school and I'm going to kick butt
Speaker 3: and I'm going to become a doctor, and now I'm
Speaker 3: going to you know, live my life you know, on call,
Speaker 3: and you know that's not necessarily where you're going to
Speaker 3: be the happiest. And she let me follow my passion
Speaker 3: of motorsport. She helped fund an initial business that I
Speaker 3: started where we were performance business, you know, in my
Speaker 3: early twenties, and you know, it all panned out in
Speaker 3: a good way. But I've used that as a as
Speaker 3: a north star, you know, my whole life now, which
Speaker 3: is is this direction that I'm going going to lead
Speaker 3: me somewhere that I'm going to enjoy waking up and
Speaker 3: look forward to going into the office or the shop
Speaker 3: or whatever it is that I'm doing that day, because
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, that's what's going to
Speaker 3: give me and the people that are close to me
Speaker 3: enjoyment in life. And that's the misconception that I found
Speaker 3: where I want to make a bunch of money because
Speaker 3: the idea of I want to get a job that
Speaker 3: I make a bunch of money so that I can
Speaker 3: go spend that money on things that I enjoy. I've
Speaker 3: seen people get in that trap where they end up
Speaker 3: working so much for that money and for that payday
Speaker 3: that they don't actually get to enjoy the payday. They
Speaker 3: find that the ratio is off where I'm spending most
Speaker 3: of my week making the money is a little bit
Speaker 3: of my week actually doing the things that I love.
Speaker 3: So I'd rather just make enough to get by, but
Speaker 3: really enjoy waking up enjoying my life.
Speaker 1: You know, in a way, passing the baton off to
Speaker 1: Tanner as the driver and you being the builder. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive to me because it sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: you grew up and you're a hyper competitive and you
Speaker 1: probably still are, and to be able to give up
Speaker 1: the steering wall to another driver and to be behind
Speaker 1: the scenes says a lot about a person, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that was hard, Stephan.
Speaker 3: There was some there. I mean I was still racing
Speaker 3: in the background. But the reality is my focus was
Speaker 3: on I really enjoy building successful, competitive, winning race cars
Speaker 3: and having a winning, competitive team, and the guys that
Speaker 3: we work with on the team also enjoy that, and
Speaker 3: I'm not going to sacrifice that if I'm not the
Speaker 3: best tool or the best driver for that. We knew
Speaker 3: that Tanner was. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: it's a team sport. I like cars and I like
Speaker 3: building them. And if my place, you know, isn't driving,
Speaker 3: then yeah, and Tanner was so much better than me,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't. I felt that I couldn't get to
Speaker 3: that level like this is where we needed to be.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it just seemed like a natural.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I mean that's a rare trait too. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Tanner, you being a driver and then you seeing
Speaker 1: him being a better driver. What made him a better driver?
Speaker 1: What were those traits?
Speaker 3: So there's a thing called getting into the zone, and
Speaker 3: it would take me a day or two sometimes to
Speaker 3: get into the zone, and driving like I'm really there
Speaker 3: and I'm ahead of the car. I want the car
Speaker 3: to do a certain thing, and it just sort of
Speaker 3: happens naturally. I'm not having to think about how much
Speaker 3: throttle I'm giving it or what gear I'm in. You know.
Speaker 3: I was never really becoming one with the car, and
Speaker 3: eventually I could, but it didn't work well with the
Speaker 3: format of drifting where you're sitting at the starting line
Speaker 3: and it's like, Okay, perform and you come back, and
Speaker 3: like you had to perform immediately each time, and I
Speaker 3: wasn't consistent enough doing that, and I didn't feel like
Speaker 3: I had the mentality to be able to get in
Speaker 3: that focused zone. And Tanner just could. You'd put him
Speaker 3: there in a very high stressful situation and said perform
Speaker 3: and then he could drive the car to the highest level.
Speaker 3: And he had this not just knew how to drive
Speaker 3: the car, but he could feel what the car was doing.
Speaker 3: I need more front grip because the car is understeering,
Speaker 3: it's over rotating, and it's over spinning, so we needed
Speaker 3: to make a change to this suspension. He just was
Speaker 3: really good at not only driving it, but giving feedback
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of drivers can give feedback like that.
Speaker 2: Either that's a big trait to have, yep.
Speaker 3: And then that synergy that that combination of him having
Speaker 3: that driving skill and that feedback for the car and
Speaker 3: then me listening to it, and then our team being
Speaker 3: able to then make changes to the car to give
Speaker 3: him what he wanted was very very competitive combination. And
Speaker 3: it's rare when you can have a team that's you know,
Speaker 3: at the top of their game building cars and then
Speaker 3: a driver that's at the top of his game driving them.
Speaker 3: It's an almost unbeatable combination when that comes together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then for folks that have him met Hannah
Speaker 1: in person, he's like the sweetest dude, like the nicest
Speaker 1: guy who will ever meet.
Speaker 2: You know, him and Frederick Osbo, I'd also say, are
Speaker 2: two incredible people who, along with you and so many others,
Speaker 2: are great influences on this industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's what allows us to be a professional team,
Speaker 3: right is at the end of the day, we work
Speaker 3: with great partners and you know, companies like Toyota, Rock
Speaker 3: Share and any drink, you know, Nato Tire, like these
Speaker 3: different companies work with for years that they want to
Speaker 3: work with us because they say these folks. They're passionate,
Speaker 3: they're competitive, and they have similar values to what we
Speaker 3: have in our company. And so, you know, I guess
Speaker 3: you could say remarketable, right having a professional team or
Speaker 3: professional business or whatever it is, you really want to
Speaker 3: check all those boxes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to Nato Tires their vice tire sponsor too.
Speaker 3: I love Nato.
Speaker 1: Harry is my guy.
Speaker 3: You know, good people, they're passionate, you know. So we're
Speaker 3: fortunate to have a great group of not just sponsors,
Speaker 3: but the team guys and everything.
Speaker 2: What's the next ten years look like for you? What's
Speaker 2: the future?
Speaker 3: So form of the drift is where we compete right
Speaker 3: now with Frederick Osbo. Frederick Osbo drives our GR Supra.
Speaker 3: It's a turbo charged twelve hundred horsepower drifting machine. And
Speaker 3: we have a second car which is a GR Corolla
Speaker 3: that Ryan Turk drives. Both that are a sponsor with
Speaker 3: Toyota and Rockstar Energy Drink and Nato. And then there's
Speaker 3: a third car that we handle for Jonathan ca Astro,
Speaker 3: which is a GR eighty six Toyota. And so that's
Speaker 3: the core of our business is handling all of those
Speaker 3: drift cars and going to the form of the drift events,
Speaker 3: and the series is doing really strong their live attendance
Speaker 3: and also the live stream is really good. So I
Speaker 3: think we're definitely continuing that road for at least the
Speaker 3: next you know, two to five plus years beyond that.
Speaker 3: I really like building things that don't have instructions and
Speaker 3: no one's built before. I've seen other motorsport teams, like
Speaker 3: all American Racers that have gone into building in aerospace
Speaker 3: or you know, very cutting edge R and D projects.
Speaker 3: Hollywood is big into that right where they'll be a
Speaker 3: concept and then they'll take it to a builder and
Speaker 3: he'll turn it into reality something that actually works, like
Speaker 3: the Batmoom bill.
Speaker 1: M That's cool. So that's what you want to be doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like doing stuff that's difficult, and I think
Speaker 3: that building stuff that doesn't have instructions. Like my kid's
Speaker 3: doing legos right now. He's eight, and it's fun watching
Speaker 3: him read the instructions and kind of going through that process.
Speaker 3: But I really want him to take the next step,
Speaker 3: which is understand the different pieces and understand the different
Speaker 3: combinations that you can do that are not in the
Speaker 3: instructions and building his own creations.
Speaker 1: How has you becoming a father kind of change your
Speaker 1: approach to racing.
Speaker 3: It's gotten me to be a less one hundred percent
Speaker 3: focused on the motor support and the team, and yeah,
Speaker 3: try to turn it off, you know, on the weekends
Speaker 3: and when I'm doing other things. And it's helped me
Speaker 3: to become less of a micro manager in the shop
Speaker 3: and allowing the great people we have, like Sean Andaldo
Speaker 3: and everybody to actually, you know, let them do their job.
Speaker 3: Understand that if I was doing something myself, I make mistakes,
Speaker 3: and allowing the guys to make mistakes learn from that,
Speaker 3: and you know, like giving up control over certain parts
Speaker 3: of like the car bills or whatever, heading logistics for
Speaker 3: the team and just let them do their job without
Speaker 3: me looking over their shoulder.
Speaker 2: It's incredible that you have a team that you can
Speaker 2: rely on and trust like that, because finding good help
Speaker 2: is very challenging, especially anyone who is as passionate it
Speaker 2: as you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the guys at the shop, you know, we've
Speaker 3: been working together for you know, over ten years now,
Speaker 3: from drag racing to drift, through multiple drivers, through multiple
Speaker 3: sponsors and everything. So you know, once you work with
Speaker 3: somebody that is really good at what they do. You
Speaker 3: do everything you can to retain them. And it's not
Speaker 3: always with money. It has to do with you know,
Speaker 3: you're working with people that have similar passions and make
Speaker 3: sure that you're fulfilling that for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always say, at least for myself. If I'm
Speaker 2: not learning, I'm not having fun. That's so important to
Speaker 2: continue to challenge yourself instead of just doing the same
Speaker 2: routine day to day. Do you have anything you want
Speaker 2: to promote or anything you want to leave the audience with.
Speaker 3: If you want to check us out on YouTube, it's
Speaker 3: our channel's Papadocus Racing. I've got some videos that I
Speaker 3: post there once in a while, a lot the last
Speaker 3: few years on some builds. So if you're interested in
Speaker 3: seeing the guts of how a drift car or one
Speaker 3: of these engines work, we've built some content around that.
Speaker 3: If you want to see us competing, that would be
Speaker 3: in Formula Drift, So you can go to Formula D
Speaker 3: and I get I think this is important if you've
Speaker 3: made it this far, and if you're an enthusiast and
Speaker 3: you want to, you know, have a career in motorsport,
Speaker 3: or you're interested in how to do kind of what
Speaker 3: I do. I get this question a lot, to get
Speaker 3: emails and you know, ask a lot of this track.
Speaker 3: My best advice is to get hands on a car
Speaker 3: so you can go to school for some of the stuff,
Speaker 3: which is good, but go buy a car that's low consequence,
Speaker 3: not the one that you're driving to work every day.
Speaker 3: And it could be a maybe an older subru that's
Speaker 3: unreliable and that breaks a lot.
Speaker 2: You'll definitely learn too, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: And and there's tons of information on the web on
Speaker 3: how to fix these and work on it and just
Speaker 3: get some tools and start taking something apart and put
Speaker 3: it back together, get it running again, and then go
Speaker 3: a little bit deeper, and go a little bit deeper,
Speaker 3: and you're eventually gonna end up with more experience. And
Speaker 3: then when you find the thing that you're passionate about,
Speaker 3: keep going down that road and learning more. And if
Speaker 3: you keep your head down, you know, the hope is
Speaker 3: and the expectation is that you know you're enjoying them,
Speaker 3: and then you know people can see that and you
Speaker 3: can hopefully turn that into a career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also a takeaway from your story is, you know,
Speaker 1: don't be afraid to go out there and ask for
Speaker 1: what you want. Like you went into the garage JG Motorworks,
Speaker 1: right and you were sweeping floors. I mean, And for
Speaker 1: young folks out there, people want to help. Those who
Speaker 1: want that are asking for help, right, So don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to ask for it, and don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: get your hands dirty, because I mean, those are that's
Speaker 1: those are winning attributes, you know. And it seems like
Speaker 1: the younger Stephan was that kid, you know that went
Speaker 1: after what he wanted, you know, and so somebody to
Speaker 1: really emulate and you know, kind of use as like
Speaker 1: a north star if you will. So thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1: It was a real honor to sit down and be
Speaker 1: able to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for coming on and joining us today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me guys. It was fun.