Garage Heroes In Training

GHiT 0646: Gift Ideas for the Racer and Driver

Looking for gift ideas for a driver/racer in your life? We have thoughts and try to avoid the things that we really don't want or won't use. Things that took a little thought and care or at least appear to. We try to save you some time during the hectic season and this year, we even got it our before the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/GiftsForRacers

If you would like to help grow high-performance driving and racing and maybe even our podcast, lol:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.

Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Audra, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers

Money saving tips:

1) Enter code "GHIT" for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process at https://candelaria-racing.com/ for a Sentinel system to capture and broadcast live video and telemetry.

2) Enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order and Apex Pro system from https://apextrackcoach.com/ and you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.

3) Need a fix of some Garage Heroes in Training swag for unknown reasons: https://garage-heroes-in-training.myspreadshop.com/

We talk with Craig Ledbetter aka Craiggers, one of our favorite judges and team member of the Terminally Confused racing team from the 24 Hours of Lemons team. Initially we review our future race at CMP and some of the recent debacle we had with relocating our El Jeffe/Bad Hombre race truck from a few episodes back. Bill also makes a subtle plea to be a judge at some point.

Craiggers has been a car guy for many, many years and has been racing for almost a decade. We try to summarize many things from his vast history and things he has learned to do well, and things he has learned not to do. His first car, at his first race, failed tech, so his history has started similarly to most others we know. Unfortunately, his first race did not end with a checkered flag due to a lug nut tightening issue and a lack of repair talent and experience at that point.

Craiggers and Curt are also well known in the southeast for their green egg derived barbecue parties in the lemons paddock. Its not quite America’s Butt but it is reportedly awesome and a do not miss item. We end up bribing them to bring up the green eggs to the NJMP race in 2020 by offering them seats in the soon to be completed Capri. No pressure Alan. Ok, a lot of pressure, since its up to you to feed the entire lemons paddock.

We eventually went into how our team is doing and what we could do better along with how his team has progressed and learned over the years. This ended up taking a lot of the episode and ends up with tons of good information. This also forms the basis of the winter training program we are working on, as we speak. Alan reviews his legendary pro move to load a trailer. Luckily, Vicki won’t listen to the podcast. Lol.

A lot of these stories came from the recent race at NHMS where we just raced and Craig was one of the judges.

Craig gets into his deliciously/devilishly bad plan for his RX-8. Its not quite as bad as Alan mis-heard, but it is still a bit of engineering required. It will likely come out better than Craig’s repair of the Fury at an earlier race. (Details within)

We ended up developing a training matrix for our team, largely as a result of this episode. Please let us know if you are interested. We like to share what we learn. Some of it may even be useful.

Key points of interest we covered were:

1) How to successfully compete in lemons, beyond self-selection

2) Is speed creep in Lemons factual or perception, or merely a result of the overall increase in performance of relatively newer cars

3) ECU Tuning and modification strategy

4) We develop a new strategy of making our cars last longer (If we don’t drive them, ...)

5) Alan and Craiggers discuss wheel bearing condition and potential management strategies, which led into the discussion of Alan and his CSI investigation/discussion with Judge Craiggers. Strap in, this one is a doozy, and Alan

6) (Im)proper use of 1970’s LTD’s as cornering aides

7) Managing room and knowing which cars (and drivers) to manage in heavily crowded tracks

8) Bill has bad Road Atlanta flashbacks from last year

9) Many Judge stories from Judge Craiggers

10) NJMP planning and potential bribing opportunities if we had 3 racing cars ready

11) Craiggers takes a very solid run at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

12) Bill’s mom’s actual podcast listening is brought into question

13) Is it possible to make a Lemons legal rocket powered car? Why yes, yes it is.

14) How to properly use 1960’s brakes in a racing condition and at least one method for how to determine if a car is race ready

15) Potential ways to entertain Lemons judges at a race

Where else are you going to hear about a jet powered golf cart? Now, that’s real racing!

Craig is nearly useless for theming, but a bunch of fun, as always.

We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we have.

SPOILER FILLED EPISODE: On this week’s Way Off Our Topic (WOOT) episode, we try to review the most recent Star Wars movie, “The Rise of Skywalker”. We try to get a broad range of opinions from relatively hard core Star Wars fans to fans who have seen the movies and we also range from 11 years old to over 50. In general, we all liked the movie. We had issues with some parts, but in general, the internet backlash is much stronger than any of us felt it should be. With us this week, we had returning Guest Jeff with his son Josh (11), returning guest Craiggers with his son Noah (18), along with Vicki and Bill.

Highlights and Discussion centers on the following points:

1) Our individual Star Wars history and fandom

2) An in-depth review of most of the major points of “The Rise of Skywalker” along with several discussions along the way, as well as our usual trivia bits

3) Jeff discusses Roger Bannister’s breaking of the 4-minute mile

4) New canon and force capabilities expansion

5) The very full nature of this movie plot and Craig’s very likely theory

6) Potential editing choices/options to simplify the movie and add more to sections and/or stakes to the movie

7) Is Hux really Biff

8) Force users: anyone vs by birthright/family lineage

9) Acting comparison between prequels and sequels

10) The Han Solo cameo and would it have happened is Carrie Fisher had not passed away

11) Luke’s change in tone vs Episode 8

12) Overall thoughts and rating of the movie

13) Impact of Carrie Fisher’s death on the movie and plot points

14) Star Wars: Disney vs Lucas films, Closer than you would think

15) Retcon of The Last Jedi/Episode 8

16) Favorite characters, both lead and supporting

17) Coolest Light Saber of the entire series

18) The Star Wars family tree discussion and significant Naboo commonality

19) The original sequel trilogy layout vs what we saw

Our Final Ratings:

Jeff: Wanted to shift focus and expand upon certain other areas 8.0

Josh: Too Complex, 8.0

Craig: Sith level avoidance, as would be expected, but 8.0

Noah: Avoided, rather similarly, Sith in training? 7.0

Vicki: Still shipping Ben and Rey to a 8.0

Bill: 8.5, not quite a 9 as was thought upon first viewing

And finally a check in on The Mandalorian through episode 7 and a bit about The Witcher

Did we cover everything? If not, let us know in the comments and we may have a part 2.

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0441: Skye Romanoff - On Rally Cross and Beyond

Skye Romanoff has raced in a variety of disciplines and has promoted Rally Cross in California and nationwide. She has recently been invited by the Fern GP team for some test days in England (at Silverstone, how cool is that), with the potential of of driving driving in their Formula 3 cars in the future. If you aren't familiar with Rally Cross, this is a great introduction and we are already looking for a nearby event this summer. In addition, Vicki and Skye bond over their shared enjoyment and love for working on their cars.

Skye also has perhaps the best answer we have ever had to the most memorable car breakdown.

For more info on Rally Cross, please go to Skye's website at www.rallycra.com

A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/SkyeRomanoff

If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube etc.

Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate that very much. Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS Are you looking to stream or integrate your telemetry/racing data with video? Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code "GHIT" for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process at https://candelaria-racing.com/

PS2 Please do not forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40. Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order from https://apextrackcoach.com/

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

On this episode, Vicki, Alan, and Bill discuss race weekend preparation using this week's EVO School race day and our next Lemons race at NJMP as examples. In addition. Alan covers his tool of the week, a Quickjack 5000. No relation to Sunblock 3000.