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Crazy Phone/Text Calls
Abbreviation Listing - To ensure all who read the enews know what the abbreviations used in the enews mean, a list is provided at the end of the enews. Reminds me of the T-shirt with the meaning of the flags in which the definition of the blue flag is "There's a race going on and you're not in it."
In This Week's Enews
The Rant
Title - People must thing I know stuff about cars
Racing News - Ferrari DQ'd in China and other stuff
Other News -
- SEMA needs our help again
- Locally The Cruz in Port Orchard is on again
- The Historics will honor 70 years of the small block chevy
Racing Humor of the Week - Girls who love cars
Lulu gets the last word
Opening Rant
When I go to the gym (which isn't as often as Ana would like because I'm a runner not a gym rat), I listen to It's Not About the Car with Sam Smith, Ross Bentley and Jeff Braun. This is a very special show because I know all three of these guys. In fact those of your who have been going to our seminar over the years have gotten to meet, learn and visit with these guys. So as I ease into the exercise machine, I listen to their Podcast.
While I've written about this show before, I'd like to comment a little about this. First it is scary about how much these guys know about racing. Well OK Sam doesn't know too much except that he has driven many different cars and taken lots of driving schools in his business as editor of Road and Track. This past week they spoke about brakes and that almost never do brakes fail on a race car. Yeah, yeah some of you probably think that you've have brake failure and according to these guys there is almost always something leading up to the fact that the brakes were going away and maybe you didn't recognize it and didn't respond. It is hard to come in off the track during a race but brake failure isn't a fun experience and can cause serious issues so you should probably pit and check it out.
Way back in the 1990s I was racing a VW Scirocco in a 4 hour endurance race at Pacific Raceways (well it was called Seattle International Raceways back then) and yes 4 hours was an enduro. The last driver was Mike Oberholtzer who was the chief driving instructor for the ProFormance Racing School. When he came in he explained that he lost all the brakes and had to use the escape road out of turn 3. He went one more lap and saw the 10 minute board out for the race so he continued with almost no brakes for the rest of the time. Seems the rear brakes had an issue in that the pads, rotors and all had failed and there were no pads and pucks and all just about gone. Now the point here is that the brakes were going and he had to have notice that before they were gone. So pay attention to your brakes.
This is just one story from the Podcast about things you thought you knew about and found there was so much more to learn. They have talked about drifting with a guy who runs the top drifting school in the country. Who knew there was so much about this sport that could apply to club racing. Or the guy who visited the Podcast that runs a top motorcycle driving school and how much of that applies to club racing as well.
So in the end, I leave the Podcast knowing a little and wondering how anyone can learn all this stuff and still go racing. Then I remember what most have said. When you go onto the track, set a goal to fix one or two things that session. If you can accomplish that, then the session was a success. Get better every lap and I'm guessing that one day you'll be on the podium. Then you ask yourself how you got there and realized that it was one session, one or two issues that you got better at each until you learned how to go racing.
I hang around with a lot of pretty good racers and it seems that they have forgotten how they moved to the top. Many were just naturally talented but most must learned as they raced and so got better and better. Course some of it had to do with being young and having no fear. That is a topic on the Podcast from the Motorcycle champion about falling off and getting back on a bike again. Now that I own my own race car, I'm not so inclined to do stupid things as I have to pay for it, plus owning an older car, parts are harder to come by.
As my friend Ed Zabinski said when he spoke at our seminar - "Complete all the laps. Don't get penalized, and put the whole car back on the trailer at the end of the day." Now let's get on with it.
Title
We get a lot of calls/texts/emails about all kinds of things concerning racing and cars. Yep I've been in this bidness for 39 years or more and before that I autocrossed, and worked turns. That of course means nothing and yet many racers call/text/email asking me questions about issues for which I know little.
Leave me give you a few examples. People often ask me about race cars. Yes I know a lot of cars and mostly I know about the people who race them. So when someone asks about a particular car like a SAAB, I have no idea about when and where this car raced. People ask about drivers, like who is Joe Beats. Well sometimes I know about the person and often I don't. Hey Andy do you know about this guy in Canada that used to race a Datsun 510 challenge car? Nope.
Then people ask me about car parts for which I know very little. If it is a product we sell, then I can answer them or if they ask about a product that I can get information about, then I can help. It seems that sometimes I spend a lot of time looking up a product that we don't have a source for just to provide the information and to help me get smarter too.
So with these types of questions here is my best answer. I do know people who know stuff and I'm happy to get them in touch with someone who probably does know the answer. So I guess that helps them in their quest for information. Like the SAAB answer, I do know people who race SAABs and can probably help. Actually this is fun sometimes in that I learn that the SAAB guy was a great racer years ago and qualified up front in the SCCA National Runoffs. So I learned stuff too.
Parts problems are difficult if one of my big warehouses doesn't have the manufacturer on their list. Hard to believe that some of the 5 or more big warehouses don't have items I'm looking for but sports car racing doesn't always have suppliers that are in big warehouses. Then there are times when I can find the part (not in a warehouse) that will be willing to sell me the part as a discount. If not, then I might find the part on the internet and maybe get a discount. Funny that an item such as a quick release fitting that sells for $120 from the supplier can be found online for $86. Guess some people don't care that their product is discounted on the net.
Oh that segues into a story.....NO NOT Another Story. Help...... When we started this bidness people could look into many racing publications and find great deals. In fact the deals were so good, it probably kept people like me out of the bidness. Holley for example would sell a carburetor list at $400 and Summit would sell it for $186. My cost as a dealer was $299. My friend "Bargain Bob" Booth owned Halo Products and then Bell Motorsports. He would watch Sports Car Magazine (you know the monthly SCCA magazine that you used to love before the managers at SCCA cancelled the publication and still kept my membership the same), and check helmet pricing. Now Bob was a huge Bell dealer and those of you who read the enews remember that Bob owned Bell helmets outright for some years. So when some company would lower the price, Bob would lower his price and you could never beat his pricing. Then Bob would complain about pricing.
Somewhere along the way, MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) came along. If you sell your product for less than MAP the supplier would cut you off as a dealer. Hurray! Guys like me are saved. Trust me that suppliers look for that and you'll get the call about pricing if you violate the rule. Now you can sell products for whatever you want, you just can't advertise them. Just so you know our safety gear is all sold at MAP pricing and we've already paid the freight to get it here.
Oops, guess the article has gotten out of hand. So when you are in the bidness of racing and know a few people, you can get a lot of calls on topics for which you have little info or products for which you have no info. I love helping people and so does my staff, it is just that there are somethings we just can't help with. For years at the track people used to come by and ask for "For Sale Signs" to sell their car. Then people asked for something that no one had (like stuff you'd find at a drugstore) and a guy who worked for me said we should change the name to Armadillo Racing General Supply Company.
Then there are local people who call because they don't know what they need and are thinking we might help. About 4 times a year someone calls about a product that they need help with are hoping we do service. Yes we do HANS recerts and we do some radio stuff and try to never do steel braided fitting and on rarest of occasions we do spark plug lines but that's about it. So if it is an engine part, I might suggest they call Craig Blood if it is for an American engine part. They know nothing about Blood so I give them the phone number and they are happy.
So when you call to inquire about buying this bidness just know you should be prepared to answer lots of questions that have nothing to do with racing. Help people where you can and don't be afraid to say, "I'm sorry we can't help you with that, or here is a person who might know the answer to your question." OK gotta go as someone wants to find a deal on a pit bike and I can give him some sources as we don't carry pit bikes.
Racing News
On to Formula 1 and the Chinese Grand Prix this past weekend. So another run by McLaren with Oscar Piastri winning the race and his team mate Lando Norris finishing 2nd and George Russell in the Mercedes taking 3rd. The rookie Kimi Antonelli finished 6th. Of course the big news was that the Ferrari drivers were disqualified. Leclerc was underweight and Hamilton's car was .5mm too low.
Hey in F1 you take all the chances you can to gain an advantage. So for Hamilton .5mm cost him points and for LeClerc being underweight cost him points. Because LeClerc made 1 pit stop the graining on the tires resulted in the car sitting too low, and for Hamilton is was a miscalculation of the rearward skid plate. So by making two mistakes that really were done by engineering and not the driver, they lost points. OK I guess I'm not in that world where such subtle differences are worth the mistakes made. Of course this is Ferrari where the problem occured in 2023 and Ferrari said it wouldn't happen again. That is until 2025 when it happened again. Sheez.
Over in NASCAR, Kyle Larson won giving him 30 wins in the Cup Series.
I didn't watch the IndyCar race as it was at Thermal and I don't like that event as it is like a private club racing. Alex Palou won which isn't a big deal unless you note that it was his 2nd win this season out of 2 races.
Looking ahead the first race of this local season is in April so it will be a while before we can talk about the local club scene.
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