Lara Vernon is our guest for this episode. She is a racing driver that is rapidly moving up the ranks of amateur racing. We have raced alongside her at our last event in Charlotte on the Roval and she just returned from winning the B class event with the true 24 hour race at CMP with the Sorry For Party team, driving in both their Firebird and 944 race cars during the race and posting the fastest laps for the weekend. Lara also owns a boutique exotic car dealership called “Rare Exotic Vehicles” ...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 57 min•Season 3Ep. 138
Danielle Tripp is our guest for this episode with special co-host Ben Dawson coming in as well. Danielle is a member of the Winsome Racing team with Ben and has quickly progressed from starting our as a car girl who went on a racing experience event, started driving in HPDE events to become a racing instructor and raced in her first race in 2019. It was great to catch up with Danielle and see how she progressed and where she wants to go. We have no doubt she will get there, and quickly. As a fel...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 49 min•Season 3Ep. 137
Roland Hahn is our guest for this episode with Ann Moran occasionally chiming in throughout the episode. Roland has been racing since the 80’s and has probably completed more races than we have laps (which is not really that much of an exaggeration). Some fascinating stories and history that will help you and your team in the next race. On this episodes Dominating with Dawson, we go over Racing in the Rain. No, not the book, how to do it and how to enjoy it more. We hope you enjoy this episode! ...
Sep 14, 2020•2 hr 59 min•Season 3Ep. 136
Ben Dawson is our guest for this episode where we go over some of his racing history and a lot of how he has progressed to his current level and what he is looking to get into going forward. It was great to catch up with him and learn a bunch more about him and his driving. It is also the easiest episode ever to put in our Dominating with Dawson segment where we go over several methods for a driver to determine their speed and adjust accordingly on a track. This is especially important when you ...
Sep 07, 2020•2 hr 22 min•Season 3Ep. 135
At our recent Lucky Dog race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, we were lucky enough to be in the paddock next to Race Bar. Yes, they are back. Jeff/Ron even took a stint in our race truck. On this episode we go over the entire event from their perspective and how Race Bar helped us throughout the weekend. As we covered in our earlier race review episode, the entire event was a blast and Race Bar was a large part of the fun. Jeff Caplan/Ron Mexico, Jandy/Daddy, Patrick McHugh/Richard "Dick" ...
Sep 01, 2020•3 hr 34 min•Season 3Ep. 134
We were lucky enough to get four of the Lucky Dog team to discuss with us the Lucky Dog series and how their first ever east coast race went at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on the Roval. Jason Miles, Briana Miles, Chris Wilhelm, and Justin Parcher were our guests for this episode. Please snug up your racing harness, this one is pretty fun but actually has some good content to learn from and may improve your team. On this episode of Dominating with Dawson we cover braking speed and how to manage ...
Aug 26, 2020•2 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 133
On this episode, we review the entire race weekend at the Charlotte Roval for our Lucky Dog endurance race. The first race started Friday night and ended Saturday morning. The second race was a 10-hour enduro that started at noon Sunday. It was our first time at Charlotte Motor Speedway, our first time at a big oval track, and our first race of the year. How hard could it be? What could go wrong? We found a few things. Luckily, we had several friends and new friends at the track to help us work ...
Aug 20, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Season 3Ep. 132
Danny van Dongen is an accomplished racing driver and has started several businesses in Europe and the US, including a racing school, a racing series, as well as successfully starting up Hankook Motorsports that offers tires for racing in the US to nearly all forms of both amateur and professional racing series. We would like to thank Danny and the team for their RS4's our tire of choice for endurance racing and the official tire of both Lucky Dog and WRL endurance racing series. We try to summa...
Aug 14, 2020•1 hr 53 min•Season 3Ep. 131
Nate Tennis from DirtFish Rally school joins us on this episode to discuss rally driving, racing, and training. Nate reviews his background (since essentially his birth) and how his school approaches teaching the principles of rally driving to their students. His extensive background in rally and off road racing for over two decades and counting helps tremendously in teaching their students since 2010. DirtFish's original vision was to become the premier rally school in the United States. Moreov...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 55 min•Season 3Ep. 130
Jen, Vicki, and Bill review how the NASA Great Lakes HPDE event at PittRace went last weekend. It is our team's most anticipated HPDE event of the year and we were not disappointed. Jennifer had our friend Chris as her instructor for the entire weekend and it showed as she progressed dramatically through the event in her ND Miata. Vicki was also in HPDE 1 with another friend Jim as her student partner and also learned a ton, especially related to weight transfer in her NB Miata. Bill was in the ...
Jul 31, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 3Ep. 129
We try to give answers to questions our listeners want to know, usually to help them progress as drivers, but sometimes we get requests to answer questions that are not going to help you drive any better, ever. This is one of those times and one of those episodes. Several of you have asked us these questions at the track or via the inter webs, so here they are, as requested. Throttle steering is the subject for our Dominating with Dawson segment this episode. This is one of the ways that you can...
Jul 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 127
Christian "Mental" Ward joins us for a very special episode where we try to break down any barriers that are keeping you from getting started and trying high performance driving or going out to a track or autocrossing etc. As with every Mental episode, we have tons of stories and go very, very long. So strap in for a great episode where we show various ways for you, YES YOU, to start TODAY! PS this will also apply to getting some improved training opportunities for the new drivers in the family....
Jul 19, 2020•3 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 126
Cathy joins us on the podcast again to talk about the first ever Lucky Dog endurance race on the east coast that will take place in 4 weeks at Charlotte Motor Speedway on their Roval and we will be under the lights! There is no way we would miss this race and it will likely be our teams only wheel to wheel race this season. Cathy discussed how the Lucky Dog season has gone this year and what updates to the race procedures that they adopted to assist with COVID 19 compliance. If you haven't been ...
Jul 15, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 125
On this flashback episode, we cover our team's second ever race at Thompson with the 24 Hours of Lemons series in 2018. How did the race go? Well, it was our first ever two car race. It was the first ever race for half of our team (Alan, Jennifer, Casey, and Pete). It was our first time on track with the SpiderStang and our friends at Prompt Critical showed Liam and Cassian how to "adjust" the boost on the SpiderStang. The Capri died and is still dead to this day. We won the "I Got Screwed" awar...
Jul 10, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Season 3Ep. 124
Bill Griffin has worked his way up to through the HPDE ranks to where he is a racing driver as well as an instructor, actually Jennifer's instructor from GingerMan a few weeks back. We talk with him about his history and progression from having zero experience in performance driving to where he competes regularly with NASA and Grid Life as well as instructing when he can. Bill grew up liking racing as many people who grew up near Indianapolis did and eventually began driving himself when his wor...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 52 min•Season 3Ep. 123
Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill check in to review how the recent HPDE at GingerMan went with NASA Great Lakes. We are not in our usual location and are recording under a roof in a KOA near Traverse City Michigan so there may be a bit more background noise than normal but we wanted to record while everything was still very fresh, even though we were all pretty exhausted. On this week's Dominating with Dawson, we go into a discussion to clarify apexes and Ben's approach and how the point of rotation ca...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 3Ep. 122
Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill are going to be attending the NASA Great Lakes HPDE at GingerMan, a new track for our team. This is a short episode where we cover our preparation for the HPDE and our goals and areas of focus going into the HPDE event. In addition, we cover coasting on a race track (Hint: Don’t) and how to avoid it in this episode’s Dominating with Dawson segment. We hope you enjoy the episode! Best regards, Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast...
Jun 24, 2020•35 min•Season 3Ep. 121
Christina Lam is a racing driver for several series, is an instructor for Skip Barber and NASA, as well as a frequent contributor to Grass Roots Motorsports magazine. We first started following her as her “After A Crash” 9-part series started a few months back and became instant fans of her approach and her dedication to racing, education, and giving back to the racing community. On this episode, we go over how she started to be involved from a point of little knowledge and car/racing influences...
Jun 20, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Season 3Ep. 120
Just in time for the upcoming NASA Great Lakes event at GingerMan, Chief Instructor Eric Meyer was kind enough to join us and discuss his past and current association with racing and instructing, as well as the genealogy and philosophy that has led to the current NASA Great Lakes HPDE program curriculum. It is by far the best of the HPDE instruction we have attended across the country and we think highly enough of it that we regularly attend their HPDE events that are sometimes well over a 10 ho...
Jun 12, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 3Ep. 119
John Pagel is our guest for this episode. John Pagel is the Tech Tyrant and is the head of tech inspection for the 24 hours of Lemons and has a shop called Evil Genius in Davis, California that serves a wide variety of metal fabrication needs for racing teams. John also teaches how to fabricate roll cages. When he comes east, we will be attending one of these sessions. We thank John for all his efforts and the entire Lemons team for their endless work to keep everyone safe at our races. We did h...
Jun 08, 2020•1 hr 59 min•Season 3Ep. 118
Jim “Daddy Earth” Webb, Pat “Richard Freelane” McHugh take over another episode of the podcast (lol), but it was for a great cause and contribution to our society during this COVID 19 pandemic. Jim and Pat have been working with James Ballenger from Ballenger Motorsports to raise funds and to fabricate and distribute face masks, face shields, and all kinds of assorted PPE for the Richmond region and anyone in need across the country. Hopefully, you can add to the relief effort in some small way....
Jun 05, 2020•1 hr 50 min•Season 3Ep. 117
Vicki, Jennifer, and Bill tried to talk through the recent work weekend at the garage and then we reviewed the NASA Great Lakes HPDE Bill attended at Mid-Ohio. Everyone was quite tired from the weekend, but we wanted to get this out while it is still fresh in our minds and to fulfill the “fix” of a few listeners who wanted more detail from the HPDE after Bill’s “too short” episode from Saturday. If you have any more questions, we will have at least two more NASA Great Lakes Episodes in the comin...
Jun 02, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Season 3Ep. 116
A quick episode to cover the highlights of today's HPDE event at Mid Ohio with NASA Great Lakes. We also summarize the changes within the event to account for social distancing and how it impacts the event. We will have another episode later this week to go into greater detail, as well as review Sunday.
May 31, 2020•16 min•Season 3Ep. 115
We used our time machine to before we had a podcast and have a post-race review of the first every Garage Heroes In Training team racing event at NJMP. We had a blast! It was so easy that we doubled our team size and started racing two cars at each race. All you need to do is prep the car, race the car, and then drive home. Why was everyone saying this was hard? We didn't understand. Yet. On "Dominating with Dawson" we go over dive bombing, what it is, what it means, and how to avoid it, both fr...
May 22, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Season 3Ep. 114
Erik Torgeson and Chris Wilhelm joined us to talk about their racing history and the Lucky Dog racing series. Erik is the Director of Operations and runs the Dog Pound penalty area during the races. Chris is the head of vehicle safety and technical inspection as well as usually covering radio control and timing and scoring during the Lucky Dog races. Erik is also known as Bulldog while Chris is the Junk Yard Dog (JYD). In addition, we go into the upcoming race (hopefully) at the Charlotte Roval ...
May 17, 2020•1 hr 49 min•Season 3Ep. 113
John Lavin joined us from the Safety 3rd Motorsports racing team for a great discussion of his racing and team history, including how his background in racing snowmobiles, motorcycles, and snowboarding has led to and helped with his racing cars. His team started with an initial car that was intended for Lemons but ended up being a second gen Supra that was better fitting into an episode of Better Call Saul and ended up in ChampCar and started with the usual issues and tremendous stories as his t...
May 13, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Season 3Ep. 112
After months of badgering, we finally weakened Amanda Tully enough to where she agreed to come onto our podcast. After a disappointing 2019 where she finished 2nd, 1st, 1st, and 1st, we couldn't wait to hear what she was going to do to improve this year, LOL. Actually, it was a great pleasure to catch up with her and learn about her racing history and how she and her team came to dominate the east coast races last year. Amanda also discussed with us her recent transition to sim racing and we all...
May 09, 2020•1 hr 34 min•Season 3Ep. 111
Blake Field and Ben Dawson have raced many times with each other and now are on our podcast together. While it started off as if another Race Bar takeover, we actually did provide several useful pieces of information and tips that will help you and your team at and on the track. That is not to say the episode is without our usual banter and attempts at humor, but there may be a nugget or two in this one. Also, Ben pulls double duty on this episode and we discuss general guidelines for tire align...
May 04, 2020•2 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 110
Brent Picasso from Autosports Lab and fellow racing driver joined us to discuss a very exciting addition to their system called TireX. TireX allows the driver and the paddock to real time monitor the tire temperature across the tread continuously while the car is on track. This can help in a multitude of ways including monitoring tire performance, set up effects, and driver induced effects. In addition to being real time, it also was designed to use a graphical display that can monitor tire temp...
Apr 30, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Season 3Ep. 109
Randy Bish is a relatively new lemons racer for the League of Legitimate Nigerian Businessmen racing team that is off to a spectacularly good start by making all the best bad decisions possible, including racing their 1972 Ford Pinto. On this episode, we go over his racing experiences so far and cover the topic that no one ever thought they wanted to know: what is the best way to race a Pinto in endurance racing. Jennifer and Vicki particularly enjoyed this since their first car was also a 1972 ...
Apr 29, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Season 3Ep. 108
