From Rusty Miatas to Global Marketing: Building a Spec Iron Legacy with Chris Armbruster

What happens when a global social media manager for one of the world’s most iconic tire brands decides to spend his weekends chasing podiums in a mud-filled Copart Mustang?

You get something bigger than a hobby. You get a masterclass in technical curiosity and community.

In this episode of the Late to Grid Podcast, we sit down with Chris Armbruster to discuss his journey from childhood memories of his father’s rotary-swapped Beetle to building a Spec Iron Mustang from the ground up. Chris shares his evolution as a racer—from "survival driving" in endurance races to high-stakes sprint battles—and explains why the NASA community is a unique ecosystem where even your toughest competitors will hand you spare parts to keep you on track.

🏁 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How Chris transitioned from a $500 "rusty" Miata to a competitive Spec Iron Mustang build.
• Why "Driver Mod" is often the worst advice for new racers and why tires should be your biggest investment.
• The science of "heat spotting" and what dismounted NASCAR tires can teach you about your camber setup.
• The terrifying reality of being an instructor when a student’s GT-R goes airborne at 130 MPH.
• Chris’s next target: joining the 200 MPH club at Bonneville in a Bentley Continental GT.

This isn’t just about lap times; it’s about a shared goal of having fun safely and lifting the next generation of racers. Whether you’re a builder debating torque vs. cornering power or an instructor looking to improve your "teaching moments," this episode is your green flag.

The season is finally here, but is your car actually ready? Whether you need a precision track alignment, corner balancing, or just a fresh set of tires mounted, Atomic Autosports has you covered. Don’t let a tech form or a bad setup ruin your weekend. Book now and get dialed in at AtomicAutosports.com.

Want to shave seconds off your lap times? Head over to AtomicAutosports.com. We’ve built a library of alignment specs, downloadable track-day checklists, and a gallery of our latest builds to get your gears turning. Everything you need for a smoother event is just a click away at AtomicAutosports.com.

You know me as the host of Late To Grid, but my biggest shift wasn't on the track, it was leaving corporate life to own a Rad Air location. It gave me the freedom to turn my passion for cars into a career and actually get to the track more often. Ready to own your future? Visit radairfranchise.com and let’s get you living life in the fast lane.

Stop being Late To Grid and start being prepared. Atomic Autosports is your source for Malco detailing, Red Line lubes, and high-temp fluids. Need pit accessories or some fresh Atomic merch for the podium? We’ve got you covered. Stop in the shop in Wickliffe Ohio or visit AtomicAutosports.com

Thanks for listening and taking an interest in growing grassroots racing.  The Late To Grid podcast shares the stories and inspiration that help listeners along their motorsports journey. 

Find all episodes on the Atomic Autosports website.

Transcript

0:17

Racing is about two things. It's less about the car, and it's more about the community and more about the journey. And that's what this week's guest talks about. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. All right. We are in studio with Chris Armbruster. Chris, it's great to have you on the podcast. Yeah, thanks for the invite, Bill, I appreciate it. Yeah. And you drove up in some snowy weather, so thanks for making the trek. No problem. Would you drive up here, uh, Mini Cooper? No way. What? I got a twenty twenty three Mini Cooper S, which is actually electric. No way. Fully electric. Um, a surprised a lot of my friends. I got rid of a six hundred horsepower twin turbo BMW on the trade in, um, but, yeah, it's pretty good. Uh, you know, got a couple race cars, got a truck. It's nice to have one car that just always works, right? Yeah. And does not get any mods right? Uh, well, I told myself that, but, uh, it has a few a few choice ones, but there's no chiptunes or anything. It's all electric, so it just goes. That's pretty cool. Good. Well, I'm glad it got you up here. Yeah. So I can't wait to talk a little bit more about your your background, your career, because you're very close to the sport in your career and you're racing and things like that. But who first got you interested in racing and motorsports? Oh, gosh. You would have to go back to me and diapers. Um, my father used to drag race a Volkswagen Beetle with a twelve, a rotary swap in it. And, uh, I still remember faint memories of going to, uh, Thompson Drag Raceway in northeastern Ohio. And that car would go down the track and the announcer would go, that thing sure is weak, because, you know, makes those funky rotary sounds. And back then, you know, back then, gosh, we're old. This was thirty years ago, and rotaries were still kind of, um, Mystic to people because the internet didn't exist yet. Uh, and that was just like, my dad just loved rotaries. We had a couple rx7 in the family. I had a turbo rx7 in college. I didn't tell my dad about till after college. Oh, yeah. All right, we're gonna we're gonna come back to that. What was his fascination with rotaries? Um, my father and I are basically clones, so I'm going to go on a limb and say that somebody told him he couldn't do it, and he was like, watch this. Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's great. Did you ever get a chance to drive the beetle? Uh, I did not, but I sat a lot on the trans tunnel. Um, wrenched a lot of it. And then we moved to, like, town when I was, I don't know, eleven, twelve, something like that. And he sold that. Paid for the house. All those responsible things you're supposed to do. Yes. And did you ever get the drag racing bug? Oh, yeah. That's where I started. So, um, I hope my mom and dad aren't listening to this. Um, I would just take whatever car I had. family car and I would just go test in tune with my friends, and that was our Friday night. You know, we'd go out to Thompson. I had a V6 Eagle Premier, is what I started on, if you remember those. I worked at one of those dealerships. Oh, okay. In high school, surprisingly good car, like a lot of people slept on them. Hideous by today's standards, but at the time, they look pretty good. Um, nice stout V6. And, you know, at the time, everyone in high school had a one point eight something or other four banger, and so you could actually it was kind of respectable. And I just kept going from there. Um, got into motorcycles and started racing bikes. Um, did that for a few years until one blew up on me and, uh, left me a little shaken. Yeah, um, still did it on one more bike after that, but then decided that was enough for me, and I switched to Miatas. And then that started the track journey. Yeah, Miatas always the answer, right? Miata is like, always the answer. I tell that to people all the time. And I've even moved on right to mustangs and things. But when it's a hard value proposition to beat, if you're like, hey, I got five grand, I want to start tracking. Dude. It's Miata. What drew you to the Miata originally? Um, honestly, probably people just spouting that fact off. My first Miata was a five hundred dollars Miata that had a swamp in the trunk. Didn't have a working top. It was a one point six liter, uh, nineteen ninety three Miata Lee. So it had the red interior, a gloss black exterior, and then it had like a specific just to that generation. I'm going to call it body kit, but, you know, like a little lip, a little thing on the, uh, rear bumper and like, a trunk spoiler. Nothing fancy, but technically, somebody said it's the rarest of them all. There's only, like, twelve hundred or something. Unfortunately, mine was rusty, and it was a five hundred dollar Miata. So you can imagine its condition? Yes. And did that car go on track? Yeah, that was my first everything car. So that was my first roll bar. That was my first car comp set of tires car. First coilover car. That was a lot of, um, me cutting my teeth for racing. I drove that for a couple of years while I searched for a retired Miata race car or former Miata race car that I wanted to work on, so I ended up buying a spec Miata, another one six that I knew everything going on. I already had a little good parts bin and supply going for it. Uh, and just kept moving on. So then I got a former one six spec Miata set it up for a power to weight racing with NASA and St6. Um, and that's what we're running in it. Now, let me pick your brain later about st6. Yeah. Okay. Um, tell me about the first track day with that first Miata. What what what do you remember most? I remember going to. I was starting an autocross, which is where I would probably send everybody just to make sure you know what you're doing. Uh, really good car control. Um, a lot of people spend years in autocross. You know, if I was giving recommendations to somebody getting started, I think. Yeah. Go do five autocross events, figure out what rotation is, and then don't be scared of the track. I put off going to a full size track for probably two years, trying to say autocross was like all I needed. And and of course we've all probably tuned a car or had custom cars and you get that first hundred horsepower bump. You want the next fifty. Just like track racing, you do decent, you start getting good at autocross and you're like, okay, what's next? And that was then wheel to wheel racing. Well, time trial and then wheel to wheel racing. Okay. What track was the uh. Let's see. So my very first autocross anything was at, um, National Trails Drag Raceway and Columbus. Yep. And they just set up like a cone course. And I went to like, a driver acclimation program. It was sort of Required from SCCA at the time. It's like your first thing. It's like a miniature driving school. And they started to teach you what rotation was, what hitting the brakes and weight transfer was. I came out of that pretty drifty. Um, and it exposed a lot of weaknesses in the car as well, because, again, five hundred dollars Miata is not the best running gear. And I had cut springs on on stock dampeners. So you can imagine it was a little bouncy, a little drifty, but it really gave me a good foundation to build from, and I just sort of kept working on car control, kept working on car control, and then, uh, yeah, felt pretty safe and got into my first track day. I way overdid it though. I waited too long to do the first proper track day, which was Mid-Ohio in the rain. Oh how lovely. Before the repave. Yes. Nice and slippery. Oh. Very slippery. Good way to learn, I guess. Yes, I still remember, um, my first track, weekend, I'm out on track with my instructor and, uh, it's in the rain. It's the first lap in the rain, and I'm entering, um, the madness. So that over crest, um, way too fast. And it's the only time I've ever had an instructor reach over and grab the wheel and, like, correct my angle. And he gave me a bit of a lecture on what to do after that. And then we kept hitting that same spot, that same consistency. And he actually gave me Rick Hoback. If he's listening, he's the guy who gave me some advice and that stuck in my brain forever. I still use it today. And uh, at the time I remember him saying like, wow, no one ever just does what I tell them. And I was like, well, what's the point of having an instructor if you aren't going to listen to them? And so from there, that was the bug man. After that, it was downhill or uphill, depending on how you look at it. Yeah. And whose track day was that? Um, that was with auto interest, which just closed up this year. It did? Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great instructors, great program, great organization. Yeah. That's unfortunate. Yeah, I ran with them for years. Um, went through some of their programs before I joined NASA. So I started auto interest track days as my intro to track days. Um, and then I found NASA and the structured racing structure and the CCR and the rule book, and started to really dive in there. Yeah. Was there something about NASA that interest you that drew you in? Um, it was people that I met at auto interest. I think it is said often, but you really can't stress it enough. Uh, club racing is so much community. It's so much. Not the people, you know, like, you have to have a hook up to be successful, but you're going to meet so many people. Club racing. And they want you to be successful. I don't think I've ever felt a community like NASA before where I need a brake pads, and people just gave them to me. They were like, oh, you're out of brakes. Here's a set brake pads and, you know, five hundred dollars Miata, too. So you're like, oh, really? This is one hundred and fifty dollars set of brake pads you're just giving me. And that's that community aspect that you don't get everywhere. And of course, I've paid it for I don't know how many wheel bearings I've given away, how many brake pads I've given away. Because then as you're racing for years, you have all the spares and you just keep helping the younger people down the road and help lift them up and get them into stable programs. And a guy I'm working with now, Brian Parrish, he's at his position finally where people are asking him for parts and he's like, oh man, I finally understand what you mean. I've always waited to be able to be the guy who's like, oh, you need some brake pads, here's some brake pads. Just give me a beer tonight. Yeah. And so he finally had his just give me a beer moment. He's made it. He's made it. Oh that's great. So let's talk a little bit about the Spec Miata. Did you run that with NASA? Yeah. So I bought a former Spec Miata. Well, actually, it was still Spec Miata. I could have raced it in Spec Miata, but I love the build. I'm a builder over For everything else. I like to finesse things. I spend too much time on the tiny minutia and details. Um, but that builds you into a really solid race car. Um, I should knock on wood, but that car starts every time. Finishes every weekend. About the only time I haven't finished a weekend is if I've lost a wheel bearing or something. You know, impossible to predict. I've never ran out of brake pads or ran out of steering rack or anything like that. And that's another good reason. Miatas always the answer because they just don't break catastrophically. Right? And I know you got a mustang build going on now, but do you still have the Miata? I do still have the Miata. Um, it's sitting in my garage. Uh, I'll get a fluid swap and it'll go be the spare backup car for next year. Nice. Um, tell me about a time you're on track. Spec Miata. Were you racing the Miata? Um, because that's probably some of the best racing out there. Cars are very similarly set up drivers. Skill level is very similar. Close wheel to wheel action. Tell me about the time you had a funny story, a funny incident, or a real success on the track? Oh man, I have so many fun ones. Um, I think one of my more favorites was racing with, uh, Tony Lakowski. He drives. This is St6. Okay. Um, he drives an Acura Integra, and I have the Miata. So he has all that front wheel drive power, and I have a bit more of the cornering power, and it's always a great battle. And you can set up passes and turns. Tony and I have been driving only for a few years together, but we are very comfortable next to each other. And we again, uh, over madness there we were, side by side over madness and we like Pirouetted at the same time. We each pushed each other's wing mirrors in and folded them in, but the cars didn't make contact. Ah. And so we got off track and we're looking at GoPro video. And then each one of us has a little like smooch paint mark of the other color on the mirror, and that's one of my more favorite. Just like calm, cool, but extremely close racing moments. Yeah, that you don't get in a lot of other series. Oh my gosh, that's great. That's funny. And I saw a post where you had raced with Nolan Feathers. Oh yeah. Nolan and I go, uh, back I think almost to the same year of comp school even, um, Nolan is awesome. Such a talent behind the wheel. Um, anything he drives is annoying to watch, actually, because you're like, I cannot put the car there and do the things that Nolan can do. Um, but, yeah, he's he's been great. He taught me a excellent few little breaking tips that I still use today as well. Uh, and I've been helping Nolan for years now. Uh, was part of his team for the national champion push at Mid-Ohio. I think that was twenty nineteen at Mid-Ohio. Um, Nolan got his champ national championship title with NASA. We were doing so much to that car days leading up to the race. Um, fixing shifters before the race started. Like the fact that he won that and the car that he won that in is just a testament to his talent. I mean, his his Honda was, um, not the most solid car. Um, but we also had it, you know, way wound out to be competitive at nationals. So, um, kind of had, um, backups for things we knew would go wrong, and, um, and just can drive anything. Oh my gosh. I know you said you really liked community. Is there something specific about the racing? You know, the paddock community that just keeps you coming back and back? Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And this is especially true in NASA, but it's been the case at every track event I've ever gone to. Where else can you go in twenty twenty six and leave a laptop out on a table next to a cell phone, next to a two thousand dollars Alltel scanner, and it'll be there six hours later. You you can't do that. And okay, so it's better than the public, but everything is safe there. Everyone is trying to help you there. Um, and you are trying to help other people. Club racing. Like you're competitive. Like, shoot, I compete against Nolan. But if his car is broken, I'm gonna go help him fix his car. So we got a good drive to race each other. Oh, absolutely. And I don't think you get that everywhere. Um, even in some other, like, just track day clubs, you don't get that everywhere, but you do get that sense of, um, everyone has a shared goal. Everyone's there to have fun for the most part. Everyone's there to have fun safely. You always get a couple of Wahoos on random track days. Um, but I think the fact that you can have so many, um, contributions helps. So when I started, I was just paying my entry fees, doing the time trials, and then got invited to be an instructor. Went through some of those instructor clinics, got my MSF level two and level one and level two certifications, which is the Motorsport Safety Foundation. It's a bit of the accreditation for for um, track coaching these days, at least how NASA is looking at it. Um, and I just stayed in that program. That's another amazing tip to people getting started. Once you are good enough that they invite you to instruct, oh my gosh, go and do it really well. They added. Benefit is if I'm in the car with you in the right seat, and I've been dying to see what an early apex at turn three looks like, but I don't want to throw my race away. Well, I can have my student early apex turn three and see how the car feels, and then use that for my own info. Yeah, and you're not just throwing your students laps away. He's going to need to know how to hit turn three offline as well. So it's a excuse me. It's a great way to learn and it's a great way to teach. And I think that is extremely unique to the NASA Great Lakes region. Yeah. Was there ever a scary moment moment sitting in the right seat? There's been a few. Um, I had to sit right seat. And a fellow who had a R thirty five GTR chip tuned huge wheels arrow. And if it weren't for the majestic electronics inside of that GTR, I don't think we would be having this conversation. No kidding. We got airborne. So, uh, Corvette Museum, NCM and the middle stretch. Um, there's a very long straight as you get to turn, like, eleven and twelve and thirteen, that big right hand sweeper and then Titans. But that straight away leading up has like a tabletop and that GT-R, the R thirty five came four wheels off the ground over that tabletop and we landed the car, like, sideways, fifteen degrees. And I thought right into the wall. But every little electronic in that car was like burp, burp, burp, burp, burp burp burp, burp. And saved us. And that was probably the scariest, I felt in the right seat. Because you're not in control. No, you're just along for the ride. And I'm just going, I don't know, this car is probably okay to wreck at one hundred and thirty. It's built for that. Yeah. But we survived. Um, had a very long download with that student about what is a safe speed until we know some better lines. Um, because, you know, it's a guy in a GT-R and HPD, one or two. It was a lower level group, but a lot of car. Yeah. Well, I'm glad it, uh, did all the corrections, and. And you're here to share your story with us today. Um, so you're building what? You're building a mustang? Uh, is that for spec ion? What's that gonna be racing? Okay. Yeah. So I'm building a spec iron Mustang. Shout out to that whole Great Lakes region as well. I could not be building this car without them. The knowledge base. That's another, um, fun thing we haven't really talked about is the knowledge base inside of these racing communities is huge. And they've even told me they're like, you can Google, you can read whatever you want, but just ask us. We'll tell you what the hot setup is until you start winning. Of course, then you're on your own. Um, so we'll see how this year goes. If I can win a race or two, I'd be super, super happy. If I can get on the podium this year, I'll be happy. Yeah. Why spec iron? Um. Two reasons. Uh, abundance of parts. Um, it's the S197 Mustang. So it splits two generations of possible parts. Cars, because you have the four, six V8 cars, which is what spec iron is. And then in that same generation of car, they put the five zero coyote. So you have so many parts availability right off the shelf right from Ford. I love Ford Performance. The fact that you can just buy a performance Torsen diff from Ford for like five hundred bucks is amazing. I don't know of any other car that you can just bolt and it's a Ford eight point eight rear end. It's not like it's a rocket science rear end to build. Yeah. So the the building aspects and availability of parts was a huge sell. Uh, but secondarily, Ford just pays you money if you win. So if you do, well, you just get cash. Nice. Which, if anyone is in racing, you know, you get contingency dollars. If you're on hawk pads, Hawk will give you some contingency dollars. If you're on Toyo tires, Toyo will give you content, so on and so forth. Um, but to just get cash to spend on anything, it's pretty nice. It is very nice. I have to win to get some cash. Yeah. So there's there's the added motivation. Yeah. Uh, is it a build up from scratch? Yeah. Uh, my buddy, uh, Andrew and I both bought them about the same couple of weeks from each other. We both bought Copart cars. Oh, really? Um, we use the same cage builder. All right, let's back up. Yeah. So what was the damage? That it was at Copart. Uh, mine was a flood car. All right. And Andy's, I think, had a little bit of a quarter panel damage that I think he, you know, race car grade was fine with. Sure. So I think he had to pull out a couple little pop things here and there, but, you know, race car grade. It was ready to go. Sure. All right. So flood, what did you find in the car? I found a bronze medal from the Special Olympics, which I know is not what you were asking, but I thought was a fun fact. Yeah. Um, no idea what it is from. It's just this bronze Special Olympics medal. I forget the year that's on it, but it would be fun to try and find whoever that was. Yeah, I think so. Um, but it was a freshwater flood, which is why I bought it. Okay. Um, it came out of Dayton, of all places, and I took so much corn out of it. So the only thing I can think of is someone hydroplaned into a cornfield and it sat in the rain or something. The water line came up to, uh, like the rocker panel, um, but didn't go above that. So all the seats, the seats, electrics were rusted and solid shut, but the seats were not moldy. The cushions were good, so I was able to get the car street drivable. Um, did a couple of time trial sessions in it last year just to shake it down and feeling pretty good now. Oh, wow, that's great. But just mud every time I take a part out. Still, it's just just mud. Just mud. You just find mud everywhere. Did you inspect it before you bought it or you just went off the pictures? Yeah. Sight unseen. Um, I, uh, grandfather in law, for lack of a better term, um, buys and sells cars from Copart is his business, so he helped me find a good one. I it was a funny story because I had a budget of sixty five, and we bought this car for seventy five and bless his heart. And I also was like, ah, I'll just give you the extra grand. It's the right car and I like to see you racing in something fun. So he helped put the nice. Yeah, a little bit of the equation together. So we get a really good clean car. So got a seven thousand five hundred dollars twenty ten manual V8 Mustang GT with some mud. Yeah. What's been the thing that surprised you most about the build? Um, how easy it is to work on. So in a miata, everything is sandwiched in there. And when you're modifying, you almost have to think about how you're going to get to that element to service it later. Oh my gosh. I did a whole transmission on a mustang by myself and didn't have a single bloody knuckle. It's amazing. Yeah, there's just so much room everywhere in the car, inside the interior. I can have some Fat boy seats. Um, it's very important to me that this car has a passenger seat, which is a bit abnormal for a wheel to wheel race car. Um, so why do you want that? It's gonna sound a little bit full of myself, but I kind of have done everything I came to do in club racing. Like, from a championship perspective. I have a time trial championship, a couple of wheel to wheel championships. Um, I kind of just go out in the Miata and win a lot, or I can almost guarantee a podium at every event that I go to in the Miata. Um, so I just wanted to go a little faster. Um, the Mustang, you know, like, around Mid-Ohio, good reference materials, like three to four seconds faster than Miata. So it's faster, but not 10s Corvette faster or fifteen seconds, you know, to two faster or anything. It felt like a good way to get into a V8. Learn torque. I mean, I basically haven't raced with torque. Um, so that's already been very fun. Yeah. Did you say you're putting a passenger seat in? Why the passenger seat? Oh, um, I want to take people for rides. Okay. Yeah. So I sorry I got a little off on a tangent. That was good stuff. But yeah, after after kind of doing what I came here to do, I still love it. I still love it. I still love the community. I still love NASA. I just wanted to go faster and play with a new car, basically. So the Mustang gets a passenger seat so my dad can come out. My wife can come out. Um, we did NCM in time trials with my wife in the right seat, and she had a blast. Did she? She enjoys it. Yeah. Does she come every weekend? Almost. Yeah, she is my, uh. She's my angel, but, um, she helps me change tires. She does our tire temps after each session in hot pits. Um, keeps me on schedule, you know, manages the, uh, what do they call it? Hospitality table. Yeah, well, it sounds like you're married. Well. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, she's a saint. Oh. That's great. What is the first event for you in this twenty twenty six season? It'll be Corvette Museum in March with NASA. Um, And I don't know what to expect. I've had the Mustang there in street car trim right after I put it together. I just went down at full street stock Street car and went around. So I know kind of what to expect, but you know, nothing at pace. Yeah. Are you doing Mid-Ohio in April? Yeah, I'll be there as well. All right. I'm trying to get there with the Rx7. Oh nice. So we'll see. That'll be the first. It'll be Street I think it's street six. So I'm still trying to figure out the calculator and all that all that kind of stuff. Um, so that's what I wanted to talk to you about. About I could talk forever about Street six. We could have a whole nother podcast episode just about how to optimize for Street six. That would actually be a really good idea. All right, Josh, make note of that. Um, you got NCM, you got Mid-Ohio. Are you doing the full. You do it every weekend with NASA? Yeah, I'm doing every weekend with NASA except out at Audubon. Um, I don't think I mind saying it. I don't like Audubon. I don't like the facility. I don't like the way Audubon people treat club racers. I feel like, um, we're annoying them, but it costs the same to drive at Audubon that it does at Gingerman or former Pitt race, or NCM or Mid-Ohio, where they love having you and they want you to spend your money instead of kicking you out of the clubhouse. And don't go here. And you can only use these bathrooms, and you can only park in the grass over here where it's inconvenient and just. Oh, yeah, just over Audubon. Sure. What, um, what do you use for in-car data? Um, I actually just use the name solo, and then, um. Yeah, a GoPro. GoPro and a name solo. Yeah. Then what do you do with that afterwards? How do you use that to learn? I use data all the time. Um, I will use data at the end of every day. Some people do it every run, but I kind of have too much going on. I also race direct with NASA, so as soon as I come out of the car, I generally have to go do something. Okay. Um, so I'll look at data every day. Uh, at the end of the day. Figure out what turns. I'm leaving something on the table. Uh, and just work that turn. I have a great tip that I teach all my students is work on two things every session. Not two things a day, but two things every session. All right, pick that keyhole setup. You're not quite doing great. And, you know, exit of turn one being much faster. Like just focus on those two core items per lap. And before you know it, you'll stitch that whole lap together really fast over the weekend. All right. What's your schooling background? Uh, like, just personally. Yeah. Um, I have a degree in political science, um, which don't go into political science. Uh, but I've managed to, to make it work, so I have a poli sci degree, and I went to grad school for international relations. Okay. Um, and that is, uh, in no way going to have a parallel here, so I feel bad for that answer. Oh yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to hear, because we're going to get into your career here in a little bit, but you kind of come from an engineering place, and if you've listened to the podcast before and for the listeners listening as there's people that are particular about the builds and particular about learning and particular about something else, it most times comes back to an engineering background. So I just wondered if you had that, but you have a lot of those attributes. No, my father was a body guy, and so all the cars that we had as kids were things we pulled out of the junkyard and put back together. I love it, and I think that is just honestly, that's probably where it started. And then going to the track every now and then with my dad was huge. And by the way, my dad loves that I'm racing. If he could, he would just go to every event with me and just hang around. He loves pulling dents out for people too. So if anyone sees me at a NASA event, ask if my dad is here. If you've hit a wall or something, he'll pop that he loves. He's going to complain about it, but he loves it. That's his track jam pulling out. Does he bring all his this equipment? No, no, but I happen to have, like, four of his favorite tools in the trailer at all times. Um, when you got into motorsports and racing, what was the best advice you received? Can I tell you the worst advice I received that I'd like to turn into the best advice for somebody else? Yes. How many times have you heard driver mod is like the best advice people have given you? Yeah, I hate that reply. Driver mod is like the least amount of effort you can give somebody to actually help them with a situation. Yeah, driver mod is part of it. I'm not saying it isn't, but if you're on a three hundred and forty Treadwear daily driver tire and you're wondering why everyone else is exiting turn one faster than you, driver mod isn't going to do diddly. You build the car how you want the car to be built. If you want those four thousand dollars coilovers, put them on because now there's never going to be a coil over better than that, right? You can take that off your driver list of excuses. I'm sure you've had plenty of drivers on who have excuses for why they lost something or or can't finish something, whatever. But if you just go in with the nicest parts that you can afford at the time. And I don't mean justify, I mean afford. Like even in my own. I hate to say this out loud, I probably have fifteen grand into my seven thousand dollars Miata. Yeah. And probably only half of that is still on the car, because I kept listening to people who were like, oh, you don't need those four thousand dollars coilovers. Just get a five hundred dollars set from whomever. That's decent, and you'll be fine. Like it's not true. I don't know. I don't know where this advice like came from. Sometimes I think people just copy and paste from the internet. First mod I will tell anybody ever to buy is brake pads and a fluid flush. Great advice. After that, the nicest tires you can afford and the nicest coilovers you can afford. Those are the only three systems on your car that work one hundred percent of the time, right? Your tires are always working, whether you're accelerating, turning, or braking. That should be the most expensive part on your car, or at least the most expensive product that you can afford in that tire category to put on your car. That's great advice. So when you're right, seating. Have you been in a car that had boiling brake fluid? Oh gosh. Yes. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And they're like what's that half of. I feel like sometimes half of my right seating duties are watching the, the gauge cluster for people who aren't quite good at that. Look down in the Straits yet and going, hey, you're overheating. Hey, those brakes aren't going to make it at four hundred. You probably should do five hundred. But part of that's learning, like a lot of people get frustrated with that when a student shows up with an ill prepared car, but they don't know. I think sometimes instructors take it like personally, like, how could you come here and not have done your brake flush. This is a track day. Safety, safety, safety. And I agree, safety is huge. I'm not trying to downplay it, but a more fruitful way to have that conversation is. Let me show you how to bleed brakes. Do you even know what that is? Let's start there. Right. Um, because everyone starts somewhere. Whether you're building the car for the first time or you're in your stock car, your first autocross, or you're jumping in with a brand new off the lot STI and you're going to a NASA track weekend. You still don't know anything. So my advice to other people, uh, other frustrated instructors, would be think of how to turn that narrative into a learning moment instead of like a scolding moment. And a teaching moment is probably even a better way to frame it than a learning moment. The one thing I do like about NASA is the communication before the event. So the instructors and the coaches reaching out to their hpde group. And um, so by the time this episode airs, um, we had Jay and Glenn Robinson on to talk about NASA and track, and Jay did a good job kind of going over the progression of HPD one, two, three, and four. So folks, go back to that episode. If you didn't listen to it, you'll hear all about NASA's progression, but the communication both before this is turning into a NASA commercial. The communication before and during the event is, uh, top notch, bar none. It's just it's just great. So all this racing you're doing, you're building a cool Mustang, you're chasing a podium, you're chasing podiums, you're chasing championship. What's the end goal? Years from now, where do you want this racing to take you? You know, if you ask me that question ten years ago, I would say, like, I hope to, you know, drive in like IMSA or something like, like get to a semi-pro level and hurrah. And that was probably a fair answer ten years ago. And I've done really well. Um, if I had an extra quarter million dollars, I would probably go try IMSA, but I don't. That money's not laying around. No. So for me, I think it's, um. I don't know that there is ever, like, an end. I'm already lining up the next project, which is hilarious to. Well, I don't know if hilarious is the wife my or the word my wife would use, but it's hilarious to me. Can you share some details? Yeah, I'll talk your ear off. Um, Bonneville Salt Flats, two hundred mile per hour club Bentley Continental GT. Oh my gosh, don't go do this yet because I still have to buy mine. But you can get like a two thousand and five to two thousand and eight ish Bentley Continental GT twelve cylinders, two turbos, super aerodynamic, excellent long wheelbase suspension is great for land speed. Maybe not everything else, but for like twenty five grand with with forty five to fifty five thousand miles. These aren't even like clapped out examples for twenty five grand. I mean, that car was One hundred and fifty thousand new. So to be able to think about it for twenty five grand is very interesting to me. Um, I told my family this at Christmas, like what my, my plans were and and there was some debate, but I think basically you just take everything out from the dashboard back to save a few pounds. Find a way to add a few ponies, and I think it's pretty close. So I'm hoping to join the two hundred mile Power Club at some point. Um, we'll see. We'll see when. But that's that's probably the, I don't know, next target. But I don't know if that's the end either. Right. So let's go back to my, my original question with yeah. Where do you want this all to take you? Um, I love the trajectory that I'm on with it. It's afforded me a lot of relationship meeting, um, with people, um, some interesting access to either observe or come do some cool things. Um, I've driven a lot of other people's cars for them. Um, giving either setup information. I think the end goal for me is just to be somebody people want in their car. I think that would be it. I don't want to get paid. I don't think, you know, forty two years old. The professional driver thing has has gone away. Um, but to just maybe drive for free is probably my end goal. Just do good enough and have enough people who want me to drive their things. That I can do a full calendar neutrally out of pocket. Um hmm. Gotcha. Well, let's transition a little bit to the career. Yeah, sure. So you have a career that's close to our sport. And, um, was X the start? Um, no, actually, um, I worked at Goodyear before. I worked at X tuning. Oh, okay. And then went back to Goodyear when they started expanding some marketing efforts over there. Yeah. Well, um, remind me what you were doing at Goodyear the first time around. Uh, first time around, I was just on the retail side of the business. Yeah, I was working for like, Goodyear Auto Service stores doing their marketing, um, in-store experience kind of stuff. Uh, general, I don't know, corporate office environment kind of things. Sales and promotion, all that stuff. Budget management, you know, sort of the gamut of marketing manager. Gotcha. And then what drew you to join ECS? Um, well, I worked at ECS immediately out of college, actually for for about a year. And I met a bunch of what? Um, well, I call them the OGs of ECS, a few of the people who are still there, um, I moved back to Akron, was working for Goodyear for about five years, and a buddy from ECS reached back out and was like, hey, this job has come up. That feels a lot like what you do now, except it'd be back at ECS. Any interest? Um, and so I took it and I was at ECS for about five years as the director of marketing there. All right. So overseeing everything digital, print? Uh, Yeah. Digital, uh, emails, um, ads on social media. Uh, regular social media, like organic content, YouTube episodes. Um, done a lot of, uh, affiliate relations kind of stuff, finding people to send parts to, um, and it's not me solo. For the record, this is everything the team is doing. Um, but, uh, yeah. So I spent a lot of time trying to build a interesting content program at ECS tuning while still managing the regular business end of general promotions and marketing for those promotions, while still trying to create compelling content to grow the brand exposure. All right, I want to hear a funny story. So you're finding content creators, influencers, whatever you want to call them to give stuff to and get content back. Is there a funny story where something just went off the rails, something went that didn't go the way you thought, or if you don't want to go that route, go with like a super successful. Something just went bonkers. You didn't think it would go that crazy. Um, crazy good. All of our affiliate, uh, relationships were generally very positive. We worked with a lot of names that I think people will recognize. Um, donut media was one of the last big pushes that we made before I left. Um, they've worked with big time. Who are some of the spin offs of donut? Um, some hoonigan stuff, some other, other just general influencers who are doing Euro builds. I would say all of them have been fairly successful, but the, uh, we did a m3 build with James Pumphrey, um, and that worked very, very well. Um, oh, shoot. You know what? It wasn't an M3 build. I'm getting them mixed up. It was his uh oh man, I can't remember the car he was building if it was so now the problem is we've done so many that the cars blend together. It was either the M3 or the five cylinder swap. Anyhow, we provided a tremendous amount of parts and we started to see a lot of traffic to site immediately following that. And the donut colab with the Pumphrey build was like our very first big out of pocket expense effort. And I mean it exploded the traffic to site. I don't want to cite a statistic that I, you know, will get wrong, but traffic to site saw a really, really huge spike and the content was fabulous. James is an excellent, genuine guy. He has his own channel now too. Um, but he worked with us on talking points that we wanted to get across. He put them in his own way, and it just translated into a conversation with the customer instead of talking at the customer. I think that's what a lot of people get wrong in the social media and influencer space. Today is so many people and companies. Just think if they put it out there that they will come. Um, you have to work it a little more. And these, these influencers and content creators specifically have built an audience in their niche already. So rather than try to break through the noise to show your own company's niche, work with somebody who has several hundred thousand followers or a couple million followers and and they're already in your niche space. You don't have to spend any of that prospecting dollars to find in-market customers if you work with somebody in your niche space. I mean, the script writes itself, in my opinion. I'm very surprised, um, how slow some companies are to take up content creation and influencer programs. All right. And now you're back at Goodyear and you're doing social media. Yep. How fun are you doing that on the racing side or on the corporate side. So a little bit of both. I'm a global social media manager. Um, they've definitely brought me on for the racing tent, as you might expect, but also automotive in general. Um, and then I have a two co-workers that handle some aemia or, sorry, some European racing and, um, relevant seasonal content as well as back here. So like Super Bowl, my coworker will handle Super Bowl. We just did the Cotton Bowl, which was a good year sponsored thing. She handled that. So I focus on automotive and racing and she'll focus on more of those cultural moments. Who manages the blimp account? That is another team. Um, they sit behind my desk as well. Um, and we talk all the time. They put they post some funny stuff. They do indeed. Uh, they have such a fun team, a bunch of fun creatives and, uh, the Goodyear brand IP. I mean, that's a globally recognized shape in the sky. No one else does that. It's so unique. They're so fortunate to have such wonderful IP. No. That's wonderful. So, you know the career at, uh, at X and at Goodyear. Does that make it easier or harder to have a hobby in the sport? Um, you know, it goes in waves. Um, right now, during winter, I really haven't done anything. And that's about the busy time for an amateur racer. Anyhow, you're doing all your build stuff over winter, but like Daytona's in a week. Um, and my life is about to be on the road for most of summer now. Um, either my own racing or following the Goodyear racing and telling that story. Yes. Um, so basically, after February fifteenth, I will not have a lot of room to breathe. Yeah. So will the Mustang be ready before then? Man, I sure hope so. That's a week away. I know it is. I don't know, I don't think it will be, but I think it'll be, um, all that I need, like two solid days, I think, to zero out the car and then we're ready to rock and roll. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's hard. It is hard. Life gets in the way. Yeah. Um, work life gets in the way. Often you don't want to say, hey, I can't go do that event because I'm gonna go do my own event. Um, but I have to. Major. Shout out to my boss. She gives me a lot of runway. We've planned many, many months in advance for who's going to be where. So I have some good. I have some good breathing room on the racing schedule. Um, but yeah, some longer term stuff is hard to slot in. Um, you gotta put gutters on your house. I hope not, you know what I mean? Like, I'm really burning it at both ends. But there's still a candle. Yeah, there's still a little flame there. Is there anything that you've learned by hanging out? Let's just say at the, at the NASCAR stuff that you've been able to bring back to your own racing, or whether it be organization tires? Yeah, I learned the most about heat management through tires, um, especially at some of these NASCAR races. After you dismount a tire, you can actually see heat spots inside the carcass of a tire, which I never knew until now. And that can tell you maybe you're running too much camber or too little camber if it's the outside edge. But it's one more indicator to help you, you know, find limits to your camber. It's it's hard when you don't necessarily have a fluid dynamics or something to test your setups with, like all these pro teams do. So as as grassroots racers. I mean, many of us probably align our car once, maybe twice a year just to like zero it out and that's it. Yeah. Um, but now having a little bit more of this understanding of the tire carcass. Um, I've been able, uh, last year, I actually took a little camber out because of the heat zones on my tires and have found more grip. And you, it's like you would never do that right? Unaided without that knowledge. But after popping a couple tires off and seen. I had a little bit of camera where with hot spotting, meaning it was overheating the compound in the carcass. Well, that's an easy adjustment and I went much faster. Yeah, well the data the data tells a story. So inside the carcass, was it like the blue color or different color? Yeah, a little bit. It's kind of like a bruise on the inside of of the tire carcass. So you'll dismount the wheel, you'll see all the, you know, normal weaving and stuff that you would just see under that little bit of rubber coating. And right along where the sidewall of the tire, you know, crowns over is where you'll see some of those hot spots. And I just have never known. And all the Goodyear engineers are just fantastic to talk to. They love talking their trade to. And oh yeah, you're not even annoying them. Well, at least I don't think I'm annoying. No one has told me they're annoyed with all my questions yet. But being an automotive nerd and a tire nerd, I mean, you almost couldn't have written a better job description for me to follow the race calendar around for good year. Tell their story of them doing cool things and demystify tire technology. Like that's almost my mission statement and it's just a fabulous one to execute. Yeah, we hung out with a few of the Goodyear folks at Solo Nationals. Saw them again at PRI and I mean just great people. A lot of fun. We learned a lot just hanging at Solo Nats about, oh, you know, do this with tire pressure. Hear this. Don't use nitrogen this time, but use regular air that time. I mean, like, really, how smart are you guys to figure all this kind of stuff out? It's it's pretty cool. You're working with a great company. Yeah, I really am. I have never, um, worked so hard and yet so little at the same time. I hope my boss doesn't watch this, but, I mean, I totally love what we do. It is eighteen hour days when you're on the ground, but, I mean, I love it. It is like. I, I actually say this all the time, like, I can't believe it is a job, but it is important because otherwise you're stuck behind only the NBC broadcast for NASCAR And you're not getting our story out there. We're not telling our tire story. Everyone relates Goodyear tires to NASCAR, but do you know that we have different size tires staggered right to left? Some racers probably know that, but does the average person know or understand why? No, and I think those are some of the neat stories that we get to tell. Yeah. Um, we're we're getting towards the end of the show. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to talk about? Oh, man. I want to hear about this rx7 a little bit more. And talk about setting it up for Street already. Yeah, well, you know what? Let's talk about it now. All right, so I have a, um, fxr rx7, uh, mild street port, um, dyno one seventy six. And, uh, you know, I was telling Jay, I said, I really, uh, really want to get back with NASA. I've only done one weekend. That was in a miata. And, uh, you know, I think Street is the way to go. Yes. I'm looking over the rule book, and, um, I'm not all the way through it yet, but we were doing. He kind of guided me through the calculator, and, uh, so I'm low on horsepower, but, um, I'm a little confused on the tire width. Um, but I, I want to go out and have fun, and I want to be with other people, and I want to. The big thing for me is let's learn, you know, racing with folks like yourself. What can I learn by being there as opposed to being in a Champ Car race where we're, you know, doing a two hour stint and then and then crewing. Mhm. Um, yeah. So new suspension's going on. Um. What else? What's the uh wait, do you know. Yeah. It's two twenty three forty six with you in it. No, not with you, not with me in it. Okay. So you'll be right around, what, two thousand four hundred? I would guess by the time you got fuel and you and some other heavier tires and stuff. So that would be good. That would let you run the wider format tire if you want. Once you're above two thousand four hundred pounds, the restrictions on running the wider tire are less severe. Okay. Because if you've done the calculator, you know, it's a weird points system that determines power to weight ratios. Um, and yeah, that sounds like it actually be pretty good. You got really nice top end power. We're living above five thousand rpm, so you don't have to worry about anything below that. Yeah, it should be a pretty good on paper setup, I think. Yeah, I think so. So, um. Yeah, I got put together my racing resume to do the compilation, so I have an SCCA license. But yeah, the goal is that, um, is that April weekend Mid-Ohio, which our team is racing Champ Car at Gingerman. So I gotta figure that out, but I think I'll be at Mid-Ohio. Have you, um, found endurance racing to be, um, better for, uh, seat time comfort, but harder for like, data analysis. Yeah, because it's mixed class racing. So you're, you know, we're in a neon, uh, so, you know, you're always watching your mirrors, but then you're also passing people. And, you know, I love being in the car that long. I've, I've raced the Rx7 two hours as well once and, uh, and a one hour race in the rx7. And I love the extended C time, but it gets to a point where you're not doing your best driving. You're doing survival driving. Because number one, I got to protect the car, hand it off to the next person. So the learning isn't necessarily always what I want it to be. And you know, sprint racing, you get out. I know you like to look at the data at the end of the day, but I want to get in the habit of of looking at the data right afterwards and say, okay, what can I be doing differently? Great. Next races in a couple hours or the next session. Are you very good at your own data analysis? No. Oh, I was going to say so if you are at NASA events. That's one other thing that I love about that community too, is somebody there will help you. I will help you if we're at the same event. Um, we can very easily just attack the big deltas, you know, and find big chunks of time. I feel like data is something that a lot of, of, um, newer racers avoid because it's, like, scary. It's confusing. You're really only looking at, like, your top three laps. And then, especially in an enduro pace, it's not the best data because it's eight tenths. It is maintenance of the tires. You're saving the car for the next guy. But yeah, sprint racing. You come in, you do ten laps. Now you can make an adjustment to the car. Don't like the way it's rotating? Add some rear bar or change your tire pressures. Um, and a little post session down though can really help. Yeah. Help with that. So find me at the track. I'd be happy to review. This is why I love NASA. Exactly. And I'm sure I'm just gonna teach you something that somebody else taught me. Which is the best part. The best part of our sport, right? So we have one last question. Have you ever been late to grid? Oh my gosh, I have been late to grid. Let's hear the story. My silliest late to grid is we were campaigning in E46 and Trek and it still had air conditioning. And this was a July event. So, I mean, we were dying and I'm just sitting in the car with the AC on my helmets over on the side and the side seat, and I'm just waiting for the clock to, to count down. I have an alarm set on my phone and then I go out. Well, I had set it to when we were going out, not when I was supposed to get to grid. So I head down to grid as all the cars are going out I don't have my hands on. I don't have my helmet on. I take all, you know, take the steering wheel off, put my belts on, put everything on. I forget to turn off the air conditioning. And I go back out on track. And I look down and turn off the air conditioning. And I go, okay, good. And we're on the back stretch of Mido AC off and I go to just like pull on the steering wheel and it comes off in my hand. Oh my God. Because we were in such a hurry that I clicked the first like collar. Click on the quick release, but not into the slot. And because I had been pushing otherwise, but the collar was down, I didn't know it was loose. It was only when I went to like adjust and pulled back on the wheel and it came off in my hands. Uh oh my God, quick release. You put it back on. I would like to say that was the first time that's ever happened to me, but it's not. It'll happen. Um, but between the AC being on and the wheel coming off and just show up early to grid. Yeah, that's great advice. Well, Chris, thanks for being on the podcast and sharing your motorsports journey with us, I loved it. I would love to come back and talk St6 until you're blue in the face. Sounds like a plan. All right. Great.