From CPA to Paddock Leader: Eric Kaul on Racing, Community, and Networking

What does it take to build a real motorsports journey? In this episode of Late to Grid, we sit down with Eric Kaul to talk about the road from accountant to a well-known name in the paddock, and why networking at the race track can be just as important as speed behind the wheel.

Eric shares how he got started in autocross, grew through HPDE and track day events, and eventually made the leap into endurance racing. Along the way, he explains how community, mentorship, and showing up for others helped shape both his racing career and his business in the motorsports industry. He also dives into the value of fitness, preparation, and being the kind of person people can count on when things go sideways at the track.

This episode is packed with insight for anyone interested in motorsports, racing, autocross, high-performance driving, and the relationships that help drivers and teams grow over a racing season. If you are looking to get started or go further in grassroots racing, this one is a reminder that success is not a solo mission.

Looking to build your own path in racing with the right support system behind you? Atomic Autosports is here to help you move from interested enthusiast to confident driver.

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

Who would go from being a CPA to the guru of wireless in motorsports, to a super fast and extremely well known person in the paddock. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. Well, I am excited to welcome Eric Call into the Atomic Autosport studio for another episode of Late to Grid podcast. Eric, thanks for being here. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I want to tell listeners a little bit about how we connected, and we're going to talk about your business later in the show. But it's important, I think, to tell the listeners that Eric and I originally had this scheduled for over a year ago, and the morning that we were supposed to record, Eric texted me and says, I have a client that's having an issue. I have to take care of it. We'll record later. That is Eric's commitment to people, I love that. And, um, Eric, you and I first got connected virtually through Facebook. You're all over Facebook. You've run some, uh, just a tiny bit. Just a tiny bit. You've got some pages that help racers in a few different areas. So we'll talk about that. But first off, thanks for being here. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. I made sure not to schedule anything remotely close to this podcast. No. That's awesome. It's great to have you here. We really appreciate what you do for the motorsports community and racers individually. We'll dive into some of that. But I always like to start with how you first got into this and you were in a new town, you had a BMW, you were trying to meet people, and a gentleman named Eric dragged you to an autocross. Tell us more about that. Well, what's interesting, a guy named Mark dragged me to an autocross and. And I met up and granted the other guy, Eric, comes in later into the Picture, but Mark was the one that said like, you've got a cool car. Have you ever thought about driving on the racetrack? And I'm like, oh my God. Like, I didn't realize I could do that. And, um, and so we scheduled the autocross and I didn't know what I was getting into. And it was the first experience of like, oh my God, I can drive my car like this. Like, this is what I've been driving illegally on the highways. Now I can do it in a closed environment with a lot of like minded enthusiasts. And what I loved about it was it was a new thing for me. I didn't know what I didn't know, and there were so many helpful people that were saying, hey, you've got a BMW, we're going to show you how to drive it. And so that is that is how that started. And that first autocross, there were a lot of welcoming people there. I think that's what sold you on the sport that, hey, this is a place I want to hang out. Ah, seriously. I mean, there was this wonderful guy named Mark Schnurr. Uh, really tall guy. You know, he had, like, a Texas personality, even though he was from Massachusetts. He had the e36 m3 that I loved and wanted to buy one day. Um, I gravitated towards him and and and I didn't come with a BMW. I actually came with. What did I come with? Infinity, if I remember. I tried, I came with an infinity and he didn't care that I had an infinity. He was like, don't worry. He's like, we'll get you a BMW soon enough. And after that first event, I was like, oh my God, I'm going to go out and buy a BMW. Now you said Mark was very tall. You are very tall. Was he taller than you? No, he's not taller than me. But you know, when I'm sitting in a car looking up at a guy, he's super tall and I'm like, oh my God, this guy is amazing. And he didn't even care. Like, he didn't care what I looked like. He didn't care what I sounded like. He didn't care that I was not from Massachusetts. Like he was just happy that I came to the event and wanted to share. And I just wanted to be in his orbit. He was the coolest guy. Still, the still is the coolest guy. Lives down in Texas. Everybody that knows him loves him. Um, just a great guy. And this is what, uh, nineteen years later, he's the same person and I'm the same person. That's wonderful. So after that first autocross, tell us about your motorsports journey. What did you end up doing after that and how did you grow within the sport? Absolutely. So I started with autocross. I did it like once, once a year. I didn't want to break the car that I had, even though I loved that community. Um, I was a, I was working as, um, as an accountant, as a CPA and I was, I was torn between, I'm newly married, I am working a high stress job traveling around the country. And then I have this pull at me to go kind of wanted to go drive my BMW because at that point I bought a ninety seven eight thirty six three twenty eight I s um, sorry. I bought a two thousand and three five forty M sport and I was like, oh my god, I want to go drive this car and have tons of fun. Um, the journey really started with setting time at the BMW, CCA events locally, meeting some really great people and just listening to people and finding out what they did. And a lot of people are like, I've got this cool BMW, but I feel like I'm not driving it enough. I feel like there's more to be had. I'm like, oh my God, I've done autocross before. And so we would rope them into autocross and kind of build that autocross community. Um, doing that, I found high performance driver education events with the Boston chapter, um, and the nearby White Mountain chapter. We went up to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. I finally learned how to drive my car on the racetrack and just as easily as I found people at autocross. I found people at the track that just were so happy that you came. They wanted you to experience this, this camaraderie, and that's really why I stayed. And I just kept on doing events and events and events. And I really think that I wasn't the best driver, but I came back because it was a community that I felt welcomed at. Um, it, it didn't matter that I was a Yankees fan in Boston Red Sox territory. The common, the common, the common bond. There was motorsports and getting on track and getting better. Absolutely. You know, I'm, I'm a big believer in if you're not trying to continually educate yourself and learn that you're. You're not growing. And if you're not growing, you're, you're actually going backwards. And so the beauty of a high performance driver education was that there was this ladder to get better. You know, group A, b, c d one two three four. And I wanted to climb that ladder because after that there was either instructing or racing. And both of those were intriguing to me. But you know, I wanted to get into racing because I saw these cool guys, one of one of the first guys that I wanted to be like was a guy named Eric Heinrich. And Eric Heinrich is kind of the one that put the bug in my ear that you can actually go wheel to wheel racing. Um, he lived in the next town over. He had a beautiful E30 M3 with Gulf livery. I'm sure many of people have seen it. It's been all over grassroots motorsport magazine. He's an SCCA racer. He's a BMW CC racer. Um, he's just everywhere. And I was like, this guy lives one town over. Like, I want to be him. I want to drive the car that he drives. I want to race against him. And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And he became my mentor from that respect. Uh, twenty thirteen, I was slated to take the BMW club race at Watkins Glen. A situation happened at my work where they said like, hey, we feel like you're too focused on motorsports and not focused on your job. And, and so that kind of led me off the path towards racing. And, uh, and I never got to race in twenty thirteen. Oh, but, um, did you get the scratch that itch? Several years later? Yeah. Let's, let's talk about that first race experience. Where was it and what series were you racing in? So, uh, the now defunct pit race is where I first did club race school with BMW Car Club, and that was probably five years ago. And what was cool about it was they were doing it in conjunction with American endurance racing. There was a pit race, two day event there and they said, hey, if you do club race school, you can put that into motion immediately and go race. And so that's exactly what I did. I was like, my goal here is to pass, which I did. I can't say that for everyone because I don't pass everyone. You actually have to show that you have the ability to raise and. And then on top of that, then I rented a, um, a seat in someone's car, someone's BMW, and then I had a chance to do two stints at an air race. And it was just, oh my God, I'm hooked. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about getting ready for the school. Um, absolutely. So was it all the hpde events that that helped get you there, or was there some other preparation that you think went into successfully passing and being able to race? So twenty twenty one is when I did the club race school twenty thirteen is when I stopped doing hpde events as students. So there was an eight year gap. But during that eight year gap, I had been an instructor and I had done time trialling with NASA. Um, but really from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty one, my focus was primarily open mapping, high performance driver education, instructing. And that's how I stayed in the community. I also had my Hpde group. So I was always focused on, you know, building the community so that people had a place to hang out virtually between events and build that community and build new bonds so that they would have someone new to go spend time with at a racetrack that they may not have ordinarily been going to. Um, but the itch came in twenty twenty one. I was like, you know what? We just came out of. Covid life is short. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Let's go by the race car. And and I was like, but the first thing I got to do is actually get into a race car. And the only way to do that, I thought, was to go back to the school that I couldn't go to back in twenty thirteen, kind of close that chapter, if you will, and open up another chapter and get into it. And so my biggest fear was, I've got eight years of gap. What's going to happen? I reached out to my friend Dan Feldman. Dan was a he's a club race instructor. He was like, absolutely. He's like, I think you'll be fine. I reached out to Anthony Magagnoli, who's a club race instructor, classroom instructor. He was like, Eric, you'll be totally fine. He's like, we'll make sure that we pave the way for you. And, and then I just had to go out there and perform. And that was interesting because I've been fast on Facebook, but that's all. I'm fast. And so what's very interesting is many other people knew me as this guy that's a man in the community likes to be liked. You know, is friendly and happy. But they don't know the competitive side to me, which if you've ever played a volleyball match with me, I yell, I scream, I pump my fist. When I score a point, I taunt the other players and no one's ever seen that to me. And so when I did the club race school, sure I was taking in all this education. But that final, that final like mock race, I was eviscerating people, I was setting picks. I was, you know, making people make bad decisions. I had people on my tail even, you know, even my club race instructor was like, oh my God. He's like, I don't even know who that guy was out there. He's like, I, he's like, I heard that you were fast, but I didn't actually see you being fast until I was on your tail and you didn't miss a beat. And he's like, I would be honored to go race with you any day. And I was like, oh my God. I was like, I didn't really know know how to feel, except to say that it was an out of body experience. And it allowed me to be that super, ultra competitive person that really is at my core. What a great compliment that you received. It was. Yeah. And like, I'm going to do a call with him later today and tell him, you know, that story. And granted, he already knows that story, but it was it was really nice to see and hear someone say like, you know what? You belong. Mhm. Let's talk about the school. And then I want to talk about the air race. So for someone that hasn't been to a club, racing school or a driver school, what sort of things are they looking for? For you to master, for you to demonstrate in order for them to give you the thumbs up and say you've got a compilations. I think the biggest thing is being open to coaching, listening in the classroom, and then executing on what they just instructed you to do, going out there on the track, showing calm confidence, being able to drive in super close quarters and not lose your cool, not fall back. Um, you know, not be unhinged at the wheel, so to speak. Uh, not, not crash and stay on the track. And I think as long as you are able to do that and, you know, keep a, you know, a level mind and calmness and not do anything stupid, I think you would have passed. I know that there are individuals at that event that said like, I don't understand why I didn't pass. And it was really it came down to their confidence and lack thereof. Um, they thought they had it, but they didn't. And for me, you know, being the guy that likes to be liked. I also didn't know what was going to happen, but the competitive erikj call came out and for me, it was like, I didn't even mind that. You know, I've got, you know, two cars three inches from the left and, you know, four inches from the right. And I actually enjoyed that. I knew that, you know, close racing is safer than faraway, faraway racing. So I was like, all right, when I'm on the far right coming into, you know, the left hander, I just stayed glued to this guy in the center. And if I was on the inside, I stayed glued to the guy on the right. And they encouraged you to to try things. And I was like, hey, I want to go try things. Because if I, if I don't try them in this pressure state, I won't know how to do it in a race. Absolutely. So we don't get many folks on that have raced in air. So if you could, Eric, and you've raised another other environments. Tell us about what makes it different, what makes it maybe better. What recommendations would you have that someone that enjoys endurance racing? When should they look at ADR? So I'll tell you right now it's all about community. Whether you go with ADR, with LeMans, Champcar, Lucky Dog, whichever Club World Racing League, each of them has their own community, each of them has their own, you know, type of people. My age groups was always intended to bring people together from all the different groups and make them realize that you're not a guy, you're not an ADR guy, you're not a car guy, you're an HP guy or gal. Like we are one community, and it doesn't matter which club you go to, you're always going to be an HP person like our folk. Like the fact that you share this, this enthusiasm, just like I do. It doesn't matter where you go. So I would say that if you are a Champ Car enthusiast, great. You could go to a lucky dog race. You can go to an air race, you can go to a W, I'll race. You know, you, you, you have it within you to race at all of these, all of these venues and all of these clubs. So you know the difference. You know what makes the difference between a E, r and Champ Car? I guess, you know, it depends on the car that you build or if you're a renter, it doesn't matter who else. Whoever has a spot open, go race with them. You're going to have a great time. So you rented a seat that first weekend. Tell the listeners what it's like to rent a seat. What should they look for? Um, how do they choose the right seat to rent? You know, some of that's team, some of it's car, some of it's experience level. But what's your opinion on that? So I'm always going to say that as a big guy, I'm six foot five with shoes on six foot six. You got to go where you can fit in the car. And I was really lucky that the team that I rented with was accommodating to that. I knew that they weren't they weren't trying to win. They were just trying to give me an experience. And so they put a special seat in there for me so that I could strap in and, you know, and go race. And for me, that was that was that made the difference. All that made the huge difference when I ended up forming my own team. I put a big seat in there and I was hopeful that people would come and kind of jump in and rent seats from us, which they did. Um, but they always had to accommodate to my much larger size. I mean, we had one guy that was like five foot seven on the team. And like I said, I'm six foot five. So we made it work. Um, without sliders, but we made it work. And, um, I would say that if you're going to go rent with somebody, go talk to the, go talk to the previous renters. You know, all of this stuff is available on social media nowadays. You can you can Google it, you can go to Facebook. You can ask, you know, what the team's history is. Because I will tell you that after my air race, I was like, oh my God, let me go try lemons. And I wish I had done more research on the team because I, you know, I gave a deposit for, for the team. The guy sounded like a great guy. Um, you know, leading up to the event, he was like, hey, I'm all about training you to, to, you know, get in the car and get out of the car. I'm trying to give you an experience. He's like, I want you to have a terrific experience. When he showed up to the race, he had two cars and neither of them worked. Oh, and and and I remember it to this day, and I'm not going to name names, but I remember it to this day. He reaches into his car, he throws all of his tools out of a bag and they land on the on the pavement. And I'm like, is this is this real life? Like I'm looking around and I'm like, I can't believe this is happening. And, and I'm like, do I have these cars? Are they ready to go? And he's like, nope. And so he took one card out to tech and it failed. Tech took the second car that failed tech. And then he's like, okay, we're going to go fix this stuff on the site and was able to get one car to pass tech, but the other one didn't. So then he was like, all right, I'm going to take the fire system out of this car, and I'm going to put it into this other car before the race to get it to pass. Tech took it to tech, they passed it, and then he took the system out of that car and put it into the second. And I was like, what is going on here? He's like, oh, you don't need to have a fire suppression system to to race. And I was like, dude, stop. Just stop. Um, and that was an experience and a half. How'd that weekend end up? Did you end up racing or just taking your money and running. I don't remember if I if I'm being honest, I think I did like half a stint before before the car broke up. Maybe a full stint, but none of the other teammates got got to race and we were just livid. Oh yeah. Because what was promised to us and what we actually received was, were two very different things. And to pay one thousand five hundred dollars for a lemon seat in in cars that don't run. And mind you, I paid for myself. I also paid for somebody else and I sponsored somebody. And both of us got shortchanged by a lot. Yeah. And what was interesting is many people said, oh, you rented with so and so. I wish I had said something. And it wasn't one person. It wasn't five people. It was like twenty five people. I wish you had asked me about that person. And so now having gone through that experience. Um, I know what I would tell other people, which is do your due diligence just because it's cheap, just because it sounds too good to be true. Go get recommendations about these individuals. And that's the beauty of social media. Oh yeah. The sad, the sad truth about social media is nobody wants to hurt someone else's feelings. No one wants to talk bad about bad experiences. And that's really it's a sad situation. But people need to talk about this stuff. Of all the racing you've done to date, what's your most memorable experience or what are you most proud of? I will give you the most memorable experience, which is to say, if the tires look brand new, but the date code says seven years old. Don't race on them. Tell me the story about that one. We were so it was our team and I apologize. Jason, I'm throwing you under the bus here. But my best friend Jason was our crew chief. Jason's like, I've got these match tires and they're BFG, our rival, one point five. They're going to be great. And I was like, how old are they? And I never got an answer. So I go out. I go out in this race, I'm driving in this car, it's like fifty degrees. And I'm like, oh my God, like, I don't know how to drive here. This car doesn't break. It doesn't turn. It's like sliding around. I feel like I'm autocrossing on ice, which by the way, I've done and it's scary if you're on a race track with cars that are actually knowing what they're doing. I didn't go more than three quarters of a lap before and this is at Vir. Um, I literally left the pavement because I couldn't steer the car. And, and I want to say that I got hit by somebody or maybe I hit them. I went off the track, I limped the car back in and I'm like, I don't know what's going on here. Like, what, what, what is going on? Like I literally questioned at that point, like. Fourteen years of driving experience. I'm like, maybe I'm not meant to race and, and actually, you know what? I didn't break the wheel. Someone else took the car out and they were like, oh my God, this is terrible. Like this is not good. And then they brought it in and we were like, maybe it's the tires. They're like seven years old. Oh. And so I quickly learned that even if they look good, you really you should never put on old tires onto a new car. No. Did you guys have a spare set you were able to throw on and. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so that was the thing when they put on the, you know, the new set of whatever tires, I was like, this is amazing. We have amazing grip. This is tons of fun. But for that, for that period when I was just kind of sitting in the pits, I was like, oh my God, maybe I shouldn't race. I asked you before the show what your twenty twenty six racing goal was. And you want to get at least one Champ Car race in. Do you have an event in mind or a track in mind? I don't. Um, the reason I want to do Champcar is a, I'm a serious sponsor. I've been a supporting sponsor for the last few years, but now I'm the classy sponsor. And so I'm like, hey, you know what? Let me go race probably in class C with with my name on the car. Um, I've got tons of clients in Champcar many of them have said like, hey, come race with me. Um, we would love to have you. My goal has been to lose a ton of weight in the last year. Um, I've been finding some health issues over the last few years, but this is, this has been a good year. And, um, when I get back to my former self, former size, I'm, I'm excited to go race. So we won one race would be one two day race would be ideal. And it really for me, it's going to be like when I get down to size that I'm happy. Like I'm happy right now. Um, my goal right now is to compete in a volleyball tournament. At least one. And, and, um, and so then after that, I'm, I'm going to go racing. Awesome. Well, the radar racing team, front wheel drive, neons. We have a driver that's taller than you by a couple inches. Uh, seat on sliders, tracks close to you are going to be lime Rock and Pocono. So we'll have to keep that. Keep that in mind. Oh my God. Like the answer is yes. Let's do it. I will pay whatever your rental fee is one million dollars. I can handle half of that. Yeah. As Josh the producer says, the decimal points just in the wrong place on that. It is in the wrong place. And if it's raining, I think we're going to win. There we go. I am, I have always been like, super fast in the rain. Rain doesn't scare me at all. And so, I mean, I even I remember being at lime Rock in the rain at a TT, I think, and doing extremely well because the grip is the grip. Mhm. Interesting. Do you have a secret in the rain? Uh, yes I do. Uh, and I learned this from eleven Goulart who, who is the president and owner of a sports car driving a Skoda. And God, I hope no one's listening to this when I say this. But he said, and by the way, his his wife has said he is the fastest in the rain. So one day I asked him, hey, what's the trick? And he said, heat up the barrels. I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, drag the brakes, heat up the heat up the. The brakes will heat up the inside barrels of the wheels, getting your tires hot, getting the brakes hot. So when you go into that first turn, you can outbreak everybody. He's like, and then you've got you've got warm tires and you take off to the races. Interesting. I was like, that's interesting. So I've tried it. It works. Um, yeah, that's the trick. Um, while we're still on motorsports, a couple more topics before we talk about, I want to talk about health and fitness. And then we're going to go into your business. Um, but while we're still on the topic of motorsports motorsports safety foundation, you've been on the board. Are you still on the board? As long as they let me on the board. That's awesome. So I will tell you right now, I'm on those conference calls every month and every month I'm like, oh my God, I'm the imposter here. I look around, you've got Ross Bentley who's, you know, needs no introduction. Um, you've got Scott Elkins, who's the race director for formula E, who's also the president. You've got, um, Eric Meyer, who needs no introduction. Chief instructor for NASA, Great Lakes instructor Summit. Uh, Chuck Tucker, who wrote the book literally on classroom. Uh, HPD education. Um, we've got Greg Haas, who is the summit point training facilities. Uh, motor sports director and classroom instructor and runs, you know, Friday at the track. Um, we've got Rod Sussman, who's extremely well known in the vintage racing, you know, vintage racing world. And what Ross tells me all the time and reminds me, because I do have that imposter syndrome. He's like, you're the glue that brings the community together. He's like, everybody knows Eric Cole. And and if you don't, you will. So I'm like, all right, let's do that. Yeah. So explain, uh, in a sentence, what does a motor sports foundation do? Motorsports Safety Foundation, our, our motorsport safety Foundation is Right now focused on instructor training schools. So certifying instructor training schools to meet our minimum standards. And those minimum standards were were created by the MSF Council. So seven organizations that lent their their best practices, so to speak, on instructor training schools. And so what MSF has done over the last three years is, is certify MSF certified clubs instructor training schools to meet our level two standards, but then also create level three and then additional accreditations for instructors. So basically like HP drivers have a ladder one, two, three, four. We're doing the same thing for instructors creating that continuing education for them. Um, one thing that, and so that's been our primary focus for the last seven years. The next focus is going to be on certifying organizations to meet safety standards for what HPD programs should be. That is great. You know, when you have standardization and you have certification and things like that, it helps, you know, it helps the entire community, all the organizations involved just rise up and make things better. So on behalf of all the listeners and everyone in motorsports, thank you for volunteering your time to be part of something so cool and so helpful. It's only because I'm left unsupervised that I can do this stuff. That's awesome. Um, let's talk about fitness and, um, and nutrition. And you were on Ross Bentley's podcast and you had said, uh, he asked you what your speed secret was and it says, get your fitness and nutrition under control. And you mentioned earlier in this episode, you've been on a journey of getting in better shape and losing weight. Um, why do you think nutrition and fitness is so important in our sport, in our sport? So as I've spoken to so, you know, putting my business in the forefront for just a second. So one of the reasons I have access to a lot of these racers and high performance drivers is because people come to me for video streaming their, um, their in-car activities. And, and so I often have a chance to talk to them as racers and I ask them all the time, like what is, you know, what separates you from, let's say, a novice or let's say an experienced amateur racer. And they always say, my nutrition and my fitness, they are drinking water all the time. They are constantly eating the right foods. They're trying to keep their mind clean because it all comes down to mindset. That's how they're going to beat the guy next to them. If they know that their focus is on nutrition, you don't have sugar slowing you down. You don't have Because sugar is a psychedelic. If you've ever eaten a piece of cake or eaten too much cake the night before you go to sleep. I guarantee you you're going to have some crazy, crazy dreams. Well, that also affects you during the day. It makes your mind wander. And if you're racing, you don't want your mind to wander. You want to be super dialed in, super focused. You want to allow your unconscious competence to take over so that when things go bad, as they inevitably do, your razor sharp reflexes and your razor sharp programming is ready to respond without you thinking about it. Um, so the nutrition will take you off your game if you're not properly hydrated. Hour, hour and a half, two hours into the stint, you're going to get fatigued. So all of this has to be dialed in. And that's really what separates the best drivers away from the decent drivers. Yeah. And you make mistakes when you're tired, when you're distracted, when you're not feeling one hundred percent, that's safety for you and others. Absolutely. So you mentioned your own journey. Are you willing to share how much weight you've lost? Um, so I've lost a lot of weight over the years. And, and what's, what, what I don't talk about on social media. Maybe I should is that I live with, um, an autoimmune disease and I live with, you know, the after effects of long Covid. Um, I am a, I live with a brain tumor that I've had for thirty two years, you know, and I'm only recently finding out that, that the medications that I've been taking for that brain tumor cause a whole lot of other issues. And, and we only found this out because people are doing bike rides and they're doing, you know, raising money for, for research in all these different fields, one of them being this brain tumor that I have. Uh, Jason, who is my best friend, Trend, ironically, has the same exact tumor that I have. I never knew about this until about six or seven years ago, but he had the surgery. I didn't, and a lot of the issues that affect him don't affect me. But there's a few issues that do, and it wreaks havoc on the body and our ability to lose weight when we want to put on muscle, when we want to operate on a daily basis. You know, it controls our mind. All of these issues control our mind. So I can only fight back with nutrition and fitness. And I don't know if I'm going to live until SI tomorrow. So I really want to focus on giving myself the best chance to get to tomorrow. And I do that with my nutrition and my fitness. Um, it is just crazy. And then I had cancer when I was younger too, and I had no clue how I got that. And I don't want it to come back. Right. Wow. I didn't know all of that. Thank you for being so transparent and sharing that. And there's no doubt having the right fitness, the right nutrition puts you in the right mindset that you know, you can, you can march forward and make yourself better. Yeah. I mean, many people that have known me over the last ten years knew that when I started my initial weight loss journey, I was four hundred and twenty eight pounds. Um, I lost one hundred and seventy of it over the course of two years with nutrition and fitness. And the only reason I put it back on was a I got long Covid b I it triggered another autoimmune disease. Um, you know, a lot of people like to think I like to say like, oh, well, you know, he just, he lost his discipline. It's not that I lost my discipline. I was fighting my own body and my doctors were trying everything they possibly could. Um, and we started taking a medication about twelve months ago that took away all my pain. Um, there are other side effects, but it has helped give me, you know, a new lease on this life. I've been working with a nutrition coach and a fitness coach. My friend Colt, I met him through ironically Facebook and, uh, was, um, and so he's been coaching me daily on, you know, being present for my family, present for myself, uh, present for my nutrition, you know, allowing me to make mistakes. You know, if I want to have that cake, I'm allowed to have the cake, but, um, I've got to manage it. And then on top of that, I have volleyball coaches and volleyball community that keeps me focused on a weekly basis. Um, I, uh, I gotta say that volleyball has really helped me stay super focused on being healthy because I know that I've got to perform three times a week, and I can't do it without having great nutrition and great fitness. Well, now I know volleyball is big for you because you posted on Facebook. Your son's a little bit just just a titch and you are you guys are in airports all the time traveling for your son's volleyball, um, career as well. What is it about volleyball you love? I, if I'm being honest, it's the closest I can get to the unconscious competence that flow state that I get from racing and do it once, twice, three times a week. Like it's it's the addiction that there is no like, there's no program to wean yourself off of racing the same thing. There's no way, there's no way to wean yourself off of, of volleyball when you know that you can get into that flow state, which many of us that have experienced flow state and, and I'm sure you do this all the time. You're talking on the phone. You leave your house. You have a destination to go to. You're on the phone. Before you know it, you're still talking to your friend, but you're now at your destination, sitting in the parking lot and saying, like, how did I get here? And that unconscious competence, that programming from having done that drive so many times is the is in effect. You know, you were, you know, that's the, that's the knowing that you were in flow state. And so for me, I love talking to people while I'm driving and I'm doing this for my car because this is where I had haven't enjoy flow state the most. Um, but for, for me, for volleyball, getting into that flow state is, is the addiction that knows no bounds. And so my son has gotten that same addiction because he's, you know, experienced flow state. My daughter, same thing. She's into volleyball too, because she, she's addicted to that flow state that she experiences. That's awesome that you have that repetition throughout the week. You have that community with the other players and the other teams. How does that fit in? How does that fit in with the accountability of coaching? Because I think it's important that we all have coaches in our lives, whether it's a performance coach, a business coach, a health coach. How does everything work together with the volleyball and then also your fitness coaches to give you an ultimate plan on fitness? So the key is I want to hit certain milestones. And in order to hit those milestones, I need to perform according to a base plan. Coach Colt has me, you know, gives me. So I've told him, I'm like, I want to jump four inches higher. In order to do that, I've got to get into the gym and at least once a week, sometimes twice a week, we need to focus on leg exercises and we track it using an app. We track you know how much weight I've done. We track it week to week and you know, see the progress. And personally, I've seen the progress because I'm jumping. You know, two inches higher, three inches higher. And people are telling me like, wow, you're hitting the ball harder. You're jumping the you're jumping. You know, you're, you're anticipating the ball. Um, just actually two days ago, I came in second place, you know, at our kings and queens, um, at Wednesday night volleyball out of forty people, I came in second place and I scored one hundred and seventeen points. I was like, this is amazing. I can't believe this. Um, and it's because of my coaches that I've improved my technique and then staying focused on my health and fitness and my nutrition. I've been able to perform at the highest level. That's great. It just gets better and better. Yeah. Before we move on to the business side of things, I do want to talk about fitness just a little bit more. So in order to help others, you created HPD fit, a Facebook group that allows individuals to interact, share ideas. I think I've seen some recipes on there. Um, again, another great example of you helping to build community, helping you get more folks involved. Has that page done what you wanted it to do? Does it have somewhere else to go? And I also want to hear a story about some great aha moment from that. Absolutely. So I, I created that. And so back up the truck, I created a group on Facebook called High Performance Driving and Racing Enthusiasts and the, the acronym being HPD, we created a marketplace for our members of. I remind you, a secret group to go sell and buy from each other. That membership group has has grown exponentially over the years. I was like, how do I keep people in the community? So I created this fitness and nutrition group not just to chronicle my journey, but to encourage others to chronicle their journey within the group. It has not been super active over the last three to four years, but just a few days ago, one of my friends from HP said like, Eric, do you mind if I start posting this group? Like, I want to start losing weight? I want to get fitness. I want to get focused on health again. I'm like, absolutely. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to start posting that group as well. So while we may not have been focused for the last few years, it is absolutely going to get back on board. And one of the cool things we used to do in that group. Um, I don't know if you know Mo Dudka, he lives in Illinois. He would host, um, weight loss, um, thirty day, sixty day challenges. And the focus really was to get people active for thirty minutes a day, four times a week and, and show his selfies that you've been to the gym and, you know, taking the selfies at the treadmill or at the weights or at the swimming pool and just get people focused on just being their best self. And then, you know, and many people want, you know, money from the group. I, you know, through HP fit, I sponsored people's entries just because I wanted to, you know, get people to do it again. I'm going to do it again. Um, I'll start tomorrow. I'll start today. Today is better than starting tomorrow. That's right. That's great. And, uh, just so you know, everything we talk about today that has a link, we're going to share it in the show notes for the listeners. Um, so they can go there easily find these Facebook groups and also what we're about to talk about next, and that is your business. And a nice segue into there is listeners, you probably know Eric Hall because he's on Facebook all the time. Everyone's talking about him. He does so much. Um, I want to know. Does being on Facebook and posting help drive awareness for what you're doing? Help you grow the business? I'm always going to say yes, it does. I, I was, I learned long ago in my accounting career that if you don't toot your own horn, nobody else will. And if you don't promote what you're doing when you're doing it, no one knows you exist. You might as well just be dead. Like the number of people I tell all the time. I'm like, you need to be on Facebook. They're like, no, I hate social media. It's like, listen, if you want to grow, you need to do something different. If you're uncomfortable with social media, this is the the surefire way to grow. You've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. So is Facebook bad? Is social media bad? Maybe it is. But here's your opportunity to grow and I'm going to show you how to do it. I love it. My my constant posting on social media is not necessarily for me, me, me. It's because I see there's a maybe there's a lull in activity and let me get people going. Um, I did it yesterday. Perfect example. I was like, show me your cars. Show me your trucks. Show me your toy vehicles. Show me your trailers. Show me anything with wheels. And I had three hundred and seventy four people comment on my personal page. So I was like, all right, this works because I had people that were like, wow, cool race car. Oh my God, this is my race car. And so they started interacting on my post with people they don't know. This morning I was like, all right, this worked. Let me go and post it on our main page. And I shared that to like all the major endurance groups. And I'm like, here, here's my idea. Take it and post it on your page and get people to start talking positively about things people they enjoy. Because right now there's a lot of negativity in the world. But if we can use social media to be positive, let's do it. One thing you'll notice about my social media is that it's very little negativity, if any at all. I'm always trying to be the person that is positive. I try to be inspiring, encouraging. I want you to be your best self. I don't want you to to live in negativity. Um, maybe that's bad, I don't know. But I try to eliminate all the toxicity in my life. When people tell me, I'm like, you know what? I don't need you in my life. Delete block gone. I don't need to waste my time because I can make more money. I can't make more time. No. So better call. Call. I love it and I love I love the imagery you put behind that. Let's talk about the business. And I'm going to kick this off with a personal story. So listen, listeners, I've had Verizon, uh, service, uh, pretty much last decade and had business account and we have four lines on that. And I always just did things online. And, uh, I was like, we got connected with Eric again because we got some race keeper connects that need to be provisioned. And I thought, you know what? Why don't I have Eric take a look at my account? And Eric, you found you found that we were on the wrong plans. We weren't getting the sort of data service we needed. Um, you know, I was long overdue for an updated phone, which I knew, but I was just living with it. You found so many ways to get us better plans, better devices, better service. And I wish I would have had cost lower cost. Yes. So thank you for that. So tell the listeners more about your business. What is it? What do you do? Who do you do it for and how do you do it? Yeah. So before I talk about this business, this, this wireless aspect of my business, I got into motorsports as a side hustle. Um, I was a CPA for from twenty eleven to twenty thirteen. In twenty ten, I had this idea of like, hey, let me monetize my, my relationships. I love connecting people to other people. I love, love giving them something without expectation of return. And, you know, a company came to me and said like, hey, we'd like to put our decals on your car. I was like, fantastic, let's do it. I found out a little bit more about their business and I'm like, hey, you know, if I, if I give you clients, I refer clients to you. Like, would you be willing to pay me a commission? Like absolutely more business. What's not to love? We'll cut you in. And so I did that with that company, and then I went to another company and I'm like, hey, I wonder if I can go to like Turner Motorsport. And so I reached out to Turner and they're like, oh my God, we know you, Eric Hall. You're such a great community leader. We have tons of people that come to us and said, we heard about you from Eric Cole. And so I picked up clients like them. Ariel, Adam, Bear, Connor to Ariel, Adam, um, DeForest wheels and just picked up a number of brands. And so that is what started that business. I became essentially a broker. I linked up with driving impressions. Bob Zecca, he taught me the ropes, introduced me to a slew of people in motorsports, and I started selling safety equipment as his partner, um, pivoted the business to wireless because people would tell me, I don't need an aim system. I can just get Harry's lap timer for ten bucks and that's it. I'm done. Like, I don't need to spend four hundred bucks. And so I had the epiphany of, let me pivot my motorsport clients to something that they absolutely need. It could be nutrition, it could be fitness, it could be coffee, it could be wireless. And so that is where the light bulb went off. I'm like, hey, you know what? Let me go link up with somebody I know. So I went to a former client tax client of mine. He was like, hey, I've got seven stores. You could be a great asset to me. Why don't you refer people to me? I was like, nope, that's not going to work. I need, I need control of my relationships. He's like, great, fantastic. So we inked a deal to, to, to work together. I started looking at people's accounts. I'm like, hey, you know, you can save money by being on this plan. I can get you, you know, great, great service. And they're like, well, how do I repay you? And I'm like, oh, well, when you go and buy a phone, give me a chance to sell you the phone. And so that's really how it took off in, in twenty nineteen. You know, I hooked up with Autosport Labs. Uh, Brent Picasso gave me an opportunity to, to, you know, give him SIM cards to activate and create a great user experience for his customers. Up until that point, they were giving away free Freedompop SIM cards, which were basically free service, but the service was garbage. And when people went to the racetrack, they wanted to get clean data, but they couldn't get it if they had an unclean connection. So I put them on the Verizon network for ten dollars a month. And I created all these business accounts for people and they're like, this is amazing. Like, you just saved me. Forget about the time and forget about the money. You saved me time. Like, I get to the racetrack, I'm getting clean data. I didn't waste the ten thousand dollars day or the three thousand dollars test day because of this. And so that's kind of how the name went out there. And after Autosport Labs came other companies. Uh, you know, James Candelaria from the Sentinel put me on the map with World Racing League. Um, our friends at Race Keeper put me on the map for SCCA. Um, you know, my race is live has now put me on the map for Champcar and Lucky Dog. And then of course, me just helping people in the community through that new me as an instructor knew me as the owner of HPD. I said, hey, you know, Eric, we want to we want to give you a chance. So look at my account and see what you can do. And so I kind of became known as the wireless bill crusher. And, uh, and that's kind of how it took off. And so here we are today. You know, I'm doing, I have clients in all fifty states, business and consumers. I've got a fulfillment center in Indianapolis. We've got, you know, ten people there that handle, you know, my daily sales. Um, my partners and I, we have five stores in Rhode Island with a sixth opening up next month. Um, and my goal is always to deliver, you know, that type of service that wish you wish you were. Like you want to be the guy that you wish you were buying from. And so I try to be that guy. Well, I, again, from a personal perspective, super impressed with how you handled things, how quickly things handled, how they got done. Zero issues. And I'm sure there's listeners that will go into a wireless store. They'll get a billing change, they'll get this done and it's not right. And then they're on hold forever trying to get it fixed and you get it done right the first time. That's awesome. Well, I will say that it helps that my last name is Cole, right? You know, not a single person ever grows up and says, I want to go work in a wireless store. Like that just doesn't happen. Um, and for me, like, I resisted going to work for Verizon because I was like, oh, that's beneath me. I'm a, I'm a white collar CPA. That's literally how I lived my life. And then I quickly realized that, you know what? I've got this great last name. Let me enjoy it. Let me use it. Let me be the trusted advisor that I used to be as a CPA, and let me be that trusted advisor for wireless and home phone and video streaming and somewhere, you know, in the motorsports community, and do it in such a way that no one else is competing with me and being in a league of my own. And, you know, to this day, there are other people that try to do what I do, but no one can do what I do and not to the extent that I do it. No. And you can help people. One line personal, big business account lines, devices in their cars, wireless hotspots. Absolutely. I mean, I even look at people's bills on T-Mobile and AT&T and I'm like, here, like you're overpaying for all these devices. Like, why don't you go back to T-Mobile and cut these bills down? And people are like, that's amazing. Like no one ever thought to do that. I do that for Verizon customers. I do that for anybody. And what's the best way if people want to connect with you on that? How do they get Ahold of you? Sure, sure, sure. Um, you, you know, you can give out these, uh, logos that people can flash into the sky and I will see the, um. I will see the link. No, no, no, no, people can send me a message on Facebook. Um, I'll give you my contact info. Um, if you're, if you're a champ car racer, you're going to see, you know, you're going to see my ads in the paddock because now I'm sponsoring the club and, um, but no, I can give the information out. One thing I say to everybody in motorsports, I will bend over backwards for you. But if you're outside of motorsports, you can go to the local store. That's awesome. Thanks. Thanks for doing that for our community. And I think, yeah, I, a couple weeks ago, you posted a something at the racetrack, had your banner on it. I loved it, it looked awesome. So I can't wait to see that in the Champ Car paddock. Uh, as the season goes on. And, um, so everyone that's in C class is going to have a little decal on their, on their back bumper, um, and front bumper and front bumper that has your logo on it. That's awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And people ask me all the time, like, why Champ Car and Champ Car was literally the first club that we went to for our team. And so when we stopped racing, like, I still loved the great relationships I had from Champ Car and I was like, I got to give back to this wonderful community. Um, bill strong and I have been friends for the last ten years, uh, loved his energy. And I just said, I'm like, I want to support these guys. And they gave me a wonderful opportunity to come in and inexpensively a few years ago and, um, you know, and now that I've moved up to class C sponsorship after, uh, one of my clients, uh, decided not to sponsor them this year, I was like, oh my God, I would love to see my name on people's cars. Uh, that was actually the goal for the last ten years, which was being able to well, be well, be well off enough to give back to this community and see my name on someone's race car. I think that's great. So we're getting towards the end of the episode here. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to? Oh, man. Let's see. Uh. My advice. Oh that's right. If I if if I had to give advice to anybody, it would be go meet someone that you haven't met before. And the easiest way to do that is to say, hi, my name is Bill. Hi, my name is Eric. What's yours? Do it with a smile. People will resonate. People will respond. You'll make new friends. You never know where this life's journey is going to take you. Uh. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. So go make a friend and do it today. What's the best motorsports advice you've received? HMM. What is the best motorsport? Uh. Smooth is not fast. Smooth is just you being slow. Uh, what is the best motorsports advice? Uh. Let's see. Best motorsports advice. That's interesting. I didn't actually think about that one. I, you know, for me, it's not about motorsports. It's about life. It's about meeting people. Um, you know, we spend a majority of our life alone. We wake up alone, we go to sleep alone. We usually go to the bathroom alone usually, um, usually unless you're in like a, unless you're at the racetrack, then you have a trough to, you know, go with friends. This is true. Um, but for the most part, you're alone. And. And I don't want to be alone. Um, I don't want to be alone with. That that voice in my head. So I just go say hi to people and, um. And live this life with community. Because it's more fun to do that with people than without. Agreed. So it's time for the last question. Have you ever been late to grid? Which grid? All the grids. Yes, absolutely. Is there a good story about one time you were late? Oh my God, one time I was late. So. Yes. So it was an autocross event in New Brunswick, Maine, and my son hid my glasses. This is probably like ten years ago, and I couldn't find my glasses and I needed my glasses, you know, to, you know, go downstairs and go drive to the event. So I was late by like four hours. Um, but after that I made sure to have a second pair of glasses all the time. That's the latest. Somebody's been late and they let me and they only let me on. You know, they only let me drive because I was instructing that day. Oh. So that was kind of tough. And actually that was like twelve years ago, now that I think about it. Um, for the most part, I try to be not late to grid. I try to be, you know, I don't, I don't want to be that, that guy that has to like drive through. Have you ever seen that video? Like I was seventh. I don't think so. Oh, you got to check that out on on YouTube. So this guy is, is, you know, he's, he's late to grid. He's held up. He qualified as seventh. So what does he do? He like he drives through like in, you know, during the yellow flag at the beginning of the race to get to his position. And he literally is passing. He's like, I was seventh, I was seventh. It's a it's a it was like twelve years ago. I'll check it out. I'll send it to you. All right. Well, Eric, it was great having you on the podcast. Thanks for taking some time to talk about your journey. Your business, how you're making our motorsports community even better. So thanks again for taking some time. Absolutely. Thanks for having me today. Eric and I could have talked for another two and a half hours. His involvement in motorsports is continual. He seems to be everywhere. He is everywhere. And a few of my takeaways I want to recap with is it comes down to community. Motorsports is not an individual sport. Yes, we are the only one behind the wheel, but it takes many people to get us on track. It takes many people to coach us to get us to where we want to be. And I want you to understand that that when you have an opportunity, Help build a community. Help somebody reach out and say hello to someone else at an event. That's something that if you read between the lines of what Eric said to go and do that. Um, I asked him for some of his advice. And if you heard him say towards the end of the show, go meet somebody you don't know, introduce yourself and say hello. Of course, do it with a smile, you know? Another thing, he talked about nutrition and fitness. And if you've been a listener of the podcast for any length of time, we've we've talked about this. You have to be mentally and physically fit to be behind the wheel. They go together. And he said, nutrition and fitness equals mindset. You have to have the right mindset. So you can do nutrition on your own. You can do it with the help of somebody else. If you need a coach, go and get one. Eric talked about working with one and how a coach helps keep us accountable and helps us reach our goals. I asked him for some feedback on some things he learned, and especially about getting the competition license and going through the driver's school. and he said, you have to be open to coaching. You have to show confidence on track. So if you're newer in our sport, what that means is you can't go out there with a big ego and think, just because you did really well in Forza or you're doing, you're crushing it on iRacing, or you're just the best person that came out of the karting program. You have to be humble. You have to be open to ideas. You have to be open to coaching. God gave us two ears and one mouth. We need to use them in those proportions. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode because I really did and I have a request. Share this episode with someone that maybe needs to get on the motorsports journey. Maybe they are in motorsports journey and they need to get on the fitness journey. Oh, and if they need better wireless service, connect them with Eric. Do me one other favor. Don't be late to grid.