NASA Time Trials: Data, Setup & Seat Time with Darek Koman

You asked for it, and we’re delivering it: a deep dive into NASA Time Trials with Darek Koman from NASA Great Lakes.

In this episode of Late To Grid, Darek joins us in the Atomic Autosports studio to talk about his motorsports journey from HPDE, autocross, and track days into NASA Time Trials and wheel-to-wheel Super Touring competition. If you’ve ever wondered how to move from simply turning laps to competing against the clock, this one is for you.

We dig into why Time Trials is such a powerful stepping stone in motorsports, especially for drivers who want competition without immediately jumping into a fully caged race car. Darek shares how he uses track time to experiment with tire pressures, dampers, sway bars, alignment, driving lines, data, and the all-important “butt dyno.” Yes, it’s technical. Yes, it’s useful. And yes, your car may still decide the differential is no longer interested in differential-ing.

This episode covers:

• How Darek got started through NASA HPDE and Time Trials
• Why Time Trials is a smart bridge between track days and wheel-to-wheel racing
• How to use data to understand where you are gaining or losing time
• Why tire temperatures, setup notes, and weather conditions matter
• The value of using every session you paid for
• Why rain sessions are some of the best car-control training available
• The community side of grassroots motorsports and NASA Great Lakes
• How a street car can evolve into a serious track or race car

Whether you are new to HPDE, chasing faster lap times in Time Trials, building a track car, or considering your next step in grassroots racing, this episode is packed with practical advice from someone who has lived the progression.

Want faster laps and fewer headaches at the track? Atomic Autosports helps grassroots racers go from “I hope this works” to “I know this works.” 

From alignment and suspension tuning to track-day prep, Atomic Autosports is here to help you drive smarter, safer, and quicker. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start progressing, learn more at atomicautosports.http://www.atomicautosports.comcom

If you’re serious about getting faster, start at AtomicAutosports.com where you can find guides, information, and even connect with us to make sure that your motorsports journey stays on track. 

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.

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

0:19

You asked for it. Now we're delivering it. We're doing a deep dive in time trials. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. I'm back in the Atomic Autosport studio with Darek Koman from NASA Time Trials. And Darek, it's great to have you here today. Awesome. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Um, the way you and I got connected was interesting. So we had Glenn Robinson and Jay Andrew from NASA on the episode, and it was getting shared a bunch by NASA, Great Lakes. And somebody said, why don't we talk about time trials? And I said, let's talk about it. Who do I need to connect up with? So Jay Jay got me connected up with you. Um, I think or no, it was Chad. Chad. Chad got me connected up with you. Yeah. So I know we had a bunch of back and forth between that time there's been two, NASA Great Lakes Weekends, NCM Mid-Ohio. I do want to talk about those a little bit, but it's always great to connect with someone and a lot of our listeners, time trial, time attack is their jam. It's their event. They love it. It's it's their joy in motorsports. What drew you to Time trial? Well, I think I just naturally progressed through I'm, I'm a NASA, Great Lakes, uh, HPD graduate. So I started out in the, in the program. So went through, you know, HPD one, two all the way. At some point you got HPD four and you're, you're turning laps and getting the car more and more prepped for, you know, less for driving on the road and more prepped for, uh, doing the stupid things we do on the racetrack. And, um, just started to, you know, become more competitive. And it's like, well, time trials against the clock, right? So versus just turning laps. So just naturally kind of got my provisional time trial license and just through my, my car that I was driving every day just in there, just with some basic mods and it, it, it, I guess evolved or devolved from there, depending on your perspective. And, um, you know, I did it for, for many, many, many, many, many years, um, with several cars and eventually, uh, due to the, I think unique structure of how NASA does time trials is the time trial rules are, uh, car classing wise are the same as Supertouring. So it's very naturally to all of a sudden that one weekend you cage your car and the next thing you know, you're getting a comp license and, and then racing, you know, to the, to the checkered flag rather than, you know, against the clock. Um, so I think that's kind of what drew me to it is this was a natural stepping stone of practicing, you know, basically for qualifying for car control using all the track, uh, you know, learning each new track that you go to. Uh, that's kind of how, how, how it ended up for me. Yeah. Uh, you told me before the show started Gran Turismo and Fast and Furious kind of maybe. What gave you the driving and racing bug? What was it about those experiences that said, hey, let me go find out how I can get on track? Um, I don't really know. It's just something that kind of happened. You, um, you know, as a, as a kid, you know, before I had my driver's license, you know, you'd pick up a controller and, you know, you, you know, played some racing games and, um, and go from there. And at some point I, you know, as I got older, I realized I was a tinkerer. Right. I, I love like iterative improvement. So just cars turned into that, hey, I'm gonna throw a sway bar on my car and, and see what that did and just constant and it just turned into, you know, that that running joke where, you know, it's an expensive hobby, right? Constantly, constantly tinkering, constantly making changes. And I, I love going to the track, um, you know, with a plan with, I'm gonna try turning my dampers this way for this weekend. I'm gonna use one of my practice sessions and, and, you know, make a sway bar change, you know, hey, let's try different tire pressures, whatever that is for that weekend. I kind of try to come in with something. And that iterative process of I made a change. What did it do? Notate that. And I think time trials is great for that. Multiple sessions throughout the day. Um, and start try stuff, right? Yeah. When you're making those changes, how are you recording those? Do you have a notebook? You're using an app on your phone? Um, I'm really bad at taking notes. Uh, but generally I just open a notepad on my, on my phone and I have a couple of baseline settings for shock swaybars tire pressures. And I try to say, hey, plus two front compression. Uh, and then that's what I'm trying. What did it do? And at some point, I kind of leave it alone after it feels good enough, but I really need to like push myself to go back to like, hey, don't be afraid to, to try different things and, and try, you know, hey, what happens if we take out some of your compression and, uh, add some swaybar, right? You know, both increasing both will, you know, make the car oversteer more. But what? But which one does it wear? Right. And, and how to changes the car dynamics in that, in that scenario. So like, try not to get complacent with my settings on the car, right? Yeah. You know, that's a beautiful thing about, you know, like you said, time trial event or a test day, you make those little changes and see how things, uh, how things evolve and it could make it better or it could make it worse. And you never know until you try an experiment. Yeah, exactly. Um, and time trials, as anybody who's run it a long time, a lot of the times the fight against the weather. Right. Um, you know, tires don't like, they like heat until they don't like the heat and, and same thing. It's like there's limits, there's perfect little brackets of tire temperature and track temperature and whatnot and a setting that might have worked in the morning. Uh, that might have netted you a pretty good time. Uh, you know, the car could start getting sketchy understeer or oversteer, you know, towards midday or the end of the day. And you may not be able to match that time from this morning. But what you can do is figure out what shock settings or what sway bar settings kind of work, uh, for those hot weather conditions. So when you are in a competition or you do end up moving to wheel the wheel and your race is at three thirty, but qualifying was at was at nine, right? That's going to be significantly different conditions and having some level of notes on, hey, I'm at Mid-Ohio, you know, the car really liked this and turned in really well. Uh, with these settings when it's, you know, sixty degrees out or fifty degrees out, but you know, now, now you've moved to it's now June and it's eighty five, ninety degrees out. Do you back out some rear shock rear sway bar? Would you increase front sway bar? What do you do there to get the car to behave in a thirty forty minute race in eighty ninety degree heat versus an April event where it's forty, fifty, sixty degrees? Right. And the way that you're using that information, is it just the feel? Is it the lap time? Is it a mixture of those two? How do you say, okay, I like this change. This is what I needed. Um, two, two things. The, I think, you know, lap time is king and time trials, right? Did this make me go faster? Uh, to a certain. But sometimes consistency is key when it comes to, uh, longer sessions. It really depends if I'm setting the car up for one really fast lap, or am I setting the car up for do I want to survive thirty five minute race? And do I need want an edgy car or do I want something more more stable? And I think again, that's where time trials is, is where I learned a lot of that is, is trying things, uh, using all the track time available. Yeah, sure. You know, I set my fast lap time already for the, for the day for, for NASA time trials, fastest time of the day wins. Um, you know, a lot of the times that's before noon and a lot of people like to pack up their cars and, and, you know, not go home quite yet, but, you know, not really go out there. I was the guy that was throwing on scrub tires or, just going out there and say, okay, well, I will be running an event at some point that it's going to be this hot. Let's, let's see, let's see what the car does. Right? Track time. You paid for it. So I'm a very big advocate of for use it, right? Right. I want to I want to go back to your early days with NASA and, um, what made you, what made you register for one of their events and get started in the HPD program? So I got started in racing kind of through friends as, as most people do. Um, I started with a non NASA organization, just locally did a high speed autocross was my first one hundred percent bone stock car on all seasons as, as most of us, you know, will do something stupid like that. Not stupid. It was fun. Um, and, you know, kind of, you know, was young, didn't have a lot of money. So I wasn't really doing it very often. You know, maybe one a year. Um, eventually just ran into a coworker, uh, that was a NASA instructor. And he's like, hey, you know, NASA events coming to a track near me. You should, you should swing by and check out the program and, you know, started into HPD. And, uh, that's kind of where I stayed. Uh, I very rarely do non NASA track days. Uh, I'm, I'm there at almost everyone at this point. And at least for the Great Lakes region. Uh, but that's, that's how I started. Just a friend got me into it. I went through, had instructors got checked off to the next run group. As my skill level progressed, I got more comfortable with things like heel toe and trail braking, um, you know, car dynamics and setups, alignments. As the car got faster and faster, I switched cars a couple of times and yeah. What car did you start with? Uh, for a very short time, I was running a two thousand and seven Subaru WRX up that car didn't see a whole lot of track time. Um, I went through some of the not the stereotypical ones, but not the ones that you exist. I didn't blow a head gasket. I didn't, uh, have any engine issues, but, uh, just straight driving the car like, you know, somebody that was young. Did you know I went through a transmission and a rear end under warranty and said, this is probably not the car for me to continue my, uh, my track story. Um, so very shortly after that, I got an Evo ten. Bought it off the showroom floor and was my everyday car and with very little mods. Also did HPD with it. And one weekend, uh, it turned into a single seater with a roll bar, harnesses, and no interior. Uh, you know, when I just bought myself another, uh, you know, very cheap. You know what they call it? Beater with a heater, kind of a car to get around every day. And the Evo turned into a a, you know, full blown time trials car for, for many, many, many years. I think I petitioned that car for eight years, I think in NASA time trials. And so and what do you drive today? I have a two thousand and five Honda S two thousand prepped for time travel five super touring, five mostly super touring at this point. Yeah. Is it caged? Yes. All right. Fully caged. So there you go. Have you fire extinguisher kills it, you know, kill switch, you name it. And have you done any, uh, street five races other than the time trials? Yes. Yeah, I got my, I got my comp license back in twenty twenty nineteen or twenty twenty is when I got my comp license. So I've been doing Wheel of Wheel for the last six years or so. Oh, cool. But again, with the beauty of the rules is, hey, sometimes I'll look at the competition and be like, you know, there's one, one or two people. It's kind of a light invention. Super touring. I'll drop down the time trials and put down some lap times with with the time trial folks. It's the beauty of the cars can go, you know, as long as you have the safety equipment required, your time travels car can move up to super touring and obviously vice versa. You know, the super touring car is technically an overbuilt time trials car, right? From a, from a safety perspective. Right. Oh that's great. So these last two events that you, uh, for twenty twenty six, NCM and Mid-Ohio, uh, did you, uh, race an sst5 or did you time trial. So NCM, I actually ran time trials. Um, and then I was supposed to run, uh, s t uh, we'll, we'll, this last weekend in Mid-Ohio, but during Saturday practice, my differential decided it didn't want to do differential things anymore. Oh. So, um, yep. So basically parked it for the weekend. It still drives under its own power. So figured uh, figure save the, the manual labor to trying to winch it up into the trailer. So to just, uh, you know, save whatever's left of the differential and, uh, we'll be, we'll be back for, for the next event at Mid-Ohio in, in like three weeks or so, three or four weeks. Oh, great. Very good. Uh, what advice would you have to somebody that that's thinking about getting involved in the sport and why they would want to look at time trials as a good opportunity for them? I think we've kind of hit on some of those things, but maybe dive into it a little bit deeper. Um, yeah, so I, I think it's a awesome middle ground slash good landing spot for people who don't want to jump into the deep end of fully caged car. They still want to be able to have a usable vehicle on the weekends. Um, you know, that's, there's a lot of cars out there that are very, very, very competitive with full interiors, um, you know, and a passenger seat and you don't have to do a whole lot of, um, making the car not usable, um, versus, you know, wheel to wheel competition. You're going off the deep end, right? You need a trailer truck. It gets, it gets expensive fast, right? When you, when you take that leap. But with time trials, there's a ton of guys, uh, that, you know, have little autocross, single axle trailers with some, you know, tires, some fuel, a jack and some tools and they drive their cars to the track. Um, uh, we have one person, NASA Great Lakes. He, he uses an s two thousand and he tows a little pop up camper, a little small, lightweight pop up camper with him. And he stays at the track. And you know, the talk of the town, he's like, man, you're, you're towing that with, with your race car. Um, and I think that's really what attracts time travels. Also, it's relatively lower risk than taking, you know, damage on your vehicle, uh, from impacts from other cars like Wheel of Wheel. You know, we know that at some point it's a matter of if, not when, it's when not if that, you know, you will come in contact, whether lightly or hard with with another car. Just it's the nature of the game, right? Um, and time travel cars have a tendency of looking, uh, a lot, a lot nicer than race cars. Uh, body panels are still straight. Um, you know, you don't, uh, generally you drive within the limits of what you're capable of. And if as long as you do that, uh, cars don't have a tendency of staying on track and, uh, you know, it's when you have something a little bit more expensive, it's a lot, a lot nicer. As one of the heads of the time trials program at NASA Great Lakes, is that a hindrance to getting track time? Do you find that those responsibilities take away from your your ability to get on track during the weekend? Does it enhance it? Do you like the balance of that? Um, I try to Because of that reason, I try to avoid, uh, participating in time trials at the same time that I'm running the program. It is. It is stressful. It is very hard to, uh, you know, get through all the impound procedures, work closely with tech, get in the car, scaled, getting the cars dynoed while I'm out there at the track at the same time on the track at the same time as everyone else. So definitely one of the reasons why I, I mostly, you know, try to run supertouring wherever possible. Um, even if maybe, you know, there might be some tires on the line for me from a contingency perspective or something by switching to time trials rather than staying in supertouring. But that is it is difficult to get on track. It's difficult to make every session. Um, from a time trials perspective. Supertouring. Um, it, it's not bad. The schedule, um, I think they do a really good job, I think Jay and and the crew do an awesome job with the schedule to try to accommodate as many, as many people as possible, whether it's us as series leaders and instructors, to be able to be able to jump out of cars and get to their own sessions with, you know, trying to make the sacrifices for the volunteers and staff as minimal as possible. But yeah, there is, you know, as an example, Mid-Ohio, I can never make Sunday morning practice because my time trials meeting is literally when the cars are on track, like eight o'clock warm up and eight o'clock meeting. I can't be at two places at one time. So, you know, it's a lot of a lot of prep, a lot of planning. A good example of that is, um, mornings are, are very, very, very hectic with all the meetings with the NASA staff meetings, getting everyone on the same page with me talking to tech, making sure I have all my paperwork in for all the competitors on top of trying to get my own car ready. You know, mixed conditions. Is it going to rain? What tires do I put on making sure my transponder's good? You know, making sure my camera is ready to go for the races and just I'm getting dressed, you know, throwing a race suit on. It just all has to be backed up and you're doing things maybe an hour, hour and a half earlier than you would normally be if I wasn't a series leader. And, and, and running the time trials program at the events. Got it. Speaking of time trials program, I asked you sort of like, what are the mistakes that you see? Um, and it's people not using data, not experimenting and not using all of their track time. We kind of talked about the experimenting part with, you know, changing your, your dampener settings or your sway bar settings, but maybe for someone that's newer in the sport and they don't have adjustable suspension or even the mechanical ability to swap out a sway bar, what are some things they can experiment with during either a time trials event or a track day to make, you know, get a different feel for the car. Yeah. So I think, you know, time trials is definitely the place where I started learning the most about car setup. You know, tires are the, you know, black magic art of going fast. So starting to figure out how to use a pyro tire temperatures. And you can do that on all season tires without any, anything other than, you know, a, an expensive pyro from Amazon or, or, you know, a, your local race supply store and trying to say, okay, well, what does tire pressures do? What does this, you know, a, you know, alignment, you can't really change up the track easily, but it gives you an idea of, hey, you know, I came, I did my first event, I was on my stock street alignment with, you know, five degrees of negative camber on front, on on the front of the car. And my outside tires were just cooked like the outside edges. And then you, you add two degrees of camber and you're like, wow, that made a huge difference in tyre temperatures. Then you start to get a feel for what does that, you know, what does that look like? Um, but the experimenting side is not just, um, not just with setup, it's also with your driving different lines, different techniques. You know, what if I trail braked a little harder into this corner? Uh, what about if I, you know, what about, you know, if I, instead of braking, I just lift off and roll more speed into the corner. Um, you know, what about if I turned in a little bit later, right? Everyone talks about the perfect line and you know what, what does that look like? I say I struggled a lot early on in my learning career because I was driving heavy all wheel drive cars and reading your your typical Ross Bentley books and things like that. And and being like, hey, when you do this, the car should do this. And I'm like, my car don't do that. You know, like it just doesn't the driving style, I think between rear wheel drive, front wheel drive, all wheel drive is slightly different. And car setups have a lot to do with how the vehicle dynamic changes. Mid-corner. You know, front wheel drive, all wheel drive are very much get rotation done early and get back on the power right. Get get that straight line as as soon as possible. And, you know, switching from an Evo to an S two thousand, you know, going from a, you know, thirty four hundred pound all wheel drive car to, you know, a two thousand seven hundred pound rear wheel drive car was just it was it was very different in, in mid-corner dynamics. What I can do and what, what inputs I can play with to get the car to do certain things. Um, Especially mid-corner, right? The Evo didn't really like small mid-corner adjustments. It was like abrupt lift. Get the rear end to step out and then put the foot right back down to get to pull out of the corner. The S two thousand I can I can do minor throttle or brake adjustments mid-corner and get the car to kind of change the nose where, where it's pointing, or I can get the car to rotate. Um, I have a, you know, very nice diff in the car and I can get the car to rotate nicely on power, even with, you know, all four hamsters, you know, spinning at, you know, at eight thousand RPMs. Um, so that's the kind of things that I tell people, hey, like, you know, Keyhole and Mid-Ohio try, try a later, you know, try a later apex, right? Try to get the car rotated earlier. Um, so it's not just car setup, also just driving dynamics and, um, and what your car is going to do. That's great advice. How about advice on data? What should folks be doing again, whether it's time trials or just an hpde event. So, um, I've, I've seen a lot of people, you know, coming to time trials and they, they don't have any sort of data like anything, no app, no, um, no lap timer, no, you know, data acquisition system. And they go out there, they drive, they think they're driving the doors off the car. Then they go look at the results spreadsheet and be like, wow, I went a second slower, right? And then I asked them, well, where or why? And they and they can't answer the question, right? I felt like I was driving hard. The car was, you know, more understeering more, you know, I was the rear end was stepping out. And it's hard to pinpoint where, how or, or what actions or what driving, uh, caused it. Right. So with new people coming in, I'm like, get something. It doesn't matter what it is. Uh, you know, a a a a lap lap with a, you know, ten, you know, Hertz GPS, little Bluetooth adapter or something. So you can see on your screen, on your phone when you're there that when you take a corner and you trail brake a little bit more into China Beach that you saw that your predictive went, you know, two tenths faster, or you, you, you tried something and it went well, that was half a second slower. Right. And you can really tell where you get that immediate feedback on where and what happened. Now, you may not know what you did right, right away, but you, you saw green, you see a lot of green on that screen. So, you know, whatever that was, it worked. And then you can sit down between sessions, take a look and say, okay, what, what was that? What, what was the actual, uh, device that helped me go faster there on that corner. And then you look at your speed trace, or if you have Obd2. Throttle and brake is super, super useful. And you're like, wow, I braked, I braked later here and the and I found time or I got on throttle sooner and, and that's another fun thing that I tell people is newer cars have a significant advantage here because an Obd2 dongle and you get so much data from the car, you can even get your, you can get a bunch of stuff off of some of the newer vehicles from the ABS modules. Brake pressure is huge. Throttle trace is is very important to. You have a dinosaur car like ours, anything older than, you know, a mid two thousand. Um, and you're, you're buying sensors, right? Mhm. You're buying brake pressure sensors. You're, you're trying to tap into an ECU that the refresh rate is terrible. So you somehow need to get better throttle position. You're not really getting as much data. I'm really jealous of some of these new cars compared to my, you know, my two thousand and five Honda where I there's not a whole lot I can I can get from the factory ECU when I was still running it. And, you know, I have to basically get analog or digital sensors, aftermarket for pretty much anything that I'm trying to collect on the cars. Oh, yeah. And having that data, uh, is, is great. Like for all the reasons you mentioned, but you could also use it for some coaching opportunities. So you should be looking at it at the track. You should be looking at it when you get back. But if you have that data, you can share it with somebody else and say, hey, I think I'm doing well, but what does the data show you as a as a driver, coach and remote coaching has gotten super popular in our sport too. So that's another reason to, to capture that data and don't delete it, you know, find ways to use it. Right? Yeah. And we, I talk about calibrating your butt dyno sometimes, uh, when it comes to that with the data is, you know, a lot of us are used to driving at street speeds. You know, we're one G is fast. You know, one G is a lot of lateral force for street driving. And that's what we mostly do. We mostly drive on the street. So when you get on the racetrack, it's it's hard to like recalibrate your. But sometimes where, you know, you turn in and you get on power, you start to lean against your seat and you're kind of subconsciously going, well, oh man, I feel like I'm going fast, but you're only generating one one point one G's. You know, when your tires and car can do one point two, one point three, one point four. Um, I ran into that, you know, March NCM event and the Evo was always like that. I was looking at the data. I was like, why am I so slow? Why am I two, three seconds off my time from October? And I, I made a braking mistake and I just broke a little later than normal. And, and I'm like, wow, the car took it and I didn't go off track and it felt controlled. And I kind of beat myself up a little bit. Back in the day, I'm like, you just wasted a whole day of driving around at one G, you know, basically at like holding yourself back because your butt dyno was calibrated driving all winter. Um, you know, at, at a certain, you know, at a certain pace. And that's where, you know, data review or, uh, knowing what's possible is, is important. Um, some of the most like information I've gotten and faster I've done is sharing data with friends and competitors and doing some coaching or throwing a hot shoe in your car and getting a reference lap of somebody who can, who can extract the performance from the car and just setting, you know, going out there for three laps and just setting a lap time and being like, hey, like, this is, this is like what your car's capable of. And you know, you're not going to get there today. But you know there there is cornering performance here. You just got to build up the confidence to be able to extract it. Um and that's where understanding your data and understanding how to use it is, is it's your data is not, not the upper limit, right? The, your data is how you drive the car, not necessarily the car's full potential. And it's, it's hard. I found it hard to, um, to kind of figure out from my data where I could go faster. Um, because when you're comparing laps between your lap from last year to this year, that's still your own driving. That's still the same car from, from last year, maybe with some changes or some upgrades, but it's very, very hard to look at data in my opinion, and be like, oh, I'm not caring enough speed here. Right? Without some other reference point. Um, I'll be honest, I haven't gotten a chance to play with some of the more, um, more AI, more like adaptive learning, uh, devices, uh, to, to really see like how well they could push an average driver, uh, to, to figure out the car's potential without necessarily having somebody demonstrate that potential. The, for the first time. Um, and the last mistake that you said people tend to make is they don't use all the track time they paid for. What do you mean by that? So I think I touched on it a little earlier and that was the, uh, okay, I, I'm, I set a fast lap time this morning in the, in the cold weather and the colder weather. And then they just parked their car. Right. And then they just like, I don't want to put heat cycles on my tires. I don't want to break the car. Uh, they're trying to there's some, you know, I think I can understand that sentiment considering I just broke my car this last weekend, so you know it, you know, every every minute on track costs something, right? Like from a maintenance perspective, whether it's oil, whether it's tires, wheel bearings, hubs, you know, there's a lot everything's a wear item, right? To a certain point. Chassis is a wear item to a certain point. Right. Um, and I think that's, I see, I see a lot of competitors, you know, pack up early on Sunday to try to get a, you know, a head start on the road. But, you know, you, you did pay for, you know, all five sessions every day, right? For, for each day. And there's something to be learned. There be something to be gained. Um, I see people sit out rain sessions. I think, you know, there's a lot of car control to be learned there. I think it's very, um, each track is very unique in where the grip is in the rain at different levels of, of water, of how waterlogged the track is and being able to go out there and find that in a controlled environment in time trials is, is like the perfect time. Um, you know, I, I love rain races. I love driving in the rain. It's therapeutic a little bit because everything just kind of slows down a little bit. You're, you're not loading the car up with crazy GS every corner. And it's more like this game of, well, if I take this really weird line and just drive around the outside of this high speed corner, like, is there grip there? And that's what you find is driving these awkward, weird lines that feel very unnatural. But that's where the speed is. And you and, and building the confidence of, you know, especially for the time trial drivers that eventually want to make their way to a comp license, you're going to get rain races at some point, you're going to have to drive thirty, thirty five, forty five minutes. If you go to nationals in the rain, potentially side by side with somebody and and understanding what what the grip is. Having a general understanding that, you know, hey, you know, I'm gonna have grip now, but as soon as we enter the corner, I'm gonna be on the normal racing line, and that's gonna be an ice rink, right? And, and I'm not going to be able to get on throttle there. Or is it better to back out of this move right now in the rain and just follow through and find a better place to, uh, you know, to, to, to get that speed and to get that pass done rather than maybe, you know, going down the inside of China Beach when you know, you're going to cross over the, you know, the race line and there will be will be very slick at that time. Um, so that's, that's more of what I meant. I think, uh, from that is great advice. And, um, you know, one thing that disappoints me is when I'll go to a wet track day or hpde event and there's nobody there, they all bail, they ask for refunds. Maybe they didn't even register. They were just going to drive up and register if the weather had turned out. And it's such a learning opportunity in the rain, just like you said. Um, plus, I know it beats sitting at home, right? Get to the track, whether wet or dry. I do want to talk. Yeah, well. Oh go ahead. Go ahead. No, Derek. Go ahead. I was going to just say that, uh, you know, a bad day at the track always beats a good day at the office. Um, it's kind of we've been saying, you know, especially with, you know, people when you do have mechanicals and things like that, you know, you're like, you know, some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue, right? So when it comes to that, yeah, I want to talk a little bit about advice. What's the best motorsports advice that you received through your journey? Oh, uh, let me think about that one. Um. I think it was probably just get out there and drive. right si time as as much as everyone doesn't want to hear that is is butt in seat on the track in your car. Driving is the best money spent versus any any mod that you can put on the car. I know it's very stereotypical, but I think we all get trapped in buying coilovers, buying shocks, the you know, what's the hot new tire? Uh, you know, do I need aero and, and ultimately, I think we do this, uh, I think we do this for, uh, driving on the track, right? And I think we spend a lot of time in the garage prepping the car and working on it. And sometimes it's just better to step back away from the garage and make sure your car is safe to drive. Obviously, brake brake pads, brake fluid, you know, make sure everything's tight. But it just turned the laps. Go have fun. It's probably the other thing I think somebody told me, which I've been kind of telling you. It's the strangest community right out there. You're out there and everyone's relatively competitive. And, uh, you know, you're you're banging doors, not quite banging doors, but you know what I mean with, with a competitor and, you know, they're not going to give you an inch on the racetrack, but something happens to your car. He's the first guy underneath your car helping you bench press a transmission into the car so you can make the next race. And everyone, everyone is helpful. Everyone's willing to hand you a tool. Um, let you borrow something. There's always a guy with a welder somewhere in, in the paddock, right? For, for fixing something that you're not supposed to really fix trackside, but you need to, you want to make it out for race two and three on Sunday. Um, and get out there. Talk to people. Meet. Meet everyone. Just go out there, drive, get some seat time. And it's also the friends you make along the way and the relationships. Um, you know, I, I met some people in the Great Lakes program that now whenever I need to do something really big to my car, I'm like, hey, can you come over? I'm, I'm a YouTube certified mechanic, but I, I'm, I'm uncomfortable with, with some things and opening up certain systems that I'm just not. And, and you'd be surprised how often that person's like, yeah, hold on, you know, do you want me to bring any beer or, or whatnot? And, and, and you'll end up spending endless weekends with those people and they're going to be some of your best friends. Yeah. There's no doubt. Uh, the people in the paddock are ninety nine percent of what makes the sport great. The other one percent is just the adrenaline rush of being behind the wheel and putting it down. And, um, if it weren't for the people, I don't know that our sport would be as big or as fun as it is, so you're spot on with that. When someone comes up to you and they need some advice or they're like, hey, what do you want to tell me about the sport? What advice do you give to folks? Um, I tell a lot of people, I get, I get a lot of car, uh, setup questions, a lot of what do you think? I'm looking to get into it. Um, you know, how expensive is it? And I always tell them that it the world is your oyster, right? You can, you can race the b-spec car, you can run a, you know, first or second generation Miata for relatively inexpensive. And you'd be surprised how close to golfing. You know, the sport can be from a, from a price perspective, get something you can drive to the track. Um, but then you could also go buy yourself an LMP car. Right. And, and it turns into and it can turn into, you know, you're driving around in a house and it's, you know, you don't have to buy the stickiest, most expensive tire that only lasts one weekend. You can run yourself on some Enduro two hundred seconds that can last all season, depending on how many events you do. Um, I think it's, it's tell them start out small, start out with something economical. Um, and work your way to, you know, big V8's, you know, prototypes, if that's where your passion is once you get your, your handle on it. Um, the other thing I do tell people a lot is when you're trying to get into the competitive side of, of the sport, aka time trials with the wheel racing, please, please, please devote some time to reading the rule book. Mhm. Um, and, and taking a look at, um, what modifications you can and can't do to your cars for what your targeted group is, or reach out. Talk to people on the paddock that are running similar cars or are in time trials. Nobody in the paddock, like we just said earlier, is going to withhold information from you. They're going to tell you, you know, hey, I, I run a Nissan. Three fifty Z what should I do to make it track ready? The people that are going to give you the best advice are not the people on the internet forums or asking ChatGPT to what I need to do to the car. That guy that's been running the Nissan for eight years on track and is doing time trials or wheel to wheel, is going to be your source of truth. Um, on what breaks, what doesn't break, what you should reinforce. And it's, and it's weird, right? Every car has its quirks. Mhm. You know, um, you know, Miatas have hub issues, you know, spec Miata, I think finally, you know, allowed some billet rear hubs now, um, that they can, that they can do. So they're not, uh, running the stock me out of hubs anymore. Um, they're just, they're everyone will like, they'll knowledge dump on you, they'll give you a list, they'll send you a spreadsheet of, of what they think the maintenance items are, uh, and what parts break regularly talk to people, definitely talk and reach out. Um, I actually just yesterday I received a random Facebook message out of nowhere from somebody, not even in my region because they saw a photo of my car and wanted to talk about aero on an S two thousand and what my experience is with running a splitter or not running a splitter with a wing on our platform. It. And that's what we're here for, right? And yeah, he got a very long response. Well, and that's, that's something I want to highlight too, is we talked about the people, but reach out to one another. If it's somebody at the track that's running your same car, go over and say hi. Ask them what they're doing with tires or tire pressures or this or that. If you see someone taking a faster line or they're there at the top of the podium, every every event you see them at. Befriend them. Ask them some questions. Because like you said, Derek, people are willing to help. While we might be competitors when that green flag drops, we're here to help one another. The more people on track, the better the sport is. We're getting close to the end here. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to? I think I think we covered everything we did for the most part, and we got more technical than I thought we would. This is great because a lot of the listeners love to hear about some of the things you talked about, about making the changes on the dampeners, the sway bar, getting, you know, the tire temperatures is something else that a lot of people want to hear about. Um, so I do have one more question then. Have you ever been late to grid? Yeah. I mean, it was eight years of being an instructor and, you know, you're, you prioritize your student over over your track time. Uh, there, there have been times where we're doing a district. You know, we're doing a little dissertation talking about the line and everything like that. And I'm like, oh, shoot, that was the three minute whistle. And I'm not suited up, you know, for to, to get up and, you know, usually something like that or you're barely got your car running, you know, after, after a mechanical and trying to get the grid on time for quali. It happens. Yeah. Well, I very much appreciate you taking some time to share your motorsports journey with us and tell us more about NASA, the passion you have for time trials and the sport in general. So thanks again for being here. Awesome.