Stewart grew up in a Seattle suburb and was an active kid. When he turned 16, he got a beater $500 car and was tasked with keeping it running. He used this car to learn maintenance and slowly acquired mechanical skills. He went to college and continued to modify cars. He was living gin the dorm and didn’t have a place to do the work so he called several shops, but nobody would allow him to do the work at their shop. It was at this point that he shifted from wanting to be a surgeon to owning a DIY garage. He spent all winter break creating a business plan and researched other self-service garages to see if the idea was even feasible. After dealing with a shady real estate broker, difficulties with city zoning, fire marshal fixes, and having to relocate with a 3-day notice, he was finally able to open his self-service garage. He has now been in business for 5 years and has signed another 5-year lease. The goal for this year is to expand and grow the business. He currently has 7 bays with lifts, provides tools and some specialty machines, and employees 4 employees to help around the shop. They keep things simple by charging a flat rate for time and not doing a la cart charges to use tools or ask questions.

Nathan grew up in Florida working on cars to help his dad’s business. In his twenties, he moved around always chasing entrepreneurial ventures but wasn’t always focused on cars. He eventually purchased a 2002 WRX Wagon and then he was hooked! The modifications began and he couldn’t get enough. This led to starting a performance shop with two buddies and eventually meeting Doug Wilks who was the owner of Top Speed Performance. Nathan then began organizing tuning appointments for Doug to fly in and tune several vehicles at once. After some time, Nathan offered to buy the business from Doug and run it on how own terms. He kept the original employees, changed the name to Top Speed Motorsports, and grew the business over the next ten years. He recently changed it to Cicio Performance and now has two locations. One is in Atlanta, GA (the Top Speed Motorsports location) and the other is in Virginia Beach, VA. He has plans to open a third location in another year or two. With the new name, Nathan focused his efforts on running the business efficiently and tracking every metric possible. This has allowed him to open the second location and he is able to split his time between the two and manage them. His goal is to ensure his customers have a pleasant experience and work to get the cars completed as quickly as possible. He still works on GTR’s but is expanding the services to 911’s and plans on doing a ton of work with the new C8 Corvette when it comes out.

Chris got his career going in cars by doing a buy-in for body kits while he was in college back in 2001. He ran this business all through college and made a decent living. But, after graduating, he became a medical salesman. He worked there up until 2012 when the company he was working for got bought and he was given a buyout payment. That same year, he started Speed by Design. Initially, he wanted to do installs for GTR’s. He soon realized that Oklahoma wasn’t large enough to warrant a specialty shop like he wanted to make so he shifted gears and focused on manufacturing and e-commerce. He has continued to grow the business over the years and is proud to offer quality products manufactured in Taiwan. They have expanded from just GTR parts to Fords, AE86s, and are beginning to offer McLaren parts.

Its been about 4 years since we last talked to Andre and Ben of HP Academy. Originally, they were focusing on keeping the business small and running it themselves. They soon realized that they needed to hire some extra help. They have grown to 7 people and really helps generate content. Andre and Ben now release interviews each week and have greatly expanded their online education program. The online courses include tuning, engine machining, race car wiring, and vehicle setup. They are currently working with Engineered to Slide to even create a set of fabrication courses so be on the lookout for even more great content! If you’re interested, they are always looking for talented individuals to join their team. So, feel free to reach out to them if you think you are qualified.

Bryan Thompson started out in Utah and bought himself a Toyota MR2. He quickly started modifying it to go faster. He ended up going to college to get a Computer Science degree but was cut short because of his love for cars. He then followed a friend to Dallas to begin working at Dinosaur Performance (which later purchased Powerhouse Racing). Soon enough, he was giving the reigns to run Powerhouse Racing. Even though he preferred working on cars, he soon realized he could develop parts that he really needed to make. After a few years, Bryan was given the opportunity to buy Powerhouse Racing and jumped on it! He has spent the past few years focusing on manufacturing products and expanding their offerings. He is putting systems in place to better handle the demand for their parts and try to get them out quicker while continuing to improve the products.

Back in 2017, AJ was humming along and making composite parts for race cars and street enthusiasts. He was approached by a customer who was wanting to help AJ scale the business, so he sold off 49% of the business. They changed the name to RHR Composites, hired 2 people, contracted some aerodynamic parts to be designed, and moved to a larger facility. Along the way, their vision for the future didn’t align so AJ had to buy out his partner to take back 100% of the company. Even though it was a huge struggle, AJ looks at the events as a learning experience and tries to keep a positive outlook on the situation. He shrunk the company back to just himself, changed the name back to AJ Hartman Aero, and the business is humming along nicely. He has focused on reducing waste and improving efficiency within his shop. Even though he has moved out of the 6,000 sqft shop and back into the 2-car garage behind his house, he has been able to get more product out and make more money. This goes to show how important it is to focus on efficiency versus trying to make more money. AJ set his mind on improving the business and getting the most use out of his time. This has translated to higher profits with fewer resources.

Since he was a kid, Matt always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Using inspiration from his childhood, he decided to start a side gig to follow his dreams. His initial idea consisted of 50 latches that allow you to drop the Ford F-150 back seat down to access some secret storage. To his surprise, a Facebook post in a small F-150 group resulted in him selling out rather quickly. So, he began his journey to go at the business full-time. His second product development was a bedside rack system for the F-150’s. This side hustle first took over a bedroom, then grew into the garage, and grew again into a storage unit that was run off a generator and a string of lights. His biggest struggle has been dealing with knockoffs that originate from his success on Amazon. He even wrote a blog article warning other small business owners about the pitfalls and helping people learn from his experience.  Fast forward to today and BuiltRight Industries is housed in a 5000 sqft warehouse and has 2 full time employees and a couple part timers. He has worked hard to expand the business to other vehicles and continues to develop new products. And he has even begun selling his products through Turn14.

Alejandro and Pablo Moreno didn’t start a shop together but found they could grow a business by working as a team. Alejandro got his engineering degree, worked at Bell Helicopter for a while, and went back to school to get his MBA. In the meantime, Pablo was an auto mechanic, went to flight school, and then decided to start Tandem Automotive with a friend to work on drift cars (hence the name). When Alejandro finished grad school, he was looking for some sort of entrepreneurial venture and wanted to help Pablo. He crunched some numbers and made some changes at Tandem Automotive. His quickly discovered that something needed to change at the business if they wanted it to succeed. They looked at their current customer based and decided it was best to specialize in modifying and maintaining Toyota SUV’s and trucks. Alejandro used his CAD skills and designed a custom wheel for their common application. While he thought it would be a great way to generate some extra profit, it turned out to be a real headache. Dealing with overseas manufacturing turned out to be extremely difficult and costly. But they overcame the hurdles and have had several hundred wheels produced. Tandem Automotive has also undergone several ups and downs with employees. They have tried to balance the number of techs with the workload but have struggled to hire hard workers and keep them busy with work. They have put systems in place to track the time and verify that they are charging appropriately and making money.

The business was originally started by their parents who did maintenance and custom work in California. Theresa studied graphic design and worked as a machinist. She went back to work in the family auto body shop and worked in the front end. She taught herself how to pinstripe and paint and continues to do so to this day! Sara was also interested in working at some sort of automotive business and studied business and automotive classes. Strangely enough, she worked at a competitor’s auto body shop for a few months before realizing she wanted to start a business that sold aftermarket parts. She started the business from the family body shop before building a dedicated space in 1999. These businesses operated separately until 2011 when they merged the two businesses. LGE-CTS Motorsports is a combination of the two original names. LGE stands for Louie & Gerry Enterprises and CTS stands for Custom Truck Shop. They now do a bunch of SEMA builds for Ford and Kia as well as custom builds for retail customers. During the slower season, they focus efforts on the repair side of the business. And they are currently working on expanding the online store to help generate revenue throughout the year. They now work out of a 12,000 sqft building that they rent from their parents and employ 13 people. They are both very active with SEMA and other organizations to get people (and specifically, girls) active in the automotive industry and interested in making a career out of it. You can also find them at offroad and enthusiast events throughout the year. They keep themselves very busy and wouldn’t have it any other way!

On this episode we get a chance to talk with Vadim Belogorodsky from CANtrolls. CANtrolls is a company focused on using CAN interface hardware to make engine swaps easier… but it goes way beyond that! Vadim taught himself to program at age 13 and has since worked on medical devices, oil rigs (doing CAN-based Networking) and most recently with Zero Avia an electric aviation startup. Vadim is a standout in the automotive aftermarket for his ability to get things done. I know him personally to be an ambitious self-starter so I thought we could all learn what makes him tick, and maybe he’ll teach us some things along the way.

Reid has been very busy lately managing several businesses. He still has KSTuned which is the Honda racing side and then has Kaizen Speed for the domestic cars. But his new venture is a weatherproof. solid-state relay that can handle heavy current and is interconnectable. This makes it very easy to daisy chain additional relays without having to run more power wires. He also made it so that you can attach a CAN control module as an option. This gives the customer the ability to keep it very simple or more complex with the CAN module. Reid has entered the relay into the 2019 SEMA Launch Pad Competition presented by the Young Executive Network. Reid needs your votes to move onto the finals. So, follow this link and go vote! Voting link – http://bit.ly/VoteLunde 

Johnny joined the military after high school, served his time, and then used the GI Bill to go to college. He really didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and began messing with cars and going autocrossing. He worked a short stent helping at a friend’s shop and then got a job at PFC Brakes doing sales and technical support. This job took him all over the world supporting various racing platforms. His next job was at OG Racing selling safety gear and brakes. He was also making custom seat inserts for race teams. He began working with Elan (makers of the NP01) making seats and started looking at the extrusion they had for their wing. Eventually, they gave him one and he did some testing against a typical carbon wing. Turns out, the Elan profile added several MPH down the back straight and in turns at Road Atlanta. Right then, he knew he had something that works. He made a kit for the BMW M3’s and started making wings for all different vehicles. Now he has 7 people and they help all sorts of teams with the aero needs. On top of creating wing kits, Nine Lives Racing can also do CFD analysis and provide information and parts to complete the aero package.

Jonny Mill grew up in a small town in California and moved to LA as soon as he graduated high school. He worked at a talent recruiter and had various jobs in the entertainment industry with advertising and marketing. He always enjoyed cars, but things really took off when he developed The E-Stopp (an electronic parking brake). It was intended for handicap vans but soon found an amazing niche in the automotive restoration market. He was approached by Bryan Harrison of SEMA to compete in the first SEMA Launch Pad competition and took first place. After that, he started an innovation company and then began doing marketing/advertising for various TV shows and networks. He recently took a position at WheelWell.com where users can showcase their car builds. It has grown to an online hangout for car enthusiasts to share reviews, link to all the products used in their build, and even facilitate selling their vehicle. WheelWell’s latest push is their marketplace which allows users to purchase the parts they see on the user’s build. They have even introduced a “mod score” which rewards users for generating their own content and provides discounts in the marketplace. To check out all the builds, or even add your own ride, check out WheelWell.com

Charlie Eklund moved down to Houston, TX to attend Tuner School in 2017. The people at Hennessey Performance saw something special in Charlie and offered him a job in the admissions department for the school. Since then, Charlie has been the face of Tuner School to narrow down the applicants and help them get jobs after graduation. To further help them out, Charlie helps students find part time jobs while taking classes and they even offer a house where the students can rent a room and not have to worry about furniture. John Hennessey started Tuner School because he was getting multiple inquiries on how to work on cars and tune them. So, he just decided to meet that specific need and develop a curriculum with various industry experts. The classes are capped at 15 students to focus on providing the best education possible.

Richard Tomlin owns a paint, restoration, and fabrication shop south of Houston, Texas called Apex Auto Works. He made a name for his shop by building cages for Spec Miatas and was cranking out one a week. The shop is located on the way to a road course so he catered to the weekend racers and was able to do anything they wanted from complex fab work to paint and body.  He recently embarked on a new venture by developing an absorbent powder called White Pony Dry. It is far superior to kitty litter at quickly soaking up spills so that you can clean up and get back to work. 

Bob grew up working on Fords by building engines and going drag racing. He got turned on to the Buick Grand National and became obsessed with going faster! After some frustration with trying to fine tune their setups, Bob decided to start diving into the actual electronic tuning. This opened a whole new world of going faster and picked up a bunch time at the drag strip. He had a couple computer businesses and a shop but was always helping people tune. So, he decided to make it a real business in 2007. The demand for their services kept growing and they focused efforts on the teaching side. They offer online courses and in-person teaching. They also provide support to past students to make sure they can be successful in tuning whatever platform they choose. They currently rent a 5,000 sq ft facility in Florida and have 15 people on site and around the world. They specialize in teaching students how to use a particular tuning software and give their students experience in tuning a stock car, basic bolt ons, and forced induction. This gives the students real world experience on the platform they want to tune. Be sure to check them out at car shows and trade shows as they look for helping more individuals and businesses learn to tune!

Dave grew up in Austin and has lived there his whole life. During middle school, he played in a punk rock band (look up The Snobs – Schools Out, Let’s Skate) in the early 2000’s. They organized a tour on the east coast and recorded a couple 7” records. While touring and playing shows, he got turned on to street racing. Having no affinity to school, he dropped out of High School and decided he wanted to play music and race rally cars. After some coaxing, he convinced his dad to “invest” in an Integra Type R rally car. Eventually, Dave decided that this was his future and started instructing others on how to drive a rally car. There have been a lot of hiccups and various partners, but he has finally settled down and got things figured out. He now leases 140 acres outside of Austin and holds various types of classes. He has 1, 2, and 3-day classes, personal training, and group events. And there are various types of vehicles including FWD Hyundai’s, side-by-sides, Evo’s and STI’s, and even Ford Raptor events. Dave runs the place on his own but has about a dozen instructors who help when needed.

Dan lived in a house of car enthusiasts in southern California. Both his dad and grandfather owned their own businesses, so Dan was kind of groomed to have his own business as well. In high school, Dan bought a 1968 Mustang Fastback and spent 2 years restoring it with his dad. Once they finished it, Dan went out and took some “professional” pictures of the car, wrote an article, and sent it to every magazine he could find. He was able to get this car featured in some magazines and even on a few covers! Being a true entrepreneur and knowing what he wanted to do, he took classes in journalism and photography, so he could create better content. Purely by chance, his neighbor ran a business that had several small niche magazines that included a couple car magazines. Dan took the job there during college and worked his way up the ladder to become the editor. He worked at several other publishing jobs in cars and tech. He started to see an opportunity with the new social media growth in the mid 2000’s. So, he pitched a large proposal to his boss to begin changing how they do marketing and focus on the new social side. Well, things didn’t go to plan, so he made the calculated risk to go out on his own and do it himself!    Since 2008, Kahn Media has grown from his spare bedroom to a 7000 square foot office space and 20 plus people. They offer a full suite of marketing and PR and can cater the package to fit your needs and budget.

Joe grew up in Oregon and stayed there through college and went to Oregon Tech for Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Business. He never really saw himself owning his own business, so he spent several years working for other companies as an engineer. He spent all his extra time playing with and modifying offroad trucks. He soon realized that he could take a pretty good tax write off if he created a business to research, develop, and sell various parts he was making. In 2008, he made a simple web page and began making wheel centers to utilize the Hummer H1 wheels on other vehicles. 2 years later, he was shopping around for a tube bender and couldn’t find anything he could afford that he liked. So, he decided to make one himself! He slowly transitioned out of a full-time job by moving to part time contracting. This allowed him to ramp up Rogue Fabrication while tapering down the time at his other job. He continued to do consulting part time until finally doing his manufacturing business full time. They continue to bring more operations in house and currently employ 6 people. Their product focus is for chassis fabrication tools that include the tube bender, notcher, dimple dies, drill press reduction kit, and a press brake for taco gussets.

Colin grew up buying and restoring pedal bikes and really enjoyed working with his hands. When his dad took a job in Washington with Boeing, Colin bought a 1940 Ford which was quite a step up from the bicycles. He went to college at Washington State University and preferred to look for car projects instead of studying. Having to haul dead cars all over the place, Colin began looking for better solutions to tie them to the trailer. In 1993, he made the business official and started to sell his products. In 1994, he met Tim Foss of Street Rodder Magazine and took a job working for them in advertising and sales. He spent 5 years there while still doing Mac’s Custom Tie Downs on the side. In 2003, he moved the business from Washington to Idaho and was done for personal reasons not business benefits. His new facility is 17,000 sqft which houses all their manufacturing machines, assembly equipment, shipping supplies, inventory, and even Colin’s collection of project vehicles. He employs 16 people and have been steadily growing over the years. They make all sorts of products for securing your gear including the Versa-Track systems, ratchet straps, wheel tie downs, tow straps, wheel chalks, and many more!

Chris has been in California his whole life and used to have a job at a company that developed vehicle care products for professional body shops. This gave him intimate knowledge about materials and products for the car care market. One weekend, they were out an event demonstrating some car care products and caught Jay Leno’s eye. He invited them out to his garage to test out their products and shoot a demo video for JayLenosGarage.com. A few months later, Chris get a call that Jay’s detailer had moved and they were searching for a new person to clean the collection. Chris and his partner, Jeremey, jumped on the opportunity and began going out to Jay Leno’s Garage once a week to detail the cars. After being at the shop and helping for a while, they decided to take the leap and pitch their cleaning products to Jay for branding. To their amazement, Jay was all for it and wanted to be an investor! So, they created a legitimate business for the car care products and Jay became the spokesperson for the brand. Jay became the president of the company and put up his own reputation and money to help make the business be successful. The guys are currently gearing up for their second SEMA show and are excited to keep growing the business!

Will grew up in California and has always had a passion for cars. After high school, he started an apprenticeship at a machine shop working on engines. He went to college, but it just wasn’t for him. He was much more interested in racing than he was in going to class. After a few years, he began working at Centerforce Clutches via a recommendation from a friend of a friend. He started as a machinist and worked his way up the ranks over many years. In the mid 90’s, Centerforce decided to move from California to Arizona to allow the business to grow without the cost burden associated with operating in California. They now have around 30 employees and make clutches for all sorts of applications. They have re-entered the sport compact market as it continues to grow here in the US. They hold 9 different patents and continue to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. They strive to keep the OEM feel for the clutch pedal while increasing the holding capability and not sacrificing driveability and longevity. That is a complicated balance to achieve! They customized an old bread delivery van on a modern chassis with a diesel engine to carry around the large amounts of Centerforce candy that they make. It is a unique marketing goodie that helps bring potential customers to their display and remember their product.

Tony started his car passion by contributing and participating on the LS1.com forum back in 1998. He wasn’t happy with the support of that forum and decided that he could do it better. So, he started LS1Tech.com in 2001. All the while, he was working in the Oil & Gas industry. He continued to teach himself various software systems to allow him to create websites, design graphics, and model parts. He eventually sold LS1Tech.com and started DV8 Motoring to continue to sell parts via relationships he made with the forum. His new venture is called 365 Driven and was created to help aspiring entrepreneurs and spread his wealth of knowledge. He shares a lot of content on a couple Facebook pages and just released his book called The Side Hustle Millionaire. He spent a whole year attending Toastmaster events to help him become a better public speaker. This has been extremely helpful in helping him clearly articulate information about his book and get his message across to current and potential clients.

Bret grew up in Jasper, IN and dabbled with cars during high school. After high school, he worked various jobs in Jasper and then took a job in Florida as a tech rep for the NHRA Drag Racing circuit. A few years later, he started working for a company in California to work for Blower Drive Service. He had been traveling about 300 days per year and decided to settle down back in Jasper with his new wife. He worked a tool truck and was building his own pro-street hot rod. He wanted to be able to adjust the ride height so he could drive the car to the track and then lower it to race. He took inspiration from semi-trucks with their air springs and sourced one small enough for his project. He built a few more of these systems for his buddies and incorporated Air Ride Technologies in 1996. Within a couple years, things were really starting to take off. Bret’s wife was able to quit her normal job and come work with Air Ride Technologies and they quickly grew to 20 employees. The company continued to grown until the economic downturn in 2008. Through hard work and streamlined business practices, Bret was able to keep the company open and survive the tough times. He did have to lay off some employees but has been able to bounce back strong and now employs 60 people. They have made a big push in the last few years to engineer and build new products and bring them to the market. Now, they are working on marketing and demonstrating the products.

Steve has known he was going to work with cards since the first grade. His dad was an engineer and his mom was a pianist and they encouraged Steve and his siblings to pursue any passion they wanted. This even includes Steve attempting to build a submarine as a kid. He ended up getting drafted to the Vietnam War and worked as an electrical engineer supporting the airplanes. Once he got out, he went to college and got an engineering degree. While at school, he worked at a BMW repair shop. It was then that he started doing performance and aftermarket installs in his free time. He quickly went out on his own and grew the company constantly over the years. Within 5 years, he had several employees and was manufacturing many parts specifically for BMW’s. He gained a reputation worldwide as the go-to engineer and tuner for BMW’s and even caught the attention of corporate. They came and visited his shop and Steve hoped they would begin sharing engineering data, but that wasn’t the case. But, they did allow him to sell his parts through the dealerships as long as he personally warrantied all of the work. He continued this relationship with corporate for many years and raced for them as well. At it’s peak, DINAN employed 70 people, did $1 million in revenue per month, and built 3,000 cars each year. In 2015, he sold DINAN and went on to work for Chip Ganassi Racing to head the Ford GT racing division. He then started on his next venture, CarBahn. It is a service, repair, and modifications for high end vehicles that he plans to expand nationwide. He currently has two locations in northern California. He also has a racing division and a street car engine development division. He has invested a lot of his own money into the business to get it going and will be looking for private equity funds in the future to eventually open 100 locations across the country.

Jason grew up in upstate New York and spent his childhood around cars. For college, he went to Clarkson University and got his Mechanical Engineering degree. He had every intention to go work for an auto company in Detroit but he just couldn’t commit to the cold weather. So, he moved south to work for Home Depot as a mechanical engineer. He worked his way up the ranks and eventually moved on to work for Newell Brands (makers up Rubbermaid and other household items) as a product engineer. While working there, he relocated from North Carolina to Atlanta. By chance, he was approached by Lund’s recruiter using LinkedIn. He was excited for the opportunity to work in the automotive industry again so he took a job as a Product Manager. He has worked in Sales, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, and now as the VP of Branding and Products. Lund International is a holding company that is comprised of about 1200 employees and they focus on manufacturing through 10 companies.

Brent is a first generation American and his parents immigrated to the states after WW2. He spent a lot of his childhood playing with electronics. During high school, he practically took over the computer lab in the mid 80’s to code and tinker however he liked. He went to college to get a Computer Science degree and worked for Microsoft after graduating. He then moved over to GE Capital to do software support for them. At this point, he discovered Autocross and fell in love immediately! He ended up buying an MR2 to race and wanted to turbo charge it. The MegaSquirt was available to control fuel but could not do ignition advance. So, he took it upon himself to build a controller himself and called it the Mega Jolt. He used the archaic Yahoo mailing list to post up about his idea and began selling them very quickly. To help ramp p production, he began purchasing electronic assembly equipment and installing them in the garage. They eventually moved out of the garage to a real commercial space to house all of their equipment and parts. While working on their next project, the Race Capture Pro data acquisition system, they utilized a crowd-funding service called IndieGoGo to raise funds. After the success of this first campaign, they decided to do it again for their RaceCapture Track which was more affordable for the weekend enthusiast. To continue to expand their offerings, they changed the product line name to Podium and began to offer live telemetry data that can be streamed over the cellular network. Their Podium Connect system allows you to transmit existing data acquisition system information back to the pits (and anywhere else) so that others can monitor your car.

Dave grew up in Melbourne, Australia and has always been a petrol head. He knew from an early age that he wanted to work with cars and left school at 15 to get an apprenticeship at a local dealership. During that time, he began racing go carts to satisfy his need to race. Once he finished his apprenticeship program, he became qualified to be hired as a mechanic. He then got a job at a shop that focused on motorsports and he began racing cars himself. After that, he took a job at MoTeC in Melbourne for 5 years before being transferred to MoTeC Europe for 8 years. He then transitioned out and started EPS (Electronic Performance Systems) to be his own boss. He started the business in his garage and continue to operate that way! He uses a couple rooms as an office and for building looms and then uses the garage for injector testing and installs. He sells MoTeC hardware, builds custom looms and travels around the world to tune cars for various customers. Be sure to check out his immaculate Audi Quattro car that he has built and is racing up Pikes Peak again this year!

Lance is from South Africa and he grew up working with his dad at his dealership and salvage yard. When he grew up, he took over part of the business and spent years growing it. Eventually, he decided to make the move to America and attempted to continue with the auto salvage business. He came over on a holiday visa and quickly discovered how hard it is to become an American citizen. After 3 rejections, he was able to finally make it legal and he and his family got their citizenship. Along the way, he started in North Carolina, then Abilene (in Texas), then went to San Bernadino. After many failed attempts, a friend convinced him to become a dealer for the Superformance cars in southern California. Being that Superformance is located in South Africa and Lance having dealership experience, this was a logical fit so they went with it! Superformance provides a “Turn Key Minus” vehicle which consists of a body with suspension and a rear diff. The EPA allows this because it only contains 1 of the 3 components required to be considered a car (the other two being the engine and transmission). This allows for customers to choose whatever engine and transmission they want to complete their car and make it their own. After a long legal battle, Superformance became the only manufacture that is licensed by Shelby to create the cars. They have also expanded to offer different models recently including a modern Ford GT40 and a special edition Bondurant car. Lance purchased Superformance USA back in 2007 with the goal of creating more cars and expanding the business. While the Cobra is still the biggest seller, he is pushing development and production to continue to grow the business. They have leveraged the expertise of Kahn Media to take on the task of marketing their company. This has helped raise awareness of their brand and bring in new customers.

The Ring brothers grew up around their dad’s fueling station and spent their time tinkering with whatever they could get their hands on. Jim moved around a few times and eventually moved his family back home to Spring Green, WI (2 hours west of Milwaukee). He saw a 1969 Camaro Indy Pace car for sale in the paper and had to get a loan from a bank to purchase the car. He fixed it up and ended up selling it for a profit. This was the catalyst for starting his own shop. Jim found a vacant car dealership and bought the building with a friend to begin working on and restoring cars. Several years later, he sold that building and bought a piece of land with his brother to start Ring Brothers. They were doing collision repair to pay the bills and bring in steady revenue. But their passion has always been for the customer and restoration side. On each one of the restorations, they would find more and more products that they didn’t particularly like. So, they would make these pieces in house! They built another building to house all of their CNC machines and now manufacture around 1000 SKU’s. In total, they have 3 buildings that take up about 15,000 sq ft to house all of their jobs and machines.

Kris grew up in Chicago and stayed there to go to college. His family has always been enthusiasts and he grew up tinkering with anything he could get his hands on. He got a degree in Aviation Flight Management and got his A&P License. He never worked in the aerospace industry because he got offered a job at a fuel management company. This company was buildings components of Holly’s EFI throttle body. His next move was over to AMS Performance as their 4th employee. He helped them grow the business. He decided to make a career changed and moved to Las Vegas to dabble in the fitness and then finance industry. He even lived in China for a while! Then he moved back to the states and bounced between Las Vegas and Chicago to help with web development and marketing. Totally shifting gears again, he partnered with a friend and started an app development company in Austin. Sadly, their product didn’t make it and Kris had to switch gears yet again. This time, he headed back to Chicago to do photography with a friend. This is where he got introduced to Powerstop Brakes. They were shooting Powerstop’s catalog for a while and learned that Powerstop wanted to grow their social media presence.  He has helped grow their online presence by creating videos, taking pictures, and attending events around the country. And right when Kris came onboard, Powerstop was working on their TrackDay product line. These products are geared towards the enthusiasts who drive their track car to the track. They teamed up with the Bondurant Racing School to develop pads for their cars and have been using Powerstop Brakes exclusively for a few years now. They also sponsor the GridLife Time Attack series, the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge, and the new Spec Corvette series. The off-road market is another segment where Kris is pushing heavily. They organize an event called The Trial where they travel from Chicago to Las Vegas for the SEMA show.

Gary was born in Panama but grew up in the United States. His father had a machine shop and Gary was always around cars. He worked at his dad’s shop at a very early age and learned the importance of hard work. His parents ended up getting a divorce and Gary moved to Panama to live with his mom when he was 9. In his early 20’s, he bought a truck and began modifying it immediately. He increased the power with a supercharger and did basic tuning adjustments. He went to law school and became a lawyer but he never lost his passion for cars. So, he began installing parts and tuning in his free time. He eventually teamed up with MAPerformance to get parts to Panama and worked with tuners and engine builders from the US to grow his business. He also took tuning classes from EFI University to expand his knowledge. Race Lab Motorsports now occupies 8000 sqft and has a dyno, a fab area, a marketing department, and parts sales. There is a second floor in the building where he will be teaching classes on fabrication and installs. He employs 8 people to keep the business going.

John was born in Florida but moved to Philadelphia when he was 10. His dad and he were always tinkering and fixed things rather than replacing them. He stayed in the area and went to college at Penn State to get a Mechanical Engineering degree. Even though his passion for cars never went away, he got a job at a beverage company and ended up in California managing a facility. During that time, he had a side hustle of selling other people’s parts online. It became more and more difficult to make a profit and he wanted to take the company a different direction. He had a list of parts that he wanted and needed personally for his 05 Mustang GT which he road raced. The first one was to deal with an overheating and front-end lift problem he was experiencing. So, he came up with the Track Spec hood vents by using Magnahelic Differential Pressure Gauges to find the optimum location to evacuate heat and equalize pressure. He now operates the entire business out of a 2-car garage! He has found companies to manufacture his products and focusses his efforts on R&D, sales, and customer support. Onto his next adventure, John was talking with a racer friend who was reminiscing about racing C5 Corvettes when they first came out. Within a 3-hour drive, they had formulated a plan to create a Spec Corvette series! The idea was to have a very reliable and available car that can be race-ready (including the car) for around $20,000. They have had a few races so far in 2018 and plan on expanding to areas outside of California. They teamed up with a race coordinator called Speed Ventures to actually conduct the race and now have 27 drivers in SoCal and 10 others spread across the country.

Scott grew up in Minnesota and enjoyed tinkering and making stuff as a kid. He played with dirt bikes and 3 wheelers anything else he could get his hands on. His dad got transferred for work and ended up in Colorado. After high school, he enrolled in an automotive program while working at a construction job. After graduating with his Associates Degree, he went hunting for a job. He had bought a Mitsubishi Galant VR4 and fell in love with imports and turbos. During this time, he meets Nick who’s dad ran the performance shop in Denver and they were going to get the first AWD dyno in Colorado. Scott spent the next few years working at another shop and begin honing his fabrication skills. He built a turbo Eclipse and took it to Mac’s for tuning. They were really impressed with Scott’s work and offered him a job. After working there for a few years, Scott decided he wanted to go it alone and started MoFab. He would do any fabrication work he could get his hands on. He moved the shop a couple times as the work increased and was making a good business at it! But, he was still sending customers to Mac for tuning. Scott really wanted to grow the business so went through the process to get a loan for a dyno and look for a bigger space. At this same time, Nick said he wanted to join Scott in this new venture. When Nick told his dad about this, Bill offered up to sell him Mac’s equipment. Through a few rounds of negotiation, they decided the best and easiest option was to have Scott just acquire Mac’s and run it as MoFab. He moved into Mac’s space and kept all of they guys. They changed the name over to MoFab and pointed the phone, Facebook, and website to his business. After overcoming a few growing pains, the business is thriving and growing!

Dennis grew up on a farm in Indiana and went to Nashville Auto Diesel College before getting drafted to the Air Force during Vietnam. He took a position as a mechanic for their vehicle maintenance division and spent his time repairing equipment. When he got back to Indiana, he met a girl whose family lived in Ft Worth. During one of their visits to her family, he realized there were a lot of jobs in Ft Worth and made up his mind that is where they wanted to move. He got a job as a tractor dealer as a mechanic and worked his way up the ladder for the next 20 years. In 1989, he met Jim who was building wiring harnesses for the conversion van market. Jim wanted to expand the business and start making a harness for hot rods and Dennis was perfect for the job! They built a universal wiring harness that could be used for any hot rod. During their first swap meet, they sold out immediately and knew that had a great product! A year later, Dennis quite his job at the tractor company to build wiring harnesses full time. They got their big break when an editor of Hot Rod Mechanics was building a roadster and needed a wiring harness. The title of the ad was Painless Wiring and this is how they got their name! Over the years, the began making other products to compliment the wiring harnesses and changed the name to be Painless Performance. Now, they are in a 43,000 square foot facility and have around 55 employees. They do all of their manufacturing, assembly, engineering, and tech support in house. Even though they started with hot rods, the off-road truck market has become their biggest seller. And the C10 truck market is quickly growing.

Bob has been racing his entire life. He got started in small Morgans and Triumphs in California and was jealous of the loud and fast American race cars. He stepped up to Corvettes and started winning immediately. He caught the eye of Carol Shelby who was trying to get Bob to race in the Shelby Cobra. After Bob had to race against a Cobra, he was convinced it was superior and went over to Carol’s team to drive. He won a bunch of races that year and then they took the Cobra to Europe with Dan Gurney to dominate there as well. This led to a stent with Enzo Ferrari racing and testing in Formula 1. Then Peter Revson of the Revlon Company lured Bob back to the US to race in CanAm Series.  During one of the races, there was a mechanical failure which sent Bob into the wall and crushed both his feet. The doctors said he would never walk, much less race, again. From this tragedy came the opportunity to create the Bondurant Racing School. He has been at a few locations over the years. But he fell in love with Arizona because of the very predictable weather patterns. This means that he has the best chance to get people out on the track and teach them how to drive. Their programs range from 1-day short courses to a full 4-day open wheel racing school. They have teamed up with Dodge to offer driving schools for anybody who purchase an SRT vehicle and even have a new Demon school where they teach you how to drag race. And yes, Bob was able to heal from the crash and still drives on the track. Even at 85 years young!

Tim was practically born into working on cars. His dad worked at an automotive repair business and Tim immediately took a liking to cars. When he turned 14, he got a compact truck and began modifying it for the mini-truck scene. He built the car all by himself and was happy to show it off at high school. He got his associates degree and got a job at O’Reilly Auto Parts as a delivery driver. Over the years, Tim worked his way up through the ranks, managed his own store, and even worked at the corporate office. Tim’s dad, George, eventually went out on his own and opened up George’s Automotive Performance which was a mix of general repair and simple performance mods. Tim decided to make a career switch and go work with him. They began doing more and more restorations and performance upgrades for muscle cars. After a few years, Tim decided he wanted to compete for the Riddler Award and spent 4 years working on a Mustang which ended up making it to the Great 8 at the show. Eventually, Tim bought the business from his dad and named it GAP Racing. He now rents a 4,000 square foot building and has 5 employees. He has added modern muscle cars to his work load but still focuses on a couple really large muscle car projects each year for special customers and SEMA. He already has plans for a much larger building and just needs to find the space and coordinate with the city to get it going.

As kids, Trevor and Travis saved up their money and spent it on go carts. With a matching contribution from their dad, they were able to get pretty serious and eventually toured around the US and Canada to race go carts. They both ended up going to college but continued to race. Their goal the whole time was to be professional race car drivers and they thought of school as their backup plan. Travis ended up working at the race track in Calabogie as a driving coach and began developing a business plan to educate drivers at various skill levels. He was also racing with a Porsche team. The track ended up buying several Mustangs to use as learning vehicles and they needed a mechanic to take care of all of them. Since Trevor had a background in working on cars, Travis invited him up to work together! When the R34 GTR came out, Trevor and Travis worked with Switzer Performance in the US to import engines and upgrade GTR’s in Canada. This was the beginning of TWOth Autosport. They worked closely with Switzer to develop and test parts and kits geared toward road racing. When Chump Car (now Champ Car) got started, the brothers saw an opportunity to really push their driver development plans. So, they built a Honda Civic for the series and began selling seats and training their drivers. They have expanded the business over the years and now build and manage several cars and go to lots of races each year. They are finalizing a new path to take a novice driver who has never been on track and train them to be a professional endurance racer over a few years.

Dirk has always been a builder and tinkerer. He started working for a clutch company called Kennedy Engineered Products that built engine adapters and clutches for VW’s. He was working as a clutch assembler and was in college for a Mechanical Engineering degree. He worked his way up the ranks at KEP. In 1994, Dirk was working on a project for the Japanese import vehicles and asked his boss if he could take the idea and run with it. In 1996, he started Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT) and started branding the pressure plates himself. He has steadily grown the business over the past couple decades and sees no end in sight. He currently rents a 22,000 manufacturing facility and has 40 employees. They have been a strong proponent of having a strict pricing policy. This was a tough decision in the beginning, but it has turned out to be the right choice. It has allowed shops and sellers to make a good margin on the parts and keep the industry going.

Description: Doug and Brad DeBerti, the father and son duo, have a new Discovery Channel show called Twin Turbos. Doug was born and raised in Montana and moved down to Bakersfield, CA when he was 18. In the late 80’s, Doug got a new truck and began making custom parts for it. He wiggled his way into a building lease and took out 4 credit cards to raise capital for the new business. In an ingenious move to project inventory, he would buy empty boxes from manufacturers and weighted them down! He would just purchase the actual products when the customer would buy them. He sold off that business and started an accessories business that was very successful. During this time, he and his son started DeBerti Designs with the purpose of building custom show vehicles. They would build vehicles, show them at tradeshows, and then sell them to fund the next project. They switched gears and bought a truck to race off road. Very soon, they began defeating the odds and winning races. They leveraged their story and success to pitch a TV show idea to The Discovery Channel. They have a 10,000 square foot shop with about 6 fabricators that help them make anything they can imagine. They are building super cool custom vehicles and continue to go racing. You can check out more information about there show Twin Turbos and catch the first episode on Feb 28th at 10pm ET/PT.

Glen is from New Zealand and his dad actually used to own a trailer company. His dad sold the company in the mid-eighties and it was a couple decades before Glen got back into trailers. After high school, Glen got into construction and went off to create his own construction company. Glen then moved to Dubai and did construction there as well. Over the next decade, he built a very large business with around 700 employees. His next adventure went down a completely different path. He took his wife and two small children to the United States. They bought an RV and toured the US for 6 months to take a break from it all. After the adventure, they moved back to New Zealand and Glen decided to get back into building trailers. He had bought a race car and struggled with loading and unloading it. So, he decided to fix the problem himself! He started with a motorcycle trailer that lowered to the ground to make it easier to load. The next phase was building a single-axle trailer that was capable of carrying a small car. Eventually, he created a tandem-axle trailer that could carry a full-size vehicle. At one point, they were making 50 different trailers and things were getting more and more complicated. After a trip to SEMA, he realized that they needed to streamline operations and focus on their core products. They shed 48 of their 50 different trailers to do this. Now, they only focus on the products that provide the most value.

David was born and raised in Ohio and has been there his entire life. Growing up, he was very active in outdoor activities and his dad was racing. By the time he was 18, he had his SCCA license and was racing pretty regularly. When he went to college, he started off in Accounting but changed it to HR and Psychology. During school, he wrote a business plan to distribute wheels in the Midwest. His dad owned Dayton Wire Wheels and he noticed there was a void in the market of distributing wheels. After working in a wheel & tire store after college, he decided to make his business plan a reality and begin distributing wheels. Steve (David's twin brother) and their dad originally had the idea for a custom welded 2-piece wheel that they could cater to the needs of their customers. This business also took off quickly and Steve brought David in as a partner to help manage the business. They now use their own skill sets to work together to continue to grow the company. David had to shut down the distribution business in 2007 because they couldn’t compete with the Chinese manufacturers who were selling wheels for much cheaper and consigning wheels to their customers. It was just not financially viable to continue to compete in that space so they closed the business to focus on the manufacturing wheels. Recently, they have begun using a carbon fiber barrel and their machined center section to make an extremely lightweight wheel. It drops about 10lb from their lightest wheel previously offered. These wheels are very enticing for electric car customers looking to change the look and performance of their vehicle.

Bob grew up in Colorado and has been around racing his whole life. His dad raced with SCCA and then became the chief driving instructor in Colorado. His dad brought the family to a race and they met another family of racers. It was at this time that Bob would meet his future wife (she was 11 and he was 13). Bob went to college for a business degree and ended up in California after graduating to become a stunt driver. He ended up moving back to Colorado when he and his wife got married. Back in Colorado, he managed one of the Acura dealerships and created a racing program. A group of investors came to Colorado Springs looking to purchase the abandoned Pikes Peak International Raceway and were looking to have a local person manage it. Bob was then chosen to come on as the General Manager. He has become an investor and is now the President of the track. Over the years, Bob has vastly expanded the offerings and revenue sources for the track. Typically, it is easy to fill up the weekends with enthusiast events. But, he has pushed to get other activities during the week to rent out the track. He went after OEM’s, military contractors, and research programs to fill up the week day spots. This has helped them be successful in keeping the track open and expanding the offerings!

Scooter grew up as a mechanic and got his first job right out of high school. He was drafted to the Navy during the Vietnam War where he served as an aircraft mechanic. When he came back home, he got a job at Racing Head Service around 1972. They were having trouble finding good camshafts for their market so they started Cam Dynamics (now Comp Cams) to fill the need. Over the past few decades, Scooter and the team have built Comp Performance Group into a juggernaut in the aftermarket powertrain industry! Now, Scooter looks for possible acquisitions to expand their reach and offer superior products. They also recently underwent a large logistical overhaul of their company and implemented a new software system to help manage it all.  Scooter has also been very involved with SEMA. He spent 6 years on the Board of Directors and served 2 of those years as the Chief Executive Officer. He has helped the SEMA organization push the RPM Act in an effort to combat some detrimental EPA language that prohibits street cars be turned into race cars.

Larry scraped and saved up $1000 to purchase his first Canon Rebel XT DSLR camera back in 2004. He had been taking pictures with a simple point-and-shoot but wanted to step up his professionalism. He had his own business fixing & building computers but also took pictures as a paparazzi. These jobs were a means to an end that allowed him to take automotive pictures. Over the last 13 years, he has traveled all over the world and been to hundreds of events to pursue his passion. As a testament to his dedication, Larry funded many of his photography trips by justifying them as investments. He would take a chance to travel to an event with the intent of selling his pictures, but it was never a guarantee. This drive and passion resonated with the owners and drivers of the cars and Larry became a world-renowned automotive photographer and editor. Michelin has sent Larry to Austria to do a shoot with a Ford GT, Ken Block and the Hoonigan crew hired Larry to take pictures during Climbkhana, he took aerial pictures during the Baja 1000 for Monster Energy, and he is the official photographer for the GridLife series. Needless to say, Larry isn’t joking when he claims to take an average of 750 pictures each day!

Chris went to college at an art school in Michigan and focused on graphic design. After graduating, he worked at several design firms and worked his way up the corporate ladder. He was also running a forum called EFHonda to pursue his passion of the EF Honda chassis. He even started his own parking lot meet up called the EF Honda Meet to hang out with fellow enthusiasts. In 2004, they stepped it up and rented Gingerman Raceway on a Monday and took their cars out on to the track. They called it Westminster Honda Meet 4 (for 2004). As the years went by, the Honda Meet grew and turned into a tight-nit community where people would look forward to the meet every year. Chris focused on making it a very professional event and created new designs and marketing material for each event. But cars weren’t the only thing he was interested in. Chris had been attending a lot of music festivals and was meeting a lot of artists all over the country. So, he decided to blend the two hobbies and create GridLife. Taking what he learned from Honda Meet, he wanted to create an event that appealed to more than just the car culture. To do this, he devised an experience-oriented track weekend that also included live music. He encouraged people to camp at the event, grill out, and watch the racing. He also incorporated a car show segment and drifting to make it even more appealing to all the different car segments.

John bought his first Eagle Talon when he was in high school and upgraded to a turbo Eclipse when he got to college. He did quite a few mods and ran it a lot at the drag strip. Then, John and some buddies got together and rented a small shop to modify their cars and others for customers. After a few years, John separated off and took his fabrication equipment to work at another shop. That second shop began to shift to more domestic cars so John decided to go out on his own. He bought an 8500 sqft building to house a few lifts, the dyno, engine assembly room, and an area for his fabrication. He has grown to having 4 employees and working on several different import cars. He has been focusing on only working on stuff that makes him money and has grown the business steadily over the years.

Trevor raced cars all through high school and he progressed over the years with more powerful and faster cars. When he turned 21, he bought a Trans Am that came with the new LS V8. At that same time, his now business partner Jason Mangum also had a Trans Am and they raced against each other any chance they got! Trevor graduated college in 2000 and moved to Dallas, TX to look for a job. It was at this time that Trevor and Jason really considered starting a real business. When they pulled the trigger, Trevor moved back home to Lubbock, TX to open up Texas Speed. Their main focus was parts sales and they were early adopters to sell parts on a website. They also installed parts on cars but eventually stopped that to focus on selling parts. In July of 2014, they relocated to Georgetown, a suburb north of Austin, TX to get access to more employees. Since the move, Texas Speed has grown to almost 50 employees and has transitioned to manufacturing parts as well as selling them online. They now machine and assemble all of their engines, port their cylinder heads, and grind camshafts all in house.

Howard began his focus in the sport compact performance market building roll cages and engines for customers. He bought his first CNC machine way back in 2005 because he wasn’t able to reliably get sleeved blocks. Things were going good until the economic downturn in 2008 when they had to sell off all the assets to stay out of bankruptcy. In 2010, he started Howard’s Hot Rods with his wife. This was kind of a side business and Howard went to work for another machine shop. As time went on, Howard decided to build a building on his property to handle his Howard’s Hot Rods business. In 2013, he decided to get back into the machining business and bought another CNC machine. He took things he learned over the years and implemented processes to ensure that everything is done correctly the first time. This organization also allows them to know exactly how many of each machining process they complete to better determine ways to save money or attract more customers in the future.

Jeremy and John met during high school and shared their love for turbocharged 4-cylinder cars. Jeremy (aka Fathouse) and John worked behind John’s parent’s house wrenching on their cars and other peoples’ cars. They met Ben at a car meet and struck up a lasting friendship. After a few years of doing car stuff on the side, they decided to have a go at creating a real performance shop. They all brought a different aspect to the table: Jeremy was an industrial welder and had been fabricating parts for Evo’s and other cars for years, John was an excellent mechanic and had worked for racing teams, and Ben had a formal business education and worked alongside his dad at his business for many years. Together, they made a great team to run and operate a performance shop. They jumped in feet first and purchased a set of buildings on a good size plot of land. It came with 2 buildings and a house which Jeremy actually lives in. They design and build products needed for their customer cars and then manufacture those products to sell on their website. They have expanded their offerings from Evo’s and STI’s to include Ford V8’s as well. They invested in a car and then began making products for it. To promote their products, they recently hired a part-time videographer to create content and spread brand awareness.

Jason has been hustling to make money ever since he was a kid! He started by mowing lawns, washing cars, putting grip tape on skateboards, and painting other kid’s bicycles. When he was 14, he bought a VW bug and immediately began working on it and modifying it. Then he bought a Mazda mini truck slammed it with hydraulics and did other modifications to it. During high school, he teamed up with an older friend to start working on other people’s cars and trucks. After a brief stint in college, Jason realized that wasn’t for him. So, he got a full-time job but still did the side hustle of running his shop. He opened his own shop, employed 1 tech, and quickly expanded this side business to a larger location. As things got more and more busy, Jason decided to take the leap and run Rage Performance (now Whitfield Fab) for a living! He downsized his life to help prop up the business during this transition. After he started working full time, the retail parts sales really took off. While this was great money, it took Jason away from what he loved – racing and making cool stuff. So, he pivoted his business model and focused his efforts to manufacturing parts, doing engine swaps, and building roll cages. Now, he is working hard to make roll cage kits for every car possible.

Chris Stephens started his automotive journey modifying and fixing Volkswagens. His family was big into cars and his brother set out to open up a shop called while Chris was in college. He joined the business and they began working on import cars. As time went on, the business continued to grow and their focus shifted to becoming an efficient service shop. Fast forward to 2016 and Chris saw a casting call on Facebook looking for a host for a garage rehabilitation show. Both him and his brother applied, but Chris was ultimately chosen to host Garage Rehab on the Discovery Channel. This is a joint-venture spearheaded by Richard Rawlings of Fast & Loud. The show airs each Wednesday night and can even be watched online. Chris’ main focus is to go in, clean up the physical shop, figure out what they are good at (and not good at), and advise them on how to improve their operation. This comes from focusing on services that make the most money. While the show does do a makeover for the shop space, Chris wants to ensure that the shops will be more successful for years to come.

Tim grew up in Massachusetts and got interested in cars early on as a teenager. He moved to Florida to go to college and find some better weather. After graduating, he worked at an ad agency and handled a lot of the automotive stuff. He bought a Datsun 240Z and began hosting SCCA Autocross events. He was hungry for automotive information, but all of the magazines were focused on new car specs and data, not modifying cars in your garage to go faster. So, he told his wife they were going to start their own magazine and appeal to the weekend racer. He wanted to provide coverage of races and install guides for people for people who owned smaller and import sports cars. They got a bank loan to purchase a computer and begin assembling the magazine. Tim took his knowledge from his ad agency job to drum up advertisers and content. Then they were off to the printer! He has stayed ahead of the technology curve over the years. He was the second company in the area to purchase a desktop publishing system which sped up the process to get the magazine printed. Their March 1989 issue was created completely digital and they have been doing it that way ever since. Their latest shift has been towards digital content. They created their website blog back in 1998. In 1999, they started the $1999 challenge (now the $20XX challenge) and their forum took off with information about this event. This forum following quickly transferred to their website information and then their social media accounts. They have done their best to provide unique content to both audiences as their viewing tendencies change. They have even started doing a Facebook live video every Wednesday night.

Ian Baker got his racing career going first as a race car fabricator. He was on the forefront of turbo charger installations in Australia. In 2007, he worked with a shop that took a car to the Tsukuba Circuit in Japan to race and wondered why they didn’t have anything like that in Australia. Over the years, he has built up World Time Attack to be the premier unlimited time attack race in the world. Even though Ian wasn’t the first to host a Time Attack event, he has worked to make it the bucket list event for a lot of racers. Last year, they sold 33,000 spectator tickets and that number grows every year. Ian’s goal is to allow everybody to have a fun time, see all the cars and drivers up close, and watch a really cool race! It’s a little different than most races where you have to pay extra to get down and see the cool stuff. They have recently added a car show and drifting events to supply even more entertainment for the fans. And their live stream of the event continues to expand their reach.

Eric Hazen met Paul Lucas while at college at Purdue and shared their enthusiasm of cars and engineering. During college, they both had engineering jobs at top level racing companies. After graduating, Eric continued his design engineering position at C&R and Paul started working there as well. During their lunch breaks, they imaging running their own performance business. With their knowledge of CFD modeling and air flow models, they decided to pursue designing and manufacturing aerodynamic components in their free time. Eventually, Eric moved to Phoenix and worked from home for C&R while Paul moved on to work as a design engineer at AMS Performance. In late 2013, they decided to start making products and developed the front splitter for the FRS/BRZ. They decided to go at it full time in early 2016 and have been growing ever since! They continue to develop new aerodynamic components and are branching off into different products such as manifolds and clutch forks.

Mike Lewin grew up in an environmentally friendly community and then went to Purdue for Engineering. During college, he met Dan O’Donnel through the car club and they became roommates. Dan introduced Mike to Redline Time Attack and they began working on Dan’s Evo 7 to make it faster and faster for each event. While they were building the car, Dan introduced Grant to the team to help build the Evo 7. At this point, they decided to begin calling themselves the Professional Awesome. After graduation, everybody got real jobs and worked for other companies. But they continued to develop and improve Dan’s Evo 7. Sadly, the car was totaled at Road Atlanta in 2013 and they were unable to salvage any of it. In the true spirit of motorsports, Doug Wind and Tony Szirka donated their winnings to the Professional Awesome. Then, multiple companies stepped up and offered to help them build another car. The team hadn’t really considered giving it another shot, but the encouragement and donations from friends led them to purchase an Evo 8 and start fresh. While building this car, they took it much more seriously and tried to design and build as many aspects of the car as possible. This has morphed their business into offering engineering support and design for other racers. They have developed several aerodynamic components and help other teams setup their suspension.

Victor Alvarez grew up in Long Island, NY and used to spend a lot of time working at his dad’s and uncle’s automotive shop. Victor was around cars since a very early age but he really fell in love with them when his dad bought a Supra. His family decided to move south to Florida to take advantage of the nicer weather when Victor was 15. When they got there, his dad started another automotive shop and Victor jumped right in to work there as well. He had plans to go to college, but he had gotten so involved with and passionate about modifying cars that he decided that career path was for him. As time went on, he continued to work on Supras and eventually met Alpha. Alpha was tuning lots of different cars and Victor’s customers would request Alpha to tune them. Victor and Alpha struck up a friendship based on their aligned business expertise and formed Induction Performance. Fast forward 5 years, and Induction Performance is about to move into a larger building to better suit their customers. Victor also organizes FL2K every October in Florida. It is a sister event to TX2K and Victor works closely with Peter Blach (Episode 50) with the goal of bringing shops and fast cars together to drag race and roll race. It is located at Bradenton Motorsports Park on Oct 6-8, 2017.

Rory has spent most of his life working at various automotive businesses. He grew up working on and racing go carts in California. Then went to Wyotech for a formal automotive education in Pennsylvania. He then moved back to California to work for a boat shop, a hot rod shop, and a shop which recorded the Wrecks to Riches tv show. His next job was as a fabricated at West Coast Customs where he got to work on all sorts of cool projects. He transitioned into the parts department there before moving on to Callaway Cars. This is when he really got involved with SEMA. He had been to the show many times with West Coast Customs, but decided to volunteer for the Select Committee once he got to Callaway. He was featured in SEMA’s 35 under 35 award which helped him get his next job at Body Armor 4X4. Rory then moved on to become the VP of Sales at Gibson Exhaust. His latest venture is as a sales director at Advanced Accessory Concepts where he is developing and selling a new product that he helped design. Rory recently transitioned into the Chairman of the YEN Select Committee. His main goal is to give young people more opportunities to get together, make connections, and improve their situation at work. YEN hosts the Launch Pad Competition this year at SEMA and various networking events across the country

Dom Tucci has been exposed to hot rods his entire life. Both his dad and grandfather built many customs cars during his youth. But Dom didn’t originally envision himself working with cars. He went to Syracuse University for Industrial Design and fell in love with 3D modeling and design work. As he progressed through the program, he was still helping his dad out at Tucci Hot Rods and really did enjoy the work. It was very hands-on and required a lot of visual details that he was learning in school. After graduating he created Dom Tucci Designs. He did renderings for his dad’s Tucci Hot Rods customers, designed various logos, and created branding material for companies. 3D printing has also become a large portion of his business. Using his design, Dom established a relationship with a 3D printer manufacturer and built over a dozen unique parts for their Ford Fiesta featured in the Ford booth at SEMA 2017. Dom is trying to showcase how this technology can be used to push the aftermarket industry to new levels.

Ben started tinkering with cars when he got into high school. When he enrolled at Georgia Tech for Mechanical Engineering (with a minor in Chemistry), his interest grafted towards electric cars. He participated in making a solar vehicle and modifying a Camaro to be a hybrid. Then he took it to the next level and made a tube-chassis hybrid car from scratch using a V-Twin engine, a forklift AC motor, a snowmobile CVT transmission, and batteries from a Smart Car. Ben kept bumping into Kevin Patrick of Exomotive at car shows around Atlanta. They got to talking and decided to team up to produce the Electrocet. It’s an electric version of the Exocet using driveline components from a Tesla Model S. To get the company going, Ben applied to an incubator at Georgia Tech and they decided to invest in Eddy Motorworks. They have created a teaser video that you can watch here. Their business model is to assemble the Electrocet’s and sell to customers as well as doing electric car conversions to conventional vehicles. They have been chosen as a semifinalist in the 2017 SEMA Launch Pad Competition. If they make it to the finals, they get to pitch their company and compete with 9 other business ideas for a chance at a free booth at SEMA in 2018 and lots of publicity.

Sasha started his automotive career by buying a small shop just to work on his own car. He started to help friends with their cars and then began charging for his service. He worked at it for several years but just couldn’t make it profitable. So he closed the shop and moved on. He worked a corporate job and realized very quickly that he just didn’t want that life, so he decided to go back to working on cars. Sasha decided to start tuning cars and use a mobile dyno to travel to the customer and called it OnPoint Dyno. He also does vehicle setup and driver coaching on top of the mobile dyno business. He now has 1 employee and a small shop to store equipment and tune cars. His latest big project was to transforming a Lotus Evora into an electric car. Sasha used the motor from a Tesla Model S, batteries from the Chevy Volt, and a MOTEC for traction control. They recently finished the car and went 11.4 in the ¼ mile on their first time out. The thinking behind this electric vehicle is preparation for the future. Sasha is betting that manufacturers and consumers are shifting towards electric cars and wants to be a leader in the performance market.

Susan is the VP of Finance for Moore Automotive. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and started her career at a CPA firm. She worked at that firm for a while and then helped several other businesses “fix” their accounting and ensure that everything was setup correctly. She now has a total of 20 years of experience in Finance and Accounting. In 2010, she met Bill who owned Moore Automotive and they got married a few years later. She officially joined the business in 2015. Moore Automotive is an interesting business story in that it actually started by a different person and was originally a service shop. Bill bought the business in 2003 and began branching out to more performance installations. They learned to tune EFI, purchased a dyno, and started working on import performance. While they still do a lot of maintenance stuff, the performance mods are the fun part! They are in the process of doubling their square footage with a new building which they bought. Their current space isn’t very efficient and has over 30 years of accumulated stuff cluttering up the space. The new building allows them to optimize the layout and increase the process flow throughout the shop. Susan has taken running the shop very seriously and focuses on getting the most out of the operation. She excels at using data to predict future revenue and make changes to increase efficiency.

Episode 100 features a very special guest! Reid Lunde sits down on the other side of the table for his own interview. He has spoken with dozens of other influencers in the business, but never had a chance to really share his story. Now, he gets his shot! Reid’s first experience with cars came in the form of RC racing when he was a kid. Not coming from a car family, he pretty much went out on his own to find inspiration. When he got into high school, his love of full size cars started. He made money at a telemarketing agency and saved up for an engine for his Honda. He spent a short while taking business classes while dreaming of speed. He finished his Associates degree and had plans to finish up his Bachelor’s degree. But, he just couldn’t get excited about school and just wanted to get to work. In the early 2000’s, he started modifying cars in a friend’s backyard. Then they stepped it up and started renting a building. He has been growing the business in the Honda market for over a decade. A few years ago, Reid dove into the Chevy platform and that provided a whole new set of challenges because the market is so much different. But he persevered and now offers warrantied performance upgrades through a local Chevy dealership for his Corvette packages. To expand the business like this, Reid separated the business into two unique entities: Kaizenspeed for the domestic side and KS Tuned for the imports. This way, he can separate the content between the Honda and Corvette platforms and focus on each customer base independently.

Ron Sledge has spent his life excited about cars and knew from an early age that he wanted to work on them as a career. He started his career in the aftermarket in the early 70’s at Michigan Engine Bearings as an industrial engineer. He got them involved in NASCAR in the early 80’s and traveled all over the country going to the races. In 2010, Ron starter working at King Engine Bearings. Ron has worked to double the sales since he started and solidified King Engine Bearings as a premier motorsports-grade bearing. He has stayed in Kentucky, and now gets to work from home. King Engine Bearings employs several people scattered all over the country to maintain operations in North America. King Engine Bearings is actually headquartered in Israel, so it is paramount to have good communication among all employees. In total, King has about 250 employees with manufacturing and sales worldwide. King focuses on OE replacement bearings, high performance upgraded bearings, and even aviation bearings. They work closely with customers to determine which platforms to develop new products for. They will be releasing a new coating this year which they released at PRI 2016 to address some of these customer concerns.

Kenny immigrated to the US from Vietnam and acquired his love of cars through his cousin who subscribed to every car magazine imaginable. They would pour over pictures and specs and dreamed of owning one of these sports cars. His passion for cars continued to grow and in 1995, he started to work at Jo-Tech which was started by his brother-in-law. Kenny was going to college for business administration but decided to purchase Jo-Tech instead of finishing his degree. The opportunity was too good to pass up, so he took the plunge and bought the business. Kenny quickly grew the business and began sponsoring a drag racer to get his name out there. They were doing good and going faster and faster each time they went out. Sadly, while his team was repairing the car on the side of the road one night, they were hit by a drunk driver and totaled the car and severely injured several people. Kenny tried to bounce back by building his own car, but that was also hit by somebody and totaled. Not one to quit, Kenny went and purchased a Civic with lofty goals of making it run 11’s in the quarter mile. They were successful in their first night with the car and then quickly got down into the 10’s. Coming from this success, Kenny decided to take the car to California to compete with the big guys. They were able to set the world record for a Honda Civic and solidify their name as a very fast performance shop. While going to many races each year, Kenny happened to meet a marketing director at Scion and they wanted to partner up on a drag car. He capitalized on this new relationship and then leveraged that to work with other companies to join as partners with the racing program. Kenny has taken this success and built up quite the reputation as an elite GTR builder but he also works on many other platforms to meet the needs of his customers.

Sam Barros came to the US to pursue a mechanical engineering degree at Michigan Tech University. During college, Sam interned at a nuclear power plant as a system engineer and loved the idea of working at a large engineering firm. But, when Sam graduate, he went a completely different direction. He moved to California and worked as a special effects engineer doing high-voltage special effects. One day, Sam got a random phone call from a very prominent businessman, Nermal Mouliea, who proposed that Sam come work for him on a new fuel efficiency project. Sam did a little research to find out if this was the real deal, and it turned out to be true. So Sam packed up his stuff and headed to New Jersey to head the project. The idea was to spray water directly into the combustion chamber to reduce heat losses within the engine. While the idea is similar to water/methanol injection of many forced induction applications, this idea took it to the next level and very accurately injected fine water particles into the cylinder. They were able to achieve 25% increase in fuel efficiency with this system. While this was an excellent result, the problem was implementation. It is very difficult to modify an existing engine and even more difficult to get an OEM manufacturer to implement it in a new engine. So, they took this technology and applied it to fuel injectors. While the OEM’s were coming out with Direct Injection (DI) engines, the aftermarket had not been able to keep up. They now manufacture and modify injectors for many engines to supply the aftermarket customers looking for more power in their DI engines. EFI University is teaching a class on DI tuning using Nostrum Energy’s Cadillac featuring their injectors. They work with companies such as Lingenfelter who provides a larger high pressure fuel pump for many applications. In addition to the DI applications, Nostrum Energy also manufactures their own Port Injection (PI) injectors. They are unique by integrating a divorced spray pattern to inject fuel directly down each port.

Thad Norman teamed up with a long-time friend, Safa Yousef, with aspirations to turn up the performance on the McLaren cars. Safa came from a racing background in both cars and motorcycles, while Thad came from an engineering and automation background. Together, they knew they could push the limits of what is capable with a factory car. They weren’t shooting for straight line performance, but were more focused on all around improvements. Thad and Safa had to seek outside funding to get the business going and had to try several different avenues before finding investors willing to put money into this sort of business. After securing funding, they purchased a 12C and began development for the next 2 years. The result was the 800hp package and cooling kit. They have since gone on to develop a 1000hp option and a 1200hp option that utilizes their globally-patented tri-boost technology. They are developing even more parts to step the power up to 1500hp.

Chris went to college and specialized in Advertising and Design. He worked as a graphic designer at various companies over the years before ending up in Knoxville, TN. He had started StudioRhoad.com many years ago, but really took it serious a few years ago, and decided to run the business full time. He now employs 4 people and has several freelancers located around the globe. His team specializes in creating websites geared towards the end user. This process includes a discovery phase where Studio Rhoad determines exactly who the end user is and how that user interacts with the company. They also help with social media marketing and content generation. To this day, Chris is still surprised at how many companies have not incorporated mobile-friendly website platforms even though as many as half their users are on a mobile device.

Jim Liaw grew up in Southern California and was immediately drawn to the street racing scene. But his passion really started when he saw an E30 BMW M3 and fell in love with the looks. During college, he reached out to any automotive related business he could think of looking for a job or internship. He landed a spot at Sport Compact Car as an intern working on finding new sponsors for the magazines. His next job was in the import drag racing with the IDRC series and sold sponsorships and booth spaces for their races. The next position was at Vision Entertainment that produced Hot Import Nights doing more sponsorship managements. Jim then teamed up with a friend to start Slipstream Global Marketing with the goal of helping companies optimize their promotional spend at events. They landed a big client with Mazda and worked with them to increase youth awareness to the Mazda brand at motorsports events. In 2003, Jim gets word that the Japanese want to hold a drifting exhibition event in the United States. Their first event at Irwindale Speedway was a huge success! Despite this, the Japanese counterparts weren’t too keen on hosting more events. So, Jim and his partner set out to create their own drifting series and called it Formula Drift.  Since then, they have been growing the series every year. They employ 6 other people and are holding 8 events in 2017. They stream all of the races for free on the internet and strive to provide the ultimate experience for the fans.

Dave Vasser grew up in Waco, TX and fell in love with street racing right away. He wasn’t too interested in school and actually dropped out in 10th grade to work with his uncle at his framing company. He worked at various other businesses but always dabbled with modifying cars and making them fast. He opened his for automotive business in 2000 selling race gas and nitrous out of a trailer. The next year, he started renting a space and doing installs. The business grew rather quickly and he had to move to a larger space to accommodate the various techs and salesmen. Throughout the growing process, Dave was always selling nitrous products manufactured by other people. He really enjoyed this side of the business and ended up turning over the install portion to one of his mechanics. This allowed Dave to focus on making products he needed that other people weren’t making. In early 2004, he decided to take the leap and stop selling other people products. Now, Nitrous Outlet is the largest nitrous parts manufacturer in the world with 30 employees and 13,000 square foot building. His new goal is to run the business better and become more efficient. He has hired a CFO to manage the finances and assembled a management team. Dave is getting back into racing after the car has been neglected for many years.

Ken Anderson grew up in LA during the 70’s and enjoyed normal kid stuff like biking and skateboarding. Ken’s first car was a VW Bug and he discovered how much fun it was to customize it. In the mid-80’s, he got a job at a local Honda dealership in the parts department. That dealership begin importing Mugen parts from Japan and was installing them onto cars. After a few years of working at the dealership, he wanted to get into racing and got in touch with Russ at RC Engineering. Ken started as a shop assistant and learned a lot about engine dynamics during his time there. Then, he heard about an opportunity at HKS and got a job as a sales person. He got in on the ground floor of HKS bringing their excellent build quality to the US. After some time, he had an opportunity to team up with Rod Millen and began importing parts for the Miata when it was first brought to the US. They built some great cars and imported all sorts of parts for the Miata and other Mazda cars. Eventually, Ken saw yet another opportunity in SUV’s and branched out to start a company that imported accessories for vehicles like the Land Cruisers, Montero’s, and Troopers. This was the first company that Ken started on his own and he grew it to be a very large company. Then he sold his stake to a partner and exited the business. The next venture was back into smaller sports cars. He met a man who worked at Cosworth during a car event and this meeting turned into another business opportunity. At the time, Cosworth’s primary role in the US was to support the Champ Car racing series. But Cosworth wanted to manufacture and sell more parts in the US and Ken was put in charge of that task. When Ford sold off the Cosworth arm of the business, Ken helped introduce several products for different vehicle manufacturers. They got started with products like a CNC head for the Subaru STI, as well as a CNC head and cams for the Mitsubishi Evo. After building up yet another business, Ken left to go work for COBB Tuning for the next 1.5 years. Ken then traveled to England for the Autosport Performance Trade Show and had a meeting with Mountune to sell them the Accessport. David Mountain, the founder of Mountune, was actually looking for somebody to introduce the US to their products and knew that Ken would be perfect for the job. So Ken took the offer and opened up Mountune USA by himself and proceeded to grow the company very quickly. He now employs 13 people and occupy a large building with a showroom, install area, engine dyno, and warehouse space.

Mike got his start with race cars be being a corner worker at the local track. After a near-death experience with a crashing car, Mike decided to move to tech inspection. Here, he started to offer repair services to the guys going through tech and then branched out to helping them modify the race cars. Then he dabbled in co-driving with Rod Millen and helping them build cars. Mike was then approached by a friend who wanted to open a shop so they opened Road Race in late 1993. Over the years, the business never really got a strong footing and the friend left the company. This forced Mike to reevaluate his situation and move the business to a smaller & cheaper location. This was at the same time that he started to focus on Mitsubishi’s. When the Evo hit the states in 2003, the market changed pretty drastically. Road Race went from mainly selling parts online to mainly installing parts and tuning customer cars. But during a race in Mexico, Mike met Rossy. She had grown up in drag racing and was checking out the rally racing. They hit it off and Mike proceeded to go out of his way to help Rossy’s team with parts and repairs. They married 3 years later and now Rossy runs the shop. Road Race is now in a 6500-square foot building and is made up of 8 people. They specialize in Evo’s but still work on a lot of DSM’s and still dabble in various random vehicles.

James Siebert has partnered with his friend and fellow car enthusiast, Scott Frazho, to start their own brick and mortar performance shop. They have both been interested in and have owned Mitsubishi’s over the years and exchanged stories at the annual Buschur Shootout. Individually, they both have been working on friend’s cars in the respective garages and would purchase parts via another shop to install on customer’s cars. They also would buy race cars, part them out, return them to stock, and then sell them to raise working capital. In 2016, they decided to partner up and create F&S Motorsports. In the beginning, they just had a website that sold parts, but in November, they opened their brick and mortar location in Michigan to begin working on customer cars. Scott is about 30 minutes from the shop, but Jason commutes 1.5 hours each way to be at the shop. The hours are pretty brutal now, but he considers the initial time as an investment in the company with the intention that it will pay off in the future. They are navigating the waters of starting a business with building up their customer base, marketing their business, and figuring out the best packages to offer their customers. We will be following up with James and F&S Motorsports in the future to see how they are progressing.

Marty Staggs was born into drag racing. Both his father and grandfather raced meaning that he was always around fast cars. As a child, Marty helped his dad build dune buggies in the garage and learned to weld at a very young age. He pursued an education in mechanical engineering but never got his college degree. He met his wife and quickly started a family so he got jobs working in commercial controls businesses. But he was always building stuff for cars and focused on the VW platform. Eventually, he stumbled upon a Turbosmart Wastegate and loved the product! In 2006, Marty went to SEMA and met with the owner of Turbosmart. They started to hang out and formed a friendship right away. Marty found out that Turbosmart had a US distributor and they stayed in contact over the years. This friendship turned into a business partnership when Marty was asked to take over the US market of Turbosmart as the Vice President & General Manager. Since 2009, Marty has grown and expanded the business with proper planning and passion to make it more successful.

Frank Rehak grew up working at the family’s shop and initially thought he was going to find a career as a motorcycle mechanic. He got a few jobs working on motorcycles and realized it wasn’t as great as he hoped. So he went back to work with his dad. He started at the bottom cleaning the machines and sweeping the floors. Frank worked his way up and eventually had quite a lot of responsibility at the shop. He had a few ideas about doing exchanges with customers and boxing up product to sell them anywhere and slowly began implementing these ideas. He started to transition the shop to doing more CV axle rebuilds. But then the market was flooded with new replacement parts from China and he had to reevaluate his business model. So, he began offering upgraded drive shafts. Now, things have become very serious! They own a 50,000-square foot facility in North Carolina and employee 29 people.  

Cody Loveland worked on bicycles during his early teens but realized cars were way cooler when he turned 16. It didn’t take him long before he was piecing together turbo kits for his EK Civic and quickly had a group of people asking for him to make parts for their cars. His step-dad loaned him the money for a tig welder and Cody never looked back. While he was working as a package sorter for UPS, he started LoveFab, Inc in 2002 and worked both jobs for several months. But he quit his job and decided to not go back to college to focus his efforts on LoveFab. He was working out of a home shop from 2006-2012 and transitioned to working on NSX’s. He eventually began renting a 7000 square foot commercial space and quickly realized how difficult it is to run a large-scale operation. He encountered some miscommunication with a customer that ended up costing him tens of thousands of dollars. At the same time, he had a daughter and realized that he needed to downsize his operation. While he didn’t close LoveFab, he scaled it back and returned to a home/shop style space where he continues to fabricate turbo kits and work on cars. His latest passion project is called the EnV8 and is a tube-chassis, LS-powered race car that he hopes to produce and sell in the future. He is still modifying the design and testing his work, but he is excited to unleash the full potential!

Franco Ganino has been working at Aliant Insurance for 23 years. Being a car guy, Franco was excited when given the opportunity to work with Bob Corwin to work with SEMA and provide insurance. At the time, Bob was risk advisor for the NHRA and they become instant friends. They worked together to create an insurance product specifically for the SEMA members. They created “The Specialty Equipment Insurance Alliance” (SEIAinsuance.com) with the initial goal of proving manufacturers with product liability insurance. After 10 years, they started to add plans for garage keeper’s insurance. What they came up with would be known as “Installers’ Edge.” He has spent years collecting, restoring, and racing cars so he understands what shops do when the install aftermarket parts and tune them for higher horsepower. This helps him cater insurance plans for his clients and ensure that they are fully covered. With Aliant being an insurance broker, they are connected to every insurance company out there and work with providers to insure the shops.

Gidi Chamdi was born in Israel and immigrated with his family to the US in 1985. He wasn’t really interested in cars until he stumbled upon a magazine showcasing the R35 GTR. He became intrigued and bought one in one in April of 2013. A friend turned him onto a Shift Sector event in Willow Springs and got a tour of the track from Jason Huang. At the end of the event, they did an impromptu roll race and Gidi won it. From here on out, he was addicted! He did some research and picked ACG Automotive in San Diego to install the AMS Alpha 10 package. He competed in another Shift Sector event and won that one as well. So he upgraded to the Alpha 14, then the Alpha 16 where he won the Buschur Shootout, then the Alpha 18, and finally the Alpha 20 package. He has now built the infamous Alpha G which AMS Performance uses as a test bed to go fast. It was the first car to get their billet block and receives all of the prototype parts from AMS. They are chasing the elusive 6.XX pass at the quarter mile and it is just in reach. His best run to date was a 7.14 at 212 mph. To add to his resume of fast cars, Gidi also has a pair of Underground Racing TT Gallardo’s. He races one at the half mile events and has jockeyed for first place with another UGR customer. His current fastest is 244 mph (fastest is 247). But he thinks they will do 250 at the next event.

Jeremy Powell (aka JP) grew up in Florida and his family couldn’t care less about the car culture. JP spent his early years skating and building ramps. When he graduated high school in 1995, he bought a Honda Civic and started to modify it with an intake and some headers. After feeling zero performance gains, he decided to bolt on a turbo kit which really woke the car up! From here on out, he became addicted to performance. During college, he decided that he wanted to work in the aftermarket automotive industry. He mailed a copy of his resume all over the country to various parts manufacturers in hopes of landing a job. After a few weeks went by, he received a voicemail from AEM and ended up getting an interview! He landed the job and began development on their first ECU which became known as the AEM Series 1. A few years passed and he received a job offer from HP Freaks in Oregon. His new job was to design and manufacture parts for BMW’s. After a few years, he decided to start making totally unrelated parts on the side and unofficially started Radium Engineering. Fast forward to 2015 and they decide to make a legit business out of it and go full time. They started into the fuel management system while upgrading a Lotus. It had really bad starvation problems and had a fuel pump that was very difficult to access. They decided to make a surge tank for the car to get around having to deal with the stock pump. This is how they got started down the path of making fuel systems for various cars! Radium Engineering is still just 3 people and they are now in Portland, Oregon and rent a 3,000-square foot facility. They outsource all of the CNC machining, laser etching, anodizing, and powder coating and have no plans to ever buy their own equipment. This allows them to focus on the design, assembly, and shipping their products.

Zach Denney started his career in the automotive industry by working at Discount Tire. He also participated in the auto tech program in high school. Zach went off to college for engineering but he couldn’t really get motivated and ended up leaving school. He started working at a shop that bought and sold Supra’s. After that, he began working at ATS Racing working on MR2’s and honed his fabrication and tuning skills. Zach then went back to engineering school at UNT in Denton, TX and became involved with the Formula SAE program. He started building wiring harnesses and became very familiar with the electronics of the vehicle. During this time, he discovered ECU Master out of Poland and was intrigued by their products. He bought one of their products and was very pleased with how it performed on their Formula SAE car so he reached out to ECU Master and proposed becoming their US distributor. To his surprise, they said yes! With a little seed money and some guidance from his brother-in-law, Zach was able to begin importing the products and setting up a sales platform to get them to potential customers. With the aftermarket ECU market being very competitive, Zach has made a point to provide whatever customer service is needed to help the people buying the products. He is excited about the release of the EMU Black ECU which is more compact and has many new features. Zach also manufactures several wiring harnesses, boost controllers, and sensors to compliment the ECU. He rents an 1800 square foot facility which is mostly office space bud does have a place with a lift to work on cars. He hopes to hire a full-time employee in the middle of next year to help with manufacturing and order fulfilment.

Matt Beenen has always been interested in how things worked and his parents facilitated this fascination. As he grew up, Matt was interested in vehicle technology and pursued this passion by getting a Mechanical Engineering degree in college. He got involved with the SAE Mini Baja team at college. This gave him insight into teamwork, scheduling, and actually manufacturing a race vehicle. After college, Matt got a job at BAE Systems and worked as a systems engineer. On the weekends, he modified and raced his 2006 Subaru STI. This is where he met some of the GrimmSpeed employees. An engineering position opened up at GrimmSpeed and Matt jumped on the opportunity. Matt was doing engineering work for them and also manage their product development path. He stepped up and worked to improve the operations of the business and began bringing on other engineers and developing processes at the company. GrimmSpeed now has 13 employees but keeps a very entrepreneurial working mindset, meaning that each employee may perform various roles throughout the day. They recently moved facilities and currently occupy 18,000 square feet. This facility is where they do the R&D, marketing, fabricating, inventory storage, and shipping. They are expanding their products to more platforms and will be introducing stage upgrades with parts and off-the-shelf tunes.

Jud Massingill was born in Houston and has lived there his whole life. He attended the University of Houston and met his wife there. They have been married since the 70’s and she was the person who motivated Jud to make The School of Automotive Machinists (SAM). Jud got started racing at the circle tracks and caught the eye of an investor who wanted to back his racing team and open up a machine shop. This investor decided to spend his time and money elsewhere and offered the business for Jud to buy. He jumped on the opportunity, hired a few guys, and took a swing at running the own engine machine shop.  One day, Jud and his wife were eating dinner and he was commenting on how hard it was to hire skilled employees to run the machines. His wife suggested he open up a school and actually teach people to do it! So, she spent a couple years filing paperwork and submitting to become an accredited teaching institution. Over the years, Jud has kept it as a family business. His wife still runs the day-to-day operations, Jud teaches many of the classes, his son does the marketing and drives one of their drag cars, and his daughter handles and advises the students. They have worked very hard to make the school as good as possible and recently designated A National School of Excellence by the accreditation committee. This is something that less than 1% of vocational schools have achieved, and they’ve done it two times in a row! They currently occupy 30,000 square feet but have ambitious plans to double their footprint. They employ around 30 people at the school and have around 200 students. The SAM courses include; Block Machining, Head Machining, Engine Block Combination, CNC, EFI, and Associate Degree program. Students can take one or all of these classes. Jud is very proud that they are among the top 1% of vocational schools when it comes to job placement.

Jason grew up in Orange County, CA and has always enjoyed going fast and being involved with fast cars. He was particularly fond of the late 80’s and early 90’s import tuners cars. In 1995, Jason purchased a brand new Honda Civic hatchback SI and began installing parts before he even brought it home! Things got extreme pretty fast and before he knew it, Jason was swapping motors in his Honda and in his friends’ cars. Jason became a crew chief for one of his friends and found a skill in organization and planning events. He used this skill to get a job at Super Street Magazine to produce the events they held. In 2004, Jason and the guys at Super Street had the grand idea to hold a Time Attack style event like the ones they saw in Japan. The plan was to hold it after SEMA in hopes that a lot of the professional Japanese teams would stay longer and participate. A lot of the rules were created around what Jason knew best, and that was drag racing. That is why the event has no power limitations, but instead uses tire width and tread wear to break up the classes. They held several events but Jason later left Super Street to pursue jobs at other automotive enthusiast companies. Fast forward to 2010 and Jason is once again excited about hosting his own Time Attack race series. He teams up with a partner and holds a press conference at the SEMA show to announce Global Time Attack. They team up with NASA (National Auto Sport Association) to bring some legitimacy to their program. He has since broken out to run the series by himself. There are 3 main events: Road Atlanta, NOLA Motorsports, and GTA Super Lap Battle. Jason also organizes some Pro-Am events local for the California people throughout the year. GTA Super Lap Battle is still the largest and most publicized event. It is held the Thursday & Friday after SEMA and draws a huge collection of cars, spectators, and media!

Louis Gigliotti was born into racing and his father, Lou Gigliotti, took him to his first race when he was 4. He was welding and building tube chassis cars in his early teens. For college, Louis chose Purdue University to be close to Indianapolis and racing. Purdue had a Formula SAE team and Louis joined to pursue his passion of building cool and fast cars. Louis left school early and worked for the family racing business and competing in World Challenge. This lasted a few years before Louis decided to branch out on his own and started GSS Speed with a partner. That business only lasted 6 months before Louis decided to close the doors and go back to work for his father. He got into the same cycle of working too many hours over too many days and became burned out again. This led him to start Gigliotti Racing where Louis would work small jobs for various other shops. This arrangement worked well for him and work continued to come in without him having to go out and hunt for it. An opportunity presented itself when a local shop at a race track became available. Louis jumped on the opportunity, moved into the space, and became GSpeed. He and his partners rent 7500 square feet of garages and have a total of 12 people. Louis stresses tracking data within his shop and making sure they are doing the right things to be successful.

Cole Powelson grew up racing BMX bikes and first worked assembling bikes at a shop. When he was in high school, he began transitioning his passion towards cars. Fast & Furious came out and this drew Cole to the tuner scene. He went to a technical school and even attended a Porsche factory training program in Atlanta when he was 20. By 22, he had moved back to Salt Lake City and was turning wrenches for a race team while worked at a dealership full time. Around this time, Miller Motorsports Park opened up and provided Cole with more and more motorsports opportunities. Cole was slowly building up his performance shop while still working full time. This allowed for an easy transition when the time came to do it full time because he already had systems and customers in place to make a go at it. Because of this, he was turning a profit by the second month of running LYFE Motorsport full time. While there were struggles along the way, his preparation and planning helped to mitigate their effect on his business. Even though he has been in business for several years, growing the business still excites him! His success in racing has opening a lot of doors for cool opportunities. His shop is now 7500 sqft with several lifts, a shipping area, composites area, and a fabrication spot. He also has a 1000 sqft space at Miller Motorsports Park which has a lift and can be used during track events. Lastly, he has 5000 sqft of storage for cars. He employs 7 full time people which he has hired from all over the country, and even from Canada. He and his team of guys now hold the crown for the fastest R35 Time Attach GRT on the planet with their recent win against the HKS GTR.

Jens von Holten grew up in Cape town, South Africa during apartheid. While this was pretty difficult, it did open his eyes to understanding how other people experience the world. He received his Mechanic Engineering degree from the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town and had aspirations of becoming an engineer for a racing related company. His first position at a race team was the humbling job of sweeping the floor! Jens was willing to do anything to prove himself so he set out to be the best floor cleaner ever. This quickly materialized into promotions within the team and he traveled with the race car all over the country. To add to his love of racing cars, Jens also enjoy sailing. He and a friend actually sailed from Cape Town to Brazil. They continued on through the Caribbean and then ran out of money when they reached Ft Lauderdale. They stayed for a while and then Jens collected enough money to return to Cape Town to finish his college degree. He then took a position with a Jackie Stewart’s team in England. He got to work on some really cool projects with the Formula 2000 cars (1 step below Formula 1). Things came full circle when Jens hopped on another sailboat and returned to the US. He was offered a warehouse job by his original sailing partner who stayed in the US. He worked in that business for several years and took a break from the racing scene. Years went by and a friend turned Jens on to an injector company that was up for sale. It was appealing to him because the product was physically small, the time requirement for the business wasn’t too large, and the price was right. So Jens decided to buy the company and enter the injector market in 2007. This company was called Fuel Injector Clinic. He has grown the company to 9 employees over this time and still enjoys working in the industry. This growth did not come without struggle, though. Jens had a lot of trouble with the original owner not understanding the non-compete clause written into the purchase contract. This led to a lot of headaches and litigations that ended up going nowhere. Fuel Injector Clinic has teamed up with ASNU in an attempt to create the volume needed to be taken seriously by the injector manufacturers as far as scale goes. FIC has also partnered with Holley to help match their injectors for all the newly EFI controlled Pro Mod cars. JKens believe that the company should work for you, not the other way around. He values his work/life balance and tries to not work crazy hours all the time. Looking forward, Jens is excited about direct injection and is looking for possible partnerships with pump companies. And he sees a rejuvenation of the port injection with all of the issues being seen with direct only injection engines, mainly dirty valves. This provides another avenue to sell aftermarket injectors.

Ryan grew up in Monterey, CA and enjoyed the car scene of that area. His really got into cars was with a Honda CRX back in 1999 and began doing modifications and even engine swaps. He moved to San Jose for college and continued working on his passion for the CRX’s. He started a small wiring business out of his apartment during college to makes small looms and sub-harnesses. This started to grow and Ryan decided to leave college to devote his time to the wiring business. He moved into a house with some friends and turned the place to his own personal wiring shop! But he quickly realized that he needed a more legitimate space to work. So he moved back down to Southern California and rented a shop to grow the business. Since moving, he has continued to grow the business to a 2200 sq ft facility and has hired a couple employees. And he still has a partner, Peter, who has been with him from the start. They have accumulated quite the inventory of connectors, plugs, and wires that are needed for the many harnesses they produce. The bulk of their business comes from ready-made harnesses that are kept in stock. But they do still work on custom projects and customer cars to bring more awareness to the company. And Ryan also teaches a Wiring 101 class for High Performance Academy.

Brain is a self-proclaimed geek who spent most of his early years at Radio Shack. He was very interested in electronics and building model rockets. Never did he imagine that he would be programming machines to port heads for some of the fastest cars out there. When Brian turned 18, he joined the Navy and bought a Z28 Camaro. This sent him down the path of performance cars. In 1993, he started Total Engine Airflow and started porting heads. He then began working for Holley Performance doing product development. He didn’t last long at this job due to disagreements with the management. So he left the job and restarted Total Engine Airflow in 1996. He really stepped things up in 2001 when he bought a 5-axis CNC machine building heads for some really big name shops. He was approached by Trikflow who ended up buying his business in 2004 to join the Summit team. All of this leads to him starting Brian Tooley Racing around 2010. His business only sells what it has in stock and even has a real-time quantity tracker right on the website. His business continues to grow and he is nearing completion of a much larger fulfilment center to meet the growing demands. Brian is a self-taught businessman and has spent many hours absorbing as much knowledge as possible to improve his situation.

Brian Mack initially had aspirations of becoming an astronaut and got his Aerospace Engineering degree in college. After college, he took a job at Pratt & Whitney where he got to work on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. He went on to work for a company designing replacement parts for gas turbine engines for power plants. But, within a year, the company was sued by GE for patent infringement. This was Brian’s first experience with patent law and got to see the mix of engineering, science, and law together. From this, he decided to move and pursue his law degree. He has worked with software companies, energy companies, engineering firms, and one of the Big Three auto manufactures on patent work. Lathrop & Gage has a long history of providing counsel for all sorts of legal matters. This podcast covers the specifics of patent law and we will be featuring more podcasts that cover other areas pertaining to the aftermarket automotive industry.

JJ entered the car scene by helping friends out with audio and alarms. When he went to college, JJ opened up a small car audio shop. During his senior year of college, he started working with a friend who owned a performance shop in 1996. Before he finished college, he realized that he needed to devote all of his efforts into the performance shop and decided to work there full-time. Fast forward to 2004 and JJ has started his own shop. He began buying and flipping cars to make some money. This morphed into buying and selling just Subarus and turning modified cars back into stock cars. Then he would sell off the performance parts to make even more money. 2007 was a turning point for JJ and his shop. He had been selling just parts but saw a need in the market to install these parts as well. But then the market took a turn for the worst. To keep the doors open, he resorted to selling Christmas trees during the winter and scrapping U-Haul trucks. He weathered the downturn and has been rocking ever since! Nowadays, he is shipping out 5-6 engines each day and installing a few more each week. He is manufacturing parts and machining engines all day long. To get to this point, he had to take on a little risk and lease equipment versus saving up and buying them outright. But this risk allowed his business to grow quickly and get ahead of the market to make some money. IAG Performance now has a total of 5 CNC machines in a 24,000 square foot facility and 30 employees. His latest project is a billet block for the Subarus which should allow them to produce much more power. He plans on expanding the footprint of his business to continue to make more products.

David first realized the potency of a turbo when his dad (driving his Turbo Buick) smoked his V8 Monte Carlo from a light. This led David to trade in his Monte Carlo for an AWD Eagle Talon in 1989. He bought an air filter and an exhaust for the car and ran a mid-13 sec ¼ mile which amazed all the big V8 guys. From this point forward, David was hooked! He immediately began making parts he needed to see what the car was doing and to make it go faster. David got involved with an email community and began selling parts he made all over the country. David and a few of his buddies got together and had the first unofficial Shootout with a total of 4 people in 1991. The next year, David organized the first official Shootout and 8 people showed up. His attendance to the event doubled (at least) every year as the platform became more and more potent. Now in its 26th year, The Buschur Shootout (DSM/Evo Shootout and some GTR’s) is enormous and cars come from all over to compete and show off. In this interview, David stays true to himself and has no problem calling people out. He was kind enough to keep some names out if it, but don’t think he is holding back. When you have been in the industry as long as he has, you learn a thing or two about loyalty. While David refers to himself as the “dumb redneck” sometimes, he continues to push the envelope in the tuning world.

Terry Fair started doing paint and body work at 14 even though his family really didn’t have any interested in cars. Terry’s decision on which college to attend was based on an invite from a friend to go check out an autocross held by Texas A&M in College Station, TX. He had never seen anything like it and he totally fell in love. He went for a couple rides with people that he still works with to this day. After college, Terry and his wife, Amy, moved to Houston and he began working in the oil industry. He was still wrenching on the side to keep the automotive passion alive. In 2005, Terry had moved to Dallas and teamed up with an old college buddy to create a real business out working on cars. They created Vorshlag (which means absolutely nothing) and started to specialize in LS swaps back before it was cool. In 2006, they flew to Holland and teamed up with AST to create a mono-tube motorsports shock. Eventually, Terry bought out a business that built camber plates and this became the main product for Vorshlag. He has moved a couple times but stresses having a nice, clean facility for customers to see and experience the level of professionalism at Vorshlag. His current space is 7500 square feet and employs 6 people. Recently, Terry dove in and bought his own CNC machines to manufacture his parts. He made this decision because he was getting more and more frustrated working with outside vendors to manufacture both prototype parts and production pieces.

AJ didn’t really come from an automotive enthusiast family. But when his older brother purchased a white Fox Body Mustang, AJ immediately fell in love. During high school, he began working at a collision business and began working on cars. He worked there for 6 years and picked up body work pretty quickly. After that, he got an associate’s degree in automotive technology and got a total of 8 ASE certifications. He began working at Pep Boys but quickly moved back to a collision shop. AJ purchased a house and began doing side jobs out of his garage. These side jobs kept getting bigger and bigger until he finally made the leap to make a real business out of it! His first composite part was a headlight duct for his Mustang. One thing led to another and AJ ended up purchasing another composites business which really got the ball rolling on AJ Hartman Aero. He leveraged his experience repairing cars to begin making composite parts. His current shop is 5200 square feet with several rooms dedicated to each process of making composite parts.

Greg Caloudas has been tinkering with cars his whole life but he never imaged that he would be developing and manufacturing engine internals. His first experience with an import was back in 1999 when he purchased a 1994 Supra. He had seen an upgraded one at a race track and though, “I’ve got to have one!” While in college, Greg majored in Business Management with the plan of working for himself. He wasn’t really interested in the family business of restaurants and real estate. He began modifying his Supra and quickly realized there was a market for him to become a dealer and sell parts online. What started as a side business turned into GSC Motorsports (using his initials as the business name). One day, Greg was approached by somebody who had some unbranded cams available for Evo’s. There was a long wait for the HKS cams at the time so Greg decided to purchase the 50 or so sets and market them as GSC Cams. He sold all of them in a few months’ time with a relatively unknown business. This result caused Greg to focus more of his efforts on manufacturing and selling camshafts. He realized pretty quickly that he would need to manufacture his own products here in the US versus having them made overseas. This ensures that he can closely monitor and control the quality of his product. Once he decided to dive into manufacturing a billet cam, this became even more important!

Steven Aghakhani is a 13 year old who races exotic cars for a living! Everything from McClarens, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and even Formula 1 cars. His racing career began when he was 6 in go carts and it quickly morphed into something more serious. He has participated in several half mile events as well as raced at numerous circuit tracks. Even though money is an obvious help in getting started racing super cars, Steven explains that there is a ton of mental and physical training required to sustain the strain of racing at 100% for hours at a time. He trains all the time and is at the track almost every day. But he has to balance this racing life with his school life with hopes that he can attend UCLA to study law and follow in his father’s footsteps.

Jay Payson’s love of motored vehicles goes all the way back before he can remember. He began working at a repair shop / filling station in his late teens where he learned a ton of information about cars. He gave college a try but that wasn’t quite his thing. So he found an automotive program through General Motors at a community college which really peaked his interest. He worked at a few dealerships and then transitioned to a testing facility. His various jobs over the years moved him to Michigan to go where the work was. In 1999, he went to work for SuperChips as a calibrator. Things have come a long way from floppy drive flash tunes! He moved into upper management by 2004 where he helped them grow several hundred percent over the years. He then moved to HP Tuners where he has been for almost 10 years. He has helped grow this company as well and focuses on creating mutually beneficial relationships with other companies.

Ravi Dolwani is a 4th generation member of the CSF Radiator company and is the CEO of the High Performance Division. This division is something that he started around 2010 with the intent of expanding the business to markets besides OEM manufacturers (such as Isuzu, John Deere, Mercedes Benz, etc.). He thought this expansion would be very seamless, but he soon found out this was not the case at all. He had to hit the pavement and go out to meet shops and spread the word about what he wanted to provide. Over the years, he grew the brand and proved that CSF could make a superior product. Ravi put a lot of thought into how they sell their products. He made the decision to only sell through distributors and not go direct to consumers. The margins may be less, but this allows his team to focus on developing great products and not spend so much time on customer service inquiries. This all falls on the shoulders of the retailers who sell the product. Ravi has also been able to leverage economies of scale by piggybacking off the infrastructure of the parent company. This allows him to create a great product at a reasonable rate.

Lee Sweitzer has been around Mustangs all his life and even had a 1984 5.0 Mustang for his first car. At 17, he graduated high school and joined the service to become a Marine. He was stationed in Southern California and continued to race Mustangs. He has spent several years planning and preparing to open up his own performance shop to follow his passion. Lee has seen shop owners work themselves to the bone and is trying very hard to avoid falling into those pitfalls. He understands that it takes a bunch of hard work, but he wants to avoid making mistakes by researching ways to operate more efficiently. He has attended the Essentials of Operating a Shop seminar, many business seminars, talked with business coaches, and read business books. He has just received the keys to his initial shop space and has begun to get the business going part time. It is a very small space but he really isn’t tied down to a lease agreement so he has the option to move out whenever he needs more space. Lee already plans to work part time for several months to build up a client base and then look into moving into a larger space to hold multiple lifts and eventually, a chassis dyno. He is taking the task of opening up a shop very seriously and wants to limit his risk of making mistakes as he moves forward. Writing a formal business plan was an integral part of this process. While this may seem rare in the performance automotive world, writing a business plan forces you to take a hard look at the structure of how you want to operate.

Carlos Tirado remembers reading car enthusiast magazines while riding the school bus every day. His brother bought a 1995 DSM and he fell in love with imports. His brother sold the car but Carlos was able to track it down and purchase it back when he was in high school. After graduation, he went to college to work with electronics and it just didn’t interest him as much as he hoped. He shifted gears and changed his major to automotive refinishing. This is where he found how he could turn his passion for cars into a way to make money. He stumbled into powder coating when he saw some people posting on the forum needing their DSM valve covers to be powder coated. Carlos met Jorge of JMS Racing and they formed a business and personal relationship of working together. The business officially started when Carlos asked his forum buddies what he should call his business. He has since moved locations to be right by JMS Racing and continues to capitalize on that business relationship. He now rents a 1000 square foot facility and keeps it full of work. He has focused on producing the highest quality product possible and has invested quite a bit on upgrading his equipment. Carlos hopes to hire one or two employees over the next year and move to a larger facility so he can meet the demand for his work.

Jack McGee’s earliest memories of working on electronics, and even repairing VCR’s when he was 8. All of this was taking place in Jack’s home country of Spain and a little bit in Italy. It wasn’t until he was 15 that his father retired from the military and they moved to Colorado Springs, CO where he still lives today. His first real business venture was partnering with local electronic stores and repair various items these stores would collect. This was a great venture for a while but he could see the market beginning to shrink and decided to stop this side repair business. He entered the workforce as a typical employee: guaranteed work, benefits, overtime pay, etc. But it just didn’t satisfy his need for exciting work. So he left this job and spent some time taking a break from life responsibilities. A few years go by and Jack ended up purchasing a Galant VR4 which he eventually rebuilt the trans for. Word spread that he was doing this and he started doing more and more work on these cars. One thing led to another and Jack looked up one day and had purchased a 5000 square foot building which he still works out of today. Now, Jack does everything he can to make the customers happy and keep improving his business. Difficult problems have arisen, but he and his team have done whatever they could to solve any issues that customers may encounter. And he is continually looking for ways to increase the efficiency at his shop. With 13 employees, this task is quite daunting but totally worth it when they can cut out wasteful activities. This has helped Jacks Transmissions become more successful than ever and given them direction on where to focus their efforts.

Jeremy is a 4th generation gearhead. He grew up working on everything from go carts to dune buggies to race cars while growing up. And he still has the same passion today as he did when he was a kid. The traditional college path just didn’t feel right and Jeremy decided to go back to work with his dad at one of his body shops. This is when he began transitioning towards working on hot rods. He got a job at a small hot rod shop and eventually purchased the shop. They have since moved from the original location and have grown to 50,000 square feet and employ 60 people. Jeremy is very focused on making improvements at the shop. As the business has grown, he and his brother have had to take on more professional roles and drift away from getting their hands dirty. This means implementing new software to manage and track the workflow called GlobalShop. They work hard to ensure their fabricators have all the parts and tools they need within easy reach. They talk with the chassis guys to hear ways to speed up and simplify the processes. They attribute a lot of their success to constantly improving their operations.  

Don explains the ins and outs of running a successful dealership. While dealerships are often considered in a negative light, they are in the business of making money and are pretty efficient at doing so. Don provides valuable insight about the methods and metrics they use to gauge success and make decisions. They hold weekly status meetings and utilize software to track and delegate every aspect of the business. Listen in to gain knowledge about ways that you can improve operations at your shop!   Don Herring Jr. started his automotive career at 12 when he began washing cars at a dealership. During high school, he moved up to work in the parts department. He went off to college thinking he was going to become a doctor, then changed plans with the hopes of entering the air force. Unfortunately, his timing coincided with the end of the cold war and his aspirations of entering the air force diminished. So he again turned his attention to the automotive industry. He was making very good money being a car salesman during college and moved back to Dallas to join the family dealership. By 2005, his family had 3 dealerships and Don Herring Jr was in charge of the third dealership. He survived the 2008 economic turndown and 2015 has been their best year since then.

In this episode, we go down a slightly different path and interview a smaller shop owner to get his perspective on running a performance shop. Justin Miller started working as a dealer tech at age 17in Raleigh, NC. He began doing work and selling parts online in his free time. Justin has worked hard to grow his business with an initial investment of his own $1200. He now rents a 4200 sq ft building with a dyno and several lifts. And he employees 1 full time technician and a receptionist.

In the first Do It For A Living roundtable discussion, we discuss the idea of certifying shops, tuners, and engine builders to work on customer cars. Kevin Dubois assumes the role of a shop owner. Ben Strader takes on the task from an education standpoint. And Todd Earsley will act as a consumer. The idea is to bring a sense of legitimacy into an otherwise fragmented market. Think of something like ASE certification for mechanics, or Better Business Bureau for businesses, or even Master Plumber certification. We go over topics such as: Does the industry need some sort of standard? What might the qualifications be to become a “Certified Shop/Tuner/Engine Builder?” Who would enforce this standard? How would this benefit the consumer? And many more!

David Localio was fortunate enough to have a family who fully supported his addiction to horsepower! He bought his first car in 6th grade. (That’s correct. 6th grade!) His first experience with turbos came when he got ahold of a Buick Grand National and spent all of high school modifying it into the 10’s. He got a job at a local repair shop and realized that service work just wasn’t for him. So he enrolled in the School of Automotive Machinist (SAM) and ended up working there as well. He then went on to be involved with a ton of influential racers and engine builders over the years. He eventually began working on import motors because he saw a void in the market. This was the official beginning of Headgames Motorworks. David was hit really hard by the financial crisis in 2008 and barely made it out still in business. He was forced to let most of his people go and got several months behind on his bills which has wreaked havoc on his credit. But he toughed it out, worked hard, and emerged stronger than ever! Now he works out of a 5000 square foot building with several employees and cranks out some of the best heads in the market.

Andrew Brilliant was gracious enough to continue to talk with us about aerodynamics. Tune in to this special Bonus Episode to hear more details about what he can do to improve aerodynamics on your car.

Andrew grew up in LA loving cars and knowing he wanted to be involved in racing. He attended Berkeley where he got his Mechanical Engineering degree. During his first job as a software engineer, he started helping the owner of the company who happened to have a couple race cars. This was his first experience with a racing team. This let to Andrew creating simulations to determine gear rations and then expanded it to aero simulations. He continued to get more and more opportunities with racing teams and decided to leave the software company. He discovered that aerodynamics was that “thing” that he wanted to do for the rest of his career. This is when he created AMB-Aero. The chips started to fall into place and he moved to Japan where all the most advanced aero cars were racing. He has worked on some very famous Time Attack cars from all over the world. And he is available to visit your team and discuss ways to improve the aerodynamics of your race car…without breaking the bank. But if you want to go all out, he is the best in the business and his car’s lap times can prove it!

His passion for performance really got started when he went to college for mechanic engineering and joined the Formula SAE team. While at a competition in 2010, he met a representative of Pratt & Miller and ended up getting a job with them at their design office. This transitioned into a job at the Cadillac Racing team with Pratt & Miller. He worked on the CTS-V team for 4 years and now works on the ATS-V team. They use complex simulations and advanced telemetry data to make the cars perform at the absolute limit. With the rules constantly changing, the team has to adapt to stay ahead of the competition.

  Alex grew up reading automotive magazines and aspiring to be one of the feature builders. He moved to Southern California with high hopes but no real direction on how to get into the racing industry. He got his first automotive job at Web Camshafts where he learned a lot about drag racing. Alex went on to build several Honda’s that got a lot of attention but the real break came when his Integra went 8’s in the ¼ mile. The side gig of making and selling manifolds out of his garage transformed into Sheepey Built. Given that Alex doesn’t actually weld, he has taken great steps to set up his process flow to be as efficient as possible. He took what he learned at Web Cams and applied it at his own shop. He has specific people dedicated to tasks in order to keep the parts moving out the door.

 Kyle Shelley is the sales director for Turn14. He was good friends with the founder of JSC Speed (and then Turn14) and got to see the business be created. He had several sales jobs before becoming the first employee at JSC Speed. He started out at the bottom and worked his way up over the years. Turn14 was actually established in 2007 and JSC Speed was sold off in 2011. This is when all the efforts were put into the wholesale business. Turn14 has a new “authorized seller” solution where the Turn14 customer must be approved by the part manufacturer to sell its parts. This allows the manufacturer to vet and validate that reseller as a legitimate business. Turn14 is trying really hard to ensure that legitimate businesses are reselling aftermarket parts. They are looking for shops and people who respect the pricing structure and give the industry a good reputation. Kyle goes over the meaning of MAP (minimum advertised price) and UPP (unilateral pricing policy) If you are a manufacturer and want to ensure nobody is violating your MAP policy, Oris Intel crawls the internet and looks for these violators. This is a new breed of companies using search algorithms to find violators and provide you with the necessary information to take action. Turn14 also has a new position called the Brand Equity Specialist whose sole job is to ensure all their buyers are operating within the laws of pricing structure.

Dale has been tuning turbo EFI V8’s for many years, but the American drag racing market has traditionally been dominated by carburetors and nitrous controlled by antiquated methods. Dale made his break into the US by way of a forum post to Dominator (from Street Outlaws) offering to tune his car on EFI. Since then, he has also converted the Dung Beetle car to EFI as well. This has really changed the game for the domestic drag racing market and requires a much different approach to tuning 3000+hp cars.

Steve Ciabattoni started his career in payment processing right out of college where he was recruited (by his current partner) to work for a very large payment processing company. In 2011, he and jumped ship and created 360 Payment Solutions. Now, 360 Payment Solutions serves nearly 3000 merchants and employs 28 people. They label themselves as a Payment Processing provider, meaning that they help companies accept all types of payments including: checks, gift cards, electronic payments online (paypal), as well as credit card processing In this interview, Steve discusses the new chip card technology (known in the industry as EMV - Europay MasterCard Visa), Apple pay, pay with phone, and integration with business software. Back on Oct 1, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express shifted their liability statement and said you are going to be responsible for any chargebacks that come through if you don’t have the ability to accept the chip cards. And you cannot fight it. This is a shift in responsibility and something that you should consider. Steve advises business to NOT lease your machine. Often times, this contract cannot be canceled and you will spend $40/month for a $300 machine. So over the life of the contract, you will be paying hundreds more than just buying the machine outright. If you are in the market for a merchant provider, you want “interchange plus” pricing. This is the best fee structure for business and will give you the lowest rates for all types of transactions. And you will sound smart to the salesman! For automotive businesses, you should have an “effective rate” below 3%. Your effective rate is calculated by dividing Total Fees by Total Sales.

Jim McIlvaine used to play professional basketball but now he runs the social media and web-presence for Optima Batteries. While playing basketball, Jim would do freelance work for magazines where he would meet people and attend events across the country. After Jim left the NBA, he eventually joined Optima Batteries as their “E-care Manager” where he created the Facebook page and began answering questions or comments on web forums (You may be familiar with his forum handle OptimaJim on almost every forum in existence). Today, you will see him at many automotive events taking pictures, streaming videos, and answering questions from customers about Optima’s products. Jim says it is extremely important to gathering as much information about your potential customers as possible. The most important thing is to obtain an email address which can be used in Facebook to target an audience similar to this specific person (likes, location, age, sex).

Peter started TX2K back in 2000 after he went to a Supra event in Las Vegas. From the humble beginning of 40 Supras banding together to go to the drag strip, the TX2K franchise has transformed into the premier Supra, GTR, Roll Racing, and Drag Racing event in the country! TX2K16 is improving this year by showing the roll racing speeds up on the large display boards at the end of the track. This betters the experience for the attendees by allowing them to easily see the winner and how fast they were going.

Back in early 2000, Chris Raymond was building websites and forums for other people. He saw a void in the market for a DSM forum and set out to make one himself. This is what spawned DSMTuners.com He also runs Garage 40 which focusses on automotive businesses to help them with social media, email marketing, web design, and reputation management. Brand management is tough because you have to be in every place when your shop or product is talked about by your audience. In this interview, Chris explains the ever-changing atmosphere of online marketing and what you need to be doing to succeed.

Tim Bailey was one of the early Subaru tuners when the WRX hit the states. Eventually, he started Surgeline Performance which was later purchased by Trey Cobb. While Tim still works on the actual tuning, most of his time is spent controlling the dealer and tuner network for Cobb. Now he travels all over the country to set up new dealers and help out existing ones. In this interview, he goes into detail about how they manage that network and why it is so important to regulate the prices of their products.

Chase Lautenbach & Justin Keith created Street Car Takeover just a few years ago because they saw a void in the racing market for more “streetable” cars to compete in drag racing and roll racing. Their series has expanded to 10 events in 2016 and they are looking to keep growing. While the main event is the drag racing, Street Car Takeover also incorporates a shop open house, car show, and other meetup prior to the actual racing. They want to offer more experience for the fans and encourage people to participate.

When the Modified Magazine decided to stop printing the physical magazine, both Peter and Dave found themselves without a job. So they looked for alternative means to produce content and decided on YouTube. In their channel, Speed Academy, they “focus on bringing performance oriented content to car enthusiast.” They have found that a website and YouTube channel are the perfect combination to generate content, get participation from fans, and provide the means to collect advertising money to keep going.  Listen in as they provide advice for shops looking to reach a greater audience.

Rhys is a professional driver. But did you know that he is also a shop owner? He has taken his love for racing and turned it into a successful company. Rhys Millen Racing produces parts, builds movie cars, and champions race teams. His repertoire includes Global RallyCross, Pikes Peak, Formula Drift, Fast & Furious cars, Penzoil commercials, and RedBull sponsorships. The dedication to the sport and the constant drive to get new contracts puts Rhys in the upper echelon of specialty shops. Tune in as he talks about the challenges of meeting deadlines and the time required to maintain his place in the industry.

Lucas English of English Racing currently has built the fastest Evo X in the world. They have also been a key player in pushing the GTR to the limits at the drag strip. He has grown from humble beginnings in the DSM scene to a world-renowned shop for fast imports. English Racing is located next to Lucas’ house in a rural area outside of Vancouver, WA (just north of Portland, OR). He has struggled with land usage permits, neighbor complaints, and unrealistic expectations from customers. But his story shows that hard work and determination can make you successful.

Mark Jager doesn’t own a shop and he isn’t a professional driver. He is an enthusiast who loves to go fast and continues to push his car to the limits! Mark’s efforts off the track have raised the bar for how a driver/team can help their sponsors by actively providing updates, attending events, and using social media to generate exposure.  Mark addresses some of the shortcoming that are prevalent in the racing industry when it comes to sponsorship and hopes his story can help change it.

Jimi Day from FM3 Marketing discusses how he went from being an investment banker, to a shop owner, and finally to a marketing company that hosts and promotes motorsports events.  His company is most well known for their involvement in the Hot Rod Power Tour, Holley LS Fest, the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car series, and their newest event called Road Trip. He took his expertise at writing proposals and took that knowledge to get sponsorships for builds. He emphasizes that you need to be humble and try to continually improve how you do business.

In Kevin Dubois’ first interview as an additional host, he talks with his partner, Todd Earsley, about how they are going to keep Do It For A Living going! They will be helping Reid to do more interviews and provide more episodes for the listeners. Todd took his experience in business school and partnered with Kevin Dubois to help make shops more profitable. In today’s immediate satisfaction, internet market, it has become more and more important for shops to ensure their service side is operating at its fullest potential.

Kevin Dubois is the co-founder of My Shop Assist, a project management system designed specifically for aftermarket automotive shops.  He took his experience (and mistakes) as the owner of Evolution Dynamics to create a tool to help owners run their shop more efficiently.  After a tremendous crash at Pikes Peak in 2012, he decided it was time to buckle down and get serious about turning his performance shop from a hobby to a real business.

Belak Industries is a wheel manufacturer based out of Miami, FL focused primarily on Honda drag racing. Damian Borroto established Belak Industries in 2012 after a decade working in multiple Honda speed shops in the Miami area, and eventually opening his own shop, TD Autowerkes. Damian has a “can-do, make-it-happen attitude” and he survived some serious setbacks in the last year. In 2014 he had his race car and trailer stolen, only to get pieces of it back. So he set out to build another car, and did! But on it’s first outing, a freak accident caused it to wreck, and total the chassis. Now he’s on to building his third SFWD race car and he hasn’t even considered giving up! Game Changing Product: ID1700, Belak Wheels, AEM Infinity, FTW Fuel Most useful software program: Windows Favorite App: Pandora, WhatsApp, Instagram   Favorite Shop Tool: Hammer!... and his Dyno

Chris Jewell has been around the import performance industry since the beginning with multiple different companies. He currently owns Competition Clutch, a clutch company focused on import performance clutches. In this interview Chris talks a lot about mixing friends with business and how he’s mistakenly thought that his business partners were his friends. Chris says that his Achilles heel is “that I fucking care about people too much.” And he says that he focuses too much on the personal relationship and sometimes forgets that “it’s business.” With only a 9th grade education Chris built an influential business and he talks about how it all went down.   

John Veloso owns and operates K-Tuned, a product manufacturing company that is hyper-focused on the Honda K-series engine. They make high-quality, functional engine parts focused entirely on the K-series. John and I discuss his background, and his view on the world. He tells the story of his upbringing and how it all came to be. We discussed his business, and business in general. John’s business is customer focused and he makes a point to not take a customer’s money until he has the product to fulfill the order. He puts the responsibility on himself and his team to make sure they have inventory on-hand. In a time when everybody is trying to be everything to everyone, K-Tuned is successful largely because they stay focused and know their strengths. There’s no fancy this or that, just common sense and treating people right. This is a good listen. Enjoy!  

Brian Gillespie is co-owner of Hasport Performance, a company focused entirely on quality engine swap components for Honda’s.  The company started out as a Honda/Acura salvage yard and quickly grew into something bigger. Hasport pioneered billet aluminum engine mounts and has a strong focus on customer support. An innovator in the industry, Hasport Performance is now a fully-equipped manufacturing facility and it’s all grown from the Honda street racing scene in the 90’s! Brian’s learned a lot over the years and is here to offer us all some guidance. Enjoy! Action items that you can do THIS WEEK:                              1.       Look at what the Hot Rod guys are doing, and use that for inspiration to come up with ideas for the import scene 2.       Subscribe to Racecar Engineering Magazine Game Changing Product: OEM Turbo cars and AEM Infinity Most useful software program: Solidworks, Skitch Favorite App: iPhone alarms to keep himself on point and on time, Overcast podcast app Favorite Shop Tool: Faro Arm, 3d Printer, Mitsubishi Laserjet cutter  

Straight outta Detroit, Nick is a big cubic inch kind of dude. His childhood was all about big displacement and American muscle but now he says the focus is on improving engine efficiency. He comes from a family of home builders and electricians and has risen as the gatekeeper at Wiseco pistons. Nick and I discuss his story and how the industry looks today, from his viewpoint. He works for one of the larger corporations in the automotive performance industry so he offers a unique perspective. Game Changing Product: Davis Traction Control Most useful software program: Office 365 feature called “Lync” Favorite App: Soar   Favorite Shop Tool: Kent Moore Digital Torque to Angle Meter

“Bottle” and Nero Deliwala are the owners of Titan Motorsports, one of the founding internet e-commerce businesses in the performance automotive world. They were involved back in the days when NOPI was a big player and the OEM’s were sponsoring import drag racing. In this episode we talk about how racing fuels their distribution business and how their business has grown and changed over the years. From a college dorm room to a multi-million dollar business, Titan Motorsports has taught these guys a thing or two about business and they share some lessons in this episode. 

John Shepherd is a legend in the import drag racing world. First with DSM’s and now with GTR’s. But did you know that throughout the 90’s Shep worked as a tech at a dealership? Then one day the dealership went out of business and he was jobless. Not long after, Shep got some encouragement from a friend and started out on his own. Now, over a decade later he’s world-renowned for his attention to detail when building super high-performance transmissions. In this episode Shep and I talk about all the little details that go into building a business including the daily grind, and even the mindset he had when starting out. It’s useful encouragement for any aspiring shop owner!

Marc and Eric Kozeluh are identical twin brothers from New York who grew up reading Hot Rod Magazine. These guys came up at the time that B-series engines were making damn near the same power as a Mustang 5.0 and they wanted to know more. Like any story worth telling, they had some serious obstacles to overcome and they conquered and made a statement because they were willing to put in the time. If you’ve ever used your upbringing as a crutch then you need to stop being a little bitch and listen to this. 

Everyone in this industry has at some point asked themselves “why am I doing this?” Jeremy Allen has been working at Inline Pro for a career since his early 20’s. Like a lot of us, it started as a lifestyle and turned into his job. Now 14 years in, Jeremy talks about how he keeps everyone happy; from his customers, to his boss, and even his kids.   

Everyone has had an experience where they say “if I was the boss, I would do things differently!” Tom Roberts spent most of his career working for someone else and in the process he gained a lot of experience. Most importantly he’s learned how to work with other people so the whole group can thrive! Tom started Autonerdz so he could supply oscilloscopes to automotive repair shops, but he took it one step further; he created a useful forum for users to interact, and ask each other questions and share experiences. Now Tom and his team at Autonerdz sell and support Picoscope oscilloscopes to the whole world and I thought everyone should know about this resource! Enjoy!  

If you’re into Subaru, GTR, BMW, or Mazdaspeed then no doubt you know all about Cobb Tuning. Or so you think! Did you know that Cobb Tuning’s first shop was a single bay in his father’s tire shop? In this episode Trey and I discuss the lesson’s learned over the years and we talk about making tough decisions. Trey says you need to create a plan for your business to force yourself to think things through. We talk about creating plans and how to hold people accountable. Trey says to FOCUS on your strengths, don’t try to be everything to everyone. And in this conversation, we put that into context for the shop owners out there. 

Kyle offers up his experience in social media marketing, building a brand, and how he built his audience. It’s important to note that 1320 Video has millions of Facebook fans, and they didn’t build that overnight. It grew organically over more than 10 years! Kyle is a true grinder, and he loves what he does and that’s what we’re all after, right? If you’re trying to build your audience, just recognize that it’s a long game but it can be shortened using the information in this episode.   

Part 2 of 2: The remainder of the interview is David talking about the performance industry and shining a light into some of the dark corners. It’s a killer episode because we took the time to dive deep into a lot of different topics from patents to inventory turns. If you’re into the Honda drag racing scene, don’t miss this episode. This interview is packed with details about current companies and their role in the industry today. 

THIS IS PART 1 of 2: This episode is about business, and how David built and is continuing to build his businesses. David Hsu is an unapologetic capitalist who believes in free market forces which basically state that if your product or service is less-valuable than a competitor then the market will deal with you. In this first part (of two) we discuss how to bring a product to market, design patents, EBITDA, the four F’s of raising money, and David offers two things you must understand if you’re building a business.   

All the way from New Zealand! Andre Simon and Ben Silcock are partners in HP Academy, a company that offers web-based EFI tuning instruction. They’ve created a unique approach that breaks each class into modules so the user can quickly reference back to just the topic they want. This approach is basically topic on demand which makes it very usable. In this episode we discuss drag racing, tuning, knock monitoring devices, and these two offer some great resources that they’ve found valuable.  

Dave Arce is one of the nicest and most honest guys that I’ve had the pleasure of talking with. In this episode I had the chance to talk with Dave about his upbringing, and how he started his career in engine building. Dave shares a deeply personal story that affected his life and his business, and his story has a positive ending! Dave and I talk about carburetors (what!?) and the future of fuel injection in circle-track racing. And don’t worry, we also geek out about cylinder head finish and engine machining! 

Modern Automotive Performance is a unique performance parts distributor that focuses on Mitsubishi EVO, DSM, Subaru, and Ford Ecoboost Mustang (among others). With 38 employees, the operation is relatively large. Chris tells the story of how he started with car stereo, and then graduated to performance work. His business was largely focused on custom performance tuning and has since cut that business segment to focus on the company’s strengths; engine building and parts retailing. We discussed three things that make his business unique and about their competitive advantage. This episode has really great insight into how to hire and keep employees, and what you can do to expand your knowledge base. A big “thank you” to Chris for sharing his insights!  

Scott McIver owns Kaizen Tuning, (Kaizen, what a killer name right!?) in Boxborough, Mass. He specializes in GTR and EVO X and services a full list of other cars as well. We talked about what it looked like for Scott to create and grow Kaizen Tuning and how he went from the family business into the performance tuning business. Scott is fired up about one particular strategy that’s creating great returns. Be sure to listen all the way to the end where Scott tells about the strategy he’s using to create new customers. 

Originally from different shops, Nate and Jason came together to create TPG tuning. A service shop specializing in Subaru, Mitsubishi and now certain BMW platforms. Their story is one of dedication and hard work, and not one of planning! From a rough start in the early days to a smoother operation now, Jason and Nate are in it for the long haul and they’re here to tell the story of how it all started and to offer advice that they’ve picked up along the way. 

Steve Nichols is a stand-up guy from Lexington, Kentucky. He’s been involved with Dyno Dynamics since the early 2000’s and he’s got a hell of a story to tell. He originally worked for Toyota but when the exchange rate was in his favor, he saw and opportunity and jumped on it. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Steve talks about his successes and failures and what he’s learned over the years. 

Matt Wright is an Aussie with 12 years in the biz. He works as the brand manager for Haltech Engine Management Systems and moonlights as an instructor for EFI University. Matt has spent his career working with Haltech, starting in an entry-level position and now he oversees certain technical aspects for the company. He’s worked his way up from the bottom to his current position and he’s got great insight and advice to offer us. He’s an intelligent guy with some killer insight into the performance business. I learned a lot and I think you will too. Enjoy.  

If you’re looking to open a performance shop then you need to listen to this episode! Dave Donnals and Chris Delgado speak from experience. Dave runs the business and works on CAD modeling. Chris handles tuning and product development around the engine management side of things. They’ve both been in the game for over a decade and learned from experience. Their company D3 Performance Engineering was launched with a solid plan in place and they’re here to share their experience and offer some really valuable advice! Reid’s take away: The advice in this episode is solid, so please take it to heart! A word of caution for aspiring business-owners; Chris Delgado has a solid understanding of engine tuning and a great network of fellow tuners that he can call friends. One reason that D3 is having success is because of this. It takes more than just passion and work-ethic to succeed in the performance world. You must also have a solid understanding of your topic. 

Todd Lewis came from a family of tradesmen in Australia. After 10 years of schooling, he followed the family path and got an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. Because of his family’s machining background and his willingness to work hard, Todd moved up the ladder quickly. He gained experience as a mechanic before applying for a job at the company that he’s now the owner of. 

The performance industry is largely driven by people with little to no business experience. This is especially true at the shop level. That makes the barrier to entry very small, as most shop owners don’t have a business plan and have very few systems in place. Usually the shop owner IS the system! Jordan Watson has a different approach. Jordan spent the first part of his career gaining an understanding of the performance street car community, and now he’s working to create a systems-based approach to his performance services business. His goal is to create a company-wide system that allows for a consistent experience every time you step foot in his shop. This way the company can scale and open multiple stores in different cities and states. He uses Home Depot for an analogy by saying that every Home Depot is largely the same across the country, so you know what to expect when you go there whether you’re in Washington State or Texas. What if you could expect the same from a speed shop? Impossible? Time will tell!

Scott Kuhner has created Emtron Australia, an ECU manufacturer that focuses on creative engine control functions and close dealer relationships. Having owned multiple businesses over the years Scott discusses in detail some of the hurdles he’s faced in his businesses. Specific hurdles include dealing with outside engineering consulting firms, and as Scott calls it “the money machine” just keeps on rolling when developing new products. He explains how “scope creep” affects the process, and don’t worry we talk about engine control tech too!

Jason Siebels has been a gearhead his whole life and he started his company Pro EFI in the late ‘90’s. Then in 2000 Jason began working at AEM, developing their plug-and-play line of engine management systems. After a falling out, Jason dove head first into making a quality engine controller that functioned the way he thought it should. Now Pro EFI has plug-and-play systems for a handful of applications including the C6 Corvette, and ZL1 Camaro among others. What makes Pro EFI stand out is their fault management and their ability to drive the factory instrumentation via CAN BUS. Jason discusses the hurdles in taking his business to the next level and what it took to get him where he is today. 

Martin Musial is the President of AMS and Alpha Performance Products. His company builds hard parts and complete platform installations for Nissan GTR and European vehicles such as BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche among others. But did you know that he started by designing camshafts for a Merkur x4ti? Martin tells his entrepreneurial story from disassembling his family’s thermostat as a kid, to designing camshafts the hard way. Martin shares what makes him tick and his philosophy on life and the performance business.   

Andy Wyatt is an Australian mechatronics engineer and the founder of Adaptronic. Andy was determined for this episode to be 100% technical but I managed to talk business and we brought some great topics to life. Andy talked about all the things that didn’t work for his business including magazine advertising, and hiring a business coach. He’s identified that what does work is to partner with specialty shops who have established networks, and then build a brand by supporting those shops.  

In the 90’s Robert Young fell in love with the power potential of the Mitsubishi 4G63 and started creating Frankenstein turbos. Because of his engineering background and resources at work, Robert began tinkering with hybrid turbo designs and starting getting noticed. From a tight-knit group in Texas, Robert designs competitive turbochargers for Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche and more. He’s even worked directly with the OEM’s, which he says is his proudest moment. Robert focused on his niche and slayed it! What’s keeping YOU from doing the same?  

Jay Meagher created an online performance retailer by working elbow-to-elbow with his team. He took a $17,000 line of credit and jumped in head-first with no option but to succeed. Through years of struggle and heartache Jay never quit. He persevered and assembled a team to innovate in the online performance retail space. From working through stress related chest pains, to making the decision to give up his comfortable life and become an entrepreneur Jay tells the story of what it takes to create and maintain a modern high-performance retail business. 

Shane Tecklenburg talks about nitro-methane powered lawn-mowers, and using modern ECU’s to save lives! From the age of 14 Shane has been involved in engine calibration, and he says that to be successful in the performance industry you simply need to treat your customers like you want to be treated. He credits his success to two things: his obsession with engine controls and treating his clients fairly. Listen to this episode from one of the most successful modern drag-racing tuners and ask yourself, what am I doing differently? 

Todd Berk from Push, Inc. is a mechatronics engineer who is using his passion for design to create a gauge for measuring acceleration and G-forces and talk to other Smart Gauges via Bluetooth. His product, the Smart Gauge is designed to measure acceleration and multiple angle G-forces and through the use of Push, Inc.’s software they intend to add the ability to share race and acceleration results directly to social media platforms like Facebook. The fit and finish is very high quality, and the best part? He’s designed the entire thing from circuit board to aesthetics himself! From a CAD model to actual hardware, Todd Berk and his team of engineers all work on this project on the side. This product could make it big, but will it? What do you think about it? Find out more at DOITFORALIVING.net

Joel Levy is the artist behind Race Spec LLC and he builds some of the most impressive wiring harnesses in the performance industry. But Joel went through some serious struggles to get to where he is today. In 2011 Joel lost everything in Hurricane Irene but he didn’t let that stop him. He formed a partnership with Chris Harris and Xenocron, and Joel is back on his feet with more focus than ever. He’s refined his skill and he’s making a name for himself, he’s here to tell his story and offer up some new resources.   

Chris Harris owns Xenocron.com, a company offering online retail, wholesale and dyno tuning services out of Hillburn, NY. He built momentum for himself being a contributing member of PGMFI.org and “chipping” ECU’s for next to nothing. Soon everyone was asking for his services. He’s grown his hobby into a business that supplies customers all over the world. 

Ryan and his business partner Jason grew Shift-S3ctor from a bunch of guys street-racing at 4:00 AM to the premier West Coast roll-race event in just three years! Ryan tells the story of how they did it how they overcame multiple road-blocks…. And did I mention that Ryan has recently passed the Bar exam to become a lawyer, all before the age of 25! He talks about what drives him, how he did it, and what you can expect when organizing a big event like Shift-S3ctor. 

Does the world think that we’re just hobbyists who like to tinker with our cars, or are we considered professionals? In this recorded phone conversation between Reid Lunde and Ben Strader we discuss the concept of a white collar mechanic and how your actions affect perception, and how that impacts the automotive performance industry.    

If you don’t know Paul Yaw, you’re about to! He’s the incredibly dedicated entrepreneur and engineer behind Injector Dynamics. He doesn’t care what you think and it shows. His personality is addictive and if you can’t handle cuss words then don’t bother listening to this. Paul and I discuss that the goal in business is learning how to add value for your customers and how making money is easy when your product or service adds enough value. We discuss business and new products, and Paul tells the story of what it took to create Injector Dynamics.   

Tony says that 20 years in the industry has taught him how to sniff out BS… Tony also talks about ID’s new fuel pump controller and how it’s going to change the game. He speaks on software he uses in his business: Wrike for project management, Gmail and Freshdesk for email.  Stay tuned at the end for a candid conversation between Reid and Tony about the tools he uses to handle the hundreds of emails he gets.    

There’s a lot of pressure to lower your price when you have a service business, especially if you sell parts. Customers are constantly telling you that your price is too high, even when you’re barely scraping by! In this episode Ben Strader talks about how to overcome objections and how good service businesses can charge a premium and thrive at the same time! Ben’s got big plans for EFI University including creating college-level accreditation.   

In Episode 000 I talk about the vision I have for the podcast and what’s in it for the listener. This episode explains what to expect from DO IT FOR A LIVING and gives you a little insight into my mindset.  To find out more visit: DOITFORALIVING.net or search DO IT FOR A LIVING on Facebook. Thanks and good luck!  

Tony Palo from T1 Race Development Talks about how he got his first job