Late to Grid: Bill's Motorsports Journey - From Karting to Atomic Autosports

Buckle up, gearheads! This week's solo episode of Late to Grid is a personal one, as host Bill takes you on a nostalgic journey through his own motorsports adventures. From early days at the Indy 500 to his current role as founder of Atomic Autosports, Bill shares stories of karting, endurance racing, and the creation of Rad Air Racing, a successful team built around the iconic Dodge Neon.

Get ready for a mix of laughs, wisdom, and inspiring anecdotes as Bill reveals the lessons learned through years of wrenching, racing, and building a business in the fast-paced world of motorsports.

In this episode, you'll:

- Hear about Bill's early exposure to motorsports and his first experiences with the IndyCar series.

- Discover how a chance encounter at the Nelson Ledges 24-hour race led to a passion for endurance racing and a life-changing connection.

- Learn about the challenges and triumphs of building a successful race team and the importance of community and support.

- Get tips on conquering the dreaded "late to grid" syndrome and how to make the most of your time on track.

Whether you're a seasoned competitor or just starting out, Bill's insights on finding joy, maximizing opportunities, and the importance of community will resonate.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to get to know the man behind the mic and gain valuable knowledge from his fascinating journey!
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Atomic Autosports is a race prep shop in Ohio.

From prepping your autocross, HPDE, or race car to being the host of the Late To Grid podcast, we're here to help grow and support grassroots racing.

Subscribe to our channel:  @AtomicAutosportsLLC  
Atomic Autosports Website: https://atomicautosports.com/ 

There's never an "off season". There's an "on track" season and there's "getting Atomic Prepped Season". Get your appointment booked today to make sure that your car next season goes right "on track". 
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Are you ready to get Atomic-Prepped? Upshift to the Atomic Autosports website to get your vehicle ready!
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Thanks for listening and taking an interest in growing grassroots racing. The Late To Grid podcast shares the stories and inspiration that help listeners along their motorsports journey.

Find all episodes on the Atomic Autosports website.

Chapters

• 0:00 Early Days & Indy 500 Exposure
• 4:00 The 24 Hour Spark
• 14:00 The Joy of Karting & Building a Team
• 32:14 Conquering the "Late to Grid" Syndrome

Transcript

0:00

Hey, it's Bill, your host with the Late to Grid podcast, and I am back in the Atomic Auto Sports studio to bring you a solo episode. It's been a while since I've recorded just an episode with me. I'm going to actually, this time, share my motorsports journey and tell you a little bit about what I've been up to lately. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. All right, so what have I been up to? Well, a lot of work. I'm not sure why 2024 has been as hectic and busy as it has. I'm not saying I'm busier than anybody else, but it just seems like when it comes time to wrench on the car, do some research, try to learn a little bit about our sport. I'm doing something other than that. Plus, the wife is all over me to get the bathroom done. which hasn't even been started. So, I haven't had as much seat time this season as I'd hoped for. The Rx7 is still giving me some minor issues. And gonna talk a little bit about that here. I did have it on track last week, so I got a couple laps in. It's better than no laps. The Miata is sold. I no longer have the car that I have enjoyed having on track. That car did everything that was asked of it. Felt awesome. Felt planted. I actually set a personal bests in that car at Nelson, earlier this year in a time trial, but it's gone. I'm not upset about that. Just time to move on. We'll see what replaces it. I'm really excited to share that the Raider Racing team is coming off an awesome Champ Car weekend at Nelson Ledges. Our nine seven, five car placed P3 in class and 11th overall on the Saturday race, and P2 in class and ninth overall on the Sunday race. The team executed well. We had almost 20 people between crew and drivers there. We had a lot of guests come and hang out. It was a lot of fun. One of our cars took the green flag Saturday but only last a little bit. We had a mechanical issue that was too big to overcome, the weekend. But all in all, super successful. And, call me crazy, but I bought another neon. So now we have three of these things we're going to be racing around. Mid-Ohio will be a three car entry. We're excited about that. So stay tuned for more details. I guess the other thing I haven't really share anything is had another awesome time at the Indy 500. Yeah, that was a couple months ago. But my daughters and I and what I say is my adopted daughter, my third daughter, one of my daughter's best friends, joins us each year for the Indy 500. Just had a blast. It was, even with the rain delay, we had a lot of fun. And it just, I get goosebumps every time I walk into that facility. So cool. So what's my motorsports background? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. And I have a funny way to intro this. So at the Nelson Ledges race, one of our drivers, Jeff Kubiak, who's been a guest on this program before, when I talked about SCCA goals at the beginning of this year, pulls me aside at the race. We're standing next to the team trailer and he says, I have a perfect guest for your podcast. I got all excited. Really? Who let me, you know, let me write something down. He's like, Bill, it's you. You never talk about your story, your journey. And I said, well, I don't like to put people to sleep, but if you think I should record the episode, I will. So that was another reason why I decided to go ahead and get this scheduled and done. And a lot of times when I'm recording a podcast after I hit the stop button and I'm just kind of chatting with my guests, they always ask, Bill, what's your story? How did you get started? What do you enjoy about the sport? Well, let's get on with it. Let's talk a little bit more about my motorsports journey. So my parents always joked that I got hooked on racing in the summer of 1972. Now, I wasn't born until the fall of 1972, but my parents attended a Can-Am race at Mid-Ohio, and, that's when the javelins were doing really well on the Camaros. And, they joked that the sounds and perhaps even the smells that my mom was smelling somehow got into my blood and into my brain. And that's where my love of racing started. My father passed away a few years ago. My mom found a box of pictures from the race they went to there. I was hoping maybe Mark Donahue's, AMC would have been in that event. It wasn't because I didn't talk about Mark down even a little bit, but nonetheless, it could have been where my itch from racing started. But I really think it happened in 1982, and that was the first, IndyCar race then called CART at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. And it always after 82 was called the Grand Prix. The first year was called the 500 kilometer race, and it was so long that they had to reformat it for the second year. But every year we would go to that race and I was a bit spoiled. My father would, because of what he did in advertising and marketing. We would have tickets in what was called the Chalet Village. It was the corporate hospitality area. All the movers and shakers in Cleveland would be hanging out in this area. Celebrities, driver appearances. We had full access paddock and pit passes as well, so I got exposed and spoiled very early. But we went to those races through the 2000. It was it was a great event. A lot of people want to see it back on the schedule probably will never happen, but I used to take a scanner, used to take a, camera, take pictures, walk around. I used to dig through the trash. I have some of that stuff at my shop in Wickliffe that I. I garbage pick where they would throw old Indy car parts away. It was in the late 80s as well that my father would take me to Mid-Ohio. So we would do the camel GT races, which were the IMSa races. If you remember Jeff Brabham and the Nissan cars, those were my favorite cars. That's when Jaguar was really involved, and Toyota and Dan Gurney had his cars. That to me, that was the heyday of IMSa. we would go and do that. We would do the historic races, we would do the Indy car races. And those were some great memories of where I really saw the sports car side of motorsports and really said, this is I want to be involved with this somehow. This is I want this to be part of my life somehow. And, I can always remember I told the story once or twice of being up. If you look over, what they refer to as the S's at the end of the back straight, and you look over on the manufacturers midway where they would sell the t shirts and the vintage stuff, and there'd be parts, distributors and stuff like that. I always thought it'd be cool to have a business in motorsports and somehow do stuff at Mid-Ohio. then in high school, my first car was a 1982 280. I learned so much on that car how to do tune ups, how to do brakes, how to do bodywork, how to do electrical. That was really how I started getting the mechanical itch. And I somehow, I don't know how I found out about auto crossing and the SCCA. And back then they would run in any lot. There's a a state park out in Geneva that we would run in, and I, we were there not too long ago. My wife and I were in Geneva. We checked it out. That was a pretty tight area. It was a lot of fun. But I remember we were autocross in there, and then Goodyear and Firestone had their parking lots open, and you'd run with the Akron Sports Car Club, I think is what it was called back then as well, plus NE Ohio SCCA. I grabbed my buddies, we'd go and hang out and autocross. Eventually one of them had a FB rx7 so he would I had a friend. They had a 306. He would join us as well. And you know, usually the three of us would be and a couple of other friends would be hanging out doing autocross. Eventually got a I went to a, I went to a junkyard, bought another set of rims, found a new set, a Potenza at a local tire shop. I don't what are the chances of that put those on. So I go to the track and change things, and I got hooked. And there was a guy named Scott Hearn. He's still around. A lot of you probably even remember Scott. I would always finish second to Scott Hearn. He had a little civic hatch and great driver. But I learned so much through that autocross thing about getting the car ready, waking up early. Right. I lived in that. I have to drive to Akron. It was really good. It really got my interest in being behind the wheel, going, in the early 90s. Then my father, one of his coworkers, his name's Doug Cross. Doug grew up racing go karts, motorcycles and then open wheel cars and some sports cars. he told my dad. He said, hey, we need some people to crew. at the 24 hour longest day at Nelson Ledges, endurance race. And, they called me Billy back there. And he's like, If Billy wants to come and help, we we give him a place to sleep and we feed everybody for the weekend. And, I knew nothing about being part of a race team. I knew nothing about Mazda Rx7. So it was an FB RS7 that we, that was campaign that weekend. We had a couple practice days. We'd go to a shop in manor where the car was house, and we'd learn how to change the brakes and do a swap, tire swap, and other things that we'd have to know about the car. But I ended up refueling. The car during the race helped change the transmission three times. I found out just this past week why we have to do that three times, but I was hooked. I didn't even sleep at all that weekend, and at the end of the race, we took a victory lap in the hatch around the track because we finished first in class. Like I said, we we replaced the transmission three different times. I was covered in gear, oil top to bottom. One of the drivers had to wear his suit. When I did pit stops and his extra suit, it was drenched with gear lube. He gave it to me. He got dry clean, gave it to me and said, thanks for everything you guys did for us this weekend. Really appreciate it. And that's why I love the smell. Akiolu today. This is really interesting. I did a wonderful Wednesday track day last week at Nelson Ledges. Had my white rx7 which is an FC. I'm trying to work out one last remaining issues on it, and there's a white fob rx7 there as well. So he comes over because he's having issues and we're just kind of chit chatting a little bit. He looked really familiar to me. I said, hey, what? By the way, what's your name? He says, Tom Murphy. Tom, I crewed for you back in the 90s when you had the yellow rx7 here. Can you believe it? What a small world. And he. We were joking around about the transmissions and the reason the transmission had be replaced three times is he told them not to use fifth gear. And guess what? They used fifth gear. Grenada, the transmission. For whatever reason, I think it was something coming from fifth into fourth and accidentally catching reverse. so anyways, it was great to catch up with Tom, talk a little bit about, the endurance racing from back then and, you and I could commiserate over rotary stuff happening at the track. it was back then that I had some opportunities after the Nelson 24 hour race, because a couple of the drivers that I worked with, they raced for me, Atlanta Cars, and they predominately raced at Mid-Ohio. And they said, listen, we liked what we saw from you this weekend. Why don't you come and hang with us at the track and be our gofer? So I was the guy that went for this and was told, go for this and take care of this and do this. And it was back then, I really wish I knew about Mark Donahue's book, The Unfair Advantage. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. It is a bit expensive. You can still find it on, I got mine on Amazon. It's still out there, here and there. It really tells Mark Donahue's motorsports journey and some of the opportunities that were afforded him and how he leveraged them. The premise of the book is really how they could win so much, especially working with Penske. The extra engineering, the additional track time, the skidpad time, the attention to detail, that's really unfair advantage. But if you read between the lines, the the, the real message that I took away from that as well is leverage. Every opportunity that's given to you find a way to maximize. It might be a little easier today than it was back for me in the 90s, because we didn't have cell phones. I couldn't I couldn't put, you know, at one point I met, Michael Shank because he was involved in Atlantics, came over to where we needed something from the team, and I got a quick intro to him. Man, imagine if we had cell phones back then. I could have put his info in my phone, could have, you know, hey, let's connect on this. Let's do that. If my message here is, if you have the opportunity to connect up with somebody, I highly recommend finding a way to do that. Keep in touch with them, ask for the opportunity, and work hard for the opportunity as well. It was around that time when I was doing the Me Atlantic stuff and being the gofer that I got into kart racing and I sold every asset I could possibly sell with the exception of my car, my stereo, and all the equipment that went along with it. I had a mountain bike back then. I sold that. I rounded up enough money to buy a used go kart. that actually a friend of a friend. Somehow he found out about it and I decided to go racing. I had a 300 back then, and I would by myself toss the cart in the hatch. My toolbox, the gas cans, the oils, all the chemicals, any spare parts. I must look like a hillbilly going out to the track. But I was at the track, and then I'd find someone at the track to actually help me get everything out of the car, help get me started because it was a two cycle, you needed an external starter. I had more downforce when I race karts than ever. I had mechanical, I didn't understand kart, I didn't understand how to get them ready. But luckily I remember the name I mentioned earlier, Doug Cross. Well, Doug carted and Doug hung out with the track because his kids raced well. Anytime I was at the track and Doug was there, he was there helping me, giving me pointers. Tell me what I was doing right, what I was doing wrong. And I did take some checkered flags as it went on. But, and then eventually I got an open trailer and my parents let me put a hitch on my mom's car, and then I got an enclosed trailer, which made it a little bit easier. And we had some fun, too, because like I mentioned, didn't have a lot of money. My friends didn't have money. So we all pile in the car, we drive out to either the practice day or the race, and then we'd stop a couple of minutes before the track entrance. They'd all get out of the car and they'd go into my enclosed trailer. So when I went through the only gate fee I had to pay was for myself. Then we'd all pile out like clowns when we pulled into the facility. So I certainly hope the statute of limitations on skirting gate fees has certainly expired. it was around that time that I decided to get serious about college. I'd already graduated high school. I didn't do much racing career, marriage, kids. All of that took priority. I even let my SCCA membership expired. I'd been a member since I was 17 years old, and as, as life got busy, it was one of the things that that had to slip. But back in 2008, gas prices were going up. I was doing a lot of traveling for work, and I needed something those a little bit more fun and fuel economy focused. So I picked up an oh five 53 Mini Cooper, and that was a way that I could start to scratch that motorsports itch again. so while I had that, I attended one of the SCCA meetings, so I did rejoin the SCCA, went to one of the meetings we used to meet at the Captains Club in Eastlake, right next to where they autocross still today. And, had a couple of beers. And before I knew it, I was asked to resurrect the, dormant autocross program. So the point there is, if you're going to go to an SCCA meeting, do not drink any alcohol, because what will end up happening is you will get volun told on something you have to do. but it was really easy to get the program restarted. We had a great relationship with Lakeland Community College. They wanted us back because that's revenue for them, that that organization, when they rent those parking lots, that's extra money that he gets that's not in his budget. I had a great, a we were able to assemble a great team, put on some awesome events, and, I was able to get the mini out and autocross a little bit, having some fun. Then around that, that time, this is 2012. My daughter shown an interest in go kart racing. I have two daughters and showed them some YouTube videos of go kart racing and one said, yeah, I want to give it a try. The other said, well, not really interested, but I'll give it a try. And Elizabeth, my oldest daughter, got hooked on it. She race for five seasons and during that time I actually picked up an extra kart and started racing with her and realized I really enjoyed just being at the track with her wrenching being a responsible kart dad and so ended up getting rid of getting rid of my cart and really just focusing in on her. It was, it was a lot of fun. We enjoyed hanging out at the track. We made some great connections. We're still friends with those people, and it led to some things I'm going to talk about that helped me along different aspects of my motorsports journey. So while Elizabeth was kart racing, I still had the Mini Cooper and it was part of a mini Cooper club here in Cleveland, and they had rented Nelson Ledges Road course for the day. It was dirt cheap, I to say. It was 150 bucks all day. Come and run your Mini Cooper. I had a helmet from karting and, I had a mini Cooper that was on stock brakes, stock fluids and run flat tires. And I said, track day sounds fun to me. And it was awesome. Full track of Mini Coopers. It was a pretty warm day and as I recall, some people were like, I'm done. Two days, I'm getting more tired. I'm just going to sit this out. I and I ended up being one of the last cars at just constantly lap, lap, lap just wasn't crazy fast. I don't think I had no way to check timing or anything like that, but I kept it on the surface and what was really neat is the guys from Carbon Tech Brakes were there, and they jumped in the right seat with me and went around and gave me some awesome advice. And this is advice that's really applicable in motorsports and life. And it's look where you want to go. Think about that. If you're on track and you're kind of looking where you are, you have no idea what's next. So you need to look ahead. One apex, two turns. What's up around the corner. Who's driving three cars ahead of me? It's the same in life. We need to be looking where we want to go. If we're only focused on what we've got going on that day and that instance, we're not looking towards the future. We're not looking towards what could potentially be ahead for us. And I remember that and I was I'm so grateful to the carbon tech guys. I'm I'm a big carbon tech user. I think their pads are awesome. And, it's partly because of their involvement with our sport and their support of the support, their support of the sport, but also just they made that connection with me that very first day that I was on track. And I'll never forget that. so I talk about Paul Hurst for a minute. He raced against my daughter in karts. Paul and I are still good friends, and, it's good to mention here that when Elizabeth moved into the senior class of kart racing, she was racing guys my age, very experienced drivers as well as some younger folks too. And she was kicking their butts. Well, Paul one day approached me and asked me to build him a go kart. He brought me all the pieces. We put together a cart and it did well for him. That led to a discussion saying Bill, do you want to go crap can racing with me? So crap can used to be a term thrown around quite a bit, and it's a term Paul used about cheap endurance racing, you know, kind of goes back to the hey, if I find a $500 car, make it safe and go race it. Well, that's not really how it how it goes anymore. But that was kind of where we started. And, he said, Bill, if you wrench on the car, if you store the car and you transport the car, you're racing is free, your entire weekend is free. But you have to do those things. And I said, I'm hooked. Let's do it. I'm in. And, it was great. We first race in E30, for a season. Learned that car. I really enjoyed that car. And then he sold it. You know, in hindsight, he probably got some good money for it. Parts were getting a little bit more difficult to get. You weren't. See, at that point we didn't see a lot of them are. We did a couple Champ Car races and a race with it. It did really well. It was a consistent car. We didn't have to work on it during the weekend and, just do some fluids and maybe change a tire between between races. And we were good. He also picked up a Pirelli World Challenge, Ford Focus that had a Cosworth 2.0 in it, I think, and that car needed some work because that engine we couldn't run it actually had a big hole in the block, as I found out as we were taking taking it apart, but it was a stout car. We put a 2.3, Ford engine in it, new wiring harness, and it was then that I kind of realized I'm in way over my head on this one. That is way beyond Bill's skill set. New wiring harness, trying to figure things out. luckily, a bunch of friends that stepped in and help some of the guys from the shop stepped in to help. Long story short, we did get that car on. Course. It did okay. Didn't do great, but it ran. It ran. We didn't have anything to fix on it, race it for a couple races. And then I told Paul I have to make a hard decision here. It was a big life lesson. During that season, I was trying to run a business. I was trying to get this car working, just trying to spend time with family and I was failing at all three. It just too many late nights at the shop, too many missed opportunities with family. So told Paul I'm packing up all his spare parts, his car, everything, and I'm stuffing them in his garage up in Erie. He lived up there, but he understood. And, it really gave me an opportunity to focus in a little bit more on the important things like business and life and family. And we did have we had some great successes with Lake Effect Racing. That's what we called the race team. We had a lot of fun. I did my first ever wheel wheel as well, if you can think of that a little bit different back then than it was today, we always finished in the top half of our class. We always had good overall finishes, our evenings were relaxed, we weren't spending a lot of time working on the cars between races, but like I said, I had to refocus, see what I did there, the Ford Focus and really call it quits on on the endurance racing for a time being. And it was around that time too, that we had gotten a little bit involved in some Roundy round racing out at the Painesville Speedway. They used to run a race called the Turkey Leg 150 so it's a fifth mile. oval out in Painesville, Ohio. And the Saturday after Thanksgiving they have this turkey leg race, basically bring a car, knock the windows out of it while the door shut, put a safety harness in it and a window net and go racing, for 150 laps. That's 30 miles. There's been as many as 100 cars on that short little track for one of these events. A few of us at Red air start doing it, having some fun with it. we had one car that just would not die. So on Wednesday, I got the red. Our guys in Wickliffe, we'd go out, we'd run practice laps, have some fun. We entered a couple of races just to have some fun. But again, it started to be too much and sometimes I just like to declutter. So got rid of anything that was Roundy round related. but I still work with the track and we I'm part of their youth development racing series called the Red Air Rising Stars. My message here, if you have the opportunity to have help support a local racetrack, whether it's a drag strip, whether it's an oval track, whether it's a road course karting complex, give them your support. That could be being involved in their events. If you're a business, maybe a small sponsorship or as a spectator, go buy some tickets and some concessions and spread the word. Now then, I got the call. A couple years later, a friend of mine, Bill Crowe, who I met through autocross and he's a mini Cooper guy as well, calls me and says, hey, I have a friend that's in a bit of a bind with three sevens. I think they'd be perfect cars for you. Well, I don't need one rx7 I didn't think, let alone three. But I'm always interested in seeing what's out there and what's available. And if I could score a good deal. Let's see what it is. Now, I gotta tell you, Bill had at one point offered me some 944 is I really wanted. And then he said no, but now he here he was with, with a car looks like a 944. And so I visited three different park sevens and three different locations. This gentleman had them, it ended up being an awesome deal. And I really thought because the one main race card been involved in an accident, I really thought a couple tweaks, I could probably just get this thing on track and not have to rebuild an entire car. so, Gary, Gary Smith, that's the gentleman owned. we made a deal, and I started picking up the cars. And if you know what a Gaylord is, that's when you go to the grocery store and there's pumpkins and a big, a big container. Watermelons. That's a Gaylord sits on a pallet. I got four gallons of parts and racing equipment and stuff shoved in the steel as well. I just couldn't pass it up. I ended up so I call it the green car. That was the one that was in the accident. Spent some time with it, got it running it, sat for nine years, got it running and eventually, I took it out to the Paintsville Speedway. We rented the track one one day for a Red air event, and, I took it around there just to make sure it did what it's supposed to do. My buddy, John Thorn, there was a member at Audubon said, hey, you want to go play up at Audubon? So I took that car up to Audubon, and it did really well. I couldn't get the front alignment perfect because of the way the car was in an accident, but I needed to see that the car could do everything, and it did really well for a day and a half until it laid down just over five quarts oil on one of the straightaways. That was game over, but overall a successful weekend. And I got to tell you. So Mark is the owner of Audubon, and we had him on an early episode of this podcast. And I kept telling John, if you get a bill for oil dry, you gotta let me know. I'll pay for it. And, long story short, did not get that bill. But I'm sure they use probably every bag of oil dry that they had at that complex. so that I pretty much decided that it was time to rebuild the seven over about two years it probably took to do that. So I took three cars, made them into one, and now I have the white RS7. It's been a long time getting that car on track. Some aspects went super fast. I get a lot of compliments. too long for this episode. But I will say this there are two ways to meet people at the track. You can bring an RS7, or you can bring a trailer for tools. Either way, people are going to come over and want to talk to you. So that's kind of been the fun part of having the RS7. Now I want to go back to the Bill Crowe reference I made earlier. Bill had offered me some 940 fours. They were in different stages of disrepair, and one of them was being built for a road race car, perfect road race car. There's all kinds of places you can run these. They have spec series like and NASA. And I was trying to work a deal out with Bill. And you know, he first offered them and then took them off the table and then, then he got me into this R7 deal, and after I got all the sevens, he calls and says, hey, you only want to watch, my 944 is I'm ready to give them away. Bill. Really. You know, but here's here is, I guess, almost you could kind of say the benefit or the silver lining in this. Having these RF sevens has been a blast. Yes. Frustrating at points, but a blast because I've met so many people. We get to do 944 fest with them. Anyways, so I with the R7, I get to hang out with some 944 folks. But think about this Chris Ludwig from Las EFI, who did all the wiring on the car, originally tuned the Rx7 that I got would not have met him and he's been a huge help to me. with the Arc Sevens and with great air racing. So no regrets. And, I just think it's funny how things kind of come full circle and, I guess I kind of have an hour, a 944 with my rx7. I just can't wait to get that one issue worked out with it. So during this time, too, I kind of get the itch in. We're in Covid time and I get the itch for a miata. I need something fun and something that I could also take and track. So if I'm not going to, if I don't want to pull the trailer out and load up the rx7 and go to the track, I need something I could track, and Miata is always the answer, right? So I tell my one of my employees, Matt, who's a miata guy, if you come across a miata for sale, I'd be very interested. Well, sure enough, one of his friends has a miata for sale that's been in Cleveland for less than six months and lived its life down south. Clean chassis. Plus he had all in coilovers, flying Miata sway bars, stainless steel brake hoses, hard dog roll bar and harness bar set up, all sitting there ready to be installed. So he and I put together a deal and now I have a car I can go track. This car was a lot of fun. I could daily it, just put I originally put some Rs 71 hours on it and this man thing handled awesome. Did everything I wanted to do. I was able to do some time trial events, do more track days, get some more seat time, learn more about the car. And it was great. I really enjoyed that car, but all good things must come to an end. Kind of get the itch to declutter again and kind of try to simplify things and sold it. The cool thing is what? Wonderful. When I was at the guy that bought it, came from Pittsburgh, did Wonderful Wednesday with his buddies, and then bought my Miata. So it's going to someone that's really going to enjoy it for what it is. All right. So also during Covid rate air racing starts, here's how this started. Andy, who's my business partner and franchisee, said I want to get my SCCA license. Bill, what do I need to do? I said, well, we got to find your own SCCA car. Let's go. Well, we came across a Dodge Neon for dirt cheap. I think the asking price was $3,000. It was an ITA car came with spares like a spare engine, spare transmission. A bunch of other stuff. Came with an aluminum trailer for $3,000. Now this is during Covid when trailer prices were off the hook. Everybody wanted to buy project cars and race cars. We end up paying a guy 3500. Just. Just to be fair, man, you're the you can't let this thing go for so inexpensively. the car had one issue, which I found. It was a wire. I got eaten by a mouse on one of the injectors. Now it started to run really well. We took it to Mid-Ohio, shook it down on a, test day that we were invited to with some other folks. And I was told, Billy, you're only six seconds off the last. It's a race that was down here, that that car could be competitive. So I had Bolton roll cage. We ended up, getting a new roll cage, put in new seat, new harness, all new safety equipment. And we did an endurance race with it. So New Ohio SCCA 2022 had an eight hour and an eight hour Saturday Sunday race. we had a couple people join us. We had four drivers and we got hooked. Andy says, forget the SCCA license, maybe I still want it, but we got to go endurance racing. Matt came on day two. He's he's a technician for us at Atomic Autosports and Red Air and Wickliffe and Matt said, I think I want to be involved with something like this. So we did a race. We started doing Champ Car races with that. About a second neon we got, we got the Wednesday night crew involved, which are all the guys that used to come to the shop Wednesday nights to help me get the car ready for the next event. And now we're up to three cars. But it's been great. I really enjoy the business side of motorsports and having the Raider Racing team allows me to experience it. Here's what I mean. We rent seats out. So you know, there's there's a marketing aspect. There's a legal aspect. There's a financial aspect of the team that I'm responsible for. some of our partners and vendors want to be involved with the team. We've sponsors that give us money and give us product to, work with us each season. So I'm really enjoying that side of the business, and I get some grief for not driving like I didn't have a seat reserved for myself. For Nelson, I don't have one for Mid-Ohio. I enjoy being there. On the business side, there's nothing like putting the helmet on, though, and getting around and putting some laps on. That helmet goes on. Life goes away. Your full focus needs to be on the track, but I really do enjoy the the business side of it. and we're getting some some great feedback about the team too. People are really enjoying the cars. we have a few guys that race corvettes and that have raced the neon and they said there's it's the most fun car that they've had on track. I think that that says something. So we'll see where the where the radar racing team goes. We have a few more races yet this season. the SCCA, the new Ohio region is going to have a Halloween divisional, and they're going to have a race experience. Race one, our enduro. So I think we're gonna have all three neons in there. My goal is to have the R7 in there as well. so if I want to get on track, hit me up because we're going to be renting, the latest the latest Nissan that I picked up, we're going to be renting that out for SCCA schools as well. So if we back up a little bit throughout all this racing and motorsports, I opened up a repair business and right here in Wickliffe, I opened it in 2014. I opened it up because I thought I can make car care better, and I wanted to help people and be around cars more. And what ended up happening is the motorsports side of that business really started to grow, because I have a lot of friends that do that and asked us to do it. So at the end of 2022 is when we formalized Atomic Auto Sports, and that's where we really focus in on cars that compete. And we get your car ready for the track, whether that's autocross track, day time trials, road racing. We have all the equipment, all the training. We're doing corner balancing now, matter of fact, we're starting to do some, some fab fabrication work. cages we can do as well. And if you are around northern Ohio, you want to stop in the shop, meet the team, highly encourage you, even if you just want to stop by and talk about racing. We'll never turn you away. But if there's anything that the Atomic Team can help with on your car, we're always there for you. one thing I want to talk about this summer, too, is I had the opportunity to sponsor Luca mars, who we met through karting back in Pittsburgh. Luca is an IMSa driver in the VP Sports Car Challenge. He races, Ford Mustang. And I got to know his kart tuner. Damn. And Dan is now his PR guy and back in pre 2022, Dan and I started talking about how I could start working with him in his IMSa relationships, specifically Luca and what he's up to. So we put together a deal for the Mid-Ohio race, which was back in June, and it really gave me the opportunity to get behind the scenes of a race weekend. It's one thing to sit up in a chair, in a keyhole and watch a race. It's another to be in the paddock right next to the team principal, seeing what decisions are made, seeing how the team is ready, how they're prepared, what they're working on. And I got to tell you, it was really cool to see the Atomic Auto Sports logo in Victory Lane at Mid-Ohio. It was a pinch me moment for sure. Plus, I was able to take my daughters to the race on Saturday. I took Matt to the race on Sunday and I can't wait to kind of do some more stuff in this realm. But, you know, be sure and check out Luca mars and cor Motorsports. he is a driver to watch for sure. So there's a part in each episode when I ask my guests if they've been late to grid. So I think it's only fair that I ask myself that question. Bill, have you been late to grid? I have more times than I care to count, and it's it's actually something I've gotten better with, and I've gotten better with it as a result of the show and hearing some of the people, how they stay, away from being late to grid, how they get the grid early. But those early days, I didn't know what you know. You know what one group you're in. But if you're not paying attention to who else is in your run group, and if the PA system isn't working right, or you're too busy talking to other people, or if you're fussing with something on your car, it's real easy to miss those calls to grid. Sometimes you get to the event late, I can remember, oh my gosh, I think this was the first IRL race we did. I did the oil change on the car at the shop Thursday morning. No, it's Friday morning, so Friday test day. I still had work to do on the car before I left to go to the track. That's the kind of stuff that makes you late to grid. So if there's anything you learned from my guests from the podcast, it is be prepared, use checklists, have routines, and get to grid early. It makes so much. It makes the event so much better, so much more smooth. So that's that's kind of my journey. You know what's next? I'm not really sure. Like I said, the Miata is sold. I got to get the rx7 dialed in. Part of me wants to just get an M3 and just arrived at the track day and show up, but there's something about the satisfaction of taking a car that was nothing and building it into a race car, which is exactly what the Rx7 has been. There's a certain satisfaction, I feel, an obligation to Gary Smith, who entrusted me with his car and also Chris Ludwig. That has put a lot of time into the wiring and the electrical electronics of this car. If you ever get the chance to see the work he did, it is awesome. And you can see it on one of our neons as well. One thing is for sure, I'm really looking forward to 944 Fest this fall. So we're we're recording this in the summer of 2024. 944 Fest, Labor Day weekend. Nelson Ledges Hammock Auto Sports is having a what we're calling a lapping day on Sunday. Really excited to be playing with the 944 people spoofing that I have not an hour seven, but a 944. It's always a good time and you don't have to have a 944 to participate on Saturday or Sunday. So for only $200, you can come out and play on Sunday. Plus you get my taco dinner, the famous Atomic Auto Sports Taco dinner on Sunday, September 1st. Hope to see you out there. I guess I'm going to leave you with this. Go back and listen. There's a couple good episodes, a lot of great episodes, of course, but a couple good ones I really want to call your attention to from this season. There's two. First, Bill Stevens from Race Keeper talks a lot about data and how to use it. The fact we just bought three race keepers for the neons, that's a great episode. And Sorin Capelli, this episode is going to make you think. He talks about finding the joy in motorsports. It's not the same for everybody. People get different things out of it. So if you listen to Serena's episode, I think it's going to make you think it's going to help you focus as well. I want to thank you so much for listening. And do me a favor. If you can tell a friend about the show, the more people that know about grassroots racing, the more people we get on track. The more times we can save tracks from closing. And it's always fun to have more cars on track then not. Be sure if you have the opportunity. Leave me a review. Certainly love that. You can also find us on the socials, late to grid on Instagram or Facebook. And do me a favor, don't be late to grid.