Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

Late to Grid - John Troche: A Lifetime of Motorsports

• Bill Snow • Season 4 • Episode 20

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Join Bill Snow on Late to Grid as he chats with John Troche, a 79-year-old autocrosser with a lifetime of motorsports experience. John shares his incredible journey, from owning a Cobra at 22 to conquering the autocross scene. Get ready for inspiring stories and valuable advice!

Key Takeaways:

- The thrill of owning a Cobra at 22: John's passion for cars started young, and his story of finding a classic Cobra is truly remarkable!

- Learn from the best: John shares his experience with legendary driver Bob Johnson, who taught him valuable racing techniques.

- Autocross is for everyone: John emphasizes how welcoming and accessible autocross is, encouraging anyone to give it a try.

- Preparation is key: John highlights the importance of walking the course and using tools like MapMyRun and voice recording to prepare.

- Continual learning: John underscores the importance of constantly learning new techniques and seeking advice from experienced drivers.

- Autocross offers a unique blend of social, competitive, and adrenaline-pumping fun!

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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.

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From simple tire swaps and brake upgrades to corner balancing and dialed in alignments, Atomic Autosports gets your car ready for the track.  Whether you are an autocrossers, time trial, road racer, or track day junkie - the team at Atomic Autosports can tailor their services to your budget and your needs.   Visit AtomicAutosports.com to learn more.

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.

I'm your host, Bill snow. And this is the Late to Grid podcast. I'm in the Atomic Autosports Studio to bring you another episode of an inspiring motorsports journey. This week I have John Troche, who is an auto crosser and 79 years old. He's going to share his journey with us, his advice with us, and we're going to learn what really gets him excited about auto crossing. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. John, thanks for joining me today. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited about this. And I really want to start off, this is the question I've ever since you and I shared some emails, I got to ask this question, how does a 22 year old acquire a Cobra? Well, the 22 year old had been interested in cars forever. The Cobra was my dream car when everyone else in high school had the Playboy pull up on their locker, inside of their locker doors. I had the Cobra pictures. I was looking for a car on my way to look at a car and sticking out behind the office of the used car lot was about two feet of the nose of a cobra, so I had to stop and look at it, not expecting it to be for sale, but it was. And $3,000 in a used motorcycle. Later I had a 1963 Cobra, the 50th one they made. That is amazing. And how long did you keep that car? I had it 15 years. So no, I don't still have it. No regrets. It was an exciting journey. And, just considered to be the kind of the luckiest guy in the world to stumble across one and be able to get it. Now, for the listeners, that was an AC Cobra, which is different than the Shelby Cobra is that a lot of folks are familiar with? Yeah, there's a lot of confusion in terms of AC Cobra, Shelby Cobra. The original ones even had a different emblem that said Pepsi Cobra. Mine was the 50th one they made, which still had the Lucas electrical system. Lucky you. Oh, yeah. Sometimes it would start, sometimes it wouldn't. But yeah, there was a difference to later. That was two models of the Cobra. The early ones, in fact, the first 75 had a to 60 cubic inch motor, which mine had. Then they went to the more familiar 289, which is what you typically saw in some of the early Cobra races. And then, of course, the real, Shelby Cobra was the 427, which was a totally different car than just the original AC ace with a Ford motor stuffed in it. All right, so I know the differences between AC and Shelby, but have you ever been to the Shelby Museum in Vegas? No, I have not. Think if you get the chance. It's really cool. A lot of great examples of the cars, a lot of the history. Yes. Two. Yes. So like most of my guests, family got you interested in motorsports. And it was your father who introduced you to some racing and took you to Indy 500, right? Yes. Somehow it just seems like maybe it's a genetic thing you're born with. To some extent. I got my first, I'll call it race car at age five, which was one of those pedal station wagons. And the logical thing to do was race my friend with his pedal fire engine, and it just seems like my dad was, as you say, interested in cars, went to stock car races. We used to time his cars 0 to 60 with the stopwatch, which was a big thrill, but he always kind of tried to impress me that if you do this safely and you do it in a controlled area and you're not going to be as likely to, do it, mess around on the street and, he also told me if I did mess around on the street, that was the last time I ever drove one of their cars. So, you know, and those words stuck. So he never caught. Yeah, it never caught. There we go. Yeah, yeah. So did he ever do any competition? Get behind the wheel. No, no, I never did. But supported you. Yeah. When I started racing, we'd be out in the garage. I was still living at home when, we'd be out in the garage working on it at midnight, as typically happens. And he would continually say, I don't know why you're pouring all this money down this rat hole. What do we gotta do next? So. And he was my early pit crew, photographer, brought lunch. Whatever it took. Yeah, yeah. Very supportive. So getting behind the wheel in competition. That was first in the Cobra at Mid-Ohio. Well, my actual first driver school was a Nelson Ledges. All right. And, there were some. I mean, that was a young lifetime's dreams come true at age 22, but, just excitement and also a huge dose of realization of how little I really knew. Just jumping in. Right. What year was that? That would have been 1968. Very good. It was my only car. It was my daily driver for three years prior to that snow. Whatever. Oh, where you went. This is amazing. What we drove back in the day. Yes. Right. Yes. Front, front engine cars, rear wheel drive light rear end. Yep. Still may have to work every day in the snow. Yes. Yeah. So after that driver school, Nelson Ledges, then what? Well, then I started, my progression to get. Well, I had to go after the one at Nelson Ledges. I then, you had to go to two driver school back then. SCCA driver school to get your competition license. So from there I headed to, well, my first one, it, I actually had three driver school, and, I guess you could say I was the slow learner. From a mechanical standpoint, not knowing I said before. Realization of what? I didn't know. The, friend of mine and I realized we need to put a different exhaust on it for a number of reasons. So we thought the simplest thing was to braise the exhaust pipes. So we did that and I'd quickly learned this. So my first driver school I don't know how many laps, but I soon basically the exhaust system came off in pieces at various places around the track, much to everybody. Oh no. So if you had an embarrassing moment, that was it. You show up ready to race, and within about two hours you're collecting pieces of your exhaust system and asking where there's a local welder. But, so after my two driving schools at Nelson Ledges, the second one, the third one, then was at Mid-Ohio. And if there was ever a, you want to call it a big thrill guest at lifetime memory, it was that driving school because my driving instructor, was Bob Johnson, who was a, factory team driver. And so for. Cobra. For Cobra out for Shelby, he drove the coupes. He drove the Cobras, all over the world for Shelby. And yet there he was, sitting in my car, driving it around the track, basically eating his knees because he was quite a bit taller. And I had the seat bolted in. So, but it's just such a patient guy. I kind of can still picture him sitting there just being so patient. Now I'm just kind of sucking it up like a little kid at a baseball game, looking at Mickey Mantle. So while that was happening while you were on track, what were some of those moments that, if you can remember back, that he showed you or that you felt driving around with him? Both in him driving around with me and also in his critique afterwards, there was a, rather modified Corvette, that was in the same driver school. And, he could out accelerate me on the straightaway, but we weren't that far apart. And of course, initially when I'd see him break, then I'd slam on my brakes at the end of the long Mid-Ohio straight. And I do remember Bob Johnson telling me you got far more brakes and far less weight than he does when you see him break. I forget the exact phrase that you used, but you've got time. Dive inside and wait on the brakes. And it was like. Oh, okay. He told me to do it. And sure enough, I mean, stuff like that, that, maybe I would have never picked up on right. So you got the competition license? Yes. Did you go into club racing then? Yes, I did, all right. Tell us about that. Well, my first club race was probably one of the most memorable. Memorable. It was, regional race at Nelson Ledges and, that it was the weekend before a big national race, and I don't know if that still happens, but back then, there were a lot of folks that showed up that wouldn't normally show up to a regional race simply to do that final, dialing in of their car and so on. So with the Cobra was and B production. And so the, race I was in was the big bore. So it was A and B production A and B sedan. So it was Mustang Shelby Mustangs, Cobras. That was I think three Cobras there if I remember. Right. And lots and lots of corvettes. 30 some cars on the grid at Nelson Ledges back in the day when the track was pretty narrow, and with as many bumps as it had and potholes as it had for 34 years. And the starts were standing starts. So basically, I was not on the pole. I, as one would expect, that I'd not be on the pole. I was like somewhere around ten, 11 rows. So when the flag drops, all of a sudden, all I saw was dust and smoke and maybe 2 or 3 cars in front of me. And at Nelson back then, that first corner was probably an 80 mile an hour corner, but you knew you had however many cars behind you, so you just kind of had to go. So you went into the first corner not seeing more than 3 or 4 cars in front of you. It was probably an 80 mile an hour corner. You're your two abreast. And that was like, okay, you know, you wanted to race. You're in it. Here you are, here you are. Yeah. And it was, you know, I, I never got past my regional license. So back then you had F2 novice races as a regional, and then, I believe it was for more regional races before you could get a national license and then, family moving and so on. And just I thought, well, I'll just put the career. Career. Notice that or. Yeah, illusions on hold and someday go back to it. But that was certainly, probably the most moment. Not the scariest moment, but I went off the straightaway, my throttle stuck at the kink and Nelson. Oh no, at, you're a little over 100 there. And back in the day and I lifted and nothing happened. But back then they didn't have tire walls. They just had big open fields. So luckily you just kind of went straight off and a few bounces and, and it was like realization of what could have happened in the long arm there. All right. So are you still daily driving the Cobra? No. No. Okay. By that time I had, my parents gave me a great deal on what was, Jeez, I don't even remember the year, but an old Dodge Dart. So that was my. And then I finally bought I did buy a used Chevy station wagon, which was my tow car. And probably your camper, too. And my camper. Yeah. And we had converted a $50 boat trailer into, kind of a what? Can you say something that. Not what you should have called a cobra, but. Yeah. But it worked. It sort of worked. Yeah. The good old days of grassroots racing. Yeah. So after you you stopped regional racing? Yes. When did you find autocross? I didn't find autocross till, actually, my son Josh found autocross. I was looking to go back, you know, they were out of college. Holly and Josh were both, done with school, and, I wanted to do something. I've done street rods while the family was growing up and put everybody in, you know, Holly and Josh in the back seat and go get ice cream type of thing. And they wanted to do something different. And so I wanted to go. I thought back on the track. So, in fact, he and I went to a, we went to Indianapolis and took a legends driving course to Little Legends stock car. Oh yeah. And I went down to Charlotte and took a legend course and I thought maybe. And then I went and looked at an ITP car for SCCA racing. But I have a lot of hobbies, and one of the things I did learn way back when in my brief racing endeavors, was that racing is something that requires your full attention and that if you have six different interests going on, you don't belong on that track, that, maybe with my other hobbies did I want to give them up to go racing again? And Josh was auto crossing. I thought, well, I'll just buy a tire and we'll go autocross together. So that's what, I can't be doing something competitively again in cars. So what car did you go and buy and start? Oh, crossing. Well, he had a Fiero, so of course I had to go buy a Fiero. Oh, boy, a Fiero. Yeah. So we had, He had a red one. I had a black one. And away we went. With a lot to learn as well. And then, as you can say, then he only did it for a couple of years. So then I decided I was going to get more serious with it. And, and I did. So tell us about auto crossing a Fiero. What? Your Fiero was it? Mine was the 88. So that was the one with the Lotus design suspension. Okay. It was a fun car, but it would also, you had a chance to see where you'd come from fairly often. If you weren't really understanding how the car was. And, like. But it did okay for you. It was okay. It was a good start, good place to start. And really, that was the thing with autocross is it almost doesn't matter what car you have, as long as it's not one with a high center of gravity. Show up and have at it. Have fun. Now I'm going to be digging through those pictures from Lakeland to see if I see those videos. Oh. What would ever make it to Lakeland? Oh. All right. It's typically just at, the Goodyear. Yeah, the parking lot and at the Firestone, lot. There was a lot at Firestone. Okay. It was, building that they no longer used, and the lot was behind it, and they usually brought a lawn mower to mow the weeds on the track before we drive. So it wasn't the perfect service? No. Then what did you move into after the Fiero? After Fiero, I got a, 1990 BMW e30 m3, and that was a special car. Yeah. So those are great looking, great handling. And, I was able. It was. I kind of stumbled on it, both on the car and on some changes to it, and ended up being, really very competitive. With that car, I did national level events. I did, the center of series all over the Midwest. Got tire sponsorship, doing some marketing with it and so on. So that was, a fun car to really get serious about auto crossing with. Yeah. And those and if you've seen the prices on those lately. Yeah. Some of my friends say, oh, you had a Cobra and you sold it, you had an e30, m3 and you sold it. What do you have now that you're selling so we can buy it? Yeah, exactly. And then after the, the BMW m3, then what? Well, I retired, so, I retired from work. So I sold. I thought you got to save money. So I sold the car, we sold the trailer, we sold a camper that was towing it, and, then I, you know, probably a year, maybe two years. I didn't I didn't go, and then I went, and, I missed seeing some of my friends. It's. You have a nice social circle. Very helpful, friendly people, that you've known for years now, but I just go ride with them, and that was really a good thing. But if you can say you were trying to stay away from a mistake because it's a disease, it never leaves. So it was just being exposed to it again. It took me about three weeks and I bought a, a mini Cooper, thinking, I don't want to do the modified route, I just want to take my lunch, go have fun with my friends. And then I found out I had bought a modified Mini Cooper. So it had of must have been somebody's hobby car. And it, it had, a number of engine mods and really no suspension mods, but, we took care of changing that changes the suspension. A car doesn't, as you get into it. And I did that for about ten years with the mini. So that's something you and I have in common. We both had 2005 Mini Cooper, our 50 threes. Correct? Correct. Yeah. Long car. And as I was modifying mine that's one of the things I like to talk about too is if you're going to modify a car. I know you didn't do yours other than suspension. Read the rules where you're going to be playing. Right. Because when I modified my car, which, you know, I wanted the, you know, reduced supercharger pulley and, you know, cold air, all this other stuff. Well, now I was in SMF. Yes. And it's easy to be outspent. Yeah. And uncompetitive. Yes. Is that what happened to YouTube. Same. Yes. Yeah. In fact Iran's that now they call it street I think glass back then I think it was called stock. But I had the hood up and somebody who really knew minis walked by and said, you've got an under drive pulley. And I do. And so, okay, there's the the voice of a cheater who pretending he does. But I didn't know. Yeah, I really didn't. So it turns out mine had under drive pulley, big injectors, several other things. And so I was kicked and snuff also. Yeah, I do miss that car. Oh yeah. It was fun. The thing I enjoyed it, I really did. But trying to teach an old guy who's a rear wheel drive for his whole life when you got to do everything. Exactly. Not everything, but a lot of things. Exactly the opposite. When you're driving the mini. That was a hard challenge, and I got better with it. But I decided before someone pries the key out of my hand that, I want a rear wheel drive. So I sold the mini. Yeah, and you're in a rear wheel drive car now, correct? Right. Tell us about that. Well, I, was thinking about it, and looking at. Okay, if I sell the mini, what could I get? That's rear wheel drive. I started, obviously, with the two rear wheel two seater sports car. I thought, geez, some point I'm going to have to stop doing that. So maybe this time to look for that car. And I asked a friend of mine, I said, geez, I'm thinking about Nissan 350, see? And I knew he had one. And I just said, what can you tell me about it? And he says, you think I'd buy one? And I said, yeah. And he says, well, buy mine. And he was, very competitive driver. He raced SCCA for over 20 years. And, had just a few things on the car that made it better, stiffer bars, adjustable camber, and a Quaife limited slip. And that kicked me into a modified class. But at this point in my, racing endeavors, I'm not necessarily trying to win class. I'm trying to see how many people I can beat competitively and have fun. That's the key. Having fun? Yeah, and it's a fun car. I really like it. Let's take a moment and talk about your current season. What what events have you done? Have how's it going? Well, it's it's, a little bit of a learning experience. The, transition from front wheel drive to a rear wheel drive, is what I'd hoped for. Going relatively smoothly, but it's also got, probably 100 more horsepower. And, I found that on the many certain times, front wheel drive, mash the gas and pull yourself out of the corner, mashing the gas and 100 more horsepower in an autocross. With a stiff rear bar probably wasn't the right thing. Press on the gas. Don't mash the gas type of thing, but I'd say it's going fairly well. I've been able to, Hey, the one of the clubs I've run with has, a shootout at the end and or the top 16 cars, and it's just on raw time, and I've been able to make that a couple time. So and that's, you know, just that, that competitive if you're doing this you love competition. And if someone isn't doing it and loves competition, obviously this is a very safe, easy, to get into, way to experience that competitive, satisfy that competitive urge that you have. So yeah, it's fun. And of course, you have certain cars that, you know, they should beat you. And when you're able to beat them, that's, there's that competitive challenge, success feeling again. Right. So what groups are you running with today? Well, sometimes I'll run with the SCCA new I'll group, sometimes I'll run with the Steele Cities group. And then because it's about 15 minutes from my house, I run with, Akron Sports Car Club. They run at Dragway 42. And you think down the dragstrip, you know, they don't run on that. There's probably two miles of paved pit roads and so what they'll do is they'll set up a I really call it a mini road course. Some of the courses will be a mile long. I have I've hit 75 miles an hour on one of the straightaways, which is not typical of a local autocross. Right. But there's good run off if in case someone goes through a corner and so on. So I have run probably most of the events I've run there, but I do run with, the Ohio at times and also pit race. And then I've gone out to, Toledo. I don't know. So for the person that wants to get into what we're talking about, right, and wants to take that first step towards autocross, what advice would you offer them? Do it. Pretty simple. You do need a helmet. Most of the clubs, once Covid hit, don't have loaner helmets anymore. So you do need to get a helmet. But in all honesty, that would be your only expense. To show up at an event and say, this is my first time. All the clubs have rookie classes. You'll have a special, and guided tour of the course with, helpful information as to how to approach your first run there. So it's it's not this daunting challenge when you maybe they've been to Mid-Ohio and watch the cars and the preparation and everything. You do obviously want a car that's in good condition, but it, it can be basically what whatever car you have, whatever tires are on it, a lot of people think, oh, I got have it modified. I got to have these big sticky tires. And probably the best advice would be don't do that. To start, just get in the car, get some seat time, get someone to help you listen to the people that have been doing it for a while. They'll ride with you. They'll take you on rides. It's legal to have a passenger in an autocross car, if it's properly equipped with seatbelts and so on. And, just show up and do it. And there's, you know, you obviously can find the information on any of the social media, Facebook and so on. They almost all have sites that would provide that information. So that raises a point. How did you know about the driver school? Nelson, back in the late 60s. How did you find out about it? I joined Sports Car Club of America, and back then, the meetings were typically attended by more people because there was the social media. Yeah. Have a I was reflecting on just that topic the other day. As you know, back when we were younger. Right? Yeah. You didn't you couldn't jump on a Facebook and know what's going on this weekend. No need to rely on word of mouth or meetings. Yeah. Mailed newsletters. Yeah yeah. Yeah. He used to get the SCCA monthly newsletter. Now you you better see it online. That's right. What's the one tool or supply you always forget when you go to an autocross? That's a good question. And I think I'm pretty well organized after all these years. Just, I started doing this in 1995, and I had 3 or 4 years out in the middle there, but I basically been doing it well. In fact, people ask, when was your first event? My first event was in 1961, in my mother's Peugeot sedan. So, you get a routine, and that routine to me is extremely important. And, and the fact that my, I drive my car, it's not a a race car. I don't have to worry about, special equipment or changing things at the last minute at the track. I'm not going through changing settings. So, you know, making sure that the tires are set. People, you know, what will happen is you'll leave the car, sit in the sun, and you thought you'd check the tires, and then all of a sudden your group is called, and you happened to be near the front of it. And the tires that were in the sun are 4 pounds higher than the tires that were in the shade. And you wonder why those left handers just didn't stick. Oh, tire pressure. Right. Pay attention to the detail. Pay attention to the details. Yeah. And the other thing is preparation. Before the event and learning the track, because that's different with autocross than, road racing. Mid-Ohio is pretty much going to be sure that sometimes they'll use a slightly different layout. But Mid-Ohio was basically Mid-Ohio had an autocross. You have no idea. With the track, it's going to look like sometimes a post at night before, but in most cases till you get there. And so that preparation is probably the most important thing. To many people, you see, they see their buddies and that you walk the track before the event, so they'll walk around with their buddies and they're laughing and joking about what they did, you know, the night before and so on, and maybe walk twice or some places will let you use, you know, a push scooter or ride a bike around. You need to walk the track and you need I always try to do is there's guys after you've been there, you'll know who really knows what they're doing, who are the drivers that are always at the top of the pack. So I see where they're at. I just hang around and when they start to walk the track, you mind if I walk with you? Because when they go through it, they're probably pretty serious about it. And being able to ask them questions, see what they're talking about. Count the steps. There's usually slaloms on the course. So to pace off the slalom, a number of steps between each cone on the slaloms. What I do is I use, mapmyrun as an app on my phone. And, when I go through a slalom, I walk pretty far, not with a line I'll follow, but I accentuate the slalom so it shows up on a little diagram that Mapmyrun does. Or when I come to what's called a Chicago box, which is just kind of a quick little detour, same thing. It'll show up on my map, my run. I also then use a voice recorder. And so when I go through the slalom first cone 32 paces. Next, cone 31 next. Or they'll have all of them equal except the last cone, which they tighten up by four paces. So you find you go storming through the slalom. It's working great till you get to that last one. And of course, chances are if you didn't pay attention, you're going to wipe out that last cone, or be so hard on the brakes that you mess up the next section of the course and so on. So that figuring out how are you going to learn the course, and you might not run if you walked in the morning, you might not run until noon or afterwards. So if you're an old guy, how are you going to remember that? So to do something that allows you to document the course, study it while you're eating lunch, rather than there's time to talk to your friends rather than making a just a social hike around the around the course. If if I forget anything, someone I haven't seen for a while and all of a sudden I'm doing exactly what I said not to. What's next? What do you want to do? 2025? Same car, same program. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I tend to keep cars. Cobra was 15 years. The M3 was, about the 11 years. The mini was ten years, so. And I really like this car. So. Yeah, this is it. I don't have a desire to do the bigger events anymore with the modifications on the car, as you talked about earlier. I need a lot more modification. If I'm going to be competitive in the class, I might go to, like, a Toledo big event. It's run at the Toledo airport. The courses are large. A lot of good competition to measure yourself against. And so maybe there. But, I'm content just showing up and getting to satisfy that adrenaline rush. Competitive urge. Yeah. So as you want to learn more about being a better autocross or what resources do you turn to? Well, I in fact, I even brought a book along that I've had for years winning autocross, solo to Competition, the Art and the science. And I thought the title's interesting because there is kind of an artwork. But there's also science to it. And this is, it was written in 1977, so, yeah. Wow. But the but the science of adhesion, of sideslip, of apex, of late apex, those things I don't think have dramatically changed over the years. But, I still refer to this, you know, can't sleep some night. I'll have it and just glance at a chapter. And it's interesting. It's a hobby. It's something you want to always learn more about. And someone can just Google autocross books at Amazon, and you'll find 2 or 3 that it's probably not a bad idea to get one. And some of it you'll say, yeah, and, and other you'll say, well. Yeah, if you even just pick up one tip. Yes. And maybe that helps. Enormously. Then it's worth it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I found that, that that statement is really, a profound statement. I think, if you could pick up one tip every time you went to an event or every season, one tip, you would find, I think, a significant improvement. The other thing would be to ride, ask for rides with people that obviously are good. And when it's, you know, if there's enough runs, most of them will be glad to give you a ride. And when you watch how they do it, significant. If I, I offer one more tip. Awesome. Yes. GoPros. This has always been something. And actually, this is something that, Josh pointed out to me at one time. At one point, I was kind of doing it, but he really made it very obvious that this is what you need to do. Most people mount the GoPro either on the roof or the hood, or inside, and that's kind of interesting. Great post for Facebook, but the best way to do it is to take a GoPro. And it's worth getting one just for this. Get the suction cup mount, put it just behind the front wheel above the cone height. But, and you could ask me how I know that, but, it put it on the left side of the car, do two runs, then put it on the right side. Did you hit the apex? Oh, I thought I was right on that cone. And you find there was that much room you gave up? Didn't use a lot of the pavement. Those are the types of things that'll make your next run better. You can look at it between runs, or certainly take a look when you get home. That's great advice. What didn't we talk about that you wanted to. I just I just think the fact that the hobby is satisfies so many different things. If you have any car interest, there's a social aspect to it. I mean, people are in golf leagues, not my thing. But there's certainly a social aspect to it. Whether it's bowling or golf or pickleball or whatever else, there's a competitive part to it, there's a social part to it. And autocross, I think, has that in spades. People are so helpful. You think this is a competitive sport, dog eat dog. If you've been to the stock car race, maybe you've seen them fighting in the pit afterwards or NASCAR, where one guy's point, well, there's a lot more at stake. So the anybody will help you. Something breaks, some people will offer you or drive my car. It's just such a a, welcoming group, but yet competitive. There's a, there's an adrenaline component to it. It back to your original statement somewhere that wants to start. The best words of advice you can say is do it. Just go out there and do it. Yep. It's it's compared to any other form of racing. It is as cheap as you're going to get. You can make it expensive. But but it is inexpensively as you're going to race, I think. Yeah. Well, John, thanks so much for sharing your motorsports journey with us. Well, thanks for asking me. Yeah, I this was something that was when you're in is if someone asks you to talk about it, they're in trouble. Well, good luck the rest of the season. Thanks so much. I appreciate that. And thank you, our listener, for listening to this episode of the Late to Grid podcast. Be sure to tell a friend about the show and if you have the opportunity, leave us a review. It's certainly helped spread the word about grassroots racing. And do me a favor, don't be late to grid