Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

Expert Tips for Novice Track Drivers

• Bill Snow • Season 5 • Episode 2

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Bill chats with Jason Kennedy of Auto Interest, a leading high-performance driving (HPD) organization, about their unique approach to track days and driver education. Jason shares the story of Auto Interest's evolution, from a small group of Ford Taurus enthusiasts to a nationally recognized HPD with a cutting-edge technology platform. Learn about their focus on driver education, innovative technology, and the importance of the right mindset for a successful track day. Jason also offers valuable advice for first-timers, including essential pre-event prep tips and how to get the most out of your time with an instructor.

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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.

Sure. So, in the process of swapping out my, summer tires to winter tires, I can tell on Friday I kind of, kind of tweaked something. My back wasn't feeling quite right, but it was. It was okay. Then Saturday morning, it really set in, and this thing in my lower back decided it was just going to wrench itself up to 11 and just, you know, make me miserable for a few days. So, I go through this a couple times a year, and I don't entirely know why, but. So this week's not been terribly productive. And so I'm virtual today, so I can kind of play catch up as I'm recovering. So I'm probably 95% now, but, not fun. I guess so we can leave that part out to be great. Sure. So, I didn't even know road courses existed as, you know, like, late teenager 19 ish. I found this, whole car club. I had a Ford Taurus at the time, and I wasn't particularly into cars, but, I mean, I liked them, but I wasn't a person that, you know, had, like, sports cars or anything at that time. And, so I found this car club, and I found out the show existed, and, I made the classic mistake that probably every or a lot of HPD years make where I thought I needed every modification under the sun before I could put this car on track. And, you know, with a forum dedicated to the car, there's kind of the, the go to side of things that you do and all that stuff and all the forum people tell you, oh, you got to do everything and all that. So anyway, the Taurus Club put on Track Day and Ginger Moon Raceway and that's, that's where it all started for me and I, I fell in love with it. And, so, that's really where the origins of auto interest started was kind of a core group, out of the Taurus Club. No, no. And in fact, the guy that put on the event, Bob Gervais, who unfortunately is no longer with us, but is, definitely was a great mentor to me. He lived in Rhode Island and came all the way from Rhode Island for, this ginger man thing. We've we've kind of gone through a few evolutions, I would say over the years, 2004 to 9. We were just figuring our life out, I guess I would say. And, you know, we as the group grew and it wasn't just the tight core group of people that everybody knew, that started bringing new, new issues into play, where we had, you know, get a little more, put a little more rules in place and things like that, and nothing major. But then in 2009, it was kind of like, you know, if we're really going to do this, let's do this. And let's actually, create a new brand and, you know, we created the, auto interest logo and all those different things, and all that stuff. We started doing a little bit of advertising, and some of that, and then it just kind of grew and it was a very gradual process. But, you know, after we really started growing, then we had to really we realized we needed a differentiator. And we got really serious about the actual e part of it, which is education, because at that time, it was kind of the wild West of, of track days. And you still see some of that going on today where, inexperienced organizers will just run a track and just make it a free for all. Everybody come and do that. Well, that's reached a point where that's not really insurable anymore. And a lot of tracks are disallowing inexperienced, event operators and, and we realized early on that, if we want to really make this a thing that's sustainable, we have to, to be serious and structured about what we're doing. So that's where the educational really focus really came into play. And then, you know, this year for 2025, I speak as though it's already there, but for our purposes, it is, you know, we we did have to transition to a, an actual membership model. And there's several reasons for that. So to drive with auto insurance now starting in 2025, you do have to purchase a membership. There are insurance reasons behind that. But there are also, practical and more functional reasons. As the whole industry has evolved, tracks have really started layering on a lot of nickel and diming fees and just made things a lot more difficult. And so we had started to pass on fees like camping fees and small things like that. On to drivers. And it was just kind of a mess. To deal with the back office side of it. So we said, you know what, if we just charge a membership, we don't have to nickel and dime drivers. All that stuff is just covered. We absorb it and it makes for a much better experience for the drivers. So that's kind of our our latest generation is transitioning to a membership model, and we're looking at all the ways that we can add value, to members. You know, as we build this out. That's a good question. I know 2024 was a really smooth season. It, upon initial thought and I think jumps out. This is stranger weird. I mean, there's always a lot of little things that happen that are kind of funny. I guess one thing we're noteworthy that was, doesn't happen every year was we did host the Boss Mustang reunion. That was always, a really cool event. We did that, five years ago for their 50th anniversary year, and it was the 55th this year, even though somehow it feels like just yesterday was the last one. But, pit race. There were several hundred, boss cars there. I don't know the exact count, but I know that it was when they did the parade lap. I mean, we had, the the beginning and the end of the line to do a parade lap with the boss cars was meeting each other at the end across 2.8 miles. So, you know, it was, it was a really cool event to see a lot of the vintage cars, but also the more modern ones. There was the, 2012 that, you know, were on a more modern platform. They're quite capable on a road course. But there's a lot of survivor cars there was some of the early then and, even one of the, the pre-production cars there. And somehow these, these people have kept these things in in great shape for decades. And it's it's really awesome to see that. Probably nothing that we're going to release just yet. I think there is likely to be a surprise new new track added to the schedule. That it is one we visited before, but it's been a while. So we are working on something there, and, just with the whole membership thing, again, focusing on on adding value for our members, we've, we've got some new technology coming that I think is going to make a lot of people happy. I won't say a whole lot more than that without giving it all away and and over promising because we're a lot of this is still in the works. We're in the heavy, you know, offseason work period. And a lot of people think that. Oh, and you run HPD is you just get an offseason of, you know, twiddling your thumbs. And it couldn't be further from the truth. We are frantically working to, pull a lot of things together for next year that we want to build in. And out of harm's. No, no, exactly. So we've definitely become very well known for our specialty in getting new drivers started. That's that's where I would say we are the absolute strongest from a functional and an operational perspective. We've got an incredible team of instructors that have really gotten their their whole approach dialed in and, supplemented with technology, too. So it's we've tried to be a very technology forward organization. To my knowledge, we still have the best and most unique technology of any HPD in the country. I've not seen anybody that actually has, delineated curriculum with, notes that instructors can put in and track all of that at a very granular level. There are some things that are kind of more a broad brush, and they're predefined like six categories, and that's it. But ours actually takes the education part and really drills down into the core skills that the drivers should work on. And just the day of experience, I mean, we have all the integrated, live schedule screens, text messaging, communications, you know, our platform online makes it much easier to do business, Register for events, keep track of your events. We store all the emergency medical information there. If you choose to provide that. I mean, there's just a whole host of things that goes on on the back end with technology that that makes the event smooth, that a lot of drivers are really even unaware the or they're. Yeah, yeah. So you can but yeah, you can put comments in there. And, you know, probably one of the biggest advantages of that is the fact that if you work with an instructor at one event and then go to another event, the instructor you get the second time can pick up right off right from where the first instructor left off. And, it makes it much more seamless and it lets the driver get more out of their day. Right? Because they're not spending their time. Trying to get their instructor up to speed as to where they are. And those pairings are done ahead of time. So the instructors can actually see about a week before every event they can go in and see who their students are. And, that's all done digitally on the back end as well. So they already know who their students are, what cars are looking for, what skills the student wants to work on. The students have the opportunity to put in a hot list. We call it, where they can pick the things they want to work on and then that instructor can start right into what's most important to that driver's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I've seen some I mean, organizations, you know, there are some that are better than others on actually focusing on the education piece. And there's plenty of them that do a good job with education. But, you know, supplemented with the technology I think makes a huge difference. I mean, I've seen students bring in like paper logs of their, you know, HPD and stuff. And it's like, well, nobody can see that until the day of. And then, you know, I know of one instance where someone had it in their car and it blew out the window on the track, and it's like, you know, those things don't happen in the digital systems. So my answer to this question has changed a little bit in recent times, and probably even since the last time we, did the podcast together. And, I actually would say that my answer now is the number one thing is a good attitude. That means one that's that's open to learning and feedback and actually working collaboratively with an instructor. The biggest misconception we get is that, you know, people think if they're an aggressive and fast driver on the highway, that they're ready for the road course and, that it has persisted for for decades at this point. And it couldn't be further from the truth. So just bringing the right attitude to the track and all your predispositions that you have about how driving works and what performance driving is like, especially if you're a first timer, you know, you're your eyes are going to be opened very wide. As a first timer, especially so, I mean, outside of a good attitude and readiness to learn. You know, it's, I would just say keep it simple. You know, the pre-event guide that we send out always says, focus on the key areas such as decent tires, not slicks for your first time, but decent tires, you know, flush your brake fluid, have decent brake pads, don't do the the cheapo auto parts store $20 special that'll, you know, disintegrate after a few sessions gets get a decent performance pad. It doesn't have to be, you know, something super aggressive for for racing that takes three laps to warm up or anything like that. But, you know, good brakes, good tires, fresh fluids. Keep it simple and come to the track ready to learn. Yes, yes. Right. And and with us being known for our first time, our program, if I'm recalling correctly, as of roughly March, maybe April 2024, every single one of our first time or spots were sold out before our season even started. So, you know, that's, I mean, that's what we're known for. That's what we're especially good at. And, and so it it sells fast. If you want to get on track for the first time, with auto insurance, we always recommend get on our website, create an account, get your membership, be ready to go. And then we release the schedule. You know, you'll have your pick of, of dates and events and tracks and all that stuff and, and get that booked early. And that's, that's something that's easier for me to forget about. I focus on the mechanics of of day, of. Well, I'm trying to differentiate between food and car related things. We get asked for snacks a lot. So we don't we don't really have snacks at the ready, but, you know, most of the tracks will have concessions open for lunch and things like that. Probably like sports drinks, though, like, a lot of people don't really realize how much it takes out of you to do an HPD. You know, it's it's very, mentally intense, but it's it's relatively physically intense, too. I mean, your your adrenaline's going to get going, and there's a lot of things going on your, you know, with paying attention to your inputs. I mean, you're using your hands, your feet, your core stabilization is activated when you're cornering and you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's, you know, you you feel like you had a workout after a session. And so, you know, we have water available at our events, but, we don't stock and carry, like, sports drinks and things like that. So a lot of people, after they've been active and through that, you know, want their Gatorade or their Bodyarmor or whatever your, your choice of, you know, that type of hydration drink is. So I would if you're a person that likes to is I'd encourage you to make sure you remember those. I would recommend a small tool set. I mean, just at least a basic socket set and, you know, that sort of thing, because there's it seems like it's not every car, but, you know, probably less than half have some sort of minor mechanical of some kind that they need to adjust or check something. And it's just a lot of random little things, you know, typically nothing major, but, if you're not handy at all, that's okay. I mean, we have some people that 100% rely on shops. Perhaps you're still, who, you know, just say, here, prep my car. And, you know, those people probably have less issues than than some of the others. But, but I would just say some, some basic hand tools, maybe a floor jack, things like that. Because if something, you know, sounds weird or something's not right, and you got to get the car up in the air a little bit, you know, we do. If you're going to bring a floor Jack, remember, your jack stands. We do have people that kind of patrol the paddock. And if we see someone under a car with no jack stands, we get pretty, pretty crazy about that. Yeah. So. And, I mean, that's just a bad idea. So make sure you got your jack stands and all that stuff. I mean, we have people that are low near those things. If if you really get in a pinch. But, but yeah, that's that's probably what I would say. I mean, also maybe a tote for all of your loose items. So just like a Rubbermaid bin or something like that. A lot of people forget that they have to have somewhere to put all the loose items that come out of their car. So, you know, most people are taking their floor mats out and things like that. Also, people tend to have more junk in their car than they realize. So a tote for, for getting all that stuff out of there is a good idea. You know, we we try to be accommodating if someone if it's like a kind of a wet day and someone needs somewhere to put things. But we don't have, like, unlimited garage space and everything, so, you know, the turrets really solve that problem. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a great idea. It makes it simple, you know, simplifies the prep work and and load out before your event and and all that stuff. Like, So. Well, even having, you know, your tote and that type of thing, it does help you kind of claim your space, which is sort of a funny thing, but, you know, people that don't have those and just kind of pile their stuff, like, you know, we'll get annoyed sometimes that someone parked in their spot and it's like, well, you know, we don't really have reserve spots and they're not really marked necessarily. So, you know, having having things conspicuously kind of saving your space. I mean, if you want to bring a couple of cones, you could even do that. That is probably overkill. But, we have had people do that, but just, you know, making sure that, you know, I guess another random thing that comes to mind if you have a manual transmission car, some real trucks or some blocks of wood, you know, the last thing you want to do if you've got a manual is come in from a hot session and just pull that parking brake. You know, you can, at minimum, you'll likely build up some pad material on your rotors that, you know, makes that kind of have a vibration and doesn't feel very good. Worst case, you may weld your pad to your rotor and, you know, ruin both of them. Depending on how hot it got. But a couple of random wheel tracks and they're, you know, strategically positioned so that when you do come back in off the track, you can just line right up to them and stop against them and, you know, put your car in neutral and leave it there. So that's another random thing to do. But, you know, organizing your paddock space functionally with that type of thing in mind. And then also just kind of be aware that, you know, if things are sort of tucked. So like the back of the area where you parked, they may get run over. I mean, you people have run over their own stuff. You don't always see it if it's right down there by your wheels. So just try to keep the the main area that you're parking clear. So. Well, it all comes down to attitude and my mind, there's there's people who seem to think they signed up for a free for all and not an actual learning environment. So it's, it's really attitude that's. And we get some challenging students. We have some instructors that are very skilled at it kind of breaking through to those people. But that that can make for a tough day for an instructor or, when somebody comes with a bad attitude and thinks that they're Mario Andretti or something. So number one, of course, is listening to your instructor and actually processing and absorbing what they're telling you. They they do know what they're doing, I promise. And just kind of it's almost a philosophical thing, but, learning to slow down, to go faster, you know, taking the time to to go through the right motions and not just throwing the car and everything. And, you know, things like that. Sometimes an instructor will slow you down to build the right muscle memory and practices that will gradually speed you up. I mean, I think probably everybody listening to this is going to have heard the saying that, you know, smooth as fast, right? So, you don't get smooth by just rushing into everything and throwing the car everywhere. You get smooth by being very purposeful and gradual and building, you know, good, practices as you go. So, that's a big thing. And then I think the other one is that we struggle with, with some students is situational awareness. So it's it's an overall situational awareness. You've got to be we've we've used sort of the, the teaching, mechanism we call the figure eight where you, if you can imagine, kind of a sideways, figure eight and the driver's field of view where you're kind of glancing across your rearview mirror, your side, your right side mirror, your left side mirror, your gauges. So you're just kind of doing that, like figure eight with your eyes, you know, glancing up and out through the windshield. You know, all the major points that are looking up in our rearview mirror, side mirrors and gauges and just kind of rotating through that, and making sure that the you're aware of your surroundings and what your car's doing and all that kind of stuff. And, and some people will really just kind of target fixate on what's in front of them. That's relatively common, where they're just start following the car in front of them. And, you know, it might be a driver at a different skill level. It might be, a completely different kind of car. If you've got rear wheel drive and the person in front of you is all wheel drive, your driving lines can be different a lot of times and things like that. So, those are probably the big ones that come to mind. So. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, sort of a misconception that comes with high performance driving. Is it just people think. Oh, I've been driving since I was 15 or 16 or whatever. Like, how much could there really be to learn? And it's it's just a different environment on the track. It's a different approach to driving. And all of that. And if people really think about, more of even like the fitness industry, if you've ever had a personal trainer, you know, think of of the difference that that can make. I mean, it's people can spend years in the gym and not really get any, you know, significant benefit out of it or gets to their goals. And then when they hire a trainer, that's watching their form and, you know, watching their habits and holding them accountable and tracking their activities, it makes an entirely different experience out of it. And that's that's what I would equate what we do to, you know, where the personal trainers and performance track. So that's that's a very personalized, experience. And so our, our coaches are trained to, to try to personalize what they're doing to the needs of the driver. You know, and the short answer is spend as much time with your coach as you can. You know, and, most of them are willing to, to spend as much time as you want, you know, take the opportunity to go ride in your instructor's car, when they go out for their sessions. The vast majority of our instructors, you know, will have their cars there and are happy to take people for a ride alongs. You'll pick up a lot of little golden nuggets there. But a lot of it can be, you know, verbal to just discussing, you know, replaying what you've done, do a recap of your session or, don't don't be afraid to speak up and say, hey, I think I messed up, you know, turn two here or something like that, you know, and if something doesn't feel right to you or felt like you could do something better, bring it up. I mean, the coaches can see every single thing. So even if you had a good line through somewhere, but it didn't feel right to you, say something, you know, get get the value that you can from having the time and face time with your instructor. So we've got a couple different ways we look at that. And in fact, that's actually a piece of our technology that we're looking to improve this offseason and do some automation with, but we have and and really it's on the we do it through our, our trackside software. But somebody has to actually do that. In our case, most of the time it's Andrea that's on our staff. And she knows, you know, which instructors are good with first timers and which cars they might be proficient in and things like that. So we have all of that data, and, and she kind of has to, to manually match that up with that data. So that's something that we're actually looking to, automate to a certain extent, throughout this offseason. But it's, it's based on the drivers. So certain instructors do better with first time drivers than they do with more experienced drivers. It's also based on the vehicle. So if someone has a certain type of vehicle and we have someone available at that event that has, you know, significant expertise with it, then we'll we'll pair them accordingly. And some of your, you know, higher end cars, super cars, things like that. When we get those, we do have people that are specialized in, you know, different types of those vehicles with all their different driving modes and, all the different features they have. So those are all the things that go into consideration. There's not a hard and fast rule, but those are kind of the variables that that go into that. Right, right. Yeah. No. So I mean, we've we've had people who have forged lifelong friendships that are events you know, it's it's not even people necessarily with similar cars, but, you know, I, I know as a driver that there's nothing better than when you find that, you know, similarly skilled driver, regardless of their vehicle, and you can kind of cat and mouse with them and, you know, just have a great time on the track. And, and that's kind of what it's about once you get to learn and know and trust people, you know, and you can kind of run in your little pack on the track with, with your friends, and have a good time with that. That's, that's kind of what it's all about, you know, as as much as we worry about the the safety and the teaching and all of that, like we, we want to within those guardrails, but people just have a great time. And so, you know, there's a ton of friendships made at the track, myself included, you know, in those and, yeah, I mean, you're you're not going to find a bad person to, to talk to or meet at the track. Yeah, yeah. And. And we work hard to curate that experience, too. I mean, we've we've had our share of bad apples over the years, but, you know, we we have our ways of handling those, and they just tend to not reappear. So, you know, we we try to be very, cautious of, of how we handle things and that people are there with the good attitudes that are going to, you know, make positive contributions to the environment. And, you know, we've worked hard over the years to, to build that and maintain the consistency of it. So I always encourage everyone, you know, even after every session to do a once over of their car. But but you should do that when you get home as well. If you did put the track pads and the track tires on, you might, you know, be swapping those out. You might be just at least checking. Make sure your rotors aren't cracked, things like that. Make sure all your fluids are good. A lot of people do oil changes. I don't know that that's completely necessary, especially with some of the higher end, like, synthetic oils and things now. But, you know, a lot of people will flush fluids and things. That's probably a little overkill depending on your car, but, but that's I mean, in general, just once over of your car, you know, you're pushing it to the extreme. You've, you've tested, you know, some of its capabilities at the limit. And so it's time to just make sure everything's still okay. And most of the time it will be. But the one time that it's not, you want to make sure you catch it. They can, so that that gets into a little bit next level, I would say. So it's, it's typically, are more advanced drivers, maybe the higher end intermediates and then into advanced drivers that are going to be using, you know, data, you know, the, the people that are looking for that extra 10th or a couple tenths of of lap times and things like that. You know, they're they're probably the ones that really need the data more than, the necessarily coaching. But, you know, when we are coaching at the novice level where we're recovering, you know, seconds of lap times, maybe even tens of seconds, you know, very quickly. But and that, you know, that that doesn't require data to do that. But, you know, recovering the more refined, you know, goals at a higher level does require that. So there's a couple ways that we handle that. You know, we do have group leaders for every group, that are more advanced instructors. If you want to bring, data to them, you know, their their time is limited at an event to be able to do that. But we do have some that are pretty quick and can at least help you, get on the right track with some things, or maybe find a couple things for you to work on. But if you really want to spend time in the data, usually half of our events or more, we do have pro coaches available. You know, one that we see pretty regularly is Tom O'Gorman. And, you know, he for a nominal fee at the event, we'll do your data analysis so you can even do that offline. And we have other other people too, that we can connect drivers with if they really want somebody, to do data analysis at a more in-depth level. But that's, you know, that's something that is definitely a valuable tool, but you're getting into kind of the next level of, you know, advancement there. Auto insurance.com. That's with an S at the end. You know, our our website has a ton of detailed information. I mean, you can probably spend a half an hour or more just really reading through everything. And there's a lot of, of aspects, to the organizational out of different programs within it. I think you'll find the way that we do business is as much different than most. You know, we structure things in a very comprehensive and integrated way. So we have, you know, a loyalty point system and the skills management and all these different things that layer in and connect to one another. So, you know, please spend the time, check that out. If, if you like what you see, we'd love to have you drive with us. You know, we're we're not. We don't turn anybody away. You know, unless someone gets out of control on the track. But that's, you know, few and far between. But, you know, everyone's welcome to drive with us. We are a membership organization, but there's no, you know, limiting criteria as to who can be a member. But, yeah, I mean, check it out and and read all of that. And, you know, if you have questions, we have, you know, full time customer service during the week. That's also a differentiator with auto insurance. You know, most of your speeds are kind of clubs or hobby groups that, that don't really, you know, tend to things on a full time basis. We do. So if you inquire with us, you know, we're going to get back to you within a business day. There's not going to be weeks or days between emails and questions and things like that. Thinking and I guess the broader stroke of just, what we do as an organization. You know, we have a sister company, Trackside Systems. So that is the software platform that we use. You know, we built that originally for auto insurance. And then due to requests and demand, started selling it to outside motorsports organizations. So, and we actually don't focus on the HPD market with it. We're in Dragstrip Circle tracks, dirt racing organizations, tractor pulling, boat racing. We have organizations across almost every facet of motorsports that are now running our software platform. And we're, we're trying to use what we've learned from auto interest to, get those organizations engaged in more of the instructional and education and coaching and things like that, so we can provide, you know, a great operating platform for them to sell their events and their tickets and, marketing and all of those different things. But, we're trying to apply the model of learning from out of interest into other areas of motorsports. You know, with those organizations. Right. Right. So everything we do in trackside is a private database. And in fact, I attribute to I attribute the growth of auto interest to our strategy with that. You know, there are plenty of platforms out there where you can go see a bunch of events from a bunch of different organizations. And, the problem is, it cannibalizes themselves against each other. So, early on was auto insurance. I, I decided, you know what? We're not going to use a platform that allows our competition to market to our customer base. Our customers should be our customers. And that philosophy translates, directly to our own software business. So every trackside customer has their own private database. There's no third parties that have access to that. And they can actually fully control the customer experience and all of that. Trackside systems.com. Well, it's whatever Chrissy decides to do. So, so Christy has been our safety steward, and and and, her and and Gary, run our grid. If you're late for your grid and you don't have your wristbands and things like that, or you're not going to get on the track, so if you haven't gone through your tech and checked in and all that, they're going to send you back to hospitality. We're going to have to, give you the safety briefing and the recap of the driver meeting. Get your credentials. So you're you're probably going to miss at least one session if you're if you're laid to the grid and, and don't have your stuff. Now if you're just if you did go through the meeting and you have all your credentials and you're just a little late, we'll still let you out. And that's not a problem. But. Yeah, I appreciate it. Glad to be here.