Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

Racing Mistakes That Cost You (and How to Avoid Them)

• Bill Snow • Season 5 • Episode 3

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Bill Snow interviews Ryan Hall, a professional driver and coach, offering valuable insights for racers of all levels. Ryan shares his experiences in IRL and Champ Car, his coaching methods, and the importance of consistent seat time. He also emphasizes the negative consequences of being late to grid and provides actionable tips for maximizing track time and avoiding costly errors.

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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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Hyattsville was a late to grid podcast. I am back in the Atomic Auto Sports Studio to bring you an inspiring story from someone that's involved in motorsports. This time, Ryan Hall, who's a driver and a coach. Ryan and I first got connected as I was vetting a driver for the Raider racing program, and the more Ryan and I talked, I knew I had to have him on this episode to help you along your motorsports journey. Now Ryan races in IRL and Champ Car, but more importantly, he coaches at the Monticello Motor Club, the Lucas Oil School of Racing, and through his own company, Fossett Motorsports. In this episode, Ryan shares some great advice, specifically why you need to have consistent seat time and how being late to grid actually will have negative impacts on your driving and your racing. Let's drop the green flag on this episode. Hi Ryan, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Yeah. So where are you today? Currently, I'm. I'm at home. I'm up in Taunton, Connecticut. So about a half an hour south of lime Rock area. Yeah. The reason I ask that, folks, is every time Ryan and I were going back and forth on, just talking and trying to get this scheduled, he was in an airport. He was at a track. He was at a, Delta, you know, Sky place and all this other stuff. So it's good to that you were home for the holidays. And I thought I saw on your Instagram that you're a couple weeks away from your next race. Yeah. So I just got back from I think about now for a second. We're just in Sebring. So between Christmas and New Year's, we went out and did the Champ Car race down in Sebring. So was able to come home for New Year's. But yeah, we're back at, we're back in homestead. In a couple weeks, doing some chin track days and then going right to Sebring for some, for some testing for the Yokohama Super Joneses. Exciting stuff. I do want to talk about the Sebring race. You were with Atlanta speed works for, for a Champ Car race. That's always the Sebring race. Is always the last race of the year for Champ Car. You guys had a stellar Saturday P3 overall. Yeah. A class win. What goes into achieving that sort of, finish in an endurance race? The biggest thing. Is just consistency. And, you know, just try to stay out of the pits and trying to stay out of the wall or all the grass. You know, it's one of those things where fortunately, we had a pretty solid driver lineup. One of my clients and also Todd Lamb, as well, team owner and other driver, Doug Oakley and, you know, the way Champ Car does it, they kind of split the field randomly, right? So we kind of were, middle of the pack, I guess at about 75, 80 cars. And it was just a matter of just picking them off slowly and just, you know, a little bit of, luck goes our way, of course, you know, with some yellow flags and trying to time out our pit stops and stuff like that. But, the biggest thing is just trying to stay on the course and minimizing our time. You know, in the pits. And, it worked out for us on Saturday. Good deal. For the listeners that haven't been to Sebring, we hear a lot that it's a bumpy track. From a driver perspective, how do you handle that? Yeah, it's certainly tough. In the Champ Car cars, it's not too bad. They're relatively soft. It doesn't. It probably beats up the car more than it beats up the driver. But, you know, with the, you know, turns one and 17 being the original concrete from the 40s with the old World War Two Air Force base and certainly, can do some, it can make you sore for sure after a couple of days of driving there, especially if you don't have any seat pads in or, or stuff like that. So you having some local knowledge kind of helps you out just knowing where the bumps are and whether or not and where you put the car, where you can't. But it's, it's, surely a good test of driver and machine as well. Yeah. Those Atlanta speed work guys. Great guys. We had opportunity meet them at Pitt Race this past year. They actually came over and helped push some neons into the trailer. So sometimes we don't drive cars into the trailer. They get. Pushed. That happens sometimes. We've all been there before for sure. Yeah. So, we are going to get into your coaching. We are going to get into your motorsports journey before we get there. How else do you get behind the wheel? We talked about Champ Car. Where else are you getting some seat time? Yeah, I've been fortunate enough. The last, last five years or so. I've been doing a lot in the World Racing League, so I've been there a bit kind of, you know, quite kind of Champ Car on steroids, right? So, super competitive at this point, almost a semi-pro class. So, spent, 3 or 4 years or so running their GTO cars, which is now essentially all GT4, maker. So running a lot of Aston Martin's, BMW empires, Porsche Cayman and stuff like that. So, spent the last few years running that series as well as some SRO, SCCA once in a while. Of course, Champ Car, but kind of whatever. I'm, whatever I'm fortunate enough to be put in. So that's kind of been the last five years or so before that and Global Cup. Mazda Global Cup Series and some other things. But recently mostly endurance. It's amazing how well has changed. My first my first wheel to wheel race was a relevant Mid-Ohio E30. BMW had no idea what I was doing and I look at the the cars that were there. Then this had to be 2017 or. Yeah. And now it's you're right, it's Champ Car on steroids. Maybe it's light. It is. You know they kind of found the sweet spot and we kind of did the same thing. We had a team before. We ran a lot of Mazda Global Cup cars and the MSI platform MX five. And at that time all the all the endurance series. We're just kind of starting out, you know, Champ Car, Champ Car and LeMans at the time was, you know, they were doing their thing up in the northeast where I'm from, you know, air was pretty big. But we were trying to find some other big tracks we could go and do well. And all the series were kind of the same. The cars were a little rough. You know, it's meant to be kind of an entry level series. But just the way things progressed, you know, people started bringing, you know, bringing faster E46, BMW and also they started having sequential gearboxes. Then also then you had M2 coming in M2 cars and then also in the old GT4 cars. And it's just it's just a, you know, it's an arms race. Right. And like Champ Car, you know, people started finding a really good value to go out there and race and be able to run, pretty fast cars at all your big tracks, for a fraction of the cost of what it cost to run pro. So, you know, the GTO class right now, it's gotten to be pretty expensive with some of the new cars in there. But you know, your dollar per seat time value is still there hanging over him. So, so, so it's kind of. Yeah for sure. So you got the motorsports bug at about age eight and your father put you into some sort of kart, whether it was an asphalt kart, dirt kart, the memories a little. Sure. A little hazy there, right? Yeah. No, we started off at eight and it was just kind of by luck. You know, we grew up with, you know, four of us cousins kind of all houses in a row out in the country. And, I don't know, for whatever reason, I was into cars. I don't know why. But my dad wanted to get me a go kart, and there's either one of those dingo go karts which are popular back there. Any of the big, knobby rear tires and small fronts. And, with a bunch of us knuckleheads outside, you know, we can definitely run over the cats and get ourselves in trouble. So, he elected to get me, a racing kart. And we found out very early on that we were skiing way over our tips. You know, we were, we showed up to the first race, with a minivan, a bag of tools and a cart that probably should have been on track. Bigger restrictor plate, needed to be welded. The frame. It was just like it was rough. But we finish on the podium, and then we took a couple years. And then you got back in the karting, right? Yeah. We were fortunate enough. We got back in, we I spent the last or the next couple years, driving parking lots and basically just going out to the DMV and just kind of turning laps and going out there and just, I don't know, just driving. But we decided to take it a little bit more seriously after that and, went with a good local local team up here in Connecticut. So up here is basically all for short stuff. You have a two cycle stop. Wasn't super big up here. So, we met up with Bowen's car shop and then actually my engine builder was Adam Ferramenta, who was, 11 Wheeler stepfather. So if anybody's taken to the, you know, the, racing thing, the pro racing element sun. Just what the spec me out of runoffs, this year. But, you know, kind of, it's funny how things progressed and how the racing family's pretty small, even at that, at that early age. Yeah. Was your dad a kart, Dan? No, no, no, my dad had no idea what he was doing. He was, we weren't into racing at all. We weren't the racing family at all. So he, he was learning as I did. So it kind of of being a hobbyist, you know, for him, as much as it was for me. So he enjoyed kind of working on the car and learning. And you know, we're fortunate enough that we had a lot of good people around us to help us out. But, you know, we certainly, you know, didn't have a body shop or an engine shop or any of that stuff. And, you know, my dad did really come up, but he's not the he's not the mechanical car setup guy. So we went out there, had fun, and we did really well, started off on dirt, went to asphalt, did some road course stuff, but mostly road for stuff to start, like antique cars and set up here in northeast. It was predominantly, dirt and asphalt. All those. So we got down south a little bit, but most of us up here in northeast. Yeah. Do you get into a cart any more? I get it, not as much as I'd like. I do some stuff up at Monticello a little bit, because I'm up there quite a bit. So at the country club track, so they have a karting track up there? As far as competitive karting. Not a whole lot. But I do have some friends down in South Florida that do a lot of the Florida winter tour and, are big into it down there. So I'm hoping to jump in some of their carts once in a while, but haven't had the opportunity yet. It is a blast for the listeners. I haven't gotten into a cart. It's just, you know, there's there's no suspension other than tire pressure. I suppose it's just the purest form of motorsports. And it it can be a blast and it teaches you a lot about, you know, different dynamics of vehicle handling. Yeah. I mean, it's it's great for racecraft, you know, you get these kids come up here now I'm getting into cars. I say, I'm getting into cars. But, you know, they're they're they're coming from cars to cars. You know, at ten, 11 years old, you know, they've got five years of experience. And and I've already saw their biggest issue is learning how the cars drive, you know, but they've got a good idea on racecraft and kind of what to do. And there's some stuff from karting that, we'll say is frowned upon a little bit more in the real world of racing. But they certainly have, the idea of, you know, they know what the flags are. They know how to, in theory, create a pass and how to get pass and all that stuff. So at that point, it's just kind of teaching them, so nuances of driving a car, but no, it's, it's great for, conditioning for sure. And everything happens just so fast. So really for you to be able to think ahead when glad times when you're the cars, things happen a little bit slower, you know, until you get to a certain point in the faster cars. Right. So talking about cars, your first, experience in a race car, formula 600. Yep. Out at the, skip Barber. How did that come about? Yeah. So, you know, Skip Barber, you know, it was a half an hour from us up at lime Rock. I only know about, a whole lot of what was going on there. I started working there in high school as mechanic. And then it was slowly able to kind of start driving some of their cars. And once you took your three day school, you're able to you're able to kind of compete in some of their race series events, which I would do once in a while. But the formula 600, I mean, it's basically, a snowmobile power not much bigger than a go kart. You know, race car, centrifugal clutch. So it was wild. I mean, it was it was totally new to me. Similar to a go kart, but obviously, you know, you're you're on track, you know, you know, you're on big boy tracks and you're racing with Formula Fords and formula TVs and stuff at the time, so it took a while to get used to it, but no, I basically just kind of follow the, 11 shoes, life Wheeler. He ran with the team, Sri for a long time, and he moved on to something else to see. Kind of opened up and, I was fortunate to kind of have my first full ride. Right, kind of right at the gates and then stopped for a while after that. But I was like, oh, this is easy. It wasn't easy. But I was able to jump right in. We had a decent season. But yeah, just kind of luck of a draw and just kind of knowing people was able to kind of jump in that car for the first time. Yeah. Let's go back to the mechanic reference. What what made you do that? What was the interest in working with your hands and being at, in a race environment? I'm not a great mechanic. I can kind of get myself around the car. I could do, you know, your brakes and oil changes and over the years, and I can do motor swaps and stuff like that, but, I'm a better driver than I am a mechanic. And anybody will tell you that. But it was my way to get my foot the door. So, I was 17 when I started at Skip Barber, and actually, I was actually too young to work at the track. I was too young to work the power washer, funny enough. So I worked in Michigan, so I worked in the shop, taking apart all the crash cars. So skip barber cars, they'd go out for a race weekend or school. They'd go out and race at Road America. You get a trailer full of crash damage and, you know, my job to kind of take stuff apart and, organize that stuff before I was able to kind of go to the track and start working at driver's schools and kind of racing schools and kind of trying to finagle my way into, into coaching, which is was kind of plan all along. I don't really know it, but that's kind of what I was trying to kind of go toward, because it was what I liked, and I just kind of the only path I saw to be able to do it. Yeah. So for the younger listeners, that is a great opportunity to get closer to motorsports. You know, look for those opportunities to be in the garage to work with your hands, to be a gofer, hang with a team, whatever, those sort of opportunities to be near the track, at the track or around a team are a great jumping off point. The you know, it's just something you want to do. Do you have what it takes and that start to build relationships, right? Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, like anything else, you know, networking is key. But being able to have a good understanding of what goes into, you know, being a part of the team and the prep that goes into the car or what happens at the races. You know, it's huge. So everybody wants to go out and drive right away. They want to be a driver. But, you know, when you're first starting off, you you're, you know, you're a sponge, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So just being around the environment and seeing how different teams operate and, you know, at that time, you know, skatepark was pretty big. And it was a huge ladder system, not just for the drivers, but for the crew guys as well. You know, often they've come out of school, out of high school and start working on the cars and the progression for them to build up to, you know, running, being a crew guy or an engineer, IndyCar or IMSa or whatever it was. So, you know, a lot of people do want to get in the car at some point, but it's certainly a good way to start just being around the atmosphere. And, there's plenty of teams out there that kind of have internships, even at a lower level, for you to kind of go out there and drive a little bit. And, and work on the cars as well. Sure. So you knew back then that coaching was going to be where you fit into motorsports? I wasn't sure, but I knew it was my way into it. I knew as it was the way to kind of be around like minded people, being around cars, being at the racetrack. I didn't really know. I didn't quite have a huge plan. I just knew that I wanted to be in cars and get into racing. I figured it'd be a way to get myself in a car. And then realizing, okay, I could. I'm I'm I'm around always people. And then maybe being around some of them will get me in the car more often. And I'm learning as I'm getting paid and and put that money toward racing. I mean, you know, the it's really tough to make a living just racing, you know, you know, as we know, most of the people in racing are probably bring a lot of money there. So, to be involved in, to, have that pay for my racing or pay for me to pay for racing at that point, or just being involved in industry and just opening up all these doors. It was huge. And, I was just a sponge at that point as a young kid and didn't know really anything else. I was kind of figuring out like say, well, having family or anybody in the industry, is just kind of a figuring out as I went along, hopefully just being around the right people. Yeah. When did you realize you had what it took to be a good driving coach? I mean, not. Till later on. You know, I always, you know, fortunate. Like I said, back in the day circuit, Barbara was it was the place to go. You know, we could talk about how times have changed since then, but, you know, back then, it was it was the spot where drivers were coming up through, and there was a lot of good coaches. So I can't, like, toot my own horn. But I say that I was kind of classically trained, you know, kind of where it wasn't just, okay, I've done a few races, you can go right to teaching kids in a race series or something like that. It was, okay, Ryan will give you a shot, and you can start by working in corporate programs and driving schools. So a lot of time spent writing race on the Skidpad and autocross course and teaching braking exercises and lane change stuff. And then you kind of get to the point where you kind of run as exercise by yourself. Now you start doing talks and being able to do a vehicle dynamics talk and doing a line talk and, and all that stuff. And then you get to leading programs and you're saying, okay, now you could, go to racing school events and then race series and everything else. But the whole time you're surrounded by all these really, really smart and really good drivers and coaches, guys like Spencer compelling and, you know, Bruce McGinnis, you know, at interior wood, I mean, all these guys producing all these guys are just a wealth of knowledge in the industry. And even now, it's just I just learned so much from working with all these people. So to kind of answer your question, I didn't know until a long time as well, things, you know, as a young kid, you're kind of fast because you don't know why. You just kind of maybe stupid about just kind of go fast, maybe not quite sure why. Once I kind of hang around with more people, I start out learning the proper ways to do things, the proper way to teach. You know, your driving gets better. And also then you start getting more work. So, yeah, I probably was up until the last few years, I realized I was probably a pretty decent coach because you always around so many people, you never quite sure how you compare. But, I've been in this business for 20 years while having a real job, so I guess I'm okay. I'd say you're doing all right. So let's talk about right seat, coaching for a second. And, early in my driving, I was at the track day and the organizer said, hey, I need you to sit in right seat in this car. I said, no, no, that's not me. I'm too new at this. No, no, we need you in there. It. Was it somebody I'd never been on track before. They just bought this Porsche. 944. And here I am at Nelson Ledges, going around the track. Okay. This kid. Yeah. I was scared for my life. So that's a lead in to tell me about a time when you were in the right seat and you thought, oh my gosh, either for something really funny or oh my gosh, are we going to make it back to the pits? Yeah. So when I first started, you know, we would do these, we would do a lot of manufacturers events and we still kind of do them. The coaching side of things has changed a little bit, but back then we would do a lot for the Viper Owners Invitational. So you get Dodge Viper owners from across the country. They would meet every 3 or 4 years at a location. So when I did it, we did it at Texas Motor Speedway. And we did it out in Las Vegas. Now, me being a new, a new coach and just being happy to be there, right. Was 20 years old, and you have to go and ride, right? See, with these guys on the racetrack, we've never been there before. And you're riding around, you know, Texas Motor Speedway, which is obviously a pretty fast track, and you're using the infield portion, which isn't much. But you're they're wearing khakis and a white polo and your open face helmet, and, and you've got Jim from Texas. Yeah. You know, 800 horsepower Viper. He's got two miles a mask behind him, and you're like, okay, let's go. And, and at that time, I was jumping the gnarliest cars, I find it. Oh, this one's got a big wing on the back and tires. I'm gonna ride with this guy. I have no idea. Like, it probably was the smartest thing. But, yeah, I mean, after a while, you're like, man, I'm. I'm kind of glad I made it back, cause you don't recognize, you know, how fast you're going. And like I said, with the street harness and, you know, polo and an open face helmet, you know, probably probably the most protected, right. And now, as I progressed in my coaching career and a lot of, there's not a lot of right seat, you know, it's, it happens once in a while, but I got to the point where I'm like, well, we can do a lot with with, with radios and coaching, but, Yeah, it's, it's nerve wracking sometimes, when the people know just enough to be dangerous. You know, a lot of times when drivers are new, you can ride, right? See? And they're okay. They're, you know, they're kind of scared of the car. They're scared they don't have the ability to go too fast. So you're pretty much just trying to keep them on track, trying to keep them on line. Keep them safe. I said once they've done enough and they're not really afraid, they don't quite have the, they're but dyno calibrated, you know, as we say, but they're not quite, aware how close to the edge they are physically and, metaphorically as well. Right. And, you know, that could be sometimes a little bit daunting. So. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about let's baseline what a coach is in today's world. So you're a driving coach. You help people at a bunch of different places get more comfortable, get faster behind the wheel. But for the listener that has never seen a coach at a track or is just getting into this, what does a coach do for the driver? And at every. Level it's a little bit different. You know, I have a lot of guys right now where, you know, just kind of getting into the events, walking through, introducing them to people, showing how the events run, just kind of being a mentor as well as also being on the radio with them run right. See, with them just kind of showing and through, you know, keeping, you know, keeping them calm, finding certain things to work on, you know, it's it's really easy when you're first starting off, you know, you kind of, want to do everything, and you're trying to do everything all at once. And, you know, kind of, as a good coach is able to kind of pinpoint things to work on finding important things to work on. And everyone's different. Right? So I've got guys I'm working with right now. We're we're that's kind of step one and we're getting them out of the school. We're getting them into speeds. The goal is to go racing. And we're working on the little stuff. Just kind of the line and technique and consistency. Other guys that we're working with, it's, you know, we're down to the last couple towns and working outs and racecraft working on mindset, any events and kind of kind of how to, how to go into the game. We're kind of going into the race properly. So, you know, it's all different, kind of based on what the, what we're doing. But I said we're everything from kind of a mentor to showing people how to, how to register for the events and how to get cars and how to find seats there, to, you know, physically. Course being out there, doing track reviews before and after the event and kind of whatever the person kind of wants to do. But. So it could be tailored for a specific driver based on their goals. Yeah. You know, there's there's not one approach to go to it and everyone learns a different way, you know, so it's had been having been doing this for a long time. You know, you kind of have to be able to say the same thing three different ways. And outline it. And, you know, there's, you know, drivers that are really engineering. They really love looking at the, the video and the data side of things and others, don't care as much about it. And you kind of be a little bit more lazy with some of your feedback or some of the stuff you're saying. So everyone's kind of different, and especially when it's early on, it's really hard to you don't want to dive too deep because it's information overload. So you try to kind of tailor it to kind of what, what the person can actually, digest. And they kind of just what their goals are at that point. And then it's always changing. So yeah. And as you're working with drivers of all different levels, what's the biggest mistake you see drivers and the people you're coaching make. A lot and want to go too fast too soon. You know, they get really excited to get on the track. And if they're not able to get on track as often as they want, they of course you want to make the most of it. But they want to go fast before car or the track is ready, and fast to, to kind of what they can, what they can comprehend. So, you know, we always tell drivers and will drive as fast as what you can see or what you can comprehend. And most drivers drive above their eyes or above what they can see. And that's when they start making mistakes, you know, they start missing apexes and running wide of things and braking too late. And they're just trying really, really hard. They're driving fast and kind of what they can comprehend. And things are going by so fast. They're trying to break super late and downshift and carry that break into a corner, but they can't process that right yet. So, at any level, you know, trying to get up does kind of slow down and make it easy for themselves. You know, don't make it hard for yourself. You know, make it easy where you can do it lap after lap after lap at a relatively low speed or lower speed to get comfortable with. And then it becomes more natural and, if you try to force the speed, if you try to force anything, you know, nothing good is going to happen. So same thing on the racetrack. If you try to force the speed before, you're ready or before the car is ready to handle, being pretty expensive. Yeah, I may be off base on this next comment and question, but I think as you get into the mid and higher levels of motorsports, there tends to be some egos that show up. Sure. And as a, as a coach, have you, have you seen that? And then how do you deal with that? Someone might have a big ego to think that they can drive over their limit. Sure. You know, they come with a bunch of money, they come with the latest gear. They haven't had a lot of time. Have you had to deal with that and how and the reason this is an important question is the listener might need to deal with this someday, or it might be them. And how do they keep their ego in check but still learn from somebody? Yeah, I mean, you can't go in there and, you know, knowing or expecting that, you know, everything. A lot of guys, I mean say guys general generic, but you know, think that they're, you know, better than they are. You know, just because you like, like, like I said, you've got the money, you got the funding to have the nice suit and nice helmet doesn't, doesn't mean a whole lot. So a lot of it usually after the first couple events, you know, they're if they're paying attention, it should be pretty humble. You know, you know, kind of seeing where they're ending up on the speed charts. But just because, you know, you've done something before in the past doesn't always, you know, transfer to whatever race you're doing right now. So especially, you know, when you get up to the higher levels of, whether even your IMSa or even the higher levels of your all, you're running a GT4 car. You know, it's really easy to say, okay, I'm in a faster car, I should be able to do this, I can do this and that. Recognizing, okay, what we have to understand how the other cars race, how the other cars react. And that is our drivers out there as well. And, you know, it's tough with some drivers. They've got the money to pay for their mistakes. So they often drive without a care and not realizing, okay, well, this guy just spent a lot of money to be here and it's going to take him out of the season to fix his car. You know, just because you were knucklehead and tried to take it in too deep in a corner where you really didn't need to do that. So it's it's tough when you're not working with those people, and you have to deal with them and, you know, you're trying nice. But as a coach, I mean, you have to you have to say things nicely and politely, and some guys you can get away with telling them that they're used to it. You can kind of tell them, hey, dude, you're being a jerk. Like, knock it off others. You have to kind of spirit around a little bit, kind of have more of a softer, transition. Yeah. Back to the old dirty ways to say the same thing. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, in this industry, as you know, you know, the there's, there's certainly lots of egos, but the jerks don't last that long. You know, they kind of flame out pretty quick. So, you deal with them once in a while. But the small industry in most everyone's kind of here to help. And, they usually like like I said, they start to recognize their talent level, pretty quick. It's early on and they are saying, oh, while I drive 130 on the lap every day, this is going to be nothing. They get on the racetrack and you know, they're doing 45 miles an hour spirit all their minds at that kind of rate. Right? Oh, okay. Maybe this is, maybe, maybe this is a little more jacked kind of back my ego up a little bit. All right. We talked about in-person coaching, and there's this growing, industry of remote coaching. You know, you've got things like the Apex Pro, the catalyst, ehm, software, everything you could pull out of, an ECU and all the data from sensors there. Yeah. Do you get involved with remote coaching? Not as much. I certainly have have guys and clients at the track where if I can't be there, you know, they're sending me video or they're sending me some data. We do some stuff on iRacing once in a while. But for the most part, everything I've been a part of has been, you know, at the track, you know, usually just working with them directly. It's certainly something that is growing. But like I said, more often, not for me anyway. With, with with, with my guys, they send me video clips or send me stuff when I'm away. If I'm working on a program or working with another client, I'm going to spend it. I'll try to kind of spend some time with them over the phone or just on the computer, just looking at some stuff. But no, there certainly is a a big market for that. And there are guys that are doing a lot of that as well. Yeah. So when you're at the track with, with one of your students, what kind of data are you looking at between sessions? The biggest stuff is, you know, the the speed, trace, throttle, brake application, steering angle. Those are some of the those are the biggest ones you can start dissecting, more and more as you progress. But those are pretty much the big ones, you know, being able to, see what they're doing with the throttle, how it if they're not see with it off and having the lift in certain spots. You know that the typical thing with, with a gas pedal is drivers tend to get the too much power too soon, you know, usually starts from braking too early, and then they kind of feel like they need to do something. So they get back on the gas before the car is ready for it. And they're they're kind of having to come on and off the gas multiple time. So eventually, get the full throttle. So we're looking at stuff like that. Brake pressure drivers tend to brake progressively. So different than what kind of how they would brake on the street, where, in a race car or, or performance driving, you want to break the hardest while you're doing the fastest. So kind of having a pretty firm brake pedal initially and kind of dialing off the pressure, you know, as you're slowing down. So, you know, throttle on the brake trace are probably the biggest things. And then kind of showing how that relates to their speed. And if you can compare it to a lap that they've done well, or if you have a lap on file that's similar in a similar car. In theory, you know, you know, from that day, but you kind of get an idea of say, okay, well, by holding the brake ten feet longer, like I said, we're, we're we're ten miles an hour off in turn one. Right. And kind of showing it right then and there, you know, kind of what's happening. Okay. Got it. I want to go back, a little bit to your racing career and, share with listeners what you're most proud of. What was your biggest accomplishment? I guess just being able to, to, stay in it for this long. I said just do it for 20 years. But, you know, for, for a while, we had our own car. So I teamed up with, like, a friend, Travis Wash. You know, a number of years back, and we kind of. We built a lot of improved touring cars back then, a lot of featuring Volkswagens and Mini Coopers and stuff like that. So it was really fun for us to kind of, to build the cars and go out there and win with them and kind of see him win. And, you know, also at that time, we kind of started our own arrive and drive business as well. So we were really proud of that. Running Mazda mX five Global Cup was fantastic. I had a nice opportunity to, to do that a few years back. Again, I was just fortunate enough to, meet up with a client, and we kind of started our own thing together. It didn't last that long, but, you know, we had a really fun couple of years, and, I might say it was able. It was nice to kind of be able to go out there. And, you know, you always want to see how you race against the best, no matter you know, at what level you are. Most Mxs five prop has been a fantastic series, since it came out, you know, since I expect me on it. And he was kind of the, the Playboy couplings that over the last couple years, Mars's Global Cup series. So really fun. Probably the most competitive series that's out there. So it's fun to kind of go door handle, door handle with some of the best and some of the up and comers and, and show them, okay. You know, it's okay. We belong. We don't have a big team, but you know, being able to kind of go out there and and, race in front of big crowds and, Yeah, if the listeners haven't been to an MX five Cup race and there's one within driving distance, you need to get there, it sounds like a swarm of bees going around the track. It's amazing. It's bumper to bumper, Miata, Mir. It is some great racing. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's supposed to be, kind of like, you know, gr kind of like the entry level Pro series, but it's not. There's nothing entry level about it. I mean, to kind of be competitive in it, you really need to, you know, spend some time in some of the other series, you know, and the original Spec Miata and stuff like that as well. Before you, step into it. But yeah, I mean, there's 25, 30 car fields and, you know, top 20 are our door handle, door handle, you know, and, you know, all the cars are should be the same. You know, they should be about the same spec. There's not much difference on power, you know, it's just it happens once in a while. But, it comes down to driver talent and to, and and the setup. And so you. So if you look at Daytona, which is, you know, less than a month away, you'll see probably the top 16, probably finished within, you know, a few tenths of each other. So it's a really awesome race, great racing. Yeah. Miata is always the answer. Right? It's always the answer. That's it. That's it I think. Get away from it. So fitness plays a big role in motorsports performance. And, in looking at some of your recent posts, you and I are both peloton. Sure. Users who who's your go to peloton instructor? If you have a question. So for on the bike, it's, Alex Toussaint. He's my guy. I've never done an Alex class. I will, so I'm still I'm still big on all the old, hip hop music in the 90s and 2000. So, like, that's a that kind of gets me going. So I it's perfect. Those are great. What's your guy, Matt rippers? Well, he's, You know, for any, any time I do a test or one of those things, you know, the the endurance test, I have to do one of his classes and and, you know, he pushed me pretty good. So I enjoy, you know, doing those rides. Yeah. He's, as I look for a next one to do, and I look at the class plan on him and, like, maybe in another week, it is always going to be a little tougher. Yeah. I look, you know, I'm like, okay, you know, for his, it's always like, okay, zone four, you know, zone 4 or 5. But I'm like, like, all right, I'll do it. And then I feel really good afterwards. Going into it, I'm just, I'm like, it's going to be tough. And like I said, he he pushes pretty hard. So he it's a good job. Oh, for sure. But with fitness, why is why is fitness so important to, to a driver? How does it help them? The biggest thing is, is staying sharp, you know, over your time in the car, you know, and initially you also don't have to be in great shape, but you have to be able to not exert a lot of energy. So especially when you're starting off, you know, drivers tend to have kind of a death grip on the wheel, right? And they're kind of using a lot of energy when they don't need to. So once you kind of get to the point of saying, okay, I kind of be calm in the car and exert energy, that's a huge step. You know, after that it's, you know, just trying to have enough endurance, you know, to be able to stay focused. I mean, you're in the car. It's hot. You know, there's there's cool shirts and chill out shirts and all that stuff. Now, it's certainly make things easier. But you have to keep focus. And if you're racing against someone, that's maybe the same pace as you are, but you know that, hey, they're going to fall off. You know, it's, whether it whether it's a 25 minute sprint race and they get to 20 minutes in 17 minutes in and they're starting to make mistakes because they're tired. It's huge. And and in an endurance race where you in the car for, multiple stints, you know, a lot of times, you know, you're in a car for almost two hours and your co-driver gets back in, and two hours later. Yep. You're right back in the car. So just being able to kind of, do that session after session is huge. And, you know, the more you know, the better off you can be. Not, I'll say race car fit as well. But you see guys like Tony Stewart stuff, right? They could jump in a car kind of thing. But you know, kind of guys like Jimmie Johnson kind of screwed that up for everybody else, right? So. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, but certainly, as you progress to the ladder, the hot the cars get faster and a little harder to drive. Especially once you have, like, a GT3 car, it takes a little bit more endurance. You definitely have to be able to push the brake pedal really hard. Something, you know, people aren't really used to. We kind of just spoiled in street cars with the streetcar brake booster set up, but, you jump into a GT3 car and you have to brake really, really hard, you know, recognize how hard you have to brakes if you don't have kind of that leg strength, be able to do a lap after lap. It's super, super huge. Oh, absolutely. Thinking back to your early days as you were getting role and especially behind the wheel, what was the best motorsports advice you received? The best drivers are optimistic with short term memories. So, you know, there's times you go out there and you all, you even say stupid, but you have to kind of put it behind you. You kind of recognize, you know, what you've done wrong. But not spend too much time on it, you know, figure it out, hopefully around somebody. If you don't know, they kind of help you and dissect what happens. But, you have to just get back on the horse and, you know, keep going. But, I don't know that. I mean, it's it's about consistency, you know, just trying to, I tell drivers all the time, you know, just, it's tough to do a school or do a session and and take six months off and try to get back to where you were before. And it can get frustrating. So, you know, I tell drivers, try to spend as much time on the track as you can is the time and you're, well, affords. But when you're out there just trying to make the most out of each session, going out there kind of workouts a skill, don't go out there just long laps. And, at the end of the day, the lap time isn't as important as how you achieve the lap time. So again, that, good technique, is important, so the speed will come. But, you know, we want to have a good base and foundations huge. Right. And that was gonna be a question I was gonna ask is what what advice you give drivers. But you just roll right into that. Yeah. I mean, and. It's it's it's consistency. It's, you know, it's it's, I say just trying to make the most of your time on track. Just try not to go too fast too soon. And just trying to, you know, you know, absorb it all, you know, you know, don't go out there and expect the other drivers know what you know, especially if you've gone through school, you've gone through stuff and sometimes you out there drivers. We'll, we'll. Shortcut things or whatnot. And you're out there and you're racing. You're like, man, I would, I would break here. So there's no reason why this person can't break here. This person is obviously see me coming and being able to pass as wide open. And they don't. And you can always have to give yourself out. So I talk to my drivers all the time like guys, you guys have gone through this school. We spent a lot of time together. We spent a lot of time, talking about this stuff. And most of these people out there having, you know, they've got other jobs and they don't they can't dedicate the time to as much as you can. So, anytime you're making a pass, be prepared for them not to see you as near as it could be. You got 20 miles an hour on them, and they're all the way on the inside. Yeah, man, there's no way this person cannot see me. They might not see you, and they may do something totally stupid. So expect the unexpected. You know, be prepared for someone to do something. You know, that's kind of out of character or out of the, you know, not the not the smartest thing. That is some insightful advice, because when we're in the car, we are so focused on what we need to do that we forget that there are others around us that might not be able to never been on track with us before. Or maybe they've never been on track as many times as us. We need to anticipate what mistakes they might make. That's very insightful. Yeah. And, you know, as you, you know, as you progress and you're driving, you can kind of use more of, of the front of your brain for that. Right? So initially you're kind of working on, okay, I need to be over brake and look into the corner and make sure I get to my apex, whatever else. Right. And, you know, you think of, I'm not saying me, but I'll say, you know, guys like Lewis Hamilton, right? You know, they're not going to the corner saying, okay, brake! Look ahead down, ship on, line your hands. Right. You know, they got a million other things that they're talking about and that they're thinking about and all that comes in the back of their head, right? So, you know, you, you know, at, at at this point we're using the front of our brain, sit there and try to anticipate what the other car is doing, watch the rearview mirror, watching his line saying, oh man, that driver over drove this corner. He, you know, that's gonna give him a crappy run off the corner and be able to capitalize on it, right? So, you know, but the more you drive, the more the basic stuff goes to the back of your brain, the more you could use the front of your brain to, you know, start analyzing what other drivers are doing and start thinking more stuff like that, because instead, initially, you know, the driver so wrapped up with their own deal, that's hard for them to think about what the other driver could be doing or not doing. Right. We're getting near the end here, and I have just a few more questions. So your big goal for 2025, you have essentially two of them. You want to win the GR 86 championship with Copeland Motorsports and the Masters Championship in Yokohama Sprint Challenge. Yeah, I said we're up. Yeah. Good. That was to say as a coach. Yeah. How do you go about planning that and then executing those goals. Yeah I mean I'm super fortunate. With Copeland Motorsports, they've won a championship the last couple of years in GR Cup. They've got a bigger team this year. We're hoping for maybe ten drivers. So, we're hoping to make it, you know, a three peat and, you know, each driver is going to be a little bit different. We're fortunate that Jacksonville is one of our, as our kind of our lead driver, we'll call it, we think, you know, we can definitely put in a spot to win the championship. So, you know, we've been doing some testing. And of course, as the events start to roll off, we'll start picking up things to work on what and what he needs to work on, what the other drivers need to work on as well. And, you know, it's nice kind of having a team environment because you got a lot of data and stuff to look at. You know, back when I ran Global Coffee was kind of just me and my team. So it wasn't a lot to compare. So it's kind of hard that it made it harder to, to to, to try new setups or to try see what worked, what didn't work when it's only you. So with him or with the team one they're fantastic team. Like I said you know we we race against them in your Mazda Global Cup days. They transition to Gray Cup a couple of years back. They're a fantastic team, fantastic organization. Myself, a lot of really talented drivers. And, working with one of my friends, John Dean, who's the winningest driver. It's a couple years ago in the MX five Global Cup history. One championship, a couple years. He's another team coach for them as well. So to be able to work with him, kind of use both our knowledge and to try to get the team up to our championship or, you know, we're excited about it. Oh, absolutely. How do people keep tabs on those championship pursuits? What's the best way to follow that? Yes, exactly. I'm going to say it's probably going to be on Instagram, or their website. And I should know everything offhand. And of course I don't, but you can probably type in the GR Cup series on Instagram. They're usually pretty good on updating all the stuff. Of course. Our website, we have live planning and everything as well. Yeah, we'll do some research. We'll get that in the show notes. I have two more questions before I get to those. Ryan, is there anything we didn't talk about that you hoped we would have? No, I think we did a pretty good job of covering a lot of stuff. We we did. Yeah. Yeah. No, I also my early racing kind of what we're doing now and I said we did a talk about some of the Skip Barber stuff from back in the day. Doing a lot now with, with the, Lucas Oil School racing. So I currently kind of lead their program. So there we do a lot of formula car stuff based in South Florida. So a lot of the drivers are coming from karts, two cars, to come racing our school. We have a $250,000 scholarship for the champion to go to, USF 2000, F4 or IMSa TCR. So, there certainly isn't the latter system of all to get the Indy car. But, we do try to, you know, help transition drivers from parts of cars. Also, we have guys that come to our school and gals that are checking it off their bucket list of things to do, and also others that are trying to just kind of, might say make a living a racing, but they're fortunate enough to, to, to have done well in life and they want to go race SCCA or IMSa or IRL or Champ Car and, you know, taking our school is kind of first step to it. Yeah, that's great stuff. So if people want to keep tabs on Ryan Hall, what's the best way to follow you and connect with you? Yeah, I'll. Probably to Instagram is the simplest. You can find me on Facebook. But most of that is, is is, family stuff. So on Instagram I think it's Ryan Scott Hall on Instagram. So yeah. Awesome. So it's time for the last question. Sure. Have you ever been late to grid. Other than today? No. Okay. Well, those are technical issues. Don't do that. How about, so with that, if you've never been late to grid, tell listeners how you can beat the grid on time and why it's important. Yeah. You never want to be rushed when you start being rushed. You make mistakes. We had a driver a couple years ago who ran with us, but we weren't at the event. But he showed up. His car wasn't prepped. He spent, a whole day, you know, sourcing belt sourcing, seed sourcing, all the stuff with our wheels to get on track. And he finally got on track, and he rolled the car off, and, you know, four corners. And that started with not being prepped beforehand. So, Maximize your prep, whatever that is, if it's going to the track earlier, making sure all the prep stuff is done, you know, at the shop or at the house or, and you can control what you can control, things happen and, you know, you're talking your wheels down, you break a stud, and, you know, things like that happen. But you want to do your best to minimize that. And, you know, hopefully you have someone with you that's at least trying to calm you down a little bit, because the last thing you want to do is get the racetrack flustered. That's when, you know, that's when mistakes happen. So, when you left the grid, you know, you're rushing. And also you have started to pack the pack or whatever it is. And now you've kind of already got, the mindset of, oh, I have to make it off and start driving harder and then start making mistakes, and you're around people that you're not normally around and, you know, kind of one thing leads to another. But I'll kind of start with, with the from. Awesome. Ryan, thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for sharing your motorsports journey and all your insights on coaching. Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. With pleasure.