Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

Don't Panic! Your Track Day Prep Guide

• Bill Snow

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Feeling behind as the racing season kicks off? Don’t panic — you’re not alone, and we’ve got your back! In this episode of Late To Grid, Bill shares practical, last-minute tips to get you and your car ready for autocross, track days, endurance racing, and HPDE events — even if your garage projects didn’t exactly go as planned over the winter.

Whether you're aiming for your first-ever motorsports event or you’re dusting off your helmet after a long off-season, this episode covers the essentials to help you succeed: tire inspections, fresh fluids, brake upgrades, suspension checks, and safety equipment updates. Bill shares real-world lessons learned from racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Daytona International Speedway, and Nelson Ledges Road Course — highlighting why Ohio is a fantastic place for beginners to launch their racing careers.

You'll also hear advice on how to pack smarter for track days, how to avoid last-minute surprises, and why focusing on safety, mindset, and seat time is the smartest way to improve. Bill emphasizes grassroots racing community values and offers tips for physical and mental preparation for drivers just getting started.

If you're looking to dive into grassroots racing, autocross, track days, or endurance events, especially around Ohio, this episode is packed with everything you need to hit the track with confidence.

⚡ Keywords: Motorsports, Racing, Autocross, Track Day, High-Performance Driving, HPDE, Ohio Racing, Beginner Racing, Racing Career, Grassroots Motorsports, Endurance Racing, Track Prep, Racing Team, Car Setup, Atomic Autosports

Listen in, get motivated, and remember: Don’t be late to grid!

🔗 Brought to you by Atomic Autosports — your partner for getting track-ready the smart way.

Tired of funding your own racing?  Learn how to secure sponsorships with Atomic Sponsorships.  Join the waitlist and be the first to get the discounted sponsorship program.  This proven and successful process will not only help you identify real sponsors, but also build relationships with people that will help you pay to race.  Visit AtomicSponsorships.com to join the waitlist.

Track ready setups for time trial drivers and others 

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.

Don't panic. I know the season has started for many of you and for others it is just about to start. And if you're not 100% ready, that's okay. I'm going to share some tips and tricks to make sure that you'll still get on track early this season. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. Hi, it's Bill, and I'm back in the Atomic Autosport studio to bring you another episode of the Late to Grid podcast. And like many of my listeners, you're probably scrambling. You're don't have everything ready. You've put an emphasis on family, or worse, you put an emphasis on work or Netflix. And I have some ideas. I am sure going to help you put everything in perspective and make sure you can take the green flag on your next track day. So let's talk about some of the things that you can do. And I want to make sure that you stay tuned to the end of this episode, because I talk a little bit more about radio racing's trip to Daytona and what I learned there. And then also, I competed recently. There wasn't really a competition. It was a shakedown day with auto interests at Mid-Ohio. And I got to tell you a great event. So I'm going to weave in some of what I learned, at that event throughout this to help you make sure that you get ready for the season. So truth be told, my last event with the seven was the end of October. It was a one hour enduro. I did well, the car did well, took first place in our class, and I had great plans for the off season. I had my my trusty cardboard list with a sharpie. I had everything planned out and I had for months actually five months to get things done, and I didn't. And I had to hustle over a weekend to get as many of those things done to make sure that I made the auto interest event in early April. So lesson learned. The best plan sometimes doesn't work unless you start working. But again, don't panic. If you're like me, you still have time. Let's talk about what's important to make sure that you get on track. So we're gonna call this panic Prep. So what are the absolute must checks? What do you have to make sure that you're on top of to take your car on track or to the autocross event? Well, let's talk first about tires. Everyone talks about tires. These are the contact patches that keep your car in contact with the Earth. And if your tires aren't up for the task, this might be something you need to address right off the bat, but if they're decent enough to compete in, just use them again. So if you're leftover from last season, that's okay. But there are a few things I do want you to check. Number one, look at what's called the dot number on the side of the tire. This is generally only on one side of the tire, so if you don't see it on one side, rotate your tire around and look on the other. It's a four digit code. And this indicates the when the tire was manufactured. And this is standard on every tire that's sold in the United States. So like I said, four digit code. The first two numbers is the week that the tire was manufactured. And the, second number, two digits is the year in which that tire was manufactured. So, for example, if you have 1223 as your dot number, that tire is manufactured the 12th week of 2023. So we're recording this in 2025. That tires about two years old. So probably still has some life left on it. But there are some other things I want you to check. Number one look over the tire tread. Do you have even wear or is there a severe wear on the outer shoulder or inner shoulder that's usually from an alignment setting? Not that anything's wrong. You probably have your car set up for some negative camber, and you're going to have an inner edge where you can actually flip that tire around on the rim. At the local shop, have them do that. That's going to get you a little bit more life out of that tire. But if you see any cords or any severe missing tread because of tire wear, let's put those in the recycle pile, get you some new tires. Also, look for small cracks in between the tread that indicates some dry rot or some where older tires will do that. If tires aren't stored properly, that will happen as well. Also, as you're looking at the tread, look for any flat spots or chunking of the tire. If the tire was ran too hot, it'll start to chunk a little bit where you actually get small chunks missing. And if you locked up the brakes, you'll get some flat spots on the tire. That'll give you a vibration that you certainly don't want. If it's severe enough, you want to certainly look at getting rid of the tires. And then lastly, I want you to talk about the sidewall. Make sure there is no damage from the sidewall. Many of my listeners, well, sometimes they drive on the tires that they compete on because that's how they get to the track. They don't have a trailer and a truck set up. Sometimes you might hit a curb, you'll hit a pothole if there's any damage to the sidewall, the tire, it needs to be recycled, taken off the vehicle and get you a new set of tires. So that's that one important part tires. Let's talk about fluids. Those are the lifeblood of your car. Take a look at when was the last time you had your fluids changed. And by fluids I'm talking brake fluid, engine oil engine coolant. Your transmission fluid or your, gearbox oil, your differential fluids, all those are certainly important. So if you haven't changed them in a while, want to make sure you change them with good fresh fluids. And I want to emphasize brake fluid. Your brakes in track conditions can get very warm. Brake fluid has a boiling temperature. And if you're using, you know, dot three or even some dot four fluids, you may easily overheat that brake fluid. The concern there is it puts air into your braking system, gives you a soft pedal. Then you think you don't have brakes, and then you get into a panic situation. So it before you get on track, make sure you have good fresh performance, high temp brake fluid. You can get that from a lot of different places around town, and it doesn't take much to flush it out, but you want to make sure that you do get all the fluid out and all the new fluid air. So again, make sure you get good engine oil in there with a filter. Your differential, your transmission gearbox, oil that hasn't been changed in a while. Freshen that up. It helps protect your equipment. And if you do it yourself, it's only going to take you a couple hours and a few dollars. Not very much. Let's talk about brakes themselves. We all, we all want to go fast. We all want to, you know, hit the apex. But we also need to stop because effective stopping not only is a safety item, but it helps with your best performance on track as well. So when you inspect your brakes, you gotta look at pad thickness, look at rotor wear, you know, make sure you don't have any gouging in the rotors. When you apply the brakes on your vehicle, you make sure that you don't have a lot of shaking going on, a lot of vibrations. We call that brake pulsation. You want to make sure all of those items are good. And if this is maybe you're beginner, you're just getting into autocross, you're just getting on track. It might be time to start exploring performance brake pads from companies like Carbo TAC Hawk and EBC. They all make great products for almost every car that competes. And if you don't know where to start, start asking questions. When you go to the event, you see someone else running a BRC, for example. Go talk to the other people running BRC. Ease. What are they doing? What? What you know, what pads have they liked? What pads haven't they liked? How often do they changing things, jump on the forums, learn from those sort of folks and pick up the phone and talk to a carbon tax or a hawk or an ABC. What do they recommend? They're going to have recommendations for you based on? Well, I daily drive the car and I compete on the weekends. I trailer the car and I'm looking for a really aggressive pad. I endurance race, whatever the case might be, they're going to have great insights for you as to what you should choose. And don't skimp out. Don't buy the cheap rotors. Don't buy, reuse rotors from other people as well. You want to make sure you get good rotors. A good thick quality rotor has the ability to dissipate heat much better than the low end. You know, cheap $15 rotor. Spend a couple extra bucks. It's going to last longer. It's going to, protect you better and save you money in the long run. I want to tell you, before I head off the auto interest events, I didn't have much to do on my braking system. I looked at the pads. I have carbon tech pads. Believe it or not, this is the third season I'm running those pads. Still plenty of life and the faces of them still look great. The rotors. I have zero pulsations, zero heat cracking, no issues. All I had to do was run some new high temp brake fluid. And, this is one of the things my wife loves to do is hop in the car and pump the brakes and run new brake fluid through it. So I was all set with just that in the more often you get into checking things like the brakes, the less you have to do every time because you're staying on top of it and things don't escalate, become big issues. Next let's take a look at suspension. So suspension is what helps control the car. And we're talking about things like coilovers shocks struts your sway bars let your wheel bearings. And then let's put a couple steering components in there too. Your tie rod ends in your power steering rack. I have a really simple way for you to check these items on your car before you go out, so it does require you to get your vehicle in there. So put it. Jack it up safely. Put Jack stands under it, make sure everything is nice and steady on those jack stands, and all you have to do is grab the wheel at the 9:00 and 3:00 position, and you're going to try to rotate it back and forth. You can do this on all four wheels. You can do the same thing at 12:00 and 6:00 up and down. If you feel any looseness, you need to have it looked at by a professional. And what could be loose is you could have a wheel bearing loose. You could have a tie rod that has a little bit of play. Maybe you have a control arm bushing or a ball joint that has a little bit of play or looseness or worn, rubber bushings have it looked at by a professional. That is something you do not want to have fail on track. That's a real quick way to do that. Plus, if you're checking your brakes or bleeding your brakes, you're going to have the car up in the air anyway. So before you remove the tires and wheels, just do that simple check. Also something you could do on suspension is as you're driving the car, do you hear any weird rattles or noises that could be a loose, stabilizer link? It could be a bushing that's starting to wear out. And then also you can measure your ride height. So find a level surface, take a tape measure, measure from the ground to the bottom of the wheel. Well I do all four corners. And if one is slightly off then then the other side. Now front and rear may be different depending upon your vehicle. But if there's a difference between side to side, that could be an inch. Yeah. You could have a suspension component that's maybe a little worn. Maybe it's leaking some fluid. It's not holding the car up like it should. Or you could have a broken spring or worn out spring that is, you know, not keeping the car to the proper, proper height anymore. So check those sort of things out. If you don't feel comfortable with that, that's okay. That's it's kind of a big ask. Find a shop locally that understands motorsports. And a lot of times you'll see these, you'll meet these folks at your track events or autocross events. Get to know a good local shop that understands how the car is being used. Ask them to take a look at it, and if you don't know where to start, call the organization you're running with. So maybe you're running with a track day organization or NASA, or a sports car club. Ask who their, you know, their authorized tech shops are, or if they have a recommendation on a local shop that knows how to help people that are driving their cars in a in a fun and performance way. Also, I highly recommend checking your safety equipment. What I mean by that your helmet. If you wear gloves, if your car has a harness, perhaps a seat, a window net, things like seats, helmets, harnesses and nets all have expiration dates. Now, some organizations don't put an emphasis on an expiration date. That's fine. Make sure you know that, though, because there are organizations that you're going to show up with that say that you can't run, you know, a an expired net or harness and you show up with an expired net or harness. You could be out of out of a out of a track day or out of an event. And I've seen the tech line get held up like this before because somebody didn't understand that their seat was out of date, they didn't understand that their harness was out of date, and now they're not necessarily arguing. But having a discussion with the tech inspector asking what their options are because they they travel, they paid to be here and they're trying to get their vehicle on track. So look at that, way before the weekend or the day of the event. It'll save you aggravation. Plus, do you really want to be running outdated safety equipment? Can you put a price on your head, on your body and your life? Spend a few hundred dollars, get the upgrade equipment, donate the other stuff. Because safe safety organizations, will use harnesses to show how to cut people out of cars when they're training their people that help us at what we call trackside support. People who do endurance racing can certainly use the year old helmet for their pit crews because they don't necessarily need a crash impact, but they do need something that's fire retardant. So there are options on how you can upcycle your used safety equipment. So after all that, hopefully your car is in great shape and you're ready to hit the track. But are you ready to hit the track? The car is just one part of the equation. You, the driver, you're the other part of it. Let's make sure that you have what you need to be your best. Getting ready for the event and competing the day of the event. And I use the word compete. It could just be attract a driver education event. You want to make sure that your best version of you is showing up. So let's first talk about mental focus. If you haven't had much seat time recently, it's probably best to take some time and visualize yourself driving around the track. If you've been on the track, this is easier to do then if you haven't. And if you haven't been at the track, jump on YouTube. There's some great people that put some, videos up of them racing around the track. Find the person that's in a similar car to you. If you drive a miata, find someone driving a small rear wheel drive car. If you drive a Ford Focus, find someone that's driving a Ford Focus, because that line is going to be a little bit different between those two vehicles, and you kind of want to see a good line for the type of car you're racing or driving. And I also say mental focus. Your first event out doesn't also have to be about personal bests. You don't have to set your fastest lap time. You don't have to go out and get fast this time of day. You're there to shake the rust off from the previous season. Make sure everything works on your car. Nothing could be more frustrating than pushing yourself 10/10 on a car that's just sat for 4 or 5 months and you forgot to overlook something you forgot to do something, and now your day is over because you broke something, or something didn't feel right, but you pushed on just trying to get that fastest time of the day. Make it about being fun. Make it about focusing on understanding what you have to do before your next competitive event. I guarantee you the day is going to be a little bit more fun, a little bit more rewarding. One thing I didn't talk about, but you could also do, is if you have access iRacing and the track you're running it at, jump on some iRacing sessions, just do some practices, grab some friends, maybe do a race with them. They're the more that you can visualize yourself going around the track, the easier it'll be when you show up and you'll remember your breaking point, your acceleration points, your turn in, your turn out points. Make sure no landmarks have changed either. That's a great way to use your first session on track. What's changed? Auto interests I was at Mid-Ohio. Turn four is way different than it was before. I really enjoy what they've done with it, but it it doesn't drop off like it used to. It's more there's limited elevation change that took a little getting used to, because now the line where I broke isn't there anymore because there's new pavement down. And when I say broke, I mean like breaking. Like the car didn't break there. That's an hour X7 thing. It always seems to happen. So when I was at, I was gonna tell you about when I was at auto interest at Mid-Ohio, I was not looking for a personal best. Sure, I had the edge. I wanted to push a little bit further, but I just put a new to me transmission. The transmission I took out of one of my donor cars. I put that in, for the early part of the season. I want to make sure it did what it was supposed to do. I want to make sure the car felt right. I didn't really make any other major adjustments to the car. It was a cool day, so I knew I did have to worry about overheating, but try to make sure nothing was leaking, nothing was rattling. Everything was nice and tight when I left and the car did well. I mean, this is the most laps I've ever had in the seven at Mid-Ohio, because inevitably I was chasing an issue that just kept me limited on track. So I was just really enjoying the day. Meeting some people from auto interests, my first auto interest event. I'll tell you about that later. Just going out, running laps and being able to pull into the paddock and jump in the trailer. And we had a heater in the trailer because it was like 35 degrees. But it was a great day and it was because I had the right focus on the right things. So I really encourage you to make sure that you're going in with the right mindset. It's also good to get in good physical shape. So if you didn't run a marathon over the offseason, don't worry. You don't have to be a marathon runner, but you do have to be in physical shape. So we talked about the mental shape. Let's talk a little bit about the physical shape. Just being hydrated, being a little bit more limber, taking some time to stretch in the weeks ahead of your, your event. You know, this Lenten season, I gave up alcohol and I did as a way to kind of focus on myself a little bit more. But, you know, we were heading to the Daytona for Champ Car. I knew I had this auto interest event. I wanted to be as focused as I could for these events, and, I did. I felt a lot better as a result, and I felt mentally better and physically better heading into both of those events. Now, I didn't get the drive at Daytona. We could talk about that later. But man, if I did, I was 100% ready to jump in the car without an issue. And that's a big part of physical fitness is, you know, understanding when to drink alcohol, when not to, making sure you're fully hydrated, making sure you're eating right. If you have a weight loss goal, get on that. And if you haven't started that yet and the offseason was tougher than you thought, don't worry. Just take small steps. Literally. Take small steps. Go out for a walk. You know, start maybe lifting some light weights. I unfortunately did a test day before my Mid-Ohio event and man, I was feeling it a little bit. It didn't really impact my day too much, but I definitely knew that I had done chest day before, so I think next time it would have been a little smarter. And how I plan my workouts. The next thing I'm going to talk about is, you know, let me go back really quickly to physical fitness. If you don't know where to start. I have some great episodes where I talk to a couple different people about that. Trey Shannon from Pit Fit is one of them. Definitely highly recommend that episode. It don't overthink it. Eat right and exercise. It's it's always what's worked for weight loss and getting in shape. And the better physical shape you're in, it goes back to the mental shape you're in. So all right, enough about that. If you have questions, you can you can reach out to me happy to talk more about about physical and mental stuff. All right. A lot of stuff happens in the off season with the organizations that put on these events. Here's what I mean. They rewrite rule books. They rewrite changes, dates change. So of course, we talked about safety equipment expiration dates change. Definitely read the organization. If they have a rule book, read the rule book, they have what are sometimes called supplemental. So those are very event specific rules guidelines and information. Read that. So you're up to date. If there's anything about classing, if you're in a if you're doing an event where there is competition and maybe last year you ran sport one as an example. Well, has anything changed within sport one? Maybe some models are no longer allowed in sport one, maybe some additional modifications are allowed in this particular category. Read that. So when you show up, you know that you're competing and you're not going to get protested or you know, charged with a DNF because you didn't meet the guidelines. Take some time. Read it. I'm a big fan of printing out event rules and supplementals, and especially the schedule when you have them on paper, it's a lot easier to write notes on them, to take them to bed with you and read them. And then you wake up and they're all over yourself. Seriously, take a minute to read them. That information is going to save you so much time and aggravation, and you're going be 100% ready to go when you roll up to the event. One of things I like to do is when I take the seven or even the neons for Raider Racing, I print out the schedule a couple different places and we tape it up on the side of the trailer. We tape it up on the toolbox down in the pit. I don't want her to be any question about what time our groups might be going out, what time lunch is, what time the team meeting might be. Communication's key in life, so make sure you have that schedule handy and you will not be late for anything, especially being late for grab. And then let's finally, as we're talking about driver prep, let's talk about logistics. Start packing your essentials as early as you can. What I mean by that is, you know, if you have a if you drive your car to the track and you have a track pack, you know, a little tote that you take, go through that, make sure everything's good to go. Are your fluids still good? You know, if you use aerosol window cleaner, does it still spray or has the aerosol somehow all leaked out? Double check, all that kind of stuff weeks ahead of time. So you're not scrambling the night before trying to find a stores open where you could buy Windex for your windshield? Pack plenty of snacks, sunscreen, appropriate clothing for the event. The sun's going to be out. Grab a hat and sunscreen. Make sure that you bring plenty of fluids and snacks. If you have friends coming to help, bring extra stuff so that they can stay hydrated and fueled up as well. If you have electronics like a catalyst or an apex, or a solo aim is a software up to date? Is it charged? Is it ready to go? Make sure you have that sort of stuff done. Here was a win for me. I'm going to go back to my auto interest event. I'm usually charging my catalyst and updating the software the night before. Or worse yet, the morning of, I'm making sure that at my Aim software for my PDM is up to date. If I have a GoPro camera I'm taking. I was doing this days and days before loading the trailer up, and I had the catalyst in the car when the car got loaded in the trailer. First time ever, it was just one less thing I had to worry about the event. Morning. I highly recommend if you can get ahead of that. Please, please do so. You've done your car checks. You're starting to feel a bit more prepared. What can you do in those final hours? You're ready to go. Now might be the time to reach out to the community. So if you're organization that you're going to be running with, has a Facebook group, jump in there, see what people are chatting about. If you have a specific question about where to pit, where to paddock, you know, if it wasn't clear what time the gates open, chime in there, post something. We talked about looking at YouTube videos. If you need some professional help and you're still a couple of days away, reach out to a local shop that understands performance work. Let them know you're under a time crunch. They may chuckle at you, but if you have nowhere else to go and that's your last resort, go and ask for some help. Get the car there, get done what you need so that you can get on track. And I highly recommend doing this as early as you can. The minute you know that you're in over your head, the minute you know you're not going to get it done. The moment that you realize, I need help, reach out to that shop. Because I could tell you from Atomic Auto Sports right now, we're in April 2025. We're booking two weeks out for anything a well-balanced. We'll install custom alignment corner balancing. If one of our clients had an event within two weeks, they wouldn't be ready. So get on the schedule as early as you can. All right. I want to talk about something just as is important is all the nuts and bolts. We talked about. All the water you can get, you know, drink to be hydrated. I want to talk a go back, I want to talk about and go back to managing expectations and mindset that if you're feeling unprepared, it's crucial that you approach this first event with the right attitude. You might have to pull the plug. It might be too much. It might not be able to attend. Here's what I recommend if you think that's what you need to do, reach out to the event organizer and see if you can get a refund or credit. You might even want to volunteer at that event. That might be some goodwill. Build some relationship with that organization, if not, hopefully you can get a refund and then use that time to finish up your car, whatever it might be. I know a tough decision. I know sometimes a financial financially impacted decision, but sometimes that's the decision that, you have to make. Like I said earlier, I just wanted to run laps around Mid-Ohio and that's what I did. It turned out to be a great day, stress free. I did have to use the winch to get the rx7 onto the trailer, so during the last session the fuel pump was cutting out. I have two fuel pumps in the car, one that lifts the fuel out of the cell, and another one that pumps up forward towards the engine. And the lift pump was starting to feel like it's smell burning. I thought it was the car ahead of me. We always do, right? It's not me. Why? Why would I be burning? This thing is toast. And, Turns out. Yeah. Good thing I have a winch in the trailer, so winch it, and it was still a fun day. I'm glad I realize I have a problem with this fuel pump now. As opposed to one of the competitive events that I'm doing, I would have lost a race. So thank goodness I got a pump that's arriving today and we will get that installed and be back on track April 30th for an event at Nelson Ledges. Wonderful. Wednesdays. If you, get a chance, check out Wonderful Wednesdays in Northern Ohio at Nelson Ledges. Great, great test events and track days. You know, a couple other things I want to hit on while we're in this section. Mindset. Prioritize safety over performance. You know, we talked to a lot of people, and we it's the, you know, events I'm involved with, the groups involved with. And of course, Atomic Auto Sports. I want this go fast part. I want to go do this. I want to do that. I want to get that, you know, I need this, you know? Can you put a cam in my engine? Whoa, whoa, whoa. We've only done a handful events. Why are we building up all this horsepower when you don't have the right, you don't have the right harness. You don't have the right suspension. You don't have the right brakes. Prioritize what you're doing to your car. And this is sometimes what can set you back and make you actually late to grid, or late to an event, or miss a grid, or miss an event because you spent way too much time figuring out I want to go faster, and I want to beat that other guy when you really ought to be talking about, how do I make myself better? And that's seat time, folks. It is especially seat time with coaching, seat time with influence. So be smart about prioritizing safety and seat time over just outright performance. There'll be a time you'll get there and you'll put the big cam in and the countless exhaust that'll be on, you know, off road use only. Right? Don't push yourself in that regard. Always cultivate a positive attitude. That's what so many people love about motorsports in racing is the camaraderie. The positive attitude. And you need to have that too, not only with yourselves, but around the people that you hang out with at the track, and then people that are probably looking at you at the track. As an example, make sure you always have that positive attitude. That'll make a day at the track a lot better too. And then finally use this first event as planning the rest of your season. What did you learn? What did you write down? What notes did you take that you need to work on? And if you didn't write anything down, I'm going to challenge you to think hard because you must have missed something. There's always something we learn during a track day, whether it's something else you want to prep a spare part. You didn't have extra fluids that you needed, the fact that you forgot sunscreen again and you're red like a lobster. What did you forget to do and what did you learn that will help your next event be as successful as possible? So probably a good time to share a personal story about Raider racing at Daytona. So we ran, with the Champ Car race down there, 14 hour enduro. First time the cars were on track for the for this season. That's a big ask. Trailering. I think it was 18 hours. All said and done to get the cars down there with stops and picking up other, team members and things like that. Throw two cars on track, untested first event of the season. I learned a lot. We usually have things super tight, and although the cars were ready to go, I'm not sure the team was 100%. We usually we use checklists every race and we didn't have them. This. We have defined roles and responsibilities at every event. We did not use them at this event and it showed a little bit. We were a little scattered during the weekend. I don't think anyone noticed except me, maybe a couple other the team members. We still pulled off a great performance. Unfortunately one of our cars was involved in an accident, didn't continue after our three. And so that means I didn't get the race because I was. We'll make sure our the team it puts in the long hours they get the race. And of course, the folks that rent the seats from us get their seat time as well. So I had no problem supporting the team. But I did learn a lot that we need to dust those checklists off. Coming into an event. We have to have defined roles and responsibilities. So there's no question about what someone's doing the moment they wake up on race day. And make sure that those cars are ready to take the green flag at the event. Heck, our coffee maker didn't work. And that's like the one thing I look forward to. The race morning is being the first one up, brewing the coffee for the team, and somehow on the off season, it broke and I had a half gallon of water all over the trailer counter and floor. Luckily, one of our team members had one in his RV, so we're still able to have delicious heritage coffee. But guess what's on our list now? Pre-event, we're checking that coffee maker to make sure that it works, because I have a team that wants to enjoy some delicious coffee and, get rolling for the day. So one last stop. If you've registered for an event and you're not ready again, what's it going to take to get you ready for that event? Do you need to pull the plug on the event? Do you need to pull in some buddies and help? Do you need to get the wife in the garage and help you bleed those brakes? Think about what are the the most critical things that I've talked about in this episode that need to get done to get you on track, and can you get them done? I bet you can just dedicate some time, turn off the Netflix, you know, turn off your phone to shut the laptop for the evening, get out in the garage and make a few of those things happen. So there you have it, your last minute survival guide to get you on track for this season for the procrastinating grassroots racer. So over the years, I've kind of coined this phrase. I don't use it very much, but you're the procrastinator racer. Right. No bad dad joke. Anyways, remember, it's not being perfect right out of the gate. It's getting to the track. It's getting on track, it's learning, and it's having a lot of fun at the track. That's what our sport's about. I'd love to hear your stories about last minute prep, and maybe how you missed an event or last minute prep, and how you got to an event. Share it on the socials. Be sure to tag Late to Grid on Facebook and Instagram will chime in, but I really do want to hear those stories. And I also want to thank you for listening. And if you can't share this with a friend, let's grow the sport. Let's get some people involved on track. The more they're out there, the more fun it is, the more we can grow this community and the more events that will pop up as well. And one last thing. Do me a favor. Don't be late to grid.