Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

How SEMA’s Mike Spagnola is Paving New Roads Into Motorsports

• Bill Snow

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In this episode of Late To Grid, we sit down with Mike Spagnola, the President and CEO of SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) — one of the most influential organizations in the automotive and motorsports world.

Mike shares his incredible journey from his early days tinkering in his family’s garage to leading an industry powerhouse that champions innovation, customization, and grassroots racing. We dive deep into how SEMA is actively working to get new people into motorsports, empower young builders and racers, and bridge the gap between car culture and career opportunity.

We talk about:

  • Mike’s personal path into the automotive world
  • How SEMA supports emerging talent and future builders
  • The role of track days, autocross, and HPDE in attracting new racers
  • Why education and access are key to growing the motorsports community
  • SEMA’s evolving initiatives to engage younger generations
  • Insights on the future of the motorsports industry and how YOU can get involved

Whether you're already wrenching on your track car or just curious how to get started, this conversation is packed with inspiration, practical advice, and industry insights.

Let’s grow grassroots racing — one new driver at a time.

🎯 Keywords: Motorsports, Racing, Grassroots Racing, SEMA, Track Day, Autocross, HPDE, Racing Career, Motorsports Journey, High-Performance Driving, Automotive Industry

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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.

How does jumping the fence and getting caught at a local racetrack lead to making sandwiches for corner workers, which leads to leading CMA? Well, we're going to throw the green flag on this episode and find out. Well, as I mentioned, we have Mike here in the Atomic Auto Sports studio. Lucky enough that he took some time out of his busy day to talk to us about motor sports racing, came up here, I and everything that our awesome industry has. Mike, thanks for being here. Really glad to be here. This is fun. I love to talk racing. Some of my podcast, to be honest, can be a little boring, but anytime I can hang with you guys, it's, It's going to be a lot of fun. I can tell. While the other podcast I listened to that you were and you were laughing and having a good time, so. Yeah, that was good stuff. So, many of my guests, we're gonna jump right into it. Many of my guests got involved in cars, in racing because of a family member. And you're. You are no different. It was your uncle who was a Ferrari mechanic, right? Who got you into cars? How did all of that evolve? Yeah, actually, it was my brother in law. So I have a sister that's, older than, you know, ten years older than me. And, she married a guy named Dino DioGuardi, who was a big SCCA racer out here in Southern California. He and his brother Nick were pretty well known around Riverside and Willow Springs and, you know, sort of tracks. And as a young kid, as a seven year old, he would take me to the races. You know, I knew I had an interest in cars there. I was already starting to build model cars and and those sorts of things, but getting out to those racetracks and having the chance to just hang out there and the cars going by him, and it was just in my blood from those days. And, and then he would he had a sports car center in Glendale, and he'd let me come over and change oil and hang out all day with him and just smell cars all day long. So, you know, from early on, and, you know, I was more in that sports car world, and I was a lot of guys my age were in the muscle cars. I was more I was probably the odd dugout hanging around Alfa Romeos and, you know, different, import cars. But, that was my love. So it was, it was really cool. Yeah, it was it because of him that you went to auto shop then? Yeah. You know, it was a few things, I think, you know, they say it. It takes a village to raise a kid. And I had some neighbors on the street, some dads on the street. My dad was a bartender. My mom was an opera singer. So, no, I didn't get any car culture from them, but no, and even in those days, there were, kind of the older kids on the street were coming back from Vietnam and had a few bucks in their pocket. So, you know, the 63 Corvette would run down the street, or a 65 Mustang or a 69, Chevelle would run down the street and I'd run up to the curb to just listen to them go down the street. And then those dads of those, the sons would be working on those cars. So I would hang out with them as well. And then one of the neighbors actually built a shop behind his house, you know, hung out there the whole time. Oh, how fun. Did you ever think that, you know, getting greasy, working on cars? Going to shop class in high school. You'd eventually be leading the Sema organization. I had no idea. I had no idea seven years ago. Eight years ago, that I'd be, you know, leading Sema. And in fact, my wife even asked me once, she said, would you ever want to run Sema? And I said, I don't. I don't think so. It's not my life. I said, that's a lot of hard work. Yeah. And, and here we are. But what an honor. What a joy, what an honor. And, the opportunity. You know, I pinch myself every single day. It just, I, I live it, I forget it. I still feel like I'm a student of it, and, it's just it's just, again, a lot of hard work, but I feel like I can make a difference. I feel like, you know, we can preserve our sport and preserve what we love. And, you know, I worked a lot in legislation as well as just other things. So it's all the things that seniors. Yeah, I do want to do some deep dives into Sema, pri, and kind of what the landscape is to, on the legislative side, when you were in your teenage years, you were telling me before we hit the record button you would make sandwiches to take to the racetrack just to get closer to the racing action. I mean, how many sandwiches were you make and how were you getting to the track? You weren't even 16 yet. So there was a lady name. That was kind of a funny story, but there was a name lady named Lucille Cavanaugh that would make the sandwiches for the course workers at Riverside Raceway. And as a kid, I got to go to Ontario Speedway for its first race, and Evel Knievel was there to jump the cars. So while he was jumping the cars, I jumped the fence to get in the pits, and Lucille caught me. And we got to be, you know, first she got yelled at me and then she was realize my passion. And she's like, well, why don't you come out and make sandwiches with me at, at the racetracks and I'll get you a pit pass. And when we're done making sandwiches in the morning, you can just hang out at the racetrack. So, you know, that was the beginning. And then then, auto shop. I had a, in high school, I took vocational auto shop. And my senior year, it was two years of, the two, two sessions of auto shop. So it was two hours long, and a prominent Sema member came in to my auto shop and said, we're going to give a $200 automotive scholarship to the number one person in this class at the end of the year. And I worked hard and I got I wasn't graded all the other grades, I wasn't great, and, you know, government and all those other things that I get to do today. But, but I was pretty good at auto shop and I was pretty good at turning a wrench. And again, I'd kind of lived in cars by that point. Anyway, I won that scholarship, and the guy that gave it to me was Mickey Thompson. Oh my goodness. So he had gone to my high school and he was the one that presented it to me. And, Wow. So, you know, mentors like that again, that's that village that just the father's on my street, my brother in law, Lucille, all those sort of people, Mickey Thompson, you know, were just. I got to be surrounded by it, you know, here in Southern California. So, gosh, from the time I had a driver's license, I would go to SCCA races on the weekend, any, any sort of race I could get to in Southern California, I would get to. Yeah. You know, and something I like to have called this out in some other episodes, and I don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves. I do want to talk about the racing stuff, but you had opportunities to say yes. You said yes. And it moves you down your journey, whether it be a motorsports journey, a car journey. In your case, you know, if Lucille hadn't caught you and you, you know, you didn't say, sure, I'll come and make some sandwiches. You may not have had the opportunity to hang out at the track that much, and who knows where we'd be today? Know for sure. You know, it's those, so steps along the way. I, you know, I feel again, blessed. I kind of feel that we all have kind of God given talent as well. And, you know, I was able to have that talent that was able to feed it. And, you know, but it also means that especially as a kid, you take a bit of risk, you take a bit of, the ability to take up those opportunities and to understand them and, even just make it sandwiches, even be that grunt worker, that got you that step right. And so when people today want to start at the top, you've got to learn them to do whatever it takes to kind of make that journey up your way. You know, at a high school, I went to work at a Dotson dealership as the delivery driver and, you know, eventually worked myself up to the parts calendar and parts manager and those sorts of things. But, you know, you got to put in that effort. Yeah. And I think I don't I'm a big fan of youth in our industry, and so I don't want this to come off the wrong way. But I think somewhere along the lines, the generations have kind of lost that, that there is a ladder, there is a put your work and you're going to have to have the broom in your hand. You know, you and I have a lot of similar Larry's. We're gonna talk about Datsuns. Let's talk about the dealership for a minute. My first automotive job was I was hired as a porter at a Alfa Eagle Jeep Plymouth Chrysler dealership. Yeah, we didn't sell many, Eagles back then, but, Yeah. And, you know, so I was hired to wash cars. I didn't wash a car for about the first week because the parts manager grabbed me. The service manager grabbed me. I was jumping into the, you know, trying to smash trash inside of a dumpster. But where it took me and what I learned, I look back on those opportunities and I said, I'm so glad I just stuck around and made the most of that. And so where I was going with that is if today's youth can kind of grasp that and understand that, that, okay, this I'm not gonna be doing this forever, but these are the building blocks I need for success. And that's that's been part of your journey. Right? For sure. And, you know, we do here at Sema, hire a lot of people right out of college, but that is part of the journey I tell them about in, you know, it's a, it really is an opportunity to come to Sema and to work in this industry and to be part of it. And we don't get that many openings here because people like to come here and stay. But when there is that opening, we're fortunate to be able to try to get some really good young people coming straight out of college, or especially in our Sema garage, where we've got engineering track opportunities. And we've been really, I'll say lucky. I've had it, but we've got some incredible staff here that are willing to, do that journey. They're willing to, you know, roll up their sleeves and get to work and learn along the way. So, but but I'm same way. I'm a big proponent of that. We do a lot of work with high school and college students. I actually still do that scholarship today. After Mickey died, I took that scholarship program over and still work with kids and other shops. And, we have a lot of college engineering students come here to the garage every year. So I'm a big believer in that as well. Yeah. For sure. So was it the Datsun dealership that sort of gave you that initial interest in Datsun cars? No, I actually had it before, you know, in high school. So when that 243 came out of that 510 and all that, I was, those were in my high school years. And, you know, I went to the Dodson dealership and got the parts manual, the parts in the, in the brochures and all those cars and just dreamed about them. And those were the days of Mack Tilton and and, Bob sharp and, you know, all that John Morton, all the B era stuff in just follow that it and it was, you know, the really the birth of the Japanese Datsun roadsters, all that sort of stuff. So I already had that interest in those cars. And, then right out of high school, I went that summer, I went to the local Datsun dealership and pleaded with the guy to give me a job and again, just just took on as that delivery driver, picking up parts and delivering parts to body shops, whatever I could. So, and it was a chance for me, you know, by that point, I had a Dodson truck and then a 510 and then a 240. So it kind of gave me that opportunity to get the parts at a discount. And oh, yeah, you know, use those for autocross. Back then it was long racing. Back then it was called slalom racing. We would go to, you know, various parking lots and set up cones and, and do slalom racing through the Datsun 240 club and those sorts of things. So, you know, I wanted to do that, before I turned 21 so that when I turned 21 I could go to school, get my driver's license, racing license, and then start racing. Literally, the day I turned 21, I went to pop under at school and, and, so I could start to work on my license. That's great. That was a great lead in to just exactly where I want to go next was, you know, you made the sandwiches. You were hanging out at the track. You were helping. So at 21, you went and got your license. Yeah. How did that class how'd that school go? Was it easy? You got the license and then went racing. Was it harder than you thought? Yeah. So, you know, there were two things you could, I actually went to SCCA school as well. That was just that driver's weekend guy named Danny McKeever was my first instructor who was pretty well known out here in Southern California. And, Danny and I hit it off pretty well. He knew my brother in law so that didn't hurt any. But I would do track days at Willow Springs on my own, which was really stupid because I would drive an MG out to Willow Springs, you know, street tires, everything, go race around the track and then drive the car home. And anything that happened to that car, it would have been dead. Yeah, yeah. So what I would do, those sorts of things, I would, you know, whether it was a 5 or 10 or whatever would drive out to the track. So I got got a chance to get some track time, went to school, got, you know, did fairly well at that. And then, for your second deal, you could either do it through SCCA or at that time you could do it through Bob Fondren. And I was lucky enough to actually, Bob Andre was my teacher, and, so, did that that was a three day course. I think it was about $2,000 back then. It was pretty expensive, but, did that and he signed off my license and started, regional racing in the national racing and, you know, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And it is some Formula continental. And, he did. Did you ever do any production car racing? Yeah, I actually started off in a, in the Dodson 510. Actually before that I did it on and Roadster and then two liter roadster and then a Datsun 510 did a little bit of a two 40s and then moved to Formula Continental and then back then formula B, which is the Lanark today. So and then at some point I kind of ran out of money and talent. Yeah. Yeah. When you start moving up the levels like you did, you're right. Now you're the playing field just gets bigger and bigger and, and more competitive and certainly more expensive. Yeah. I ran against, you know, Steve Saleen and some of those guys and you know, did okay at the regional level and even, you know, a little bit I'd be a third or fourth, fifth place at the national level. But but you know what? The other thing I noticed was, I mean, I really loved it. My number was 27 because I thought by 27 I'd be at Indy. And, and of course, that didn't pan out. But I got to hang out with the guys like Dennis Firestone, who was kind of he was a club racer with us, and he made it. And this all hard. It was for him, a very talented at the club level. But moving up to that IndyCar level was really tough. And, but you know what? I saw those guys, I also saw a lot of guys that were you know, by this time I'm 26, 27, working, trying to figure out a career in my life. And then, but I would see guys 33, 34, 35 and even older, still living at home trying to make it. And, there's like anything. Right? There's just so much talent out there. And, you got to have seat time, you got to have money, you got to have talent. You know, I think I probably realized that, as much as I loved it, I, I had to make a living. I had to make a career. I knew it was important for me. You know, at that point, I was starting to settle down. I married, my wife at 27, and, you know, you start to get other responsibilities, and, I, you know, as much as I loved racing and knew I would continue on at the sport club level, also knew that to make it up to Indy was probably, well, it was a great dream. I didn't think I'd make it. And so, kind of with the business route at that point, but, still did some club work. It was really funny because when I was racing in SCCA, I would see older guys that were out there just for the sport. And I thought, why would you do that? Why would if you're not there to be the winner and be the killer and to be the guy that's going to go, you know, endurance racing or, you know, why would you just come out here and have fun, right? And then as I got older, I was like, okay, I guess I could just I could be a mid-pack guy and, you know, still go out and have fun knowing that, you know, they don't have the time and the effort and even the budget or talent to be a top runner again. But it took that maturity level to learn that. But, you know, I learned so much through, you know, working on race cars and prepping and not being prepared and all that. I think it helped me and business and the life quite a bit. And and even just taking care of your tools and being organized and all of that was great discipline for me because like all of us, you kind of learn that you forgot to tighten something or, you know, you get out on the track and you're a tool drop on the ground. You know. You know, those sorts of things. So, and then even running a team, even trying to, you know, I had some friends that were pit crew. So you kind of learn that, you know, you have to speak up a lot more. You have to understand all those things. So it was it. I do it all the same way again. It was great learning lessons for me and, and a great, you know, life balance. And now I get to watch my kids do the same thing. Yeah. Do you get an opportunity to get on track anymore? You know, you get the 400 Z. Is that got any track time? Yeah. That doesn't you know we've got a, Yes, I do, once in a while. Not as much as I'd love to. We have a radical and, And I, I'm slow. We we, I mentioned my my, I've got three wonderful kids. My two sons are involved in racing and, we'll go out and do track days, and they, they can beat me by. Actually, I hate to admit this. They can beat me by 4 or 5, six seconds a lap. Now, you know, in, in the radicals. But, you know, we'll go out and do that. We've got a few kind of fun cars like that. My youngest son, has an aerial, Adam. So we'll take that out and plug it around a little bit as well. And then, you know, just every once to all get a chance to go out. And I actually had a dozen 240 the vintage car up to about a year ago. Oh, and took that out and, kind of flagged as what was funny about it was the car felt so fast to me. And so what a great handling car in the 70s and 80s. And by today's standards, it's pretty slow and rate no ground, you know, ground effects, none of that in the, you know, you, you realize how much technology has moved along. Yeah. Did you enjoy the vintage racing scene? I did I didn't actually race in vintage, but I went out and did track days. Okay. So, you know, I keep saying I'll get back to it. I wish I had more time. Like, this job keeps me pretty busy and, you know, always trying to balance family time and work time and, you know, the the job does give me the opportunity to, to get out, to see races, to to go to Long Beach for Grand Prix or Formula One race or NASCAR race or, you know, so I'll get it up to do those sort of things from a spectator standpoint. It, it does still make me smile, and it does make me want to jump in the car. But I think my competitive days are over for sure. Well, as long as you still get those opportunities to go do a few laps, put a few smiles on that's, And you get so many other ways that you get to, you know, be close to our sport. With your background in racing, how has that helped you in your role at Sema? Yeah, I think, you know, probably two things. The background in racing. And then I came from a private business. So I was a CMA member. I was a manufacturer. I bought and sold five companies over the years and ran different companies. So the, probably the combination of being in the trenches, manufacturing parts, taking them to market, you know, going through distribution, growing companies, you know, those sorts of things, understanding the nuts and bolts of the market in both the CMA and PRI world were definitely, great experiences for me, along with just that racing world and, seeing friends, knowing friends, and still see some of those friends today. I mean, I just had breakfast with Paul Tanner, who Paul and I raced, in the 70s together. And so, you still have those lifelong friends? Steve Saleen just called me just today, so, you know, having those lifelong friends. But that part of the industry. So between business and between racing and understanding those markets and coming from that world has really give me great experience to better understand our our customers, our members are the industry in itself, right? We you know, we get 160,000 people that come to the Sema show that are all in this industry. We get 45,000 people to come to the PRI show that are all in the racing industry. So, my ability to connect with them, talk to them, ask them what their, are struggling with and then seeing where we can find solutions to help the industry really has allowed me to speak, to speak and walk the walk, I guess. Yeah. One more, one more question as relates to racing and Sema slash PRI. And then we're going to get into more of the deeper stuff on Sema. So one of the things I always like to talk about is as folks are moving along their motorsports journey, they can be somebody. It's sitting on the couch now and wants to go do their first autocross or track day or whatever. Since you know everything, Sema, everything PRI. If you had to give someone some advice on where to start to learn what resources it could be a member company, it could be something Seymour PRI offers any advice on where they could start to research getting on track and getting involved in motorsports? I think probably especially for a grassroots site, you know, and again, it depends on what kind of motorsport they want to do. There's there's obviously local drag tracks, track still open. There's Thursday night racing. You know, learn your skills with your street car there if you like. And then, boy, formula drift is a big thing now for young kids. And, you know, there's schools out here that you can learn from the drift. And, you know, I'm obviously a big proponent of not racing on the street, but taking the car to the track and then through SCCA, there's a lot of great opportunities. Now at 18 years old, you can get out and and do, a bunch of just amateur racing and slalom course, you know, time trial, that sort of thing. So, you know, I think everybody feels like you really learn quick. You're, you think you're a pretty good driver, and you maybe you do, some some video game stuff. Now, you know, again today. You know, the video game stuff's pretty real. You know, we have a simulator at the house in the. My sons will simulate in my grandson. Now, we'll simulate a lot. And I think it does help. I think there's definitely some real that I don't know if I was a big fan of that in the beginning, but you can literally dial a new track down in some of these simulators will vibrate and, you know, you get steering input and those sort of things. So, you know, I do think that that is a way now that you can get started and then, getting out to that track. But it really is fun to see how everybody thinks they're the greatest driver. And then they get out and click the brakes and, you know, get out in the dirt and miss the rumble strip and do all those sort of things. So, it's all about seat time, as we all know. And, yeah. So, you know, I think all those sorts of things, I think all those sort of grassroots racing, I'm a big grassroots racing fan. As much as I love the pro sports, the ability to get out with your buddies, to get out and build a car and test it and, you know, of course, having the safety gear and all those sort of things, you know, that's number one. It's great for our industry, right? Because we sell almost products in those parts. But it really is the opportunity to, enjoy the sport. Yeah. And the paddock is filled with such awesome people. I don't care if you're at a, you know, fifth mile dirt track or you're at a drag strip, you're, you know, you're at a big track or you're just out, you know, Nelson Ledges Road course in Gatesville, Ohio, that paddock is filled with people that want to grow the sport. They want to help one another. They're willing to lend you a ranch or a part to make sure that you stay on track. And I think as soon as someone understands that and they feel it and they see it, they're hooked on grassroots racing. Absolutely. You know, it. When, you know, years ago, I would take my, my kids to the races. And there was at a particular race we were at in the driver allowed my kids to sit in the car and I've got pictures of it, but they would talk about that forever. And it really was touching to me. We were at Orange Show last week. My two boys run legends and right after the race, happened to be the last race of the night where they let the crowd into the pits and both my boys had doors open and they were letting five year old, six year old kids sit in the car. And it I happened to I went to use the restroom and then wonder what's next. And then I came back and, you know, it was really fun for me to see that they now pass that on, to strangers, to let them sit in the race car and talk to them and, and, take pictures with them, you know, those sorts of things. Yeah. It, it when you let someone sit in your car, whether it's at a car show, you know, race night, wherever that is a memory a child will will have forever. It doesn't mean that they might end up in motorsports, but they're going to remember that cool experience, how welcoming somebody was. And that goes a long way. Yeah. And we you know, we have this thing here even at Sema in Peoria, where we love the ability to find people that are car curious and turn them into, you know, car, car people. And, so that's one of our models around here is to take the car curious and really, you know, we do that through the Sema show and through a consumer show that we do on Friday and Sema first that we do on Friday night. But, really get those people to, you know, to become fans and, whether they, you know, they buy a 30 year old, you know, car and start to work on it, or start to build that car for the track. But, it's, it's leading in that next group of consumers. You know, if you think about even this industry that, you know, we're a $337 billion economic impact industry, annually. But we got to continue to have that opportunity to bring new people into it. And we're really fighting for discretionary money. Right? So, you know, they could go buy golf clubs or they could go buy an intake manifold. And we prefer that about the intake manifold. Yes. So that's a great segue into what seem is working on. Let's just jump right in to, you know, legislation. And you know, there's a lot of stuff at the federal level with, emissions and the EPA. There's state, bills. I know you've successfully, I think, successfully fought two of them. So what is Sema focused on in terms of the legislative landscape right now? Yeah, so lots of things, both at the federal level and at the state level. And, it was one of the things, I took this job over is CEO, I came on to Sema to create the Sema garage. I sold my last company and came on to Sema to, develop the Sema garage, which is a product development center on a three year contract. And I'm I'm now 12 years into my three year contract, but, so, the one area that I was probably least comfortable with coming into the CEO job was the government large rig. I just, you know, well, I vote, you know, my local voting that wasn't really involved in politics. And so I got thrown into the deep end. And, and now there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not doing something in the lunch rig side of the industry. And, so, and you do have to be active, but we do have to do as an industry and as enthusiasts, we have to have our voice heard. So we decided to really invest in the the, ledge rig area because there were a lot of laws coming out against us and we were getting run over. So we took the team in DC from five people. Up to 14 and, brought a woman in named Karen Bailey who is just amazing, comes from an industry of, being able to fight for your rights and those sorts of things. So we are now very active, politically and again at both the state and federal level. You know, at the fed level, we were, at some of this was actually the state by state. We were against TV mandates. And it's not that we don't think EVs are cool. They're great. They're a great opportunity and great technology. We just don't think that the government should put their thumb on the scale and say, you're going to drive, and even EV only if it fits your needs and it fits what you want. And fits your lifestyle, you know, great, but it shouldn't be mandated. And so we've been really active in all that, the work that President Trump signed against mandates was our wording. Exactly. And so we were able to, work on that. We're currently working in California on a Congressional Review Act, a Sierra which is seldom used. But, it's to overturn the EV mandates in California. And so if we're successful there, that, will affect 14 other states. And, again, I think there are so many technologies out there right now that should continue. You know, look, America was built on UN innovation. And to say that there's only one technology that you can innovate, we think is wrong, I mean, there's opportunity and hydrogen formula one's looking at B10 engines on alternative fuels including hydrogen. So there's hydrogen. There's obviously hybrids. There's low carbon fuels. Now there's, synthetic fuels. There's all these things that we really believe can continue. We're all for clean air. We just think there's a lot of ways to get there. And depending on your driving needs, you should be able to pick the vehicle you want. So we're really active there. You know, and then at the state level, there's stuff that pops up all the time. Recently in Oregon, there was a, a bill to eliminate leaded fuels at racetracks, and we were successful at beating that down. Currently here in California for the street, we're working with Jay Leno on metals law, which is right now, if you have a car in 1967 or, sorry, 76 or later, it has to go through mass emissions testing every two years. And, and so we're trying to get that other states are rolling 25 years. We're trying to get it to a rolling 35 years. And part of the problem is that here in California, look, if it doesn't have an OBD two port, you have to go find an emissions station that's got a dyno on it. And those are tough to find out. They, those emission stations don't all have that equipment. The equipment's not being made anymore for those sort of stations. And so if you do find a station and you have to drive 60 miles to go find that station, they can charge you more. And we're talking about, you know, vintage vehicles, right? We're talking about older cars, 1976 that are typically driven every day anyway. So you could you know, you could put 60 miles, 120 miles round trip just to find the emission station. And, so we believe that, it should be a rolling 35 years and we're making our way through that process right now. Okay. So there's a lot of stuff that goes into, you know, advocating, you know, for good legislation or the repeal of legislation. And there's a lot of a lot of folks that are meeting with, you know, elected officials and things like that. But what can the grassroot grassroots racer do to make sure that they are supporting things that Sema is getting behind? How does you know, how does that average racer average, you know, let's just call it a consumer. How do they get involved and how do they advocate to help your efforts. Yeah. So you know, you can go to schema.org schema.org and learn there. We also have Sema sand sand. And that's a grassroots organization that we have that we send out newsletters and we'll say things along the line of, it again, it may maybe at the state level of, a in Alabama, they're trying to shut down this racetrack. And it's, for these reasons and, it hasn't it doesn't have anything to do with somebody trying to sell the property. It's for other reasons. And, we want you to be able to write letters to your local congressman or senator. Typically we have a link there. So it makes it really easy where you just click this link and, put in your zip code and I'll tell you your local, legislator, and we want to make sure you're understanding that, you know, we're against this, that we're for this or whatever it might be. So it really is going to take, we're working really hard to work with all the different associations, all the trade organizations, all the different racing groups to build bridges, because we have to have a voice. I mean, we've seen too many things get shut down. And there's stuff that, you know, sometimes we don't know about it in the beginning. And the best way to learn about it can be from a local racer or a local enthusiast that says, hey, did you guys know that this is going on? And we'll dig into it, like, okay, as much as we I mean, there are so many rules and so many laws come up. We have this team that just scours new potential introductions of laws every single day, but it's impossible to catch them all. So. Right. And especially at the local grassroots level, that can be difficult. And we need those enthusiasts to be our voice. Yeah. So I want to remind, the listeners$337 billion industry. Right. So when we have tracks closed, we have restrictions made. Those are jobs. That's tax revenue for local communities or states. It's a it could be a really big impact if nobody speaks up for all of this. So I just met the guys at Willow Springs Raceway, and I'm really excited to hear that they're going to keep it open and they're going to keep it open for racing. It's not going to be a housing development. And, we need people like that. You know, for us now and again, my kids circle track race, we are down to orange, Speedway out in Riverside. We have to go to Bakersfield, which is a couple hour drive. So, the ability to keep race tracks open. Really important. And let's face it, there aren't racetracks open. People are going to race on the streets, young kids are going to race on the streets. And so, you know, that's not good. That's not good for any of us. It's not good for the sport. All right, Mike, let's go ahead and let's talk about the shows. We're gonna start with Sema, which is this little car event you have out in Las Vegas, right? Yeah. It's, takes up just a little bit of square foot footage in the convention center. What, for? Someone that doesn't know what is Sema? So Sema, of course, is the, you know, it's this whole trade organization, all those things we just talked about. But the Sema show is what everybody knows. And it's really funny because when I talk to people about, they say, what do you do? And I said, I work for Sema. They say they live in Las Vegas because that's the only thing they know. Right? And it's yeah, it's four days a year where we do this amazing trade show. But we just talked about all those other things we do during the year. But so the show itself is obviously the crown jewel that is the largest automotive trade show in the United States, obviously the largest show in Las Vegas. It's bigger than CBS and some of these other shows that are out there. It is, four days of just pure car everything. I mean, from lowriders to lifted trucks to tuner cars, Japanese cars, muscle cars, crazy builds. It is a business to business show. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It is now open to the public. On Friday you can buy, that's new for us, but you can buy a ticket to the show. And then Friday night we have Sema first, which is more cars and more crazy stuff. Nitro Circus, in rock bands. So it is, it's again a business, a business show. It is. It covers 3,000,000ft². Believe it or not, it's a one point 2,000,000ft² of tradeshow booths. 2500 manufacturers show up with their booths, with showing up all the newest products and different things they have to sell from guys with valve springs to, you know, superchargers. So just about everything in between suspension components. I mean, if you're a manufacturer in this industry, it's almost mandatory. You have to be at the Sema show and then all the buyers that come along with it. So it is really a chance to celebrate the industry, to do business, to learn about the newest products. We do, we do almost 100 educational seminars, speaker show up, race card. I mean, Mario Andretti shows up every single year. Lots of lots of other, TV stars and rock stars and, you know, they can get into the show. They come to the show? Yeah. It is, it's a who's who of the industry that the builders. I've gone to three Sema shows and, I can't wait to get to the next show. 2025. The builders are off the hook. I can't believe. So. On the outside of the Sema show, you've got these huge lifted trucks. And I'm not a tall man. I'm 54. I can walk underneath these things, but they are the shiniest vehicles you've ever seen. The attention to detail inside the show is is off the hook as well because you've got, you know, people that are they have products and services and they're doing this for the industry. They're doing that for the industry. You want to do anything or sell to people in this industry. It's where it's at. And I gotta tell you, I always say, if you're not learning, you know, you're dying. Basically, you're not growing, you're dying. Those seminars and workshops that are put on are awesome. You know me, I love taking the business ones. You know, you got Dan Con giving, you know, marketing updates and what's yeah, what's happening in digital landscape. It just you walk away with so much information, so many great relationships. You see a lot of cool stuff. You're around a lot of cool people. And I'm so I'm so excited that there's now the the B2C, on Friday crowd. What led to that? You know, and it's the a couple things. You know Sema has done what it's done forever. But it's it's the probably the biggest, most desirable car show that nobody could get to. And and we've, you know, even to expand just our brand and the ability to connect with more and more people, the ability to connect with consumers. Again, we all have to band together in this legendary stuff. And so the opportunity to connect with those people, the opportunity to, get car curious people or even, consumers who are already fans and are involved, from a hobby, you know, those are the influencers, if you think about it, it's the it's the person that, you know, works on his car on the weekends and is a hobbyist and maybe takes it to a car show or takes it out to a racetrack, even though they're not in their industry. They could be anything, right? They could work anywhere, electrician, whatever it might be. But they are really are influencers because they love the sport, they love the hobby, they love all that. And when they are working on their car and or talking to anybody else, they become the influencers. They become the people that say, hey, you know what? Yes. If you would need this part, go to Summit Racing or go, you know, you should be buying a little Brock manifold or whatever it might be, right? The suspension pieces. So allowing that consumer in and allowing them to come to the show and allowing them to see the products, as a consumer and as a buyer of those products. And then again, the ability for them to just grass roots talk to everybody else about their products and what they know. And, they become kind of a local expert, the neighborhood expert. And so we want to feed that. Great. So two more questions on the Sema show. What is your pro tip for someone that's luckily lucky enough to attend? What's your pro tip for attending this? The show? If you're coming for more than a day, bring good shoes. You know you. It is, again to try to walk it all. If you walked every aisle it's 32 miles and it's amazing. I mean, I walk, what? I'm there. I typically walk about 11 miles a day, so, that seems to be the norm around, the night is around, so bring plenty of water, a walk. You really have to plan because you're not going to see everything. If you come Friday as a consumer, you're not going to get to see everything. We I think we worked it out. And if you got to see every booth, you have less than a minute in every single booth. So, you, you have to decide what. And it's broken down by hulls, right? So there's a wheel, a tire haul, there's a truck haul, there's a performance haul. There's other accessory hauls. So kind of understand, look at the map ahead of time and know what you want to do. Plan for it. Be good. Prepared to walk a lot for sure. Any funny stories from the Sema show? Some oddity you had to deal with or something your team brought to you? Like, we really got to talk about this. There's there's there's, there's so many there's so many other. The one that comes to mind immediately is, I had I guess I could tell the story. I had it, I, I get a chance to walk around with some pretty cool folks, and I got to walk around with, Richard Petty once and more than once. But, he and I was trying to get him from one hall to another, and, we were kind of walking through the crowd, and they all see a voluptuous woman drop something and bent down to pick it up and picked it up and just kind of smiled. And Richard and I walked by and he turned. He took his glasses off for a second. He goes, son, I think she did that for you and me. And just the way he said, it was like he was trying to be very professional about everything and try to get him to this crowd. And and it was just one of those moments I'll always remember that he, he just he just we just had to laugh about it. Oh, man. That's great story. All right, let's shift gears and go over to Indianapolis from Las Vegas for the preshow. Performance racing industry. This is where business gets done. I think that might even be one of your taglines. Right? Yeah. For the for the show. Again, for those that don't know, what is the pre show that happens every December in Indianapolis. So it's, this year it's going to be December 11th through 13th in right downtown Indianapolis at the convention center. And it is a pure racing show. So while the Sema show has racing and it has custom car and it has lifted trucks and it has lowriders and it has really everything automotive, the prize show is hardcore racing. It is all the you know, most of those components are legal for the street. I mean, we're talking about real hardcore racing. We're talking about sprint cars and drag cars and all of the, you know, you're going to mention anything to do with racing. So very hardcore racing, very hardcore products, about 45,000 people again, business to business. And we just celebrate and we do it in December because that's the off time for racing. The while it's cold in Indianapolis and all those sorts of things, it gives the racers a chance to plan for the following year and again to see the products, the newest things and talk to the manufacturers directly about some of their product needs and what's going on. And again, just to celebrate everything racing, we do seminars and lots of drivers show up. And it's just fun to see, you know, your favorite driver walking the rails and looking at products. So, you know, Tony Stewart shows up every year and just, you know, it's fun to see him. And he's there to learn. He's there to talk to manufacturers. He's there to talk to different people in the racing industry to see what's going on. Yeah, it really is a neat trade show because just like you're saying, you could walk down and you want to talk to someone about how does this standalone ECU work? Because you could call tech line. But if you have the opportunity to talk to, you know, a lot of times they have salespeople and engineers in the booth. Hey, here's my build. Here's what I'm trying to do. Here's, you know, they'll walk you through it, right? And you can start to connect all those dots together at one show. Now you're not you're over talking to somebody else about an engine component, maybe somebody else about a fuel cell and fuel pump that's going to go along with that standalone ECU. So it really is, you know, where business gets done. And Atomic Auto Sports, which is our business, you know, we're a business member. So I love the business lounge. Yeah. It makes me look like a rock star because I'll I'll tell somebody, hey, thank you. But yeah, I was like, hey, we need it. We need to have a meeting. We're going to meet in the business lounge. And then they're like, wow, this is the coolest thing ever. A lot of great conversations and the staff is always so awesome. I do I joked with you before, you know, hit record that, you know, I can't wait till I can book the rooms right as soon as the rooms are open, you know, boom. We're booking, put those dates on a calendar. So, is that to where it's only business. The business? Or can the average Joe come in as well? Yeah, it's only business. A business, I will tell you that. We will be announcing soon a really special opportunity through anybody that's a member of SCCA. So as a weekend racer, if you're an SCCA member, we're going to have an opportunity to have you come to the show so that that does kind of, stretch us a little bit more into the enthusiast or the weekend warrior sort of guy, where in the past it's been hardcore racer guys only. So, well, there's some really serious SCCA racers. There's also the kind of the weekend warrior guy that is now going to get to come to the The Fury show. So, look for that news to come out here soon at, pure awesome A.com and through SCCA. All right. So I have three more questions for sure. The first is is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about? We could go on for hours, but, I think we covered a lot. I was really happy to, have this conversation. We can, you know, when we get to this show this year, I'm going to go in the business lounge, and you and I are going to race. How's that look? Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Last, day, two more questions. So, folks want to learn more? You already said pre.com. I think it's sema.org. Those are the two great places to go and learn anywhere else. Yeah. Again sand sand Centcom is our, Sema action network group. And, that's something that we, you can learn a lot from. We do have newsletters. We do have a lot of things kind of from a ledge rig standpoint where you can learn about what's going on and be active, to keep this hobby alive, to keep the sport alive. Awesome. We're gonna put links, to all those in the show notes. So the final question, I need you to think back to those racing days. Were you ever late to grid? I don't think so. In fact. In fact, I mean, I couldn't wait to get the grid. I, now, maybe I didn't always have, you know, all the proper equipment on, but but I, I couldn't wait to get to it. I just it gave me if I was late to grid, it would make me nervous. And I needed that time. I mean, I was I was there before, you know, when the when the race before me was starting, I was already on the grid, and, it just gave me that chance to calm myself. Kind of walk through in my mind what I wanted, you know, to think about, kind of thinking about, okay, you blew this corner. This is the right way to do it and just mentally get prepared. And so, I don't remember a time being late to grid. I really don't. That's good. Well, Mike, it was great having you on the podcast. You sharing a little bit more about Sema, PRI, and certainly your motorsports background. It was great to be with you. There really is. This is one of those ones I you know, again, we could talk racing and that kind of stuff all day long. So, happy to do it.