Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

It’s Never Too Late to Chase Your Racing Dream

• Bill Snow

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This week on Late to Grid, we sit down with Jon Krolewicz to dive into his incredible motorsports journey. He shares how a third-grade book report on the Indy 500 sparked a lifelong passion , and how a chance meeting with a pro driver his own size transformed his dream into a plan.

Jon offers practical wisdom for anyone looking to get started or level up their game. He reveals the two biggest lessons he learned from karting: the importance of budgeting and how to harness your fear. Jon also talks about his "toy job" working at Firestone to fund his racing and a pivotal sponsorship story that taught him to think bigger.

Beyond the track, Jon explains how his current role with the SCCA is focused on making racing more accessible, emphasizing that anyone can find their joy in the sport, whether it’s behind the wheel or in the paddock.

This episode is packed with stories and inspiration that prove it's never too late to chase your racing dream.

Race season is here. If you need to catch up on setup, or have something that needs repaired, you need to be Atomic prepped.  Get to  https://atomicautosports.com/ to get your car ready to get out there next weekend. 

If you're chasing lap times, you need a track ready setup for your car.  Get to AtomicAutosports.com to get your car scheduled to get you on the podium. 

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.

Would you climb a fence to meet A.J. Foyt? This week's guests did just that. I have John Crawley, aside from the SCCA, and we talk about John's motorsports background, and this guy has raced everything, including a prototype at the Rolex 24. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. Well, John, it's great to have you on the Late to Grid podcast. You're well known in the SCCA world. You're well known in the motorsports community, so it's going to be great to hear your motorsports journey and some of the things that you have to share about our sport. It's great to be here and I'm excited about, you know, a chance to to share and talk and, maybe get more well-known. I don't know if that's always good, but we'll we'll see. Right. We'll we'll make you famous to a couple people, at least. Well, I want to start, with with what sparked your motorsports interest. And it was a book report, I think, in the third grade about the Indy 500. What? What about that book report? Got you interested? You know, I and I had always been interested in cars. I my first word was actually car. And so my my mom in particular would buy me on every birthday, she'd buy a race car with my whatever age, my name, whatever age was. That was the number she would go find. And come third grade, it was, you know, time for one of those first book reports that you do. And I remember picking up that book and reading that book. And the first chapter was Indy Car and Indy car, Indy 500. And the second chapter, I think was NASCAR, and then sports car racing and Formula One. It was just all of these varieties of cars. So here was me that knew what what a race car was and all of a sudden this door opened and I went, wow, there's an entire world out there. And in particular, you know, the Indy 500 being the first chapter. That was the thing that got my attention the most. I, I wish I had that book report. I wish I had that book. I've looked a number of times. But, later that year, we found out that you could get general admission for the Indy 500 that you didn't have to have, like, tickets handed down by generation. Like, the stories would go. And so my dad and I drove up, in a little red Dodge called, camped in the car the night before. Went into the infield, talked our way into the back of somebody's pickup truck, and I watched the Indy 500. I watched that start. That's a super vivid memory for me. I watched Danny Sullivan spin. I watched Danny Sullivan go on to win. And, you know, it was this, you know, from that book report on it was just this world that just kept opening up with with all these varieties, all these cars, all of these different facets that that has continued to hold my interest. That's awesome. Camping in a Colt. Tight quarters. Yeah. Yeah. And you still to, Well, yeah. Camping outside. We we parked, like, randomly on a street that was there, in the town of Speedway, Indiana. And since then, we we the people that we ended up camping in front of their yard, we made lifelong friends with them. We've attended weddings, and, you know, I, I text them daily. It's been it's been kind of an incredible journey. And what started with like, hey, there's a parking spot. Let's go parking it for, for the next day. That's a big part of our sport too, is just making the connections, the relationships. Everyone's so welcoming. And, do you still park in front of the house for the event? We do. Now, I'll either stay inside or, a lot of times we'll, like, set up a tent and camp in the backyard, because there's all kinds of friends and all kinds of people and and in particular with that, you know, we, we talk about inside the SCCA, come for the cars and stay for the people. And you know, the reality in a, in a situation like that or, you know, even in Speedway, Indiana, you're kind of coming for the people and staying for the people. And and so it's, you know, everybody there has been so welcoming and, and I think that was my first introduction to the social side of motorsports. Like, yes, the cars are awesome. Yes, the racing is awesome. But yes, the people that you meet, the people that you could just shake with are also really, really cool. They are. And there's 300,000 of them at the end of. And yeah, at the, at the Indy 500. And then you know, another, you know, 70,000 SCCA members and you know, however many, all of the series and places that I've run with over the years, you know, whether it's NASCAR or a Porsche club or anything, right? It just that circle of friends just keeps expanding. Yeah. So I'm going to, share a personal experience real quickly. I, I'm just back from solo nationals, my very first ever solo nationals. I was there in a support role. Yeah. Thanks. Did not compete. But when you talk about the people, it opened our eyes about autocross. Like I grew up auto crossing in high school, SCCA auto crossing and solo events. And, to get back and get that close to an event that many people, the parties, the camaraderie, the help. It's a it's amazing. So, you're right, it does come down to the people. And and that's I just I've been to, I don't know, 21 or 22 solo nationals now, missed this year because I was on vacation and out of the country. And when I came back and I heard the stories, coworkers and and how they did and friends and how they did, I realized that I didn't necessarily miss the driving aspect of it. You know, I can replace they can kind of replace that with an autocross coming up or race coming up. But I certainly missed sharing those experiences that that my friends got to have. And so I'm super glad to hear that you went and and kind of saw that, because that event is just as special as any other pro event that we would talk about in terms of what it's like to be there, what it's like to experience it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the club spec Mustang in my future. I, I drove the compact Miata last year. The SCCA owns one. And so I was like, hey, John, go drive it. I did okay on it. There's a big trophy right on the shelf. Nice. But, you know, both those classes are so cool, and, you know, especially as the world moves faster and and jobs, you know, take attention, you know, having something where, you know, like, this is the formula. And yet it can still go be like, hey, I can go to work every day in this. I can go pick up groceries in this. You know, I think I think those classes are excellent. So I'm glad to hear that. Yes. It it sparked, your interest and has your attention. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's see, you're back to your motorsports journey. So you did a book report, you went to an Indy 500, you got the bug. When did you realize you wanted to get behind the wheel and get on track? Man, I we used to keep this. My mom used to get these books for us, or, like, children's books, you know, like, here's the first lock of hair and then those kind of things, like, taped into it, almost like a scrapbooking thing. And I can read every year what I want it to be when I grow up. And, marine biology was is still a huge part and passion of my life. And so every year from kindergarten on up, it was marine biologist and it. And then in the third grade, I guess right around my birthday, which would have been after the book report before the Indy 500 I wrote down and maybe a racecar driver, and that stayed there for a few years and started going to more races. Which is the crazy story in and of itself, because we had 2500 and I'm like, it's six weeks later, we went to the firecracker 400 down in Daytona. Then both those we did as like drive, you know, or the Daytona drive into the infield stand on the roof of the car. We did the Indy car race at Pocono in August of that same year. In August of 85 and I got to meet A.J. Foyt. When I say got to meet him, what I mean is, I absolutely jumped the fence, snuck into the pits, and walked up to a very angry A.J. Foyt and asked him for his autograph. And two weeks later after that, my dad said, man, this is my childhood hero. And my kid, just, like, was brave enough to go jump over fence and go meet him. I've got to do it. And I don't think I can jump over a fence to go do it. So my dad is a teacher, English teacher. At the time, he knew some folks with a couple of local newspapers and he said, hey, what's the deal with credentials? And one of those, one of those newspaper editors said, oh, man, we're always looking for somebody to, like, bring us back pictures or tell stories. That's not just pulled off the AP wire. And so my dad went to the his first race credential was the 1985 southern 500, which of course is the one that if you follow motorsports and particularly NASCAR, that was when Bill Elliott became million dollar bill. And so the media was huge around it. And I, I got to meet A.J. in a much calmer environment that weekend. Still did some sneaking in, to Victory lane. I don't know how much of those stories I should tell. But we started regularly going to NASCAR and any car races with credentials. And so the drivers that I knew, you know, I went from, I know what a race car is to here's how racing you know, here's the big world of racing. And immediately the drivers that I meet are A.J. Foyt and Richard Petty. And, you know, I mean, I remember that weekend at Darlington, Kyle Petty came over a Richard came over and said, hey, do you want do you want a drink? And handed me a Pepsi through a fence. And like ten minutes later, Kyle Petty comes over. He goes, hey, do you want a drink? And it's like, your dad already got us one. And and so the people I was meeting, you know, I met David Pearson that weekend and, you know, later on, I would, you know, meet and get to talk to Tim Richmond over and over. And so there was this number of years where the race car driving that I knew and the race car drivers that I met were still people that are larger than life. And so there was a lot of, I'll never be able to do that. And so it was this like this dream that I could never compare myself to these giants. And then, we got invited to a test session in Indianapolis, with A.J. after he hurt his legs at Elkhart Lake and, 1990. We want to when you come back in the race car. We were there. We were like guests. We were in the pits and all of that. And I remember being in the garage area and there were three other drivers testing that weekend, and one of them walked around the corner and it was John Andretti. And here's me at like, whatever I was, you know, at that time, five foot five, five foot four, I think I was 14 years old. And John Andretti walks around the corner and all of a sudden it's not, you know, A.J. Foyt or Richard Petty. That's like super tall. All of a sudden. It's a person that's like my size and, like, I could kind of draw the kangaroo. It's there. And I just standing in that garage, I remember going, wait a minute, if he can do this, I can do this. And, and so that was the first time that I was like, okay, how do I actually how do what what do I need to do to actually get started with this? And that started the journey of, okay, I'm going to save up, I'm going to buy a racing go kart, I'm going to I'm going to go racing. And, but, you know, whatever this takes and, you know, so that's where that's where it went from. I'm a fan to okay, what is there a career here. That's really cool. Did you end up going go karting? I did, saved up work, work jobs with my uncle, did a lot of, drywall stuff, did some plumbing with, with another uncle. Kept, kept all the money in a, in an old, like, VHS movie case, saved up, bought a go kart, bought an old trailer, bought a trailer hitch for my dad's Nissan stands. Like it was a total like, what can I what can I do? I think the total investment, like, helmet, kart, motor, everything was like $1800 or $1700 or something like that. And it was every penny I'd basically ever made at that point. But I could now go total racetrack and sit and, sit in a racing vehicle and go drive it. Oh, man, I love that story. What track did you reset? That's a track that's actually pretty local to me. It was called Palmetto Super Track. So South Carolina being South Carolina, it's, you know, like A18 mile oval. So pretty short, asphalt, which is cool. Most of the ones were, were dirt. That was the first time in there. And I remember getting in that cart and I absolutely boiled the brake fluid out of the, out of the little reservoir because I was scared. Absolutely. Like, shitless. Wow. When your parents must have been supportive. Yeah. As you know, they've always been a, you know, we're supportive of what you like and what you like to do. Having school teachers as parents, the. There wasn't funding necessarily. But yeah, my, my dad, I think gosh, I think it was probably 12 years or 13 years before I went to a race that my dad wasn't, wasn't at, as you know, as crew in some capacity. So, so, yeah, so supportive of of what I wanted to do and helpful of that, which is I mean, it's imperative, you know, especially with motorsports. What did you learn in karting that you applied later in either racing or even business life? I think that, you know, the first thing you learn in motorsports, you know, we like to talk about, you know, apexes and cornering and all of that. But I think the first thing you learn is budgeting an organization. And so, you know, I remember like going to the kart tracks and like, well, I can't afford a kart stand. So I had a couple little milk crates and that was my card stand. And so you immediately learned, like what you can, what you can do, how to how to how to make things happen kind of no matter what. And that's still something that, that I apply, you know, and I talk to people like about this a lot. I don't the answer is not know the answer is how. And and so that's the big thing that I learned. You know, one of the things that I learned so much stuff has been really, really blast. I talked about scaring the absolute crap out of myself, that first day. And I was pretty distraught and, a month later, the first race was like an April. And so a month later. So I'm, I'm at the Indy 500 and I'm talking to Jim Crawford, who'd we gotten to know? Some. So Jim had driven formula one, and now he was doing Indy cars. And I kind of confessed to him almost like like, man, I was I was scared. I don't I don't think I can do this. And I remember Jim looked at me and said that if you weren't scared, I'd be more worried than if you are scared. All of us are scared when when we get in that car, when we push that limits, you know, when we go to the end and that's okay. And what you're going to learn is how to either harness or handle or or aim the that fear. And so, you know, that's still something I remember where it's like, all right. It's, it's okay to, to, you know, to be nervous sometimes it's okay to be scared just because we're not going to show it on the outside and we're going to be really tough. You know, there's a lot of emotions that you have to understand and accept and handle when you're in the car. And so whether it's the budgeting or the organization or that sort of emotional mental approach, you know, those are two things that I definitely carry with me all the time. Yeah. I'm thinking back to the book where your mom kept all the memories. Yeah. And, and and maybe she didn't keep it in the high school, but was there a time when marine biologist wasn't even part of the what I want to do? And it was just racecar driver? Yeah. I would say that there was kind of a weekend, I used to go to SeaWorld all the time, like we have like 4 or 5, 4 or 500 miles away. When we drive down there, I mean, you know, ten weekends a year, because it was the place that I could go to, you know, to experience sea life in a way that I couldn't. You know, I can't go to Washington. I can't, you know, go to all these places that I would need to see. All, all, all of those animals. And I went down in 1991, and I realized that we were going down on 24 hour a day, a weekend, and all day, all day. I was sitting there at SeaWorld going, I don't think I want to be here tomorrow. I think I want to go to the 24 Hours of Daytona. And I been a couple of times. And so that night my dad had, you know, driven down with me and I looked at it and I said, hey, when the car closes, I want to drive over Daytona. And it goes, what, you want to come back here tomorrow? No, no, I want to do that. So we drove over Daytona and, you know, bought that general admission ticket and went in. And I remember that being a very strong moment of, no, this is this is what I want to do. And in a different way than the marine biology. And so it was the book wasn't being kept. But if it if there was a moment where it disappeared, it was that weekend. Wow. That's. Yeah. I'm impressed that, you know, ten weekends a year going down to SeaWorld, you know, kind of keep connected to one of your interests and passions and then being able to pivot and head over to Daytona and and the rest is history, as they say. No, I didn't I think I've been to SeaWorld twice since then. Yeah. You know, and that was 19, 1991. So yeah. Yeah. So, go karting. When did you move into cars? I probably karting a couple of years and I'd gotten in with the local SCCA region, the regional executive, and a couple of other folks had had race cars and I, I knew, you know, when the looking forward of I want to go do more racing stuff, I knew that I needed to be involved in racing. So and I'd been create, you know, go karting and then crewing for them. And basically as soon as I had the driver's license, I could get a car. I bought a Honda CRF, and I started out of crossing. And so there were weekends for a while where Saturday was go kart day, and I'd get back from the go kart race and immediately just climb into the cracks. You know, there were some some nights because those races were go into the night when we might finish it. 1230 or 1 a.m., come back home, climb in the cracks and drive to an autocross in Florida or, you know, Tennessee or North Carolina or something like that. And so for a while, it was twice a weekend. Auto crossing taught me how to work on cars versus go karts, and I started saving up money. Had some that my great grandmother had put away for me for college, and I used some of that to, excuse me, to buy a, to buy an old U-Haul box truck and found a Formula Ford for $5,500 and, this is in 1997. And so all of a sudden now, I like, had I was like, okay, I have a road racing operation, and I'm. And I it's time to go to driver school. Y open wheel. 500. All right there sense. There was not really in my mind. I like at one point I was like, I should I should get a car and I should maybe go improve touring, racing or something like that. And to build one of those was going to be, you know, at that point, 4500 to $6000. And so when the open wheel car came up for the same price, there there was not another question in my mind. Sure. Yeah. And how long did you race the Formula Ford? Do we count the one that's sitting in my garage and say that it hasn't ever ended? I'm sure I raced that one through 2001. Really? So 4 or 5 years in that, did a couple of one offs in, like, the Czech season Lyari that I mentioned. He had a finish in the continental. And so I got to, to drive it. There was another guy with in Atlantic. I got to kind of play play with that. And that was the point where I was in this. I've. I've built the skills that I, that I can go talk to a pro team, and the pro team will listen to me. But I need the money, you know, what am I going to do? How am I going to do that? And and so I got the first the first stint in Formula Ford was, was really 1997 to 2001. And then were are you doing any other you. But when they actually let me ask this while you're doing all this, what are you doing for career? How are you making money? I heard a musician, that was trying to break into, you know, like, I'm trying to get a recording contract and all that, at once. And she had a job waitressing, and she called it her toy job. This is my toy job. I waitress, to put food on my table so I can go actually do my career. So I always viewed my career as racing, what I was doing to earn money to go race at that point was working for, a Firestone Autocare center. So for as many hours as I could afford to show up per week between high school and trying to do college, the first time, was, you know, was spent really, you know, cleaning floors and doing oil changes and stuck in the back room and helping mechanics out and, and those kind of things. So that was my that was my toy job I gotcha. So karts autocross is Formula Ford dabbling in some Continentals and formula antics then. Then what? So, one day I got a phone call from somebody in Charleston, South Carolina, named Steve Bryant, and he said, hey, John, I'm told that, you know, crisis. And I said, I'm pretty, pretty good. And he goes, okay, I'm trying to build a rescue production car. And my mechanic quit. And can you come down this weekend and just point out the stuff that needs to stay on the car or needs to go away? And he said, I'll pay you some, you know, a couple hundred bucks or something like that. And I'm like a couple hundred bucks to go stand and shop for Saturday and do some stuff. I'll do that. And I get down there and this car's, all of the parts have been thrown into a refrigerator box. And basically, Steve, since he had not take it part, he didn't know any of that. And I, he said, okay, what can you tell me? And I'm like, well, let me like, noodle this. He says, I got to go to a business meeting. I'll be back. And by the time he came back out of the wiring harness, laid out, laid out and all the parts, I basically built sort of a, you know, a pull up, it cracks. And that led to helping him build the car. And then one day he goes, what I need is somebody with a national license to to drive this. I want to go to the runoffs and, I have one of those. And and he said, no, no, not like National Auto Crossing. I said, no, no, I have a I have a National SCCA license. I'm, I'm road racing, a foreman Ford. And he said, And so we went to the test. There were three of us. I was not the slowest. I was, but like, it was fun. It was the first time I've, like, got in a car that wasn't mine on a racetrack. And that was way, way faster. And so, he said, okay, looks like I found my national driving. And that turned into another job. So lots of Firestone, work the front counter of what amounted to a tuner shop. Right. We sold a lot of clear cameras and body kits and and the race car sat there, and it was sort of our. Look, we do this too. And I did that for a year. And as part of that, we had what I call a technical partnership with a team in Charleston called, Auto Metrics. Their Porsche shop, and I got to know, Gordon Freeman, who owned that Porter metric, set, a car that was going to Daytona for the 24. And Gordon said, if you've got sponsorship money, we've got a seat for you. Well, I came up with the sponsorship money about three weeks after four other people had also come up with sponsorship money. So now all of a sudden I had sponsorship money and no seat and I well, I guess I need to call another team because I kind of have, you know, I have this insurance company that's willing to invest some money in me as a race car driver. And, and I contacted a team of Florida racing with a P1. And at that point I was like, man, I don't know that I'm ready for this. And, the owners down there, they were like the very fact that you'll look at us and say, you don't know if you're ready is better than all the people that are like, I have money. Let me drive your car. Oh, and so we went to a test. I did pretty well. That test I wasn't I wasn't the fastest, but it wasn't far from the top. But I was the only one without prototype experience. And they looked at me and they said, okay, you're you're going to Daytona. And so all of a sudden, I had a seat in a P1 car at the 24 Hours of Daytona. And at that point it was like, you know, it felt like the roller coaster, you know, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And then all of a sudden like, well, it's going now and then. Yeah. If you ask me about, you know, going to town, it's crazy because if you ask me about the 1991 20 presidency, 200 1987 or any of the ones that I expected or flagged at or any of that, I can tell you all of the cars and all the battles, who took the lead at what hour and what I want to drive. You know what? I drove it, but I can't tell you about anything, but like what? What I was doing and what we were doing. And I, you know, I remember at one point getting out of the car after a stint in my head going like, and you were like, up there and you and Tony Stewart were like, work in traffic for a little while. And I'm like, I have no idea. I don't know what car Tony's in. I don't know, like, I'm just, you know, you're in that, the only person I remember knowing that was on the track with me is, I gave Paul Newman a little, little love tap in the back, an the International horseshoe. And I went over to apologize, and it was cool because he's like, I don't know what the the people in front of us were doing. He goes, you're you're good. It's all good. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. I just, you know, the accordion effect I got it, got him a little bit. But you know, that's it was, you know, crazy whirlwind. And at that point, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, he's a pro driver now. And yeah, you know, that was a weird situation to be in. So you said yes when opportunities came up and and you figured it out and it helped you along your motorsports journey. Let's go back to the the Porsche when they said, if you get money, there's a ride for you. Were you prepared for that? And if not, what advice would you have for somebody to be ready for something like that? Yeah, I mean, at the time I would absolutely look at you and say, I was prepared for that. Once I did some of the pro stuff and then I went and I saw driving time attack cars and like, really like 800 horsepower Evos and all of that. And when I compare how comfortable I was once I was in those cars all the time to how comfortable I was before I got in them, I mean, it's a money thing, but you just need to get seat time and fast stuff to feel comfortable to be ready for some of those opportunities. And I hadn't had a, you know. Yeah, I'd done done, you know, a weekend in a from the continental. I'd done some stuff in Atlantic, but I hadn't gotten to really go through a lot of rhythm of that and work. I don't know how I would have done it. I didn't have any money, you know, I had friends that were like, oh, man, why don't you just get your dad to buy you a pro weekend? It's only $25,000. And, you know, so there were there was nothing for me to do but say yes and then go get baptized in that fire. But I but looking back on it, I recognize that, you know, the 2006 John that had been, you know, driving the 180 mile an hour cars for a while would have been much better prepared than the 2002 John was. And that's I don't I don't know how to fix that without money, but but that's, you know, there were times that I look back when, man, I wish this John was in that was in that car at that test day and you know. Yeah. So what are you driving now? Do you get a chance to compete on track or does your role with the SCCA slow that down. Non role with the SCCA. Absolutely. So slows it down. It is and I want to call it a curse right. Because there's just there's so much different opportunities to help people drive race cars. And when I get to help people drive race cars, it is rewarding in a, in a totally different way. But there's, you know, there's two factors in working for a sanctioned body. One is you're working at the events instead of being able to drive them when you go in two, when you're immersed in it on a day to day basis, like right now, you know, my my cell phone is ringing and it's a regional leader in California. And I'm going to talk to them for a while, which is which is great. But, you know, in a couple weeks there's an autocross and I'm like, I want to go to the autocross. And right now I do, but depending on how the week goes, am I going to go one? Am I going to want to go stand out and do an autocross and be around that? Or am I going to want to sit at home or go to the lake or go to the airshow? That's about the same distance away. You know, there's there's other things. So what original question what am I driving now? I own a Swift DB three that has been converted to Formula Ford. It sits in my garage. I have I've driven in the runoffs twice. I haven't had the time to really get it out and campaign it the way I'd like to. I've been lucky enough that I've been invited in, to a couple of seats. Lee Hill, who is, a former chairman of the board of the SCCA, has a spec racer Ford. And now two years in a row, he's invited me in to drive an enduro weekend, coach drive with him and his spec racer for Gen3. And so I've been super blessed to have some some, like, hey, come, come do this. One of the other current board of directors members is a really good friend of mine. He's got a formula for that. He runs in C modified and autocross. And so I will share that with him sometimes. But there's no I don't have a concentrated effort of my own to take a race at this point. And it's this is the one place you'll see me stumble, on storytelling, because it's, you know, it. If there's something that I'm not happy about, it's probably that I still want to go race. I still want to go out there. I still want to work toward a season. I want to I want to, you know, whether it's a runoffs or, or a, you know, a divisional championship or solo nationals. I want win, lose or draw. I want to be back in a season that I get to put effort towards and, and really fight for. Yeah. Because there was a time in your life when you would be doing 100 plus events, track days, coaching instruction, racing. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's when I did our processing and then I got the formula forward, I stopped, I stopped crossing, right. Because that was the thing you did. All right. You did auto crossing. Now you're going road racing. And I an incident and, tore a bunch of the bodywork off, you know, the Formula Ford. And it needed repair. And so while I was repairing that very much, I needed my fix. And I went and, I'm going to take the cracks and I'm going to go autocross. And, you know, I'm not going to not not race. I'm not going to be something. And so I drove past 4 or 5 times in between these race weekends that I did. And when I got to my next race weekend, I noticed how much more comfortable I was just being in the in the car. And I went, oh, that's the auto crossing. That's that I'm going through this motion. And so I immediately just went, I'm going to keep Auto Crossing two. You know, it wasn't like a national for full press effort all the time and all the time is on street tires. Before street tires were a thing. But yeah, it got to where I would, you know, I might I might have been road racing 10 to 12 weekends a year. I might have been doing another five, 5 to 10 time attack events, one lap of America. And then if I wasn't doing one of those primary things, I was going to go to the closest cross. And so, yeah, there were I used to count it in days. And so I'd be like, and I, I raced, you know, you know, 100 days a year, you know, 100 days is not, I guess a race like 68 or 60, 90 days during the year, you know, and just dozens of events. And it was, you know, I was instituting a track days at that point. So, yeah, it was I would I would not go, you know, 5 or 6 days without being in a car going fast. Yeah. What advice would you have for someone that that's doing what you were doing and what by advice, how can they get better with seat time? Because I always say, see, time is important, but see time with coaching is even better. What advice would you give someone to make the the to make the most of the time? I mean, I think of it I think that that's tough, right? Because coaching is, you know, can you afford a coach what is coaching. Right. So first let's define coaching with, you know, making sure you have the best data you can. And look if your best data is a stopwatch and a video camera, that's that. If your data is real data acquisition systems. That said if your best data in my case, a lot of times was just my dad standing outside the car and watching from me a data we we'd like look at a race course, whether it's a road course or a or lacrosse course. And we pick segments basically, and we divide it up. And he would sit there in time, not just me, but other drivers. And so he could come to me and go, man, in this section, you know, from turn three to turn eight, you're one tenth faster than the pole sitter. But man, you're getting hammered by by 3/10 in turn one. And so it it it's always look for ways to collect data however you can. And then analyze it with you know, with a fine tooth comb with this finer tooth comb as you can get, you know, you have to be real with yourself. You can never say like, oh man, well, he's just going too fast for me because it's a faster car. You have to say, like, I don't care if it's a faster car, I've got to figure out a way to go faster. And so for me, that was that was my approach to how do I make the most of the time that I'm in the cars. So you want to get into a regular season. Where does that start? What do you have to do to make that happen? A budget you need a budget, right? I mean, even even now, like the formula Fords in the in the garage, it's got a Honda motor, but I'm still a car forward because, because I'm old. You know, I know that I can sit down and and if I, you know, let's say, like, okay, I want to go to the runoffs next year in this car. I know that I'm going to need at least probably three weekends to qualify. I'm going to need the entry fees. I'm going to need that. I'm going to need to sit down. And if I sat down and did it, I go, all right, bare minimum. If I'm if I'm eating the hamburgers, I cook on the grill at the racetrack and staying in the tent and all that. But it's about 11 or $12,000. That's just that's owning the car, owning the truck, owning the trailer, all of that. That's what it's going to need. And so the budget is first. The equipment is second. You know, if I didn't have anything, I'd be like, oh, I need a car, right? And maybe it's renting a car. Maybe it's maybe it's buying a car. But it still always comes down to, to do I have the, you know, how much money is it going to take and how do I allocate these funds across the course of a year. Gotcha. Well. You're looking for a more, you know, emotional engine like like, I mean, you have to have the drive to make it to want it to happen. And, you know, maybe no. I love that response because it's it's honest. And, the listener is going to understand if they want to put together a season. That's the place you got to start, you know, do you have the cash to do it? And if you don't, actually, if you don't, this kind of parlays into some advice you wish you would have received early in your career about sponsorships and going for the ask, can you think of a time when and you have to get the specifics, but think of a time when you were talking to someone about some money and you could have asked for more, but you were thinking with your wallet, not theirs. Oh man, I, I had enough or, you know, I tried to the 24 hours, you know, more teams were like, oh, you know, you drove it, you did. Well, you know, there's good recommendations here. Okay, can you drive our car and in pro racing, other than, you know what, maybe, maybe two dozen teams in this country, that me, what they mean is we want you to bring us money to drive the car. Just. You know how it is. And so I had an offer for, you know, one of four drivers in a Daytona prototype at the 21st Daytona. And I think the offer at the time was like 60 grand. And in my head, I was like, man, that's a lot of money to ask for. And I got in, pitched, 40 at the time, fortune 500 company, which was just like a stupid good, like chance. And they seemed enthusiastic. And, you know, I always tell people like, the worst answer is not no, the worst answer is maybe. And so I kind of got this. Maybe. And what's let's get back to you. And then they came back and they said, hey, answer's no. And I went, okay. And then I showed up in 24 hours of Daytona and they are full sponsor on a car. Oh, and so I reached back out now, hey, what's the deal? And they went, well, we were doing the research as they should, and we found that we could sponsor a whole car for the season for 1.6 million. And I went, oh my God, I like, what if I had asked for 1.6 million and they said, oh, we'd have said yes. Unbelievable. And you know what they have said yes would have been easy for them to tell me. I mean, I it felt genuine, but at the time I was like, man, I my head could not wrap myself around a little of money walking into a walking into a fortune 500 company and going, hey, I want, you know, I need $1.6 million. This was not in my head. And, you know, if I'd had it there, like, I might have had a full season in a head on a prototype. So that's a that's the big one that for me, that just I was like, man, when I have that. Yeah. You know who would have thought I ask for that. And so from then on in, you know, any deck I made like if it, if the stars were going to be in it. So absolutely, if you want to do one race, you can do the whole season every pitch. Yeah. And I just couldn't you know, I just couldn't imagine like even now I think about where I was at, you know, was I 20 I was 26 or 27 at that point, but plenty old enough to know better. And it just was such a big number to me, you know, I mean, at that point in my, in my toy job, you know, I'm making like $11,000 a year, like, when I drove the prototype, the first time I had a guy ask me is, how did you, you know, like, man, you did it like you're my hero. How did you do it? And I said, well, every bit of my money went into, you know, like the sponsor money was a sponsor money. But I still needed, like, a better helmet, and I needed, like, other stuff, and I needed to get there. And I was rent a house with a buddy of mine, and I moved out of that house. I moved back home at 26 years old. I moved back into my childhood bedroom so that I could go drive this prototype at Daytona. And, and he looked at me like, you moved back in with your parents to do it. And I'm like, that's. I had to. It was it was that or the street? And he went, oh, man, I don't think I can ever do it at home. But okay. So yeah, for, you know, at that point, it's still like I think back to that, I think back and my brain could not conceive of walking into a room and asking somebody for 1.6 million. Right. But it happened to somebody. You somebody. Yeah, sure. Did. All right. Let's talk a little bit about your role with the SCCA. How long how long have you been in your current position? Oh, gosh. Current job title I think is like three years, but working with the SCCA as a full time employee. I'm in my 10th year, for the national office. That's great. And so the last three years, you've been focused on finding ways to get more folks exposed to our sport and engaged in our sport. So tell the listeners a little bit more about that. So we I got brought in with SCCA. But I've been running my own track day program. Heyward Wagner reached out to me and said, hey, I need somebody that understands the SCCA world and understands Track Day World and me and Heyward and Jenny McCarthy and, Tom Gorman, and a few of the, folks, we basically were the launch team for track nine America. And so we as part of that team, went from like 1500 track day entries a year, to, I think 13,000. And then we, they said, what do you want next? And I said, I want time trials. And so we kind of re rebuilt the time trials, program. And we went from 400 time trials entries a year to like 4005 trials entries a year. And then the Gibson Re racing said, okay, our turn. And and so that's where the current the current job is. It's like how do we introduce some of those those track night and time trials. You know, goals and techniques into the road racing program. And, you know, when you ask me, like, how do I do that? And the first thing I say is budget, right? Access is tough and road racing, you know, track days, track night time trials. I can I can take my Miata and I can drive to one of those events, and I can do it in road racing. All of a sudden, you know, the Miata needs the cage and the seat and the belts and, and now I, you know, now I need a trailer and a truck, so everything just ramps up exponentially when it comes to going wheel to wheel racing versus, you know, a street car based, program. And so what we've done in the last few years is we've we were trying to do an endurance program called Team Enduro. We had this program we used a little bit. It was sitting on the shelf called, Club Racing Experience. And and once we once we really looked at it, we went, okay, it needs to go together. The reason why so many of these endurance programs are so popular is not necessarily because there's, you know, it's an endurance race. It's not necessarily it's not in spite of the fact that there's no real championship endurance race. It's because those programs and those series out there have absolutely lowered the barriers to access as much as possible so that you're not piling things on top of the car, the truck, the trainer. And so we researched and we did, what we're now calling race Experience, which has two formats to it endurance experience and club race experience, which would be sprint races. And we're we're building that program and we're introducing it as the place to either casually race or, start your racing journey in the SCCA. You know, other, other endurance racing programs. And I'm sure your listeners are familiar with, you know, if you if you go to those races, you say, hey, I want to be a little bit more serious. There's not really a place to go. The great thing about SCCA is if you come in and you're doing a race experience event and you say, hey, I think this needs to be a little more serious. We have our divisional level series, we've got the Hoosier Super Tour, we've got the U.S. major store, we've got the runoffs. And so we're we're in this position to to have the spectrum of, of motorsports, availability of wheel to wheel racing ability. And so that's where my I have my, my day job is to help regions have these events so that more people can get more easily introduced to road racing through the SCCA. Yeah, I personally I've done, two team enduro and I've done two race experiences and I just Iron Man to two. Our in my seven was like 300 degrees inside there rotary stuff. But, I gotta tell you, a fun weekend. Easy to register. I just wish more people knew about it, because who wouldn't want to do a three hour enduro or a two hour enduro? Get a couple buddies together. If you got the car, get to the track, have some fun. Yeah, it's New England region. Just did their first of the endurance experience events. And I think they had 21 or 22 injuries, which is not huge, but it was a two hour enduro. They actually did a ten minute half time. So they just took pitstops out of the equation. Didn't have to worry about going in and out. And so a lot of the folks did, you know, like, okay, we're going to one driver for an hour, another driver for an hour. And you know, their, their members and their participants up there, like, you're going to do it again next year, right? Can we do more next year? And you know, we more people need to know about it. But also in the in the my fight is we need to have more events. You know because I will get an email. You know, a few weeks ago I got an email actually going, hey, I saw this race experience program. I really want to do one. Where are you? Oh, I'm in, I'm in San Diego. Okay, well, the closest one to him is, you know, once a year, it's eight hours away. So I, you know, the in a chicken or egg sense, the more events we have, the more the, you know, we'll get this momentum of participation, where when somebody says, hey, I want to go do one of those, you know, they'll they'll be one for them to do. And this the SCCA is a national club, but it is more a, Mexican confederation of independent sports car clubs. And so it takes a while to, to, to move that, to change the directions on, on that armada. Right. And if someone wants to learn more, they can just go to Eskymos, click on programs. And I believe there's a separate race experience. And at these data companies that does it as well. So we got a little short link and we're, we're working on a new site for the SCCA. So hopefully that'll do better. I we have so many programs, it's very easy for, you know, racing organization with one program to have a very easily navigated, well site. When you're the SCCA and you have somewhere between 7 and 10 programs, depending on how you count, you know, flagging communications and some of the trackside stuff. You know, it's always three clicks to get down into where wherever you, wherever you start to want to be. So. Yeah. All right. So let's say there's a young person out there and they heard your story, and they don't want to hop a fence to meet A.J. Foyt, and their dad can't get credentials into events to take pictures. What advice would you want to give someone that wants to get started in motorsports? And, you know, my tongue in cheek advice or like my serious advice. Both. That the the tongue in cheek, which is got really tongue in cheek, is, study hard and get a good job so that you can so that when you're ready, you can you have the budget to go to it. And I, I mean, that sounds really weird. I will sometimes joke that instead of a, instead of a Formula Ford, I should have bought a pitching machine and just looked at baseballs all day. But you know, to go racing. But if you want to go racing and it doesn't matter if you're 16 or it doesn't matter if you're, you're 67. You want to you want to do what it takes to make it happen. I had a race experience in Saint Louis earlier this year. We had a driver, that drove into the track in his Chevy Sonic and to participate in this race experience. Now he comes in full cage racing. Winona, like everything he needs. And he has driven this car into the track. And we're very used to people pulling into, like, autocracies and then changing the tires. This guy took his license plates off the car and then drove it on the grid and, you know, and I was asking him about it and, you know, his dad was his dad was there, much like my dad was there. And he's like, no, I've built this in, in the driveway. This is everything I've made. Everything I've owned is here. And I'm not. I'm not condoning, you know, I'm not condoning. Put your life savings and mortgage the house into a into a race car. But whatever you can afford, figure out the best way to go do it. And then do it. And look if that's if that's man, I can autocross locally in the car that I drive to work. That's autocross locally in the car you drive to work. And if it's taking your daily driver and putting a roll cage in it and go and doing race experience, then then it's that, but the biggest thing is not, you know, I think I said, I said earlier, you know, don't say no. Ask how. The biggest thing is to just say, how can I do this? On what level can I do this? And then going and executing on to the best of whatever your your resources have to be able to experience what you want to experience. Oh man. Well, we're just about finished up here. And before we get to the final question, is there something you want to talk about that we didn't hit on yet? Oh, man. That's a dangerous question to ask me as, any anybody will tell you because I could, you know, we can do 12 hours worth of this, and I and I probably still wouldn't be done. So there's nothing on the forefront, of that other than to reiterate what I just said, which is if you're out there and you're listening in, you're wondering, you know, if ask, ask how? Because there's there's a way to be involved somehow. Yeah, there is. And I have a previous guest, Sorin Capelli, and I quote him all the time. You have to find your joy in motorsports. Might be behind the wheel. It might be what I call trackside. Those are flaggers in communication. Volunteering could be crewing, could be driving someone's truck and trailer to the event for them, whatever. Or even on the business side of things. Whatever you can do to find that joy, go find it. That's a that's a super quote. And there have been moments where even I've, you know, been in race cars and and ask myself, am I having fun out here? Like there's a lot of effort, there's a lot of risk. What what's going on? And, and I tell people that when they go like, man, you drove pro and you got to do that. And I'm like, look in the car on the day. The only difference is the autographs and those are not necessary, you know, if you can if you can find the place at the racetrack where you have that, you know, that satisfactory breath at the end of the day. There you go. I mean, that's cool, right? That's yeah, that's really what you're, you're chasing. And you can get that anywhere. You can get it at a local autocross. You can get it at a local, you know, indoor karting place. If anything, it's harder to get at some place like the 24 Hours of Daytona where you're you're doing a job. Yeah. Well, it's time for the final question, John. You've been, behind the wheel so many times. I'm sure you're gonna have to say yes to this, but maybe not. Have you ever been late to grid? Oh. Yeah. No, I've been, I've been I've been like the grid. So sometimes strategically. But. Yeah. Yeah. Is there an instance where there's a funny story you can share? I, I went late to grid and started last in, in a race because we decided I looked at the track and I a track's dry enough. Let's put the slicks on. And so I think I end up starting, like, 43rd and then drove to the front and then probably got dinged for being over sound. But we'll just talk about the first. What did you talk about the first part of that where, where I was like to grid strategically and, and then it paid off. Nice. So strategically because you had to make the tire change, or you want to be behind all the cars to dry the track as well, because. We needed to to make the tire change, which was like a, like where you're going to be late. And I'm like, I'd rather be on the right tire and be late than be right and be where we qualified. So. Well that's awesome. Good call for sure. Good reason to be. It was a great it was a great call. The, the, the steel. Well, we used to try to make the car quieter instead of just putting a rear muffler on. It was not a great call. So, Well, John, it's been great having you on the podcast to hear your motorsports journey. Shared so many great stuff. I'm sure the listener is going to be better for listening. Thanks again. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Truly awesome. Just to be able to to share and to talk racing to me to meet you folks, whether it's virtually or not. Share these motorsports experience. That you.