Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

Cooling, Camaraderie, and the Cayman GT4: Jon Miller's Motorsports Mastery

• Bill Snow • Season 5 • Episode 19

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In this episode of the Late to Grid podcast, we sit down with Jon Miller—autocrosser, rally racer, and performance cooling expert from Mishimoto. Jon shares his deep-rooted motorsports journey, which began with his grandparents racing SCCA rallies in the '50s and '60s, and an early secret lesson in driving a manual transmission Ford SHO.

Jon dives into his experience across multiple disciplines, from a chaotic, unsupervised first track day at Nelson Ledges to his favorite form of racing: stage rally. He shares candid advice on why investing in a high-quality driving school is the best way to save time and money, and how making time to wrench is his form of therapy. Finally, we get an insider's look at Mishimoto, discussing why bigger isn't always better when it comes to cooling, and when a driver needs to upgrade from an OEM radiator.


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.

If you compete in autocross time trials, wheel the wheel racing and rallies, you might be as cool as my next guest. And he knows how to keep you cool. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. You. Well, as I mentioned, I'm sitting with Jon Miller. Jon, it's great to have you in the new Atomic Autosport studio. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. A little pressure being in the new studio. That's right. Hopefully it goes. Well. You're gonna set the bar high? I hope so. Not the pressure bar inside the cooling system. Exactly. But, yeah, the bar nonetheless. So we're going to talk a lot about your motorsports journey, how you got started, what you've done, and then we're going to, also transition that into your career and your current employer, Nishimoto, and talk about all the very cool things that they have. But you got interested in cars and racing because you sort of grew up around it. But it was one horsepower that year. It was your mom, right? She was at equestrian sports. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about that. So, yeah, she was just always hyper competitive. Probably had A.D.D. before that was a thing. My grandmother and grandfather were very supportive. Knew that she really was into, you know, equestrian sports and being around animals and supported her. So she went to college, really did the showjumping. You know, some of those jumps were six foot plus, where she was going over, went to fall River mass. But really encouraged us to go and be and do our own thing, to be independent and really understood the part of competition, but also the duality of the man versus the machine or woman versus the animal. Yeah, yeah. Pretty exciting. So very supportive growing up. Did you do anything with horses? No. I was usually the test dummy. So they would bring them in and they would be, you know, ones that, maybe weren't ready for sale, and, I would get put on them and thrown off. So, so, yeah, I knew how to take a hit. And, again, it was just kind of being part of the business and, out and about, pretty fortunate. I grew up in town, but then also had the ability to go out to the country and be on the farm on the weekends. Yeah. And it was in the country where you first got to drive a car, right? It is? Yes. And it just wasn't any car. It was a Ford show. It was. Yes. Yeah. Tell us about that. Was your grandfather that that made that happen? Yeah. So my grandmother and grandfather raced in the 50s and 60s, with SCCA, some of the early rallies, press on. Regardless. Jonny Appleseed, they won in 1959. So, you know, they knew from a very early age I was just hooked on cars. For my 14th birthday. He thought it was time to go out and learn how to, you know, drive a manual transmission. I was fortunate enough to go out on a tour, which is a pretty hot car at the time. And, yeah, it was, not without its struggles at times, but, we had a it was a great bonding experience. And for being a 14 year old kid, just an amazing birthday present. However, it was one of those things you cannot tell your friends. You can not tell your parents. So it was kind of my own little secret in turn, you know, I turned 16 years old. But, yes, it was a lot of fun. I was going to ask. It was just kept between the two of you. Or if mom knew, Mom did not know grandma on you. Okay. So. Yeah. So that was okay. That's why grandparents are the best. Yes, exactly. Yes. You get to live vicariously through you, you know, and they really, extend their passion. So when did you realize you were a car guy? Oh, very early on. So, you know, I'm a little bit older, didn't have the video games until I was in the college. So it was really early on where I got to go and, you know, take apart my tricycle, you know, tinker with all kinds of things and just the sight and sounds of just the motor and, you know, being involved. And around just the noises and the feel and just, everything just really energized me pretty young. So, probably from the time I could walk, I was into cars. Yeah, yeah. And when did you get into motorsports? Motorsports really started officially, in 2001, after college. I really took an initial path more down the off road, you know, kind of way of life. Had some trucks and jeeps and things went out to Moab, drove back and forth across the country, just kind of exploring and overlanding before it was like a chic thing. Yeah. When it was really just being a dirt bag. Sleeping in your car. When I graduated college, I'd been involved in around cars, obviously. And, I purchased a Subaru Impreza and, found out about a couple little parking lot races down in, Akron. At Firestone and Goodyear, respectively, and, showed up one day, paid my 20 bucks, and, you know, made a fool of myself. You know, you go into that first event, like, assuming I'm gonna I'm gonna be the next Schumacher or, you know, and, and, you know, it's pretty humbling experience. And, yeah, that's kind of what started it all was, you know, like a lot of your guests, you know, it's autocross. So, just involvement with the SCCA and some of the sports car clubs, they're very nurturing, you know, everybody's very friendly. And, that's kind of how I got hooked. Was the Impreza anything special or just a daily driver? Well, it was a utility that did everything. So it was my, just a two, five Rs manual. I thought it was pretty special, but. No, it was my autocross car, my track car, my daily driver, you know, making sales calls for work. So, a little bit of everything. It did it all. Yeah. And I know SCCA ran a little bit at those lots, but there was another group that ran down there was at the Akron Sports Club. That was Akron Sports Car Club. All right. Yes. Yeah. It was nice having that pavement back then. I remember going there when I was in high school and, I don't even know how we heard about it, maybe, maybe through the SCCA. But there was a little bit of everything down there running. Yeah. Is that the only car you ran? There was a Subaru? No. I snowballed pretty quickly. Had a couple, several Subarus. Would co drive anything I could. We would swap cars. There was another young guy that was running a Taurus show. So from nostalgia, we would swap vehicles, dual drive civics. I mean, anything I could get my hands on. It was just always fun just changing that experience. And, building the opportunity to learn. Just different driving dynamics. Sure. What did you do after Auto Crossing? What was next? Well, the very first thing I did after Auto Crossing is I showed up at Nelson's Ledges on a Wednesday for an open tracking day, and myself for other guys with Subarus, because we kind of all collectively got together like little Subaru cockroaches. And I found out about this open lapping day. I think it was like$125 showed up on a Wednesday. We get to the gate and they go, oh no, we forgot to, you know, cancel the event. So they look at us and they go, we guys have all been here before. You're seasoned drivers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah I, you know, again lots of ownership changes. Yeah. We went on track and just ran basically unsupervised, and without much education. Thankfully we all survived. We had a few offs, and also really good being in a car with you. 165 horsepower. Yeah. So that was really my first, like, foray into any, like, lapping days and speeds. And then from there, it was just continue to be involved in the community. I started doing rallies, you know, pretty much anything I could any weekend. Again, to your point, back in the day, Akron Sports Car Club in Northeast Ohio, SCCA, you could basically autocross two weekends a month. Yeah. And then find something. I'll turn it over another day. Let's go back to that Nelson. Yeah. How crazy that they didn't cancel it. They still had somebody there that was like, yeah, come on. And did you still have to pay the 125? We did. Yeah we did. We ran to lunch, got so bored and tired we had to leave and fuel up before they had fuel there, came back. And then they actually let us run the track in reverse. So, yeah, it was, Really? Yeah. No holds barred. It was a wild day. That would never happen in this day and age. Yeah, yeah. So very fortunate to have that, opportunity. From, if you can remember back to that day and being on track, what's the one thing that surprised you or you didn't think the car could do? You didn't think you could do. Really was braking. And that was probably my biggest learning curve was understanding threshold braking and that the braking systems in most of these fields are going to do so much more than we ever challenged them to do. So that was probably the biggest thing that surprised me. The consistency you know, autocross, you've got, you know, you're walking the course, you have a lot of time to really take it all in. Watch other folks do it. We didn't walk the track. We made all the wrong reasons or made all the wrong decisions and just went out there and had fun, so. Yeah. But no. Mostly braking. Definitely was impressed with the handling of the car. And, most importantly, learned that I needed new tires. So get something a little bit better. And did. You? Oh, yes. Absolutely, yes. I watched, myself accelerate up the, finishing order at autocross, and lap times drop consistently. Nice. Yeah. And then what did you start doing? Any wheel? The wheel? I did a little bit further down the road. I had an ITC civic, you know, total pile of garbage. But it was fun. It got me on track. It was pretty reliable and a pretty affordable. It was an 89 civic, and, a fun opportunity. But what I realized, you lost some of the camaraderie you get. Not across. And, I found that in stage rally. I found that in some of the other type of motorsports where, you know, folks that are twice my age with ten times the budget or, you know, well, your door handles should be theirs. And, you know, going. I just showed up. Yeah. I just want to race. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm. I'm a back. I'm just pulling up the rear. You now having fun. And watch tracks as you race it. So mostly obviously we're pretty fortunate in northeast Ohio. Up until recently, we had three facilities to go to, mostly out at Nelson's, but Nelson's pit race and then obviously Mid-Ohio, the, you know, the the premier track in the area, depending on who you talk to. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And do you know where that civic is today? No. I believe that it got wrecked and cut up and put into a dumpster. So, yeah, like the fate of many, so, yeah, a couple of the cars, I know were one of the stage rally cars is. And, my other one, unfortunately just rusted into oblivion from the sounds of it. After the sale. Okay. Yeah. All right. Are you doing any racing now? No. This season I took off. Just life kind of gets in the way. Last year, about two years ago, I picked up a 1967 Volvo Amazon full on race car. It's been a race car for about 40 years. And, the last two owners really bought it to use as a street car and as a promotional vehicle. And then realize that race cars make terrible, like, daily drivers. Yeah. Bought it on a whim. Off for bring a trailer. I thought somebody needed to save it and get it back on track. Spent about a year, fixing little things. It was originally built in 1982, so finding all. And it is a full custom car, so nothing on it is original. So it took me almost a year just to figure out the parts to get them, you know, updated, replaced, repaired. I ran at the Belle Fountain Hill Climb last year, and then I also did the Put-In-Bay vintage races in the exhibition class. Yeah. So it's phenomenal. So I'm kind of dabbling in the vintage racing right now. Which is a lot of fun. Again, same sense of community. It's more about finishing and making sure that you can cheer others on versus, you know, going on and getting, that contract to go over to Europe and run. Yeah. So Volvo. Amazon. Yes. What is that? So it's a little two door. It almost looks like a, a poor man's jag. Very light, very competitive, robust, little vehicles. Like I said, this thing's probably got 10 or 15,000 miles of racing on it. I told it ran Courier Panamericana, down in Mexico. And it's a California car, so it's lightweight, about 1,850 pounds, fully built motor. And, you know, runs pretty good with some modern stuff. So, yeah, it's, it's a fun little car, but, really more designed hillclimb short track races. Really understood a couple things I learned last year that, you know, being built for road racing and, you know, basically, you know, closed course racing on roads. I went to the first hillclimb, first run up to the top. I didn't have any foam in the fuel cell. And, it started to sputter out. So again, it's just those learning curves you learn when you just take for granted. Well, this car's been a race car for 40 years. You know, I'm not changing the setup. Yeah. So that and then, braking at put-in-bay, you know, it's run on the airfield, a little bit heavier than it's used to. But again, it comes down to just brake management and understanding your vehicle. Yeah, yeah. So, what's it going to take to get the 67 Volvo on track in 2026? Time, and I'm just suffering from one little, it took me about six months to figure out what the front calipers were off of. Turned off. They were off an early 911. So, again, it's challenging to source the parts. I'm trying to keep it as period correct as possible. Now I'm just struggling with the rear braking system. I don't want to convert to a disc rear because, again, it's about the car's run this way with drums. So, Yeah, it shouldn't take too much. Just a little bit time. It should be on the road by the end of December. How did you figure out there were nine, 11 calibers? Lots of searching and, really just taking it around to vintage swap meets and goes. Does anyone recognize this? Really? Yes, yes. So, because it was quite a bear to figure it out. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. There's very few things that are original to the car. The engine sometimes late 70s. Yeah, just lots of unique little things. So, three days of racing and six months of wrenching and repair, but, no. Love the little car. I think that's the plan for 26. And, By doing the hill climb, it also great sense of community. I think I'm going to try and get more involved in some other the hill climb community. Yeah, yeah, Hill climb comes up a little bit here and there. Is that a growing discipline within motorsports? Has it been, kind of stagnant or. It seems to be growing, but it's also, we'll talk about a little later with a career change. I kind of spent my time in two different communities now. It's very big in Pennsylvania. So, there are multiple hill climbs within an hour and a half to two hours from my other base camp. And it's, same kind of similar sense of community. Except what's really neat, it's almost like vintage stage rally where the whole towns come out and support you and cheer and, the one in Bell founder Bill Fontaine, depending on who you talk to. You know, it was only like a 45 second run, a three quarter mile up the hill and it's autocross rules. But it was neat. There was a six miles transit back in every house had children out Cheering oh my gosh. The police were like you know hey give these people a show. Don't get an accident. You know there are no speed limits except it's 55. And so instead of it being 25 so really loved that. And that was great. Just getting people involved in, you know, no different than you do in the show. We need to encourage that next generation. You know, I think we're doing pretty good with the 20 somethings. Despite what you read in the media, it's making sure that those preteens and toddlers are really just enthused. Like I was. And probably you. Yeah. No doubt. So help the listener understand. In order to get on track, you need time. We're entering the quote unquote off season. Yes. So how does Jon make the time to get this thing ready and on track? Sometimes it just comes from sacrifices with friends and family, to be honest with you. It's not being able to go to every family barbecue. It's getting up at 4 or 5in the morning and going wrenching for a couple hours and showering, you know, trying to squeeze things in in between things, to be honest with you. As you know, it's a commitment. Yeah. I like to wrench. So that's part of one of my, like, you know, sessions of therapy. It's just quiet time. I'm in sales, so I talk a lot, but I'm actually an introverted extrovert. I like to shut off sometimes, and that's kind of how I find peace. So, yeah, it's, I've got a very, encouraging wife. She's also involved. She's done some track days. She's gone out and done some fun things. So that helps significantly. It's also the old joke, you know, if you get a kid in a motor sports or bicycles, they'll never have any money or time to do anything bad. So, you know, the other husbands are out golfing and doing silly things and, spending all Saturday watching football. No offense that, if you do that, but I'm usually. She knows where to find me. Check them out, bring me lunch. You know, and, it's just making time to be honest with you. And it's tough. You have to sacrifice. But that's what racing is. You know, getting up early, being prepared, you know, thinking things through, walking the course, you know, really just spending time, to master your craft and not to win, but just to do better than you did before. Right. I asked you earlier, what do you love about the sport? And it sort of came down to people. You've made a lot of friends here. Very supportive communities. Why do you think that's so prevalent in motorsports? Honestly, I just think it's the type of people that are attracted to motorsports. It's, not just about, you know, self-preservation. It's about the community. It's about making sure everybody can be successful. You reach a point where you just realize, you know, this is just for fun. Yeah. And you can never forget that. So I just think it's a very open and encouraging and welcoming community, to be honest with you. It attracts like minded people. You have engineers who, you know, if you can get them a look at your shoes versus their own shoes, that's a big win. You've have people in all walks of life, and it's just a great melting pot of people who have a shared common source of, love. And they want success for everybody else. Yeah. So best motorsports advice you ever received? I think the best advice I've ever received, lots of advice, obviously. The thrill, the rush. It's short lived. I remember a lot of things about the racing I've done, but the reality, it's the friendship and the community, that we just went and talked about. I have made friends in a parking lot over a terrible ham and cheese sandwich that if, those friendships have lasted for almost two and a half decades at this point in time. I think it's just need to have a sense of community, with other car weirdos that like to talk about cars rather than, you know, other things. You know that to me, I just important. I'm just enthused by what? How things run, how you can be better and just be around people. So I love the friendship and the community that just evolves. And, you know, you can have, relationships that last a lifetime. Absolutely. Unless someone approaches you and says, Jon, I want to get into the sport. I want to be a racecar driver. I want to be around this. What advice do you give them? As much seat time as possible. A big flaw in my early career was just showing up and doing things with the, you know, utmost confidence that I was going to be excellent when I could have saved myself a lot of time and money by, prepping things properly from the get go, going to a high quality driving school, you know, making the investment to go to the Mid-Ohio school. Tim O'Neal rally school, things like that. I would have advanced my, progression much faster. In the end, it probably would have saved me money. Looking back. Yeah. But it's a, you know, tremendous commitment. You know, at any level, racing is expensive, obviously. So, to lay out several thousand dollars to go to a racing school when that's tires breaks. I mean, that's a whole season of entries. The reality is sea time and having a good instructor, you know, start off, do your autocross, get in a car, you know, try different things. You know, I talk about opening the aperture, like, look at a bigger lens. You know, I like to think of myself as a master of none. I've tried a lot of different things, and I enjoy it. But anytime you get to see time, take advantage of it, trade cars with somebody, ask somebody. You might find somebody at that event that's been dying to drive your, you know, your RS7 and, you know, hey, you know, I was really thinking about getting that, you know, focus Rs. Can we swap? And let's do a couple runs and let's swap on a Sunday. So, just really just being involved and never saying no. That is a key point right there. Never saying no. So saying yes to opportunities, yes to trying things. You're never going to learn unless you say yes. Yeah. You hit on something I wanted to ask about. You've done autocross, you've done TSD, you've done stage rally, hillclimb, wheel the wheel, all these different disciplines of motorsports. What do you enjoy the most? Truly staged rally? Yeah. How come? It's point to point. So it's not as fierce of competition. You know, I've had people I've helped competitors put transmissions in their cars. I've had people lowness tires. There's just the camaraderie and, you know, I actually struggle, with, like, drifting. That's like one of my deficiencies because I'm very much a grip driver. But for some reason, like, I just, I really enjoy the rally in the community and beaten up cars kind of goes back to my roots of off road trucks and, you know, road trips. I mean, because there's no, there's no rallies close to us. So, Wells, OPA and Atlanta, Michigan were probably our closest before I got out of it, before Ohio came back. Yeah. But truly, I've had fond memories of every aspect I've done. They're all amazing. I mean, they're all great experiences that will last a lifetime. Right. Any plans to do another stage rally? At some point in time, my long term goal, towards retirement is, to try and do, pretty serious one. I'd like to go and just do a pay to drive to a school, and, there's one over in Sweden I'd like to do. It's going to be a pretty big investment, but, the reality of buying a car or doing all events, yeah. So I either do that or possibly something. I mean, I always wanted to do Pikes Peak. I have no aspirations of being, you know, a high finisher at this point. But just finish. Yeah. Did all this love of cars, motorsports, adrenaline fuel your career to be involved with racing in cars? Absolutely. So it's been, a couple things. I mean, just being involved and, in motorsports allows you the confidence to go out and try new things. Everybody knows at some point that you're going to fail, so you might as well take a risk to get better. So in my career path, I've kind of chosen the sales side of things. Very involved. Love marketing. I did an internship or more of an apprenticeship with an auto mechanic in high school. So, did a little bit of both, and, moved into the sales side of things for a couple reasons. It allowed me flexibility. It allowed me an opportunity to make, you know, a good amount of, revenue for myself. But more importantly, it gave me the freedom and flexibility, and it connected me with a lot of great people. So early in my career. I work for a company called RDC, and they were a liquor brokerage firm. So we sold high proof liquor. Seems really exciting. Not really my passion, but what it allowed me to do. It allowed me the freedom and flexibility to travel around. We were sponsors at Mid-Ohio. So that helped pretty tremendously. So it got me on track sooner. And it also allowed me at that time, to connect with a lot of the, distillers. They had a lot of promotional material. So I would actually come and take care of all of the workers. We'd give them t shirts and we'd give them hats and maybe some high proof fun for after the event. So it was just kind of a way to pay back, from there, because it wasn't super hyper, you know, automotive focused. It was just kind of an adjacency. I moved in and I worked with one of your former guests, employers. Malco Automotive was there for nine years. For that, I understood how to rent a car, but I didn't really understand bodywork and paint. Yeah. So, so I did that. And then, recently, about nine months ago, I moved over to Nishimoto, for their, you know, their leaders in the cooling, category. For me, it just opens up to a new opportunity to learn new things about vehicles, design, engineering. So. And gets me connected with the community. Right. So one thing that I've talked about on the show before is networking and your role in sales and, leadership. You have to do that. Yes. You got to meet people. And so there's kind of a win win. You're growing the business. Yes, but you're growing your network of folks that can help you on track. What advice would you give to the listener who maybe isn't comfortable with networking, isn't comfortable walking up, maybe after a drivers meeting and saying something to somebody to get that discussion rolling? What advice do you have for that? Well, my best advice is still to connect, find something you can relate to. Ask them about, you know, something you're comfortable with. What tire are you running? What? You know, I mean, there's obviously a connection point. You have some similarities, and then you're going to open up that conversation point inevitably. Well, what do you do? What brought you here? What's your experience level? And that's how you're going to kind of open up your network of people and just meet folks, but it's still engage somehow. The flip side, if you're an introvert and you're at the track, if somebody comes up to you, you know, go out of your way, get out of your comfort zone, you know, like, you know, hey, you know, what advice would you give me? You know, no different than us having a conversation. They just, think of the best way to open them up. You obviously have something that's connected to each other. And then usually the people in this have other similar, you know, hobbies and likes and wants and needs. Yeah. Was there ever a time when the opportunity presented itself to you? Could have been a relationship, could have been, a job opportunity raising opportunity. And you didn't make the most of it? Yes. Probably the biggest sacrifice I ever made, which was career wise, which is career decision. We haven't talked about it. I'm a little bit of a motorcycle junkie. I did go out and do some, testing with some BMW, riders and team, and I had an opportunity to potentially go to Mongolia and ride for the BMW gs Trophy team. I turn that down to take a role with Malco Automotive. About a decade ago. All right. Because my fear was, what I will say is it was hard to get into the automotive focused, industry from the high proof alcohol beverage. They just didn't understand the tie. And, once you're in, it actually opens up the network. But I was afraid to, you know, lose the opportunity to be with a great company and really get my foot in the door with automotive. So, that's probably my biggest regret from a motorsports side of things, industry wide. You know, I've been particular with who I want to go and work for. A lot of great employers in our background. A lot of my friends, work or run some of the, you know, companies here in Northeast Ohio and, you know, just being selective because you also sometimes if you work with friends, they may not be your friends at some point, unfortunately. Right. So let's talk a little bit more about Michi Modo. Yes. So if somebody says Michi what? Oh yes. All right. So everyone I think everyone knows but walk the listener through Michi modo high level. What do you do? Well, we like to pride ourselves on being the worldwide leader in cooling and performance. But no, we got our start about two decades ago. Really making radiators, intercoolers and performance cooling products and the cooling stack in the vehicles, that's expanded out to, you know, over 3000 products, everything from expansion tanks to hooks. But really, we're an engineering firm first. You know, that's kind of one of the things that people don't know about us. We are an American company, founded just outside of, Philadelphia. We have three times the amount of engineers on staff that we do salespeople. So we take a lot of pride in our engineering, you know, really going through and ensuring that you've got the right amount of products in the cooling stack. You know, bigger isn't necessarily always better. There's a lot of things and intricacies that people don't understand about pressure and cooling and, you know, understand about fin pitch and that just you can go so far deep into it. And again, I'm still in my infancy of learning about all this because it's just going to take decades to become a master. But tremendously interesting. The misconception is that it's a Japanese company. The funny little joke is Michi was the kid's cat, and they just were trying to pick a name that at the time, they really were appealing to the JDM drift, you know, market. And, they thought it would be best to sound Japanese. So, you know, not really a big hurdle today, but it's always, well, where did the name come from? And Michi turned out that that was their cat. So again, just trying to be, creative at a time and really be focused on a market, really on the drift and JDM and Euro, I like to say, were the kings and queens of vintage JDM and Euro, specifically BMW. But our product mix extends very far. I mean, very much diesel performance, transmission coolers, all the way down to accessories, lighting. We've got a whole off road recovery line. But we really pride ourselves in cooling and being the best and really just, engineering the internals, the things you don't see. Yeah. Or sometimes the most important thing. Is a bigger radiator. Always better. Not necessarily. Yeah, yeah, because it depends on what's on the inside. You know, how big are the tubes? Is it a tube which going to add strength or rigidity. You know, heat dissipation. That tends to be the case. But it just depends on, you know, the quality of the products. And materials used. Sure. Yeah. So, all your radiators, aluminum. With the exception, we do have a few OEM replacement pads. Okay. That's not a core competency of ours. That was something we got into when it was just a, there was a high demand during, you know, Covid. Sure. But now most of our performance radiators in our X-Line are all going to be aluminum, you know, Tig welded and just real high quality. Yeah. So so for the listener who's going along their motorsports journey, they've done some autocross. Maybe they're succeeding there. Maybe they're doing some track days. When do they know that they need to move up from that plastic tank radiator to something better? Well, I mean, your first indicator is going to be overheating. But before you get to that point, hopefully you start to see visually and it goes back to inspecting your vehicle. They bring it in to atomic, you know, you look down in the plastic starting to turn brown. You know, that's one of your first indicators that the plastic is just breaking down. And you're going to have a failure soon ahead of you. Obviously if there's contamination in the coolant, you know, it's very important to keep things cool. But also clean, needs to provide other additional. Not only can the water pump gunk up, but people forget about the heater core, which can actually be a pretty tremendous expense, for somebody to go and repair and replace, because it's just going to be, buried in the vehicle at this point in time. But no, typically it's going to be, you're going to start seeing rising temperatures. A loss in performance. And, you know, a lot of times it's just age. I won't deny that the OEM radiators are actually pretty high quality today for standard street use. They do all have a finite life, though. I mean, everything fails at some point in time. You know, you just can't anticipate when, but, you know, definitely, if you're going to get out on track, you're running out on a hot day, and some of it's just about performance maintenance. You know, the big misconception is this is going to add this and this is going to add that much horsepower. Some of it's just maintaining what you have and protecting your investment in the engine. Oh sure. Yeah a radiators much less expensive than an engine rebuild. Exactly right. Yes. Is there a correlation between oil temp in coolant temp? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it just really is going to depend on where you take the temp from. You know, a lot of the gauges in the vehicles today are just a, you know, essentially an on off switch. So, you know, you certainly want to maintain your cooling, temperature and your oil temps. And it all depends on the construction of how the vehicle's managed. You know, is there an oil cooler? Is an external. Is it run through the rad is an external in front of that. So there's a lot of different, situations. Do you have any technical information on the website they could walk somebody through? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go to Michi Motakam, there's lots of blog posts. Where we're going and really just explaining not only what our products do, but in general, the cooling stack. Yeah. We're going to deviate from racing for a minute. And performance, you mentioned diesel. Yes. What do you have in that line? Really? We do a lot of radiators. We've got intercoolers. Your old f250 power strokes. We're actually going to have core supports. But transmission coolers is really where we have, differentiated ourselves. It's a tremendous opportunity. People are keeping their vehicles longer. We all see them going up and down the road towing. Things are well above and beyond the capacity of a vehicle. So, you know, just one of the ways to continue to create reliability, it's often neglected when it comes to the transmission. People forget about it until it's too late. But, yeah, when it comes to power stroke and Cummins. Yeah. We're, very highly regarded, know both assisting power, you know, when people are running, a tune. Great. All of our products really are designed to be a direct fit and work with an OEM stock tune. So it's only going to enhance your performance and reliability. Got it. Let's go away from cooling for a minute. Yes. What else is Nishimoto into? So. Well we touched a little briefly on it. We launched a born off road recovery line. So that's got winches, lights, direct fit parts for Tacoma's, Ford Broncos. But you know, really for us, everything from, engineered, tow hooks that are really designed to sustain a much higher loads and some of the other ones, you'll pick that up. It's pretty substantial. I was going to say. Yeah, it's a little heavy from a weight perspective. I've picked these up before. Not a michi modo. Yeah. And it's just light aluminum. Yes. Right. This is this is a stout piece. Yes. How many applications. Because I know the thread pitch is different from. Oh either. Oh yeah. We have a few hundred different applications. That one there's for a first gen BRC and I think a 15 and up. So they're all, you know, separate links. They're all engineered. There's a couple different colors. So you can kind of, you know, try and coordinate with what's, you're looking for for your vehicle. And they even come with a handy dandy toe sticker so you can actually get really legal. Yes. We get these are rated yes. We get a lot of requests for, hey, I got I got a track day or I got a race coming up. I need a tow sticker. What do you guys have in stock? Yeah. So we'll we'll be doing them soon. So here's something I learned, over this the season, I was talking to the track day organizer, and there was a car off course, and one of the guys that works for the track, the organizer said, I don't know if I have that tow hook. Yeah. And I said, well, I thought that was requirements on the tech sheet. It is. But we go out the tow and it's the wrong tow hook. They've never put it in their car, that sort of thing. So I guess. Yeah. Kind of a pro tip, folks, go to the Michi Motul website and, and get one for your next track day. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's just going to be, the worst thing you can have is when you're trying to get a heavy recovery is have your tow hook break. Yeah. No. So, it's pretty important to have something sturdy, but. For sure. Know everything from expansion tanks, upgrades. You know, certainly with the, vintage BMW, even just the reservoir tanks, I mean, some of that old plastic just, you looked at it wrong and it cracked. So do very, you know, high quality, replacement products there and then intercoolers. So the one area where I think we really do a great job is with our intercooler, performance catalog offerings. Again, that's one situation where bigger isn't always better. You have to worry about pressure drop and really just ensuring that you're not taking up too much space. Recently was over, in Europe and, saw a competitive brand that really dominated one specific vehicle. But the intercooler was so big that it was actually blocking the radiator. And, you know, you have an issue where it's probably fine on the street. It's great if you're going to a cars and coffee. But when you're really going to start and push the limits of the vehicle, you know, you're going to really, stress it out and probably do more damage than you think you're going to get. You also a lot of these, you know, we have the ability to do pressure testing. You know, so you're going to have an overboost situation. You know, it doesn't happen often, but, you know, we've seen people blow in intercooler and cause a lot, you know, other issues just from, you know, poor quality of a weld or just an overboost situation. Yeah. So with with your product lines, what's the biggest mistake you've seen folks do. Maybe they bought the wrong stuff. They they did the, the upgrades in the wrong sequence, any uneducated sort of stuff that has happened. Typically it's people not doing the research on the vehicle and not trusting our fitment guidance. So going back to being engineered, all of our stuff. So the one advantage if you're just going to go in, it's a street car and you buy an OEM radiator. The nice part about that is you know it's going to fit, if you're a weekend warrior, you're going to a shop. You know, the biggest mistake people make is trying to buy a universal because it's cheaper or buying somebody else's. And it's not a direct fit. So, you know, our products, we like to say save you time because you're not really having to re-engineer. You're not fabricating. That's really kind of our, forte where you can go and you go, well, you know, it's, it's a BMW from the 2000. Well, you know, in 2015, they changed. So the radiator is fundamentally different, even though it's still a four cylinder. So it's having that, knowledge, having the 3D scans, you know, everything we're going to do, a, you know, in pre-production, we're going to be able to 3D print a model, do a test fit, run it through an algorithm algorithm, and make sure it's going to actually flow properly and be the right amount of performance. And then we'll dyno test it. We're very conservative. We do it on a real world situations. You read a lot of stuff in magazines that this intake did that. And, you know, we saw these kind of gains from an intercooler. Well, you know, they're testing under perfect situation, cold vehicle. And it's. We try and do a little more real world. And, you know, under-promise and overdeliver. Yeah. Any, skew expansion, any new product lines you guys are kicking around? Actually, we just launched our GR Corolla intake. We're the first people in the world to have an air car below approved, 50 Street legal. No. Check. Engine lights. So, yeah, we're pretty excited about that with the GR Corolla. Have a lot of great things coming out for the new, edition, the 2024 and up to Tacoma. It's their first time that they've had a turbo with any power, with the exception of the 80s, ones that most people didn't know exist. So that's pretty cool. Again, we're literally trying to like, engineer products were typically not first to market, because we want to really spend the time doing development again, work through Sema, get our car bios, be legitimate. I mean, we are there is truth in what we do. And, you know, again, we've been around over two decades, so it's it's not one of those fly by night organizations now. Yeah. And what we see with the track at all, doing trackside support or kind of seeing what's going on during race weekends in the, in the grassroots area. Yeah. In the future state, yes, we're going to be much more involved. We did about 31 events this year, which is up dramatically from prior year. We're involved with a lot of, grid life. Everything from that all the way down to like, a Jeep beach. Some of the formula drift events. And we're going to look to expand our horizons. You know, we've had some requests to get back to like, Long Beach, some of the other, community regional events. One of our staff members just did drag week, where she ran around in her Mustang. So, you know, we're getting more and more back into the grass roots and trying to open our horizons, too. We recently did a survey. We asked our customers were using our products, and again, we're very drift and drag oriented. It was shocking the amount of people that came back, said the autocross. So the light bulb went off and I'm going, well, hey, you know, we've kind of told you this, so it's just getting more involved with the community. I was recently at Overland Expo East, so that was fantastic. That was a nice mix of, a little bit of everything. And what you'll find that you already know is that if they're into vehicles, they probably have a race car. They've got a Jeep, they've got a motorhome, they've got a diesel. So it's just, listening to your customer and understanding what they truly need and try not to sell them something they don't. Right. So you and I originally connected a couple months ago, and then you had a bunch of travel going on. And I remember part of that travel was about two weeks in a Boxster. Yeah. That was just two weeks ago. Yes. Yeah. So I, sold I had a wonderful Miata, I bought in 2019. Great car. Had aspirations to turn into a spec Miata, and it was just too nice of a car. As valuation went up, I found a young man that was really interested in Miata. His parents couldn't understand why he didn't want a big F-150. You want to learn how to drive manual transmission? Made him a fair price. The he was, 18 years old. His parents only requirement was part of the deal was I had to teach him how to drive a manual transmission, so I did. So, again, going back to continuing that next, era. Yes. I took that money and I, purchased a Boxster, a nice, clean Boxster. Fun car. Yeah. Did about 2200 miles over the course of 11 days. North Carolina used it for business. Went to, an event called Luf to Colt, which is a celebration of air cooled cars in Durham. And then from there, I went to Overland Expo. So, I definitely stuck out, in between the Hummer H2 and the Jeep Gladiator. But ironically, mine was the much dirtier car in the parking lot. Yeah. So true. Salesman's car? Yeah. Got a blast. Yeah. Never touch 77 all the way through West Virginia. And, what I found funny is people just kept saying. Oh, I can't believe you did all those miles. Well, these cars are designed to be touring cars. Yeah, they need to be used. So is that your daily or just something you have on the side for fun? Just. Something on the side for fun. So, yeah, it was, something to enjoy. The wife wanted more creature comforts than the Miata. She made the mistake a few times to go to the grocery store and coming out and going. Oh, no, I brought the wrong car. So, boxer is just kind of a fun toy. Awesome. Yeah. Here's a question I don't normally ask to guess. So let's say the Volvo goes away, you've done your stuff with it, and it's time to buy another race car. Yes. What are you going to buy? I'm in between two things. One thing we haven't touched on is I'm a vehicle hoarder as of late. So I talked about getting more involved in the hill climbs, by being at Meshi Moto outside of Philadelphia. Some of my weekends I've spent, I've gone and pre-run several of the hill climbs up there and realized, much steeper grades. The one in Weatherly actually has a jump in it. And, I just don't think that's probably the right thing to do on a 60 year old car now. So I'm kind of torn between, I have a Fiesta st. I used to I did some durability testing for Ford, and, was able to get one of those at the right time, in the right place. I intended to actually have it fully caged and built a couple of years ago, but I fell in love with it. So the next car, and this is terrible advice to give, because the best thing you can do is buy somebody else's project. That they've already completed, and it's already done, and they spent all the money that's most of my cars have been other people's castaways as they moved up. But, either between a Fiesta St or I'm thinking a Cayman, and really build something that's going to be all purpose, not full on stage rally, but something I can take to do a track day, hill climbs and just enjoy and and have a little bit, more performance, so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned the hoarding. Is there anything else that you're hiding from us? Car wise? Yes, I have quite a few. So let's talk about them. Yeah, yeah. So, so I have the 2005 Boxster. I in three years ago, I picked up a 2,009.99, 7.2, sight unseen. It was originally going to be caged and turned into that next level car. It showed up and it was wonderful and beautiful and too nice. So, that will stay in the collection forever. I do have a and this was a, big investment, but probably one of my favorite cars. I didn't wanna lose that. And I have a 2024 Cayman GT4 liter manual. A wonderful car. Yeah. I don't know if that'll stay around forever, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to have one before they shot up. And, I also have, let's see, 84, five, 28 BMW. I've got a, BMW wagon, with a mild tune on it. That's kind of my, road cruiser, 95 F150, 4x4. That's in pretty good shape. And then, a couple other, you know, boring cars, you know, stuff that just has to run, you know, tow vehicle. So E46 wagon? No. No, f 31. So it's a 2016. Yeah. I wish it was an E46. Yeah. That to me, that I have a buddy that has a couple of those E46 wagons, and, our friends at track first have one as well. Yes they do. Yes. And, to me, it's to me, I want one, I want a manual. That's my daily go out and get business handled in something like that. Yeah, yeah. That's the only I wish I had a manual in mind. But it's not so bad, I guess that that XF is a pretty darn good transmission. And we have a few other manual. So it takes away from, you know, I don't have to worry about it so much. And complaints. Right. Yeah. But no, I would love to have a 46 wagon for sure. Well, we're getting towards the end. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to? I don't believe so. I mean, I could ramble on for a long time. I've had a great career just being involved, both professionally and personally. And, now it's just a great time to connect. I really appreciate what you do for the community. And, thanks for having me on. Thank you. I got a couple more questions. Perfect. So if you need to learn about something and you can't take an old part around a flea, the. Yeah, the swap meets or anything. What are your online resources? Where do you go to research anything about our sport? Well, I'm a big fan of grassroots motorsports. I'm still, you know, dabble in some of the forums. I take a lot of the information you get online with a grain of salt. You know, one thing I've learned is, you know, people, what works for them may not work for you. I like to connect with the community. I'm going to go. And you know, I hate to say it, some of the specialty groups on Facebook, Instagram, really lead you to the right people. But I still, I'm a firm believer is connecting speak to somebody with experience, go to a shop, go and, you know, meet somebody and find out firsthand. Because what might work and, you know, Atlanta isn't going to work in Ohio and it might not work in California. And it's certainly not going to work up in the Rocky Mountains. You know, learn that the hard way when it comes to the cooling stack. Decades ago, when, we did our high elevation stage rally and I want to say 12 of our cars blew up because we just weren't used to that kind of pressure and altitude and strength, you know, durability. So. All right, time for the final question. Yes. Have you ever been late to grid? Well, I'm prepared for this. I have to be honest. Now, being in stage rally, I have always been early, you know, was raised. If you're on time, you're late. Yes. What I have been strategically late to grid is certainly a to let other people run ahead of me in those kind of scenarios when it comes to an autocross or a timed course. I was embarrassingly so early to grid that I was late to grid. It put in Bay last year, so I pulled up, came into the front of the grid. They neglected to make the announcement that they delayed our, you know, race by 30 minutes. So I pull up, no one's there, I pull up and blah, blah, blah. Car's running great. Turn it off. As with all vintage racing, flag us out to go. My car won't crank and fire. Oh, no. Yeah, and I'm blocking everybody. And so they're going around and shuffling around and, so, not late to grid, but late to start the race. I finally fired, and then it got to play, cat and mouse for a little bit, and, had to, you know, like a lot of people reveal yourself in the adrenaline, the highs and lows, but, No, I had to laugh. I don't think I have ever been late to grid because you know, I don't know. Then you're not prepped. And that's right. You're wasting time. You paid for it. So that's great advice. I really thought it was great that you were here today. Well, awesome journey, awesome story. I can't see where it goes. Yeah. Can't wait to see where it goes I should say. Yeah, well, we'll, we'll do it again in a couple of years. And, look forward to seeing you out and about and some other events and, now that I can, you know, face to the name, definitely, come up and see it and hopefully we can get on track together at some point soon. Absolutely, Jon. Thanks. Thanks, Bill.