Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing
We share the stories and inspiration that will help get more people behind the wheel and on the track. Track days, HPDE, SCCA, NASA, ChampCar, LeMons, and autocrossing - we interview drivers and industry insiders that will help drivers along their motorsports journey.
The name, Late To Grid? In the past the host, Bill Snow, was always late to the track, late to get the car ready, and hence - Late To Grid. His goal with the podcast is to grow the sport and highlight the tools and resources that will help you get to the track and faster behind the wheel.
Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing
The Man with the Plan: Thomas Gaydos on Engineering, Family Racing, and the SCCA Runoffs
In racing, problems are inevitable—but they happen much more often when you don't have a plan. Bill Snow sits down with Thomas Gaydos, a polymer engineering student at the University of Akron and a rising talent in SCCA club racing, to discuss his unique entry into motorsports.
From burning through a DVD of the movie Cars to competing at the prestigious SCCA Runoffs, Thomas shares how a "data-driven" engineering mindset has helped him navigate engine failures, heat issues, and the complexities of maintaining a multi-car family racing team.
Learn why Thomas advocates for buying your first race car instead of building it, his "niche" for rebuilding manual transmissions, and how the Gaydos family turns every paddock spot into a hub of community and camaraderie.
The season might be over, but the work is just beginning. Don't let your track, autocross or racecar sit idle this off season. Now is the perfect time to tackle those projects that get you one step closer to the podium. For upgrades, maintenance, or that big performance project, there's only one name. Atomic Autosports. Get ready to dominate next season. Find us at AtomicAutoSports.com and book a call with Bill to review your project and goals.
Ready to get more from your track days? Want to move to the front of the line for your track day prep? Then you need the Atomic Autosports Apex Club. From a merch pack and exclusive events to priority booking for your track prep essentials. The Atomic Auto Apex Club helps you get on the podium. Stop chasing lap times alone. Join the Apex Club to maximize your performance and share your passion. Sign up at Atomic Autosports.com
Atomic Autosports has some pretty big news! Track first now has a physical presence right inside Atomic Autosports. That means you can get your car Atomic prepped and grab essential safety gear, helmets, shoes, gloves, and more all in one spot. We can also have your purchases shipped right to our shop in Wickliffe, saving you on shipping. Stop by and check out the expanded selection.
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.
In racing, problems always come up and they come up more often when we don't have a plan. My next guest, Thomas Gaydos, is the man with the plan. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. Well, as I mentioned, we have Thomas in the Atomic Auto Sports Studio to share his motorsports journey. And, Thomas, I want to say thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Well, when there's a story about how I met a guest, I like to share it. So for the listeners, I saw Thomas, heard about Thomas, had been around Thomas had a bunch of SCCA events, but we we never really met until this last season. And, we had a karting event at High Voltage Karting. I think that's probably the first time I talked to you and your dad. And then, to wrap up the club racing, season, you and I, we just happen to have our trailers parked next to one another. And, we started talking more and more. You were very helpful. I want to talk about that as well, but that's, that's how we met. And I'm glad we did. Because you've got you got a good story to share. Yeah, it's it's a different story than most young drivers. But it's it's definitely a different approach to enter motorsports. Yeah. So let's talk about how you got started. So it's no should be no surprise. My favorite movie is cars. And I every holiday will get something cars related. My screensaver is lightning McQueen. My wife's screensaver on her phone is Sally. Sure, that's cute, but, I really do love that movie. And that's what got you started and interested in racing. What was it about lightning McQueen in the cars movie that said, man, this looks cool. You know, it's one of those where I grew up in the era of, young drivers where we had all the good racing movies and, you know, cars came out just before I was born. So it was one of those where it kind of just fell into my lap and I watched the movie so many times, I actually burned one CD disc up on it. But it it's a great racing movie. It's a great story. And it's one of one of the best. Like I said, you can watch it over and over again and never be upset about it. Yeah, exactly. So your first real interest, though, you're doing road racing now, but it was drag racing. What kind of sparked the interest in drag racing initially? So growing up, my family was really into drag racing. So we used to go out to Norwalk, some at Motorsports Park, and we'd go watch nature drag races, mainly the Summer Nationals and Night Under Fire. So I grew up with Top Fuel, Funny cars. They're not Top Fuel flanker, Top Fuel dragsters, nitro methane, funny cars, pro stocks and we just loved it. It it was before we really had any idea of what road racing was. And that's just whenever one of those events came up, we'd go. And it got to a point where I became so interested in it that we were about 15 minutes away from getting me into a junior dragster. What stopped that? Well, at the time, I was doing a lot of music. And we were doing a lot of other things. We were playing golf, I think I was playing, little League soccer, all that. And it just it got to the point where it's like, you know, one more thing I don't think we need right now. Wow, that, that. Were you disappointed when the decision was made? At the time, I think I probably was, now, you know, it's like I do all the road racing and stuff, so I'm kind of glad I missed that opportunity. But at the same time, I think it would be fun to drive, Pro Stock or a Top Fuel dragster or something like that. Have you ever gone down the drag strip in a car? I have not, I'd love to. I don't really have a great car to go down the drag strip, but just like road racing, you can take your street car out and drive down the strip so. I never have been down a drag strip either. Been to plenty of, you know, grudge match nights and bracket racing, but never, never took the green light, down the drag strip. So maybe that'll be our next SCCA outing. Well, I'll crash a, Wednesday night out of Conley or something. Sounds like fun. Yeah. So your uncle did some vintage racing. So that's after the decision was made not to go, drag racing. You kind of get drawn into vintage racing. What kind of car did your uncle race? What kind of team did he run with? So he actually never raced? He was, chief mechanic for, vintage race team out of counter, Arizona. And I kind of grew up with that about the same time as, we were doing all the drag racing stuff, so I grew up around, like I said, all the dragsters. But then I also grew up with, you know, 60s Trans-Am cars, Porsche GT cars. I got to be around real Gt40 and Cobras. So I grew up with a lot of really cool cars in my life. And whenever they came out east, from Arizona, you know, tracks like Road America, Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen. So I got to go to all those and see, you know, the old school cars driving on those tracks that have been around for so long. And it's just been an awesome experience. When you would hang out with them at go see them at the track, were you able to hop in a car and at least sit in? They get a feel for it. Were you able to to be in the pits? Yeah, I got to be everywhere from sitting in the car, all the way up to standing on the podium at Watkins Glen. You know, little four year, five year old Thomas standing on the podium with grandma, which was always really cool. But actually what got me into road racing was because of one of those events. It was July of 2020, actually. We went up to Road America and they had the their team had the 1966, Sebring 24 hour winning car, which was a Gt40. And I got to sit in it. And that's really what sparked road racing for me. Wow. Have you seen Ford v Ferrari? I'm sure you have. Number of times. It's one of my favorites. Oh my gosh. So that's so cool that you had that opportunity up there. And then that's what got the the itch going, the lit, the fire so to speak. So your dad started road racing and then you started and I say tagging along. We started doing some track days with that. What what do you think made him want to get into road racing? So before we started we kind of talked about, how we want to approach this because we had no racing experience up until. So we decided being that I was only 14, 15 years old at the time, you know, it's probably going to be much easier for my dad to go through it at his age and learn the process and all that. Looking back on it now, I probably would have been able to take it at 14, 15 years old. And there's a lot of drivers younger than me that are going through it with no problem. But when you've never experienced it, you just have. We didn't know what we didn't know. And we figured, you know, have to do it first and then we'll, we'll send me the year after. Wow. That's pretty cool. Pretty cool for both of you. I mean here he is like hey I'm doing this for my kid. I might as well learn it. And he's having a blast and and doing really well. And then you get to see and learn everything about him. What, you mean where you kind of. That first year, was there some disappointment? Was there some angst? Like, I want to get in there, I want to do this, or you patiently waiting. It's a little bit of both. I was able to do probably 4 or 5 track days that first year, so, I was doing a lot of on track. And at that age, who I've only really done sim racing up until that point. When it comes in terms of cars, I didn't know anything, so it was good for me to get on track. I mean, my first track day, I think on lap 3 or 4, I thought turn one at Nelson was flat. Well, I learned pretty quickly that that's not the case. What? Thankfully kept out of the tires. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, what a wake up moment. Right. What kind of car were you driving? I was driving my dad's civic. You can. I know the listeners can't hear. See it, but it's this car behind me here. Oh, yeah? Yeah. All right, so it was a it was a legit car. You not just taking the Subaru out there. Correct? It. It was a fully built pride car. So. Oh, man, that's so cool. So, What? So how old were you in that you were doing that track days? I was 15 at the time. 15. All right, so the listeners, there might be some listeners that say, hey, wait a minute. He didn't have a driver's license. So how does that work? Some of that wants to go to the track day at that young age. I can't remember entirely. But at the time, I think I had just gotten my, whatever it is, your temporary license or so you can ride with your parents or drive with your parents. But I had never driven a car before I went on track. So before we went out, my dad took me to a parking lot near my grandparents with the car, just to make sure I wouldn't stall the car before we go out. But it's not a complex process from what I remember. It's been so long now. It seems like. But it, they're, I know the one group unfortunately they're our business our other interest. They were very welcoming to young drivers. I know Kreider Racing does track days. They're very welcoming to young drivers. A lot of those organizations are and you just have to reach out with them, talk with them and they'll figure it all out for you. Right. So, from your perspective, how was the SCCA licensing process easier than you thought. Was it pretty smooth for you? Walk us through that. So I guess for a little context, I went to the Washington DC regions, driver school at some point, and I had a fantastic experience there. It it was both easier and harder than I expected. The actual test taking portion of it wasn't bad. You know, knowing your flags. What what does this mean? What does that mean? That that wasn't hard for me. The actual, like, on track, like tests and stuff like that, that they did there. You know, passing drill, stuff like that. That's something I hadn't done before because the track days, it was all point bys and only on the straights. So from the on track perspective, it was a little different, but actually taking the test and all that, it was a very smooth process. And you have a lot of other people that help you along the way. While you're at those driver schools. Yeah, I think so. The listener understands too. The reason you chose there is because they had a driver school. There's really not a whole lot available to us in, in the Ohio area. Is that right? That's correct. It was kind of for us, we were bouncing between, Waterford Hills, where my dad took his school and Summit Point, but I believe Nelson had a race early on in the season. That was before the, Waterford Hills School. And I wanted to get out driving as soon as possible. So we made the, multi-hour track down to Summit Point and did that school. Okay. He mentioned Rick Ryder, so he's been a previous guess. And I saw Reed and Sandy at PRI. One of the things I asked him about was, when are we going to get a driver school at Nelson? Because that's something that they've been working on. So there's at least one weekend this year where folks that want to get in the SCCA racing get licensed. There's gonna be some great opportunities for them. So it's a long time coming. Used to be here and it's coming back. So that's good for folks that want to get involved. Let's let's go to your first race. And it could be that that school weekend. It could be maybe your first race at Nelson. Any jitters, any last minute, like, oh, we forgot to do this. What's going through your mind as you're getting ready, whether for the, you know, whether for qualifying or actually going out and, taking that green flag for the first time? Well, for us, our first year, we were fighting a lot of engine issues. So, you know, there was a lot of jitters there. But then I can even remember to this day and my dad would, say the same thing. I remember being in the car and my legs were just shaking like crazy, like, I'm trying to relax and I can't keep still. But that first race was a pretty, pretty awesome one. If I remember correctly, we ended up having an issue in qualifying, so I started at the back of the field, which for your first race isn't always the worst thing because you can kind of play it slow, you know, see what's what's happening in front of you and then just take your time. But that that first race is something always special. But it's also very funny how you go from being crazy nervous to once you see the green flag, all of that disappears and you're super focused on what you're doing, then. Is there one thing you wish you would have known for that first race that you figured out later? Not really. It it's one of those where it was just a learning experience for me. It wasn't anything to, you know, it's not like it was the runoffs where you're racing for a championship. It. It was a first regional race, and, so keeping the car in one piece was my goal for that weekend so I could race the next weekend. So it it was it was a different experience to what I had had up to that point, but I wouldn't have changed anything. Oh that's great how many seasons ago was that? That was 20, 23. So three years ago okay. So you raced in three four and we just finished up season five. I asked you before the show what was the best racing advice you have? And it's basically to go out with a plan. So how have you apply that to your racing? Yeah, that's one of the most important things in my opinion, when it comes to racing. Perfect example is we went to the June sprints this year. It's one of the last stops on the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour or their national tour. And we have been fighting a lot of car issues that weekend, but it we knew we weren't in a great place after qualifying, but we said, okay. We were pretty far and down in the field. Let's try and make up some positions. We just got to be aggressive here and I think before turn three at Road America, I think I was up 5 or 6 positions already. Oh my gosh. So we took 3 or 4 cars before turn one and then another 2 or 3 cars before turn three. So going out with a plan is probably the most important thing. And it doesn't have to be be aggressive. It doesn't have to be, this race is going to come to me. It's even simple stuff like, okay, it's practice. I'm going to work on turn five, braking, turn three, turn, and it's all that kind of stuff because just going out and driving doesn't do anything. It you're not gaining anything from it. So always go out with the plan. Always try and learn something about the track. And I think that's the best piece of advice, whether you're a highly experienced driver or just brand new, have a plan. That is great advice. You know, a lot of folks are just saying seat time, seat time, seat time. And if you're doing the same thing wrong over and over again, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you're just creating bad habits. So I love that to go out and have a plan, work on something, and have a game plan for a race that is super. It's, great advice. So you and dad share a car every weekend? Not every weekend. Okay, unfortunately, these Hondas are like potato chips. You just can't have one. We're up to three of them now, plus a parts car. So. It's a little challenging when you have three cars and only two drivers. And dad travels for work, so, you know, prepping and maintaining three cars. So we have my orange car, which I'm campaigning at the runoffs in the national events. We have my dad's green car, which is now white car, which is getting finished up for this season. And then we have our black car, which we're doing some big changes too. So. We're not doubling up every weekend, especially at some of these national events. Because we put our cars pretty high strung. To get the performance out of them. So we, we usually just do one driver, but a lot of the Nelson events will double up because it's so close. And if something breaks, it's easy for us to go back to the house and grab parts. Sure. Is that where you have all the cars? Oh yeah, we have them here at home, so. Okay, that makes it easy. It does. But also, you know, on a school night where you get an idea of something you want to work on, you know, to do, I go fix the race car or do I go and study a little bit more calculus or something like that? The race car sounds more fun, but calculus more important. There's plenty of time to race after school, right? Yeah, it it's it's hard for me when it comes to school sometimes because, you know, the early part of the race season is when we're still in school. So and then, you know, getting a job over the summer makes it hard sometimes to, to maintain three cars. But we're, we're kind of taking a step back on each car every season. And we're doing a lot of development currently on our orange car. So it's really only maintaining two cars at a time for us. Gotcha. So, you know, we kind of skipped over the whole school thing. So you are we're recording this, late December 2025. You are home from college Break. Let's talk about college life and school and future career. So where are you going to school? Currently going to the University of Akron. I'm studying polymer science and polymer engineering. It's, kind of a branch of, I'll say, chemical engineering. So it it's a little different. It's challenging. Well, you know, folks, if you've listen to the podcast for any amount of time, you've heard me say this before, why are all the good guys, engineers, all the good drivers, all the smart drivers are engineers? Thomas, what do you think it is about engineering that makes it a good driver? Well, I number one and I think I can say this on behalf of a lot of engineers. We like data. So we collect data on everything and it allows us to push our cars a little bit further than the next guy. But it's also kind of the engineering mindset. You really have to get focused on what you're doing and being in a race car, being able to pick up little details and all that and stay really focused is critical. Now that's that's great. What let's fast forward to when you're done with University of Akron. What's the goal, what kind of career you want to have? Well, thankfully with polymers I have a lot of options. I can go into plastics, I can go into rubber with like tires or, molds. I can do oil. That's one of the major polymers we use, paints, coatings. So I have a lot of options. I'm kind of keeping my door open for whatever opportunities come. So it's it's pretty. It's pretty open for me. I mean, I'm only a sophomore right now. I'm currently looking at some, co-op opportunities and all that, so I'm just trying to find something that I enjoy. Yeah, I know there's no doubt you're going to be successful with whatever you want to do as well. And, you know, you mentioned a lot of different industries, and I think we're lucky enough to have a lot of those in Akron and Cleveland. So you probably end up staying close to home. Yeah. It between, you know, places like Sherwin-Williams up in Cleveland or you know, Goodyear in Akron. I mean, there's so many options. And even if you go right across the border to PA over to Pittsburgh, there's a lot of options there. So I'm staying pretty local. Oh that's that's great. So as I mentioned recording this in December, some people call that the off season. I've been calling it the growth season. So what does from the checkered flag of that last race we did together, in October to the green flag in 2026? What are you doing? Not only to the cars, but for yourself to make yourself a better driver. Yeah. So, I'm a pretty I enjoy running, so I've been doing a lot of running over the offseason just trying to build up the endurance. Especially with a lot of the national events going to 40 minutes long. I mean, you have to have pretty good stamina for events like that, but also I do a lot of sim racing. So, you know, just trying to learn the track a little bit better. Whether it's tracks that I know, like Mid-Ohio or Road America or Watkins or new tracks like Barber or Ginger man. So it's always trying to learn something new. But I'm also doing some other little projects, helping out another driver. I'm doing the transmission for him right now, so no kidding. Rebuilding a manual trans. Yeah. So I actually redo all the transmissions in our cars. That's kind of my my niche. I enjoy it, but I'm currently doing, Miata transmission for an Arc seven, so it's it's different. Yeah. Wow. So I, someone's I had to swap transmissions in the R7, coming into this season, into 25, and I gave my other one transmission to someone else. He took it apart in front of me to find what was wrong with it. I am so glad I wasn't the one that take take that apart, because I looked at it and said, yeah, I don't think so. So kudos to you. And again, you know, the engineering background, the smart background, being able to take a look at that, be able to fix that, get it back in the car and have it perform. That's that's no small feat. Yeah. And then on top of the whole transmission thing, it's a lot of math in there when it comes to optimizing your gear ratios and all that. And, I enjoy that. I'm currently trying to find something even a little better than we're running right now, so. Oh, man, that's that's cool. So, you know, for example, helping somebody like that, how does that help you develop as a, as a driver or just as a, as a person? I mean, it's a little bit of business side, you know, understanding that realm of racing, but also understanding my competitor's cars. You know, in iRacing they have production class, which is a pretty heavily Miata filled class. So understanding how their cars work can either give me advantages, disadvantages, or in the case that they break something, I can lend a helping hand at an event to help them get back out on track. And just because they're a competitor doesn't mean that you know I'm not going to help them. I want everybody to get back out on track, and we all have a fun time. Yeah. And when they asked you what you liked about SCCA club racing, that's exactly what you talk about camaraderie and community and you are living example that just based on what you said, is there an example of something you witnessed early on at an SCCA event that said, all right, this I love this community. I love these people. But I mean, it's never been like a first. It's kind of been and always, every event we've gone to, I've met new people and everybody is super open to talking with you and, you know, lending a helping hand here or there. I mean, our cars, we've had our issues, but we've always had people come over help us. So I want to be the same. And if someone else has an issue with their car, I can go help them. That's beautiful. So I mentioned when we started earlier that, we were paddock next to each other this past October and, you know, it was later at night, I pull the trailer and I see your trailer. I'm like, man, that trailer looks familiar because it's a gorgeous, intact trailer. Yeah. You don't see you don't see too many of those. It's an awesome shape. And, lo and behold, next morning you guys were there. And I'm so grateful you were, because that's the first time, the first weekend I had the R7 on slicks, only my second time ever racing on slicks. It's called weekend and you gave me some great advice about heat cycling. The tires don't go out and just practice on them. The first practice event, get them warmed up, five laps kind of thing. Come on in. That was super great advice. But then also, I kind of was checking in on you guys throughout the weekend and I'm like, why every every session? The car's up in the air, wheels are off. I'm kind of like, what am I missing here? Are the tires supposed to be stored somewhere else? And this, that and the other. And your dad said, I'm going through the car. Everything fell fine. I'm just double checking everything. And I thought, okay, now I'm a big proponent of nut in bolting everything every time. But I'm also a little lazy. And if the car felt great and my lap times were good, no new noises. You know what? I'm going to go back. And some, for some reason, I love tinkering on the trailer. That's like my that's my my jam. When I'm at the track, I want to clean the trailer a little bit. I want to work on it. I want to bring it up to speed. But your dad sharing that advice the rest of the weekend? That's exactly what I did. I got the car up, I shook it down. Make sure nothing else was loose. Looking for fluids. So. Yeah. So thank you for that. And, you know, the whole Gaydos family, participating and making the paddock a better community with lots of camaraderie and good Halloween snacks, too. People are stopping by grabbing that from you. Well, you can thank mom for that one. She. She's our snack food person every weekend, so. Yeah, you guys had a nice spread. For the listeners, the, the hollow, you know, sometimes it's called the Monster Mash. It's been the Halloween race for for a long time, but every paddock spotter is encouraged to put out some, some treats and so people can go trick or treating. But you guys went beyond that. I saw your table set up with some snacks. I took some notes because I shared it with the Raider teams. When we go to race weekend. This is this is what I'm talking about, guys. This is how we have to have things set up so people can grab things quickly. It was it was impressive. Truly a family affair because I think, your grandparents came out too, didn't they? Yeah. It for us, it's a whole family ordeal. I mean, we all work on the cars, you know? Yeah, mom cooks, but she also wraps our cars and does bodywork and all that, so. But it's not just me and dad or me. Dad and grandpa. I mean, everybody has their job, and it's a whole family thing. And it helps having, you know, five people to maintain one car or two cars. So having people to go to the track with is also really important, because sometimes you get out of the car and the last thing you want to do is touch the car. Yeah, yeah. Some like you mentioned, I mean these weekends are long, they can be hot and they can be strenuous, demanding and then frustrating if things aren't right. So the more help you have, the easier the weekend go. So you're definitely blessed with with great family and friends to to help you along. So tell us about the 2020 2025 season. How do you think things ended up for you? I do want to talk about runoffs in a minute, but also I'm going to guess you're competing in F production, with NE Ohio, right? A little bit. You know, we we've kind of gone to a lot of the national events now, the majors and the Super Tour events, and it involves a little bit more traveling. But we end up seeing, you know, the same guys who are going to the runoffs. So, you know, figuring out where you stack up earlier on in the season and also maybe being able to learn a little bit from what someone else is doing to make your car a little bit faster. But our 2025 season, it was okay. We, we were fighting a lot of heat issues, all season, we tried different radiators, different header setups, and it was also just a hot season. I mean, there was multiple weekends where it was over 90 degrees for us. So it was a hard season for us. But we're that's why we're doing some development on that car, hopefully cooling it off a little bit more for 26, possibly 27. Gotcha. Let's talk about runoffs. So for those that don't know, runoffs, basically the SCCA championship and you just don't show up, okay. You got to you got to participate in a couple of those majors, right? So walk us through, you can even use your 2025 season, but walk us through, you know, what you had to do to get there. And then let's let's talk about the whole experience of runoffs, because it's it's just not a couple of days. It's a whole week. So first off, how does someone get to runoffs. So the runoffs it's kind of a funky process. But basically you either have to do three major slash Super Tour events, or you have to do two majors and two regional events. Last year you had to be within a certain point standings to get to the runoffs. This year it's been changed where the points don't matter as long as you complete those events, you can go, for us, we did the Mid-Ohio Hoosier Super Tour. We didn't even start the race or our car. Our car was having a lot of issues there. It was hot. It just it was not a good weekend. I think we qualified. I think I did a total of six laps that weekend. But you have some good ones, have some bad ones. But from there we went up to the June sprints, had an okay finish that ended up having to drive 12 hours to pick up a radiator instead of headers to make the car stay cool enough for a whole race. Oh my goodness. And then we went up to Watkins Glen, which we had a pretty good weekend. We had an axle failure there. We were struggling with that all season. But we had a much better where we were one place away from a podium. We, we almost were able to hold on to it, but some lapped traffic just put us out of the running for it. Oh, man. It's always something with the Hondas, Yeah. The Hondas are pretty prone to the whole axle failure thing being front wheel drive. And you know, we're trying to push a lot more power and torque through these stock engines. So we're having a beefing up our axles and all of that a lot. Yeah. So then we see you made it. The runoffs did. Did you and your dad race or just you? I only did the runoffs. Okay. Eight hours with two cars is a long tow up the road. America. So for Road America, we're only to take one car. Yeah. We went, it was a shortened runoffs this year because they're doing a lot of changes to, the National, events and classes and all that. So instead of being, I believe they were 6 or 7 days before, it's down to four. Okay. So it kind of felt like a compressed event. You felt like you were constantly doing something. So it it was weird this year. I don't know how to describe it, but at the same time, we had our cylinder head off doing a head gasket the day of the race, so that doesn't some of our weekend. I don't know what that is. And you think that was a result of some of the heat issues you've been dealing with? Yeah. We're also thinking we might have a little bit of a warp in the head or something like that, or I mean, it's a 13 to 1 engine. So it it's kind of prone to blowing out head gaskets. But we're not getting as much life out of them as we feel like we should be. So we're kind of taking a step back and reevaluating what's causing that. Gotcha. Yeah, a lot of moving parts, literally and figuratively. A lot of things to to kind of sort out, as you look, as you look towards 2026, what do you aim to be focused in on? It's a development year for us. So like I said previously, we are currently finishing up, new F production car. It's currently up in Wisconsin with our engine builder getting tuned. So we're going to be campaigning that car a lot this year. And then we also have our ITA car that we've been running F prior to, and we're looking to move that car over to STL. So it's kind of a development year for this for us this year. And just trying to learn a little bit more about these cars. We've already found some issues with our orange car that we're trying to learn more about, so we don't make the same mistake on our other cars. Gotcha. Yeah. You need those sort of seasons every now and again to do some data collection, figure some things out, and then maybe even have a stronger in this case, 2027. Correct. And we're also kind of hoping, you know, they've had the they'll have the past three runoffs. Road America. So we're kind of hoping maybe they'll come a little bit more closer to home, you know, with the Mid-Ohio or, Indianapolis. So we're kind of taking this year a little bit slower until we know where the 27 runoffs are, and we'll figure out what we want to do from there. Yeah, Indy would be epic again. I think they only ran there once, maybe twice. I believe it was twice. Yeah, okay. That would be really cool. If somebody were to approach you and say, Thomas, I heard you on the podcast. I really like your story. I want to get into racing and motorsports. What advice would you offer them? Don't build your first car. It seems tempting, you know, finding the exact car you want and building that car. But honestly, buy if you're looking to go road racing by a car and understand that class and you don't have to stay in that car crazy long, I recommend staying in the car for a year or two, but just. I know it sounds bad. You know, we said I'll go out with a plan, but seat time is equally as important. So. But using that seat time with a plan will get you, much further ahead. So, you know, find a car, and understand that car and understand your capabilities. When we started, we didn't know how to build engines, transmissions. I mean, we we kind of jumped in both feet with both feet and tried to make it stick. I mean, we've blown our engines up multiple times, but it it's a learning process. You you're never going to get anything right the first time. So yeah. Yeah. You know, try different events. I highly recommend SCCA. They're super welcoming like we've talked about. And you always have a good field of cars there, so, you know, understand what you want to do. And unfortunately not everybody can go run a big GT car their first season. You know, you might have to start in a Mazda miata. And you know what? That's perfectly fine. You will learn a lot more in that Miata, I'm sure, than you will in a big GT2 mustang. When you need to go and learn something, maybe it's rebuilding transmissions differently. Maybe it's taking a different driver's line. What are your resources to go and learn things? It sounds bad, but YouTube, you know, there's so much, especially with cars like our Honda's, there's a lot of videos out there on how to redo the stuff on them. So you just have to go. You have to look and see what's out there. And that's another thing. Before buying your first car, see if there's any, videos on how to fix stuff on your car or that car, because you might be in a situation where you have to rebuild your own transmission because no one else knows how to. But also getting a shop manual, that's been one of the biggest things for us. We have a shop manual for our car, and it allows us to know a lot of those smaller things, like some of the clearances or, you know, oh, this is Honda's trick to remove a bearing or something like that. So it I first say YouTube, but get the book. It will teach you a lot. That is great advice. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to cover today? Not that I can think of. It. Yeah. All right, I got two more. Two more things to talk about. So you said the goal isn't F1 or even IMSa. But do you think that motorsports, regardless of where you go career wise, will continue to be part of your life? Absolutely. It'll be a huge part of my life and I'm kind of in that position. You know, I'm I'm not a 16 year old karting world champion or something like that. So that I don't really have I don't want to say what it takes to be, formula one driver. I mean, hey, you never know, but I mean, I'm going to take every opportunity I can. I mean, if there's a TCR team or an MX five team that even I can just do a test day in their car, I'll definitely take it. But it'll definitely be a huge part of my life. I mean, I love the engineering of it. So I get to continue to work on cars and try and find new tricks and stuff to make my cars better. So awesome. So it's time for the last question. Have you ever been late to grid? Actually late. No later than I want to be. Yes. So I'm one of those drivers that likes to get there nice and early. Get out my car. I have a routine to getting in the car now, so have I ever been late where I missed grid? No, but I'm sure it will happen at some point. It might. Do you have one tip that saves you from being late to grid? Always listening to announcements and also just understanding the schedule. Understanding what cars are either out on track or going to be out on track. And truly that first season. Getting to grid early is important. You know, it might feel weird to sit in your car for five ten minutes, but it probably will calm you down, a little bit before going out. So that's why I like it. But at the national events, I go, I talk with other drivers, you know, it it you meet new people on grid. Oh, absolutely. Well, Thomas, it's been great having you on the podcast. I really appreciate you taking some time and sharing your motorsports journey. Thank you for having me.