Welcome to Off the Racing Line, the Grassroots Motorsports podcast. I am your host, Carlos Espitia, and with me is Mike Moore. Welcome back. Thank you, sir. It’s great that we actually have an official slogan. Good job on that. It’s it’s it’s a work in progress, but I think it’s it’s solid right now. Uh, Mike, I got some great news. Oh, do tell. We have a sponsor for the podcast, which means I won’t have to dip into my daughter’s uh life savings and uh college fund in order to pay for the show. That’s fantastic. And does that also mean that we get to renegotiate my contract now that we have revenue? Yeah. No, absolutely not. All right. Well, I had to try.
Okay. So, today’s episode is brought to you by Velocity Track Experience, Florida’s premier arrive service for track days and racing. If you’re looking to get on the racetrack, whether you’re flying in from out of state, out of the country, don’t have a car, or just want a hassle-free weekend, Velocity’s got you covered. From the exhilarating Mazda MX5 to a full-blown BMW race car, Velocity Track Experience is your ticket to the grid with their premier rental track cars. Head over to velocity trackperience.com to book your next high-performance driving adventure.
Mike, have you driven their MX5? I think we’ve talked about my height challenges uh preventing me from ever owning or driving a Mazda. I would love it. Um, you know, a fantastic car. No, I like I said, if I was uh 3 in shorter, uh I absolutely would have one as a track car. They’re fantastic. Um, I think I shared this story already, but um, when one of my buddies allowed me to just drive his car, his Miata, by the time I hit like the third turn, not the third lap, the third turn, I was like, I need to have one. I I love that car. Yeah, they’re they’re absolutely phenomenal. Yeah, it’s fantastic.
All right, our guest today is either a 26y old woman or a 45-year-old man trapped in one. The internet still hasn’t decided and honestly she is fine with that. She’s a Porsche connoisseur, a long-distance road trip junkie, a drift car owner, Ducati rider, and just for good measure, she casually dailies an an Aston Martin Vantage. And when she’s not behind the wheel, she’s behind a canvas telling automobile stories through her art. She’s bold, fast, and unfiltered, just the way we like it here on the podcast. Jen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I didn’t realize how all over the place I was until you went over the list of all the things that I do. Um, never really occurred to me how many different things I did. Absolutely no focus at all. But that Well, I think it’s awesome. We could we could end the show right now and you’d already be the most entertaining guest we’ve had. And you’re and you’re still only 26. Is it 26? Yeah. 26.
All right. So, let’s jump into it. You put in 8-hour work weeks to fund your car obsession and still find time to stir chaos on social media. Let’s talk about that for a little bit. You shared with me that some people online actually think that you’re a dude, right? Let’s talk about that. Um, how’s that even possible? So, my bio’s always been exactly what it is now is is a 40-some year old guy and a 20some year old girl’s body. I just got to keep updating the numbers every year, you know. But, um, nobody really got stuck on it until I had this one shirt on that I made for the Porsche community here in Florida. Actually, it was not meant to be like an online shirt at all. It was not meant to be sold ever at all. Um, it says, um, we’ll put the overlay. We’ll put the picture on it. Yeah. Well, it says it says something is a little inappropriate. And um and I did a video with that and a ton of people were in my comments like talking about like, “Oh, you’re never going to be a real man, like a real woman. Um this is, you know, you can’t just change. Like you that’s not acceptable, you know, or people telling me like supporting me even telling me like, oh, like it’s so great that you’re so far along your journey.”
Now, I I find it fascinating because well, I’ve spoken to you a few times. I know that you’re a woman, but you don’t really you don’t really care that people think that at all. It’s hilarious. Like, it’s absolutely hilarious. Um, it’s incredibly entertaining. Um, as long as they’re talking about you, right, that’s what matters. Social media does great on social media. It It upsets people. It creates a reaction and that’s really all that matters on Instagram. Yeah. And uh and it’s genuinely hilarious. Um, and you told me that you also like to stir the pot with Porsche owners and you’ll throw some stuff out there just to just to r them up cuz they’re so obsessive, right? Like they have uh and I’ve had a my first car was a Porsche, you know? My first car was an ‘ 06 Boxster. I have an obsession with 987s. I think it’s like the greatest chassis ever made. Um, and I’ve had a ton of Porsches. I’ve had two Cayenne. I’ve had the Spider. I had couple Cayman race cars, you know, and I love Porsches, you know. It took me forever to actually not have a Porsche. For the longest times, every single car I had ever owned was a Porsche. And I get it. I think it’s an amazing car and it’s a great solution. Uh it’s a for almost any application. But there’s like this crazy obsession online with them. And there’s some people that are like extremely cultist with them. And anytime you say anything even slightly derogatory about Porsches, it like rs people’s feathers up. And it’s like the funniest thing ever. And you do it on purpose. You poke the bear on purpose. Why wouldn’t I? Yeah, you’re going to need to find a new co-host. I’m not coming back. This is This is a bunch of bull crap. I do believe wholeheartedly that the Cayman Boxer chassis is like the greatest car ever made. I’ve driven a lot of really interesting, different, expensive, not expensive, modified, not modified cars. And for me, that’s like the greatest car ever made. Like I I can never find something better than that. No, I absolutely love them. There’s the reason I have owned multiple of them. They’re they’re so easy to drive at the limit. It’s a cheater car. It’s not. Yeah, it is. I finally got some backup over here. I’ve been in cars partner. I’ve been in in in a Porsche GT3 RS where somebody was not even shifting gears with the paddles. The car was just doing everything. You would just slam on the brake and the car would be burn. Remind me, what kind of transmission does your track car have? A DCT. Oh, with paddles. Yeah, but it doesn’t do that. This was fully automatic. I I I even asked him, you know, I was his instructor. I said, “Are you shifting gears?” She goes, “No, the car was just doing it all. It knew exactly what to do. It’s amazing cuz it’s the best car in the planet.” Well, it’s the best transmission in the world. The PDK sounds like BMW needs to step up their game if anything, you know. Can Can we have Jen back on next week? This is fantastic. I love it. Figured she would get.
All right. Um, so Jen, you’ve built a following by being unapologetic in a space that isn’t always warm and fuzzy. Um, what kind of DMs or comments do you get from people who are inspired or offended by what you do? I get a lot of what do you do for a living to the point that it’s like incredibly obnoxious. Um, I usually tell people I like sell drugs, that I do human trafficking. Like I usually like cuz it’s it’s it’s really obnoxious. Like, you know, and I was I was an 18-year-old kid and I didn’t know what to do at one point, but um it’s like every other person half the time it’s people that don’t even follow me. They’re like, “Oh, what do you do for a living?” It’s like it’s none of your business because they think your money is coming from somewhere else. I get that a lot too. Like I get a lot of like, “Oh, that’s daddy’s money, you know, and and it’s I wish it was daddy’s money. It would be [ __ ] fantastic if it was daddy’s money, you know. Um still waiting for for daddy to win the lottery.” Uh one day perhaps. Um in the meantime, you’re going to continue working 80our weeks. I don’t have a choice, you know. It’s it’s it’s been a huge struggle for me too cuz I I have to balance like ever since I want to say since April until mid August every single day off that I have I have been out of state. This is the one of maybe two exceptions since April to now August. Mid August is my last event last thing that I’m doing. I’ve been uh I went to Washington. I was in Washington State McLaren like beginning of April. Then I went to Dragon with the Cayman then. And it’s really hard to balance that and like still being at work cuz in a job that requires you to actually be there and in order for you to produce income. Yeah. Um so it’s it’s been a little bit of a balance, but it’s um it is what it is. That’s just the life we live in. You know, unfortunately, that’s something that you just brought up and I’m glad you did because I do look at some of some of your posts and it I see you taking trips everywhere and I don’t know if it seems like you’re taking it like just that week and then you’re also working all these hours. Like how do you how do you do that? It’s like insane. Like right now I’m doing West Virginia. I need to pick up my Ducati in West Virginia because that was my last stop. Um to take it to to Poco Lodge, which was where I’m hosting this event now, August 3rd. And um I’m flying in Sunday night to Pittsburgh first thing in the morning, 7 a.m. I need to rent a car, drive over to the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. The closest airport is Pittsburgh. I want to say it’s like two, three hours from Pittsburgh. uh get on the Ducati, ride it six hours to to Topco Lodge, and then immediately as soon as I leave Tupoco Lodge, leave the bike, get a rent, keep the rental car cuz I’m I’m thankfully this part of the trip I’m splitting with somebody where it’s a little bit more manageable because I had so little time. I don’t have the time to take all the breaks on the motorcycle. Unfortunately, it’s not like driving a car. We could just like do 14 hours all straight. Yeah. How how far can you or how long can you ride a bike like safely without taking a break? comfortably. I’ll do like two hours. Yeah, that’s what I figured. It’s it’s like it’s it’s a sports bike. Your like knees are like on your shoulders, you know? You’re like really like tucked in there. It’s extremely uncomfortable. So, I almost killed myself on a motorcycle on a sport bike when I was in in college. Shortly after leaving the Marine Corps, my buddies that I was uh my roommates, they they all had motorcycles. And so, you know, being a stupid ex-marine, I used some of my uh my VA money from for college fund. Sure. to buy a motorcycle, you know. I was like, “Yeah, that’s reasonable. I can pay the books somewhere else.” And so I uh I what I remember was that we were going to like Daytona, which was like, I don’t know, hour and a half or two from from Gainesville. And I just remember that my my hands would start falling asleep just from the vibration, I guess. I don’t know what it was. 100%. And so I I would I would just do this just to give that one a little break, get some circulation going, and then do this. And I remember it started raining and that was awful cuz I was not wearing a helmet. None of us were. And it was like needles like needles just hitting you. I’m sure you’ve seen you’ve felt that. Sensational. Yes. It was amazing. Even when it hits you like your sk your skin like if you’re wearing a t-shirt, it’s just like needles poking you. I’ve I’ve only been on a bike once. Uh high school. A friend of mine had a bike and took me for a ride and it was I was it was a little bit damp out and we were going around a corner and it kind of went a little bit too far close to the line and of course the paint was wet. So as we were drifting the bike just skipped right over it. I thought that’s good. That was enough. That was more excitement for me. Yeah. Yeah. I had a guy uh right in front of our um our fraternity house. It was a veterans fraternity that we started in in Gainesville at University of Florida. Uh I remember I was showing off to my my then girlfriend. I was like, “Watch this.” Right. And I gun it and then somebody runs a stop sign. It was a university van. I was like, “No, not good.” I apply both brakes. I’m like, “Nope, not slowing down.” So, I I decided to like slide it sideways. And uh it it I was only doing not not that fast. But it was it was scary enough that I was like, “Yeah, this is enough for me. I’m not I’m not smart enough to be on something like this.” Well, there’s any number of expressions that could have followed your I’m not smart enough to. That’s just one of them. Thank you. All right, Jen, let’s talk about your first love at 18, the Porsche Boxster. Was it Boxster? Yeah. 06 Boxster. Tiptronic base model 2.7. Real real plain Jane car. But when I was 18, that was like I thought I was God cuz I had a red convertible. And I don’t think a lot of 18-year-olds are going to can say that I had a Porsche at 18, you know, right? Um, but if it wasn’t for that car, we wouldn’t be sitting here. Honestly, that that car is it it is to this day the love of my life. I still have it. It’s extremely badly crashed right now. Um it had a really major accident about 3 years ago. Uh chassis looks like a tin can now. Um but it’s okay cuz I can’t get rid of that car. So until I have the issues when you have a lot of cars is really hard to allocate funds into one car, especially one that’s going to be as much of a money fit as that one is just to get us straightened again. Um, so until I can stop buying cars, that one’s going to kind of sit in my front yard. But sounds like you have a problem buying cars. I I want to stop. Like this year I said like I Sounds like a true addict. I can stop at any time. We need to work that into our slogan somehow, right? Yeah. So I have five cars right now. And um when I bought the Aston Martin, I was like, “Oh, that was a lot. Like I don’t want to do that anymore. Like I’m I’m done.” And then like some random guy in Virginia was like, “Do you want a drift car?” And I was like, “Why not?” “Of course.” Right. And uh it was really funny. I never met this guy a single day in my life before. Um is that the Supra? That’s the the 350Z. Oh, okay. Yeah. It was it was a non-running car. It was a complete stranger that offered it to me on the internet and he was like, “Oh, just come to us uh to Virginia and like I’ll just I’ll give it to you. You just have it.” And I hit up one of my best friends and I was like, “Hey, can we go pick up this thing?” Cuz it wasn’t running at the time, right? It had like an electrical issue. It ended up being a battery terminal. It cost me $20 to fix it and the car was got a free car out of it. Literally. Wow. Um, but that was great. That was Talk to us about that moment that if you recall, the moment they pulled you into motorsports. Was it buying the Porsche? Was it something else? So, for me, it was when I first got the Boxster. I really needed to find a shop that could work on it because I was 18. I had three jobs and I was a minimum wage employee and I was like, “No, I’m not paying anybody $400 to do an oil change on this car.” You’re pay You’re working three jobs so you can drive your your Boxster to those jobs. Exactly. Our kind our kind of people right there. Exactly. It’s like like the slogan originally was make money, build race cars, you know, and that’s that’s all the only reason why to make any money, you know, it’s just so you can keep pouring it all into this insanely expensive hobby we have. Um, but I found DRT because I found Park House and I I knew like I could do basic maintenance myself, but something really went wrong. I I didn’t really have any background in cars at all. So, I was like maybe it’d be nice to have a shop handy. And they were about to host DRT. And I went to DRT and I was so shook. I didn’t know people did this as like their whole life thing. The RT is what uh Dan Trefen is a uh it’s a car meet. It’s only Porsches. It’s here in South Florida. It’s usually three 400 cars. It’s it was hosted by Park House formerly. It’s it’s hosted um by somebody else now. But um it’s an amazing me. It’s literally every and any Porsche you can imagine is usually goes there. And I I talked to people there and they were like, “Yeah, this is all I do.” And I was like, “That’s amazing.” And then I was like, “That’s all I want to do.” You know? And I remember back then like I used to like close my eyes and like all I could see was cars like behind like my eyelids. I was like, “Oh my god, like this is this is it. This is all I want to do.” You know? Jen, you are definitely our car our kind of people. Yeah. Um, talk to me about that the moment where art and cars collided for you because you you you paint cars. I do. Um, as art. I mean, right. as I I get that confusion doesn’t work in a body. No, no, you don’t work in a body. I did. I did at one point. I I’ve gone through a lot of I did track support at one point. I’ I’ve gone through a lot of stages. Wow. Um but um but no, I paint cars and it’s really I’ve always painted my whole life and um it was it’s honestly canvas painting. We should illustrate that and we’ll put some overlays so people can see. Gotcha. So the it was just a way for me to get closer to cars and it was a way for me to do have some independence um and still be close to cars. And honestly when I really started focusing on art I I was able to start traveling. I went to California. I met some really amazing people. You some of the greatest people I’ve ever met in the car community are in California. Um it’s an incredible hub for cars. It’s an incredible hub for Porsches. Um great weather, great roads. Yeah. Not to love. There’s a couple racetracks over there that I definitely want to go to. Laguna Seca being one. You should. Sonoma, I think is the other. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, so while you’re not driving a car or thinking of a car or dreaming of a car, you’re painting them, right? Yeah. It’s like complete everything. Every waking moment of my life has to do with something with wheels. So, you are a true gear head, unfortunately. That’s awesome. talk to me about the uh the Tale of the Dragon. It’s something that I always wanted to do. It’s on my bucket list. You’ve done it, I think, several times. Yeah, I try to go every year. It is uh one of the greatest, if not the greatest driving road in the country. So, for people that don’t know what what it is, give us the the breakdown, the summary of that. Well, everybody talks about Till the Dragon. Till the Dragon is really just one road. Um but where is it? It’s in North Carolina. It’s on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. One half of it is in Tennessee, the other half of is in North Carolina. Um, but it’s one of the greatest driving roads in the country. It’s really tight in wne. The only thing is that in that general vicinity in the the Blue Ridge Mountains, there are so many incredible roads. There is like an endless slew of incredible roads. There’s Moonshiner, Hell Bender, the Shaha Skyway. Like, it’s complete. It’s It feels Every time I go, it feels like I’m going to summer camp for car people. Uh, well, especially for us down in South Florida that are just used to driving either north, south, or east. It’s boring down here. Do you ever drive a mountain road? Like really like go out into the mountains in my truck. Like honestly the the bad the the the lame roads up in western North Carolina are better than whatever the best road is in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Tail of the dragon in my opinion is actually kind of overrated to your point. All those other roads, the Foothill Parkway, Moonshiners, they’re all actually better. They’re not as crowded. They’re a little bit more open. Um so yeah, I I love it up there. No, 100%. You go there often, right? I did. We uh we uh my wife and I honeymoon there and uh then we went up again maybe like 2 or 3 years later, stayed at Toa Lodge. So yeah, we’ve we’ve been up twice actually. Uh the first time was a honeymoon. The second time we had a great experience. A friend of mine bought his very first Porsche, did the uh Porsche experience delivery in Atlanta. So we drove up, met him in Atlanta. He got to, you know, unwrap his car. We did the little half day half day track experience there and then drove up, stayed at Toa Lodge, did some white water rafting, uh some time in the dragon. They live in DC. Uh, so we left from there, drove back home and they left and went to DC. Nice. Yeah, it was a great time. Love it up there. Oh, 100%. So, it’s something you recommend any car person to participate at one point. It’s like Disney for car people. It’s like I don’t know. Like, it’s beautiful. Like, it’s insanely beautiful. It doesn’t really matter what time of year you go. It’s But you’re not driving fast through there, right? No, but it’s so tight. It’s so curvy. It’s it’s it’s it’s amazing. And everybody’s there to drive. Like you you’re there and your your neighbor is there with a car that’s meant to be I’ve seen crash videos of it. I mean every you can crash anywhere, right? That’s a skill issue, right? Yeah. But no, Topoka Lodge, like any random day you’re in Toa Lodge, the parking lot is Porsche, McLaren, that’s what people are there to do. Yeah. All right. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so it’s that’s the only thing there is to do, you know. Sure. Jen, uh, tell us about what your favorite build has been so far. My favorite build as in like favorite car build like your favorite car? Um, that I’ve had that other people have had that you have built like hands-on. O, it’s one that I haven’t even It’s really my ideal build is the boxer that I my first car. Um, but that car is like so far away from being even remotely done. But the plan for that car is to straighten out the chassis, either do a tube frame or to do a seam weld the chassis that’s a little bit more rigid. And uh because it’s a CD, it can only be track driven. And ultimately, it’s meant to have a mess engine in it. Uh but it’s nowhere near finished. And I have a really bad habit of never finishing cars. Um so your garage or um I guess your your lawn is filled with engines and cars. 100. There’s three engines, four sets of wheels, right in my backyard. Um, my neighbors hate me. Um, it’s it’s it’s, you know, I had a Cayman that I did a cross country in. I probably think you’re running like a chop shop over there. 100%. Especially with the crash car in front of the house and the, you know, but I had a Cayman that I built. I didn’t build it. I bought it. It was like a 30 $40,000 build. It was complete track car, fully stripped interior, no radio. Um, it had AC thankfully. Um, but that car was incredible. No headliner, so you had like no visors. And I did 7,000 mi cross country in that car. Uh, full buckets, straight pipes. It was It’s amazing. I I miss that car every day. I drive to Homestead in my track car that’s streetable. And I’m like, “Okay, I I have to wear, you know, earphones and like just to drown out the uh beautiful, but at, you know, at a steady 80 mph, it’s just just it’s so annoying. I I can’t deal with it. On the track, it’s beautiful because it’s just just redlinining every time. It sounds beautiful, but on on the street, it’s it’s awful. I don’t know how you did seven 7,000 miles.” Um, let’s talk about let’s transition over to your time in track days. How did you get involved in like high performance driver education HPD events? I started in the boxer when I first got it because it seemed like the natural thing to do. Um, even at that first car meet that I ever went to, I was like, “Oh my god, like this is the next step.” Um, and then I realized very quickly how expensive it was. And when I was a little bit more financially stable and I had the Aston Martin already, uh, one of my really, really, really good friends, uh, an amazing driver, I I cannot say greater things about him. U, Michael, not you, Mike. You know, Mike, I know Mike. Yeah. Yeah. But people he was like, “Yeah, you should come to track day with me.” That he does like 20 track days a year or something ridiculous like that. Um, and I started going with him and like he was coaching me the whole time, which is very interesting because he’s extremely softspoken. Uh, so in a really loud car, you’re like, “What?” And he’s like, “You ever cook this one?” But but I’ve started doing them regularly. Right now, the Aston Martin needs so much stuff. It needs like rotors and it needs um tires. And I find it crazy that you’re tracking the Austin Martin like cuz you have several cars that probably capable of of tracking. Not really. You track the Austin Martin. It’s It’s amazing. It’s the most reliable car I own. That may be the first time that phrase has ever been uttered in the history of cars. We’re going have to clip that part. Aston Martin is my most reliable. Right. Maybe Austin Martin will reach out to you to be their spokesperson. Right. It has an M177. Um, which you would think like, oh, it’s an Aston Martin, whatever, but it is a Mercedes-Benz engine. Uh, it takes a lot of abuse. I mean, I track it regularly and I it sees like very high numbers every single time I get in the driver seat of that car. Um, and it it does never give me any issues. The only problem it has is that I blew the AC at Barber and uh because it was like 100° out and I was running at the track and obviously the car’s not like that. But that’s the only issue I’ve had in that car in a year of driving the absolute hell out of it. Um, I have a Supra that I don’t even want to think about tracking that car. It’s like, if you look at it, it’s like the most fragile car I’ve ever owned. I hate this like stereotype like, “Oh, Japanese cars are so Every Japanese car I’ve ever Japanese thing I’ve ever owned is like a nightmare.” Yeah. Like the Subaru’s been a nightmare. Um, the 350Z, it’s it’s been an ongoing project of fixing random things on it. Uh, although that car has been crashed like a million times. It was It’s a drift car, so it’s it’s it’s seen God and all its angels. Um, and even like this this Yamaha like the my bike it’s it’s not I mean it’s gray but it’s it it’s a 2020 shouldn’t have any issues. Sure. You know so you know it’s interesting you mentioned about Japanese cars because like I instantly thought to Hondas right? So on the street, like Hond’s, Toyotas, they’re just incredibly reliable. But whenever whenever we see a Honda, like especially a Honda Accord show up at the track, we’re like taking bets like at what session? At what session is this one going to die, right? Yeah. I don’t I don’t know. Have we had a lot of Honda Accords of this? No. Well, there’s a reason. Correct. But when we do see them, like, yeah, that one’s not going to last the day. Yeah. That’s a crazy thing. Think of them. Yeah. But that’s the cool thing about, you know, track days is that we tell people that just show up in any whatever you have. Good brakes, good tires. You’re set. Yeah. Exactly. You come enjoy it and then you realize, you know what, I really like this. I want to do more of this and this is probably not the right car to do it in. And then you start shopping for something that’s more apt, you know, for that track abuse, you know? But more than that, it’s like specific to you, right? And and it’s that’s something I try to like tell people with my social media. It’s like you can track any car. You don’t have to have any kind of background. You don’t have to have any kind of history. Um, but when you start tracking, you understand like your limitations, the things that you like, the things that you don’t like. Right? The car that you track is an extremely personal thing, right? Like you track a BMW, and I love that for you. This is fantastic. Sounded I love that for you, too. Sounded hostile. Oh, you know, a little bit. She has good taste. Carlos, what are you going to do? Have you ever had a BMW? No. What kind of a ridiculous question is that? I guess it would be a step down. Buying correct a Porsche at 18 and then going down to a BMW. Why would you go backwards? Like a personal beef with um beef because Okay, so when I had that Cayman that was completely built, I paid 40 grand for that car, which is a steal for a 987.2 with low miles, pristine condition. Um a friend of mine bought an E9092. I’m not sure which one’s a two-door, which one’s a four-door. The four-door is the 90. Okay, so the twodoor N92 92 M3 competition. He paid 40 grand for a car with 90,000 miles. Uh, which I thought was insane. They’re They’re going up in price, too. It was a manual. It’s like the rubberest, most terrible, right? Carlos Carlos doesn’t have to worry about that since he has an automatic transmission, right? But it’s just such a horrible manual transmission. Like, why? Yeah, it’s like super rubbery. You have to like it. It It feels like a manual that should be in like a Volvo. My first track car was a E46 M3, the generation before the E90s, and I thought the transmission was just beautiful. It was a manual. I loved it. But it doesn’t feel clean. Like it doesn’t feel like like when you’re shifting in a Porsche, you know? It’s a very I don’t understand what you’re saying. Everybody thinks BMWs are great until you drive a Porsche and then you’re like, “Oh, I’ve driven a Porsche.” Yeah, sure you have. It was automatic, too. All right. Well, the auto Can you even drive a manual transmission? Why are you the host of the show? Cars drive or automatic transmission cars? You know, I can’t. We’re really coming for you today. Yeah. He You know, we we need to get you fed because this hostility is is running a little It’s after 5:00. He needs a needs a nap and then some sort of food, correct, in his system. All right, let’s uh keep going. I watched one of your videos. Um, you I mean you recently started tracking. You don’t do it very often, right? I do it about once a month. Once a month. Okay. Um, I saw your video of you cooking the brakes at Sebrin. Happens. Tell me. Well, how how much does how much does that Aston Martin weigh? Uh, I want to say it’s like 3,400 lb or something. That’s not bad. That’s not bad at all. Am I stand corrected? I thought I heard it was like 36 or 30. Big body one is like almost 5,000 lbs. I think that’s insane. So, talk to me about that experience. What like what went through your head, your mind, your body when you put the brakes down and the car is like, nah, we’re not going to slow down here or at least not as fast as you were expecting it to. So, I kind of knew going in like my rotors were going to be due probably after that track day. Like I was like, I have probably one more track day on these rotors, right? cuz they had like maybe like they were kind of already due and then I did like I want to say like five six track days on them and then this was maybe six or seven. So I was like oh maybe I should do them, maybe I shouldn’t, whatever. I don’t have time and see. So we’re going to do them. We’re just going to go to the track anyway. And I it was such a slow group that day and I was like on a high cuz I was like I’m passing everybody. Was these all the Chevys that was all the Chevys, the Corvettes, the Camaras? Yeah, there’s like somebody’s grandpa driving a Cadillac, you know, which good for him, honestly. That’s amazing to be, you know, out on on there. But, um, and then I was on a roll. I was in my mind. I really didn’t catch on to the fact that like I was starting to run out of brakes like turn by turn. I was breaking a little later than I really wanted. You were too focused on passing everybody, right? You didn’t notice the brakes were fading. And uh and then I went in, it was it was at 7 and I was doing like 1:30ish, 1:30 some. And then I see that we’re not we’re still doing 130 and I was like, oh, okay. So, what do we do now? And uh there’s like Collins in front of me and I was like, what do we do? Like where do we go? And and well, we mowed the lawn a little bit and got back on the track, cooled the brakes down. So, you didn’t want to do what your hero in the uh Corvette did, which he went straight and then made a left through the fence. Yeah. It took me so long to find that video again cuz I’d seen it my f my first track they ever was at Sebring and I remember somebody showed it to me that day and I was I was like that’s the most funny. That’s the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen ever. You’ve seen that video? Yeah, of course. I’ve watched it so many times and I always wonder I’m like why didn’t he just make a right because that’s that’s the exit road, you know? It’s It’s an access road. Like if he made a left, you can just as the same make a right. He was tired. He want to go to the hotel. Yeah, that’s true. Right. It was during a real race, too. Right. I think it was it wasn’t the track day. I think it was like an actual race. Maybe he wasn’t familiar with the track cuz like the people that have been there like so many times like you and I like we know like we cook the brakes like we’re just going to go straight and make a right. Right. Yes. Well, assuming you went on the grass. I want that’s assuming that you can get slowed down enough by the time that right comes. Right. Right. Right. You know, my uh one of my worst experiences at uh turn seven was a a chin night event. Right. It’s supposed to be all advanced drivers and I remember once once uh night has fallen and I’m coming out of you know five five and six under the tunnel and you know you’re you’re doing a buck 20 buck 30 approaching that and I s I see headlights you know pointing at me. I’m like, uh, that doesn’t look right. Somebody had gone straight. They missed the turn. And again, they didn’t they figured, well, instead of just taking the access road and getting back on the road, they just made a U-turn and they came back around and everybody’s running with their high beams, right? You can’t see. So, I’m doing a bug 30 approaching another car. Not It wasn’t It was a bad scene. The The closest I’ve ever come to car to car contact on the track was the same corner. So, I was following somebody. This went back when I had my Golf R and I was following somebody in a Ford Focus RS and I was slowly reeling them and they were trying hard to stay ahead of me and they finally gave up and I passed them I don’t know somewhere between like one and five. I can’t exactly remember. So I had just gotten past them. We go into turn seven and he had clearly lost his brakes trying to stay ahead of me. So you know I get on the brakes, I got my turn in point. I start to turn in and I just out of the corner of my eye. He needs why you need situational awareness. Saw him and he flew right past me on the inside just as I started to turn in. Oh yeah. So he ended up where you were. That’s a brown moment. Doing it passing me on the inside. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a real brown pants moment. Not good. I I almost had Alexis. Same turn, turn seven. Um they and they were I think I have video of this. They were so far ahead of me, but the closing distance, you don’t realize it at night. That was another mistake that I made. The closing distance just happened so quickly. And so the way that I was trying to judge it is, okay, by the time I start my braking, like he should be around the corner and he wasn’t. And he was like, he was having some brake issues as well. So it was the the problem was compounded with that, right? So we ended up going through seven together. I you know that the big yellow uh on the inside. Yep. Like you don’t ever want to hit that. No, I rode it like my wheel was essentially riding the the yellow um rumble whatever it is just to avoid hitting him. Like it was freaky. Yeah. You don’t want to be on that big sausage on the inside of the rumble strip. It’s like sausage. Yeah. Inches tall. Yeah. Exactly. I for sure thought, you know, I must have bent a wheel or something, but no. The the car took it like a champ. I was pretty impressed. Um, did you get any hate for for that post that you made about, you know, passing the the whole field? Because that’s that’s like borderline trolling some people that are HBD. Yeah. No, it’s I mean, yeah, everybody’s like, oh, like they weren’t even which is true. It was a really slow group. Um, but you poked a bear anyway. We already talked about 100%. Yeah. Yeah, but I’m also getting to a point in like tracking where like anytime that I’m doing like um beginner group, I’m almost always lapping the group by the end of the session. Uh so it makes no sense really for me to stay in beginner anymore. And half the time I’m not even really there with an instructor anyway, right? Um why don’t you move up? I know a guy that can, you know, spit up, you know, speed up that process. Probably my next like homestead, my next one or the one after it. Yeah, I’ll probably start doing media. But she just likes listening to the soothed sounds of Mike’s voice so much that she enjoys having him in the right seat. That’s true. And usually when he’s on the track, if he’s not in his like actual race car, I’ll still be passenger with him. And it helps a lot. It’s crazy how much that helps. Like actually seeing somebody is amazing. Yeah. And like, you know, his line, seeing where he stops. He’s in a GT3 RS. Uh like a brand new GT3 RS. And that car is like supernatural. It’s insane how good it does everything. amazing car. I think most instructors would say the same thing that when you’re out there with like the first timer on on a track or first- timer to the track at all, um you let them go out there and they they realize I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, right? We talked about this all the time. Like you can take anybody off the street that thinks that they are Mario Andreddy because they have a 1000 horsepower BMW and then you put them on the track, they’ve never been on and never been on a track period and they realize I don’t know how to drive this thing. Um to expedite that process of learning, you let them go out there, you know, one or two sessions and then you put them right seat with you as an instructor and then you show them this is how what I this is what I mean about threshold breaking. This is what I mean about, you know, tracking out. And it’s like you could almost see the light bulb go. For sure. It’s very it’s very eye opening. And it also gives them a higher degree of confidence of what the car will do, right? Because we’re so much beyond what you’re capable of doing on the street that they just don’t realize what it really means to pull more than a G in a corner or to your point, threshold breaking. Like you just can’t do that on the street. Not safely anyway. Right. So, people have never pushed the limit as far as you can on the track. Yeah. Yep. All right, Jen. Uh, you work um a ton of hours every week, right? You’re all over the place with cars, content. Um, what is it that keeps you pushing this hard? Like, what what is it that you’re really chasing? I I don’t know, man. I just really like cars. I um I’m just here for the love of game, you know? And to be honest, where it takes you, right? Like, you know, I have to work that much because that’s how what it takes to pay for the hobby. And then the hobby is the whole reason why I’m doing this. So, if if I have to do if my West Virginia trip is one day, then so be it. It’s one day that I did it. You know, I’m I’m alive. I’m in the moment. I’m doing the thing. You know, I to have all this time pass me by and just be like, “Oh, I’m tired. I don’t feel like doing it.” and then not like wake up one day be like much older and think oh I didn’t do any of those things that I wanted to do that that to me is I think that’s a good point I think maybe a lot of us you know we think as we were going through that you know maybe early 20s maybe even the 30s you you work a lot so you have this dream right like okay if I do all if I put all these hours into work then maybe one day I’ll own that car and maybe one I’ll get to go to, you know, that track and and put my car on that track. You’re just like, “No, I’m going to do it right now.” And cuz you might die tomorrow. You know, 27 club is next year. You know, I don’t have that much time. Well, you’re still under 30. Like, get back to us when you’re twice the age that you are now. And Right. Like when getting out of a car like starts, you know, costing you some effort then. But even like like that first boxer for me was really eye opening cuz I always thought I had to be 30 to own a convertible. I thought I was like, “Oh, that’s something you do when you’re like old and decrepit, right?” That’s great. 30 year old is old and decrepit. I’m filming. I’m 30 right now. driving driving around your convertible Toyota Solar, right? And I always wanted convertible ever since I was a little kid. I never really liked cars, but I I thought convertibles were so cool. I was like, “Oh my god.” And uh and I did it when I was 18. And I was like, “Oh, if I can do that, I could do whatever I want.” That’s crazy. Okay, so this this whole premise of like that car is unattainable, that thing’s unattainable to me is like insanity. Like I’ve seen I know people I know kids who are my age and like they make seven figures a year and they do amazing things and they’re self-made and they do all those things by themselves. So I always look at those people. I’m like, “Well, if they’re doing that, why can’t I do that?” You know, and for me that it makes no sense for me to look at other people that aren’t doing as much as I’m doing. So I always feel like I’m I’m missing. I need to do more. I have that anxiety. You have a serious case of mofo. Mofo. I don’t know what you mean. FOMO. That too. Wow. How old are you? I did that on purpose to exemplify my age. I’m sure that you did. All right, we are going to move on to my favorite segment. Rapid fire questions. You’re aware with the format, Jen. Mhm. So, I’m going to give you guys a couple of uh questions and I want super fast first thing that comes to mind type of answers. Now, some of these questions are not going to, you know, fit you and they’re going to be pretty self-explanatory which are not really catered to you, Mike. Can I make up a fun answer anyway? Sure. All right. All right. You guys ready? We have 13 minutes. We’re going to try to go through 10 questions really quickly. Good luck to us. Ready to go? Let’s go. All right. What’s more dangerous? Tell the dragon or your DMs? My DMs 100%. Mike, do you get DMs? What’s a DM exactly? Mofo. All right. Number two. See, the only reason I can do this is because I have 17-year-old kids, so I understand like half of what Jen is saying. Yes. Okay. Number two, track food. Protein bar or tacos? It’s so hard to find safe food on the track, but tacos. Probably. Tacos for sure. go to that mucho macho place that uh we talked about. Yes, Mucho Macho. Mucho Macho. I know. She knows who they are. So, we had never heard of that. So, we had one of our one of our early guests was talking about, you know, make sure you have a good tire. Don’t do a mucho macho thing. And I want some so bad. We had We had no drift, right? The drift car. I want the I want to paint them, too, so you know what they are. That makes sense. It’s hilarious. Yeah. All right. We’re already slowing down. Okay. Uh number three. You’re starting a car cult. What’s the first rule? No burbble tunes. Thank you. That’s a good rule. Oh, I thought I was I was so waiting for you to say no BMWs. That too. Definitely. That’s the same. It’s the same thing, right? Exactly. It’s not the same thing. I have a BMW and it does not have a burble and it was so close because you know when when you answer when you answered no burbble, it started with the B and I thought, oh, she’s going to say no BMWs and take my answer. But we’re on the same page. Hey, you know what? keep talking bad things about BMWs because hopefully people will be like, “You guys are crazy.” Views, right? We’re just after views. Whatever. Speak the truth. Being awesome. Um, your your answer. No BMWs. No BMW. Yes. Wow. Okay. Well, if I have a car cult, then you’re not welcomed. I’m very sad. Jen and I are going to be hanging out with the cool Porsche people, so we don’t need you. Okay. Number four. What’s more stressful, car shopping or dating? I love car shopping. So then definitely not car shopping. Definitely not car shopping. Well, dating would be the answer for you 100%. For sure. You’re married. Car. You know what? I was dating not too long ago and there’s some bad people out there for real. Oh god. I am not looking forward to it. Right. Yeah. The online dating world. No. Never again. Okay. Uh, number five. Finish the sentence. People don’t know this, but I secretly love blank. Wow. Blanking out on this one. You want to go first? Yeah. The weather. I’m a weather geek. Really? Oh, yeah. I love weather. Like, you put me in front of the TV when a hurricane is coming. My wife, she won’t even stay in the same room because all I do is yell at the people at the National Hurricane Center that come up with these fake maps to try and scare people. We could do an hourlong program on my hatred of the graphics that they use on the National Hurricane Center. Anytime a hurricane is anywhere near landfall. Sounds like you missed your calling. I could have been a meteorologist. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t smart enough to, you know, get into whatever school you have to go to to study meteorology. I failed like chemistry and all that stuff. I’m terrible at science. So that was the end of my uh budding meteorology career. But yeah, weather geek. So I actually love funny to follow up on that. One of my biggest passions in life is biochem. Uh it was my major until I switched economics and that for me genetics is like one of the coolest things ever. Um I was a major geek in in high school. I was like is that where your the that’s where my username came from. Okay. Now you just put it together. What is I don’t what is Ah, J. Gotcha. Genetic art, right? Genetic art. Well, the art is a website, but genetics is almost my social media. All right. Number six for you beautiful Porsche people. True or false? True or false? Porsche owners are the wine snobs of the car world. Ferrari owners. So, false. False. Yeah, I was going to say that’s got to be like Rolls-Royce or something. There’s There’s too many Porsche people or Those aren’t really car people. Cool Porsche people, right? Most of us are cool Porsche people. Yeah. All right. Majority. Number seven. Uh, track day in someone else’s GT3 RS or twisty road trip in your Austin Martin? I rather drive my car? Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What about you, Mike? Someone else’s GT3 RS on the track or Jen’s Austin Martin on a twisty road? Um, I mean, I get Well, I mean, if because GT3 RS, I’d probably go that way, but I would very happily take Jen’s car down like the Pacific Coast Highway or something, right? That’s that’s on my list. Yeah. All right. Well, there you know, in case you happen to find your way that way. Okay. You’re welcome to. Um, number eight. You get one dream garage, three cars, unlimited budget. Go. That’s so easy. Um, 33AL, uh, 550 Spider, and my Boxster. A fixed Boxster. Mike Boxster in any condition even. I That’s the most important car in the world. Keeping that one. Yeah, that’s great. What about you, Mike? Uh, I would go 918 Spider. Uh, I need, you know what? I’ve always wanted to do like some kind of random rock crawling stuff. So, give me something just completely absurd like a Bronco Raptor or something. There you go. Uh, and I’ve always liked some and I don’t know I don’t have a specific answer, but some old Lincoln Town car with suicide doors or a 35 Ford hot rod or something. Something that you see coming across the stage like Barrett Jackson. It’s on my list my bucket list things is to go to Barrett Jackson and buy a car at some point in time in my life. Interesting. I could actually now that you mentioned I could see you driving something like that. I can’t. Very interesting. Well, it’s only one car, you know. All right. Car for everything. Number nine, uh, one car scene trend you delete with a push of a button. I hate these Pikmi girls that like have this thing where they’re like, “Wait, stop. What?” See, again, here’s I know exactly what a pick girl is. What is that? It’s like um It’s like girls that they they feel like they are more special because they like cater specifically to what they think guys like like car in the car world. it just across the board, but definitely in the car world and in the motorcycle world even there’s a What did you call them? They’re pick me girls. Pick me. Pick me. Oh, like pick me. Pick me. Choose me. I thought it sounded more like like pig. Like pig me like tiny like very small girls. No, like like like the pig the animal. Oh, nice. You’re so old you can’t even hear. Maybe you need a hearing aid. Mike, I’m going to fire you. You keep that up. No, but I hate these post that it’s like, “Oh, I might not be pretty, but I can change your oil.” It’s like, you could change your oil with a YouTube video. Like, it’s not that deep. Like, you’re not special because like you have this hobby. You’re It’s It’s a normal Pick me girls. You know what it’s not that deep means? Do you know what that means? It’s not that serious, right? I’m proud of you. That was really good. Period. My stepdaughter is 17. Period. Huh? Jen and I. Huh? Oh, she’s What’s up? Hey, we like I learned a few. I learned winning over here. All right. Oh my gosh, we’re running out of time. Uh, number 10. This is probably the most difficult one. As I was writing this one, I was like, “Oh, this one’s tough.” Would you ra would you rather crash your favorite car or Well, she’s already done that. I already did that. It’s going to be the You got to wait. You got to listen to the whole thing. All right. Would you rather crash your favorite car or date someone who calls it just a car? Crash. Oh, yeah. That right. Yeah. I mean, I could answer that question. Think about that one. No, I’ll crash it. I can rebuild it. I can rebuild it, right? Don’t need to be spending any time with somebody that just calls it a car. Infernal. Yeah. For Boxster for Christ sake. The most important. I thought you guys would have a little harder time answering that one, but I was surprised. He definitely gets it. Your wife is super cool. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, I couldn’t be with some Well, I’m not going to talk about my ex-wife in the program. So, yeah, that’ll be a different segment when I’m done through, you know, what I’m going through. Then we can get together and the high road, brother. Run a whole a whole new uh episode on that. We talk about it in the National Hurricane Center. It’ll be a great fascinating program. Mike, we’re going to start a new segment. I’m calling this the guest challenge. Okay. This is where we challenge our guest to challenge two of their friends to come on the podcast as guests. So, Jen, who are you challenging your friends to come on the Off the Racing Line podcast? That’s so hard because it have to be everybody that I know that’s cool lives in California. Um like Johnny Liverman, Eric Scrimman just moved to East Coast. He would be amazing. Him and his dad Vick Scman. I don’t know if you know anything about 356s. Um they’ve he funded the 356 love America. So his dad Vick Scermanson. Uh but here in Florida definitely Johnson Marion is doing some really cool stuff with cars here in in Miami. Um, and I think Juan Karisa, do you know him? No. He’s doing he’s he’s here in in Miami. He’s really young and he’s starting to do some pretty neat stuff and he’s in motorsports. I think he’d be a great fit for you guys, too. Okay. Well, there you got you guys have it. Challenge is out there. Jen has just laid it down. If you’re interested in coming on the show, uh, go to off theracingline.com. It’s a new website. off theracingline.com. uh fill out the form and uh let us know when you want to come in. That is all the time we have. It was fun, right? It was so much fun. It’s I told you it was just chatting. It was just chatting here after after the introduction. I said she was going to be the most interesting guest we’ve had and I think I think she slated it. Yeah, I I think you did great for sure. So, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you to our new sponsors. Thank you, Mike. Our new sponsors, Velocity Track Experience. And remember, everything interesting happens off the racing line. See you guys next time. I took the hard road. The road from dreamer to driver ain’t always straight. Kept my head down. Fueled by faith. I lost some time but found my name. Pressure made a diamond out of me. I’ve arrived and I brought receipts. Wrote my truth between the scars and his peace. This ain’t luck. I only see off the racing line where my story begins.
