But no, you can check out levels. It's not talk. Do you want me to start? No, that's not.
We'll introduce it. Just tell us how old you are. Like time starts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tax file number and double. We'll sort it out next week. So all right, it's far up. Good morning, good afternoon.
Good evening. You listening to the old talk car podcast hosted by Peter Aaronis still in C-Miles still in Vegas. And we've got a special guest tonight as well. We've got Australian drag racer extraordinaire Jason Grimes in.
Hey, you got a good thing? Every guy Jonathan here as well. You know, you're going to talk to him. Of course.
OK, good. So we've got. He paid after the build. Mate, so you got drag racing in America?
Yes, I am. That is like the pinnacle of the sport. Yeah, yeah. We decided back in 2017 with Uproot from Australia and come here and start racing.
Let's get back to the beginning. How did you get into drag racing? I mean, well, it goes way, way back. I was young.
We were three, four. No, I was young. I had a Datsun 1600 with a rotary motor in it. Oh, Bill.
And took it down the drag strip and got hooked. So I started from there. They bought my first chassis car. I put a big block in it.
One of our first championship in 1966. Yeah. Second in 1997, then I retired that car. And then bought a Pro Stock car.
Pro. We ran that for a little bit. Then we bought a 2007 Mustang and Pro Stock as well. Then we bought a 2010 car Mustang as well.
So I'll get to that. I'll see some photos of that. So what is, we know Datsun, we know like Pro Stock. There's door slavers.
There's funny cars. Yeah, you're in the what? There's ones that drag stuff. The ones that everyone has.
You're not cute. You're not cute. You're not cute. What's the difference?
I mean, obviously the categories. Yeah, that's it. Look, with the first car I had was a Supcevin car, which was a doll your own index. So you doled in and you tried to cut a good light and then get to your ET without going under that ET.
It's just kind of a time-based rather than first-class. Then Pro Stock, it's heads up racing on a pro tree. So three ambers flash at the one time. First to the other end wins.
As long as you coat green light. It's first or worst. So if you cross the same line, it's worthwhile. And it's an unlimited engine.
No, it's a 400. Back in them days was a 400 maximum cubic inch motor. And in those days too, the body shape, if it was a Ford had that Ford motor, the whole shape had that over-shelf, the whole shape had that over-shelf. So they still related to the vehicle?
And they're a clutch car with a five-speed manual operated gearbox that you have to manual-ish shift as well. Well, and how long would that take? You get down the end. Top gear in four and a half seconds.
So you're changing gears within four seconds. That's going on and off. With a clutch? Yes, that's right.
But you don't want to try out. That's it. You're a clutch horse. They're a clutch horse.
They're a clutch horse. They're a clutch horse. They're a clutch horse. They're a clutch horse.
Strange mission. Wow. So we've got two to 24 cars entered every race, 16 car filled. We went to every final bar two.
We never won a race, but we won the championship. So is it like a tennis? Like the Australian Open, we start with 120 cars and everyone gets knocked out as a elimination? When it starts off in the weekend, you may have 22 cars turn up to the property, 16 of the fastest cars make it in, first versus 16.
Yes, that's right. And then it'll come down to two with the fine. Yeah. And is that over one night?
Well, racing depends on the weekend. It could be over three weekends of qualifying and racing. Yeah, or three days over the weekend. Yeah, because a lot of times it's a trigger.
You've got to rebuild the engine after every day. No, you've got to stop your day. If you have to rebuild a motor in the Pro Stock, you're done. You've cooked it.
Yeah, what we do, we used to have steer engines. So we used to drop another engine in if we needed that. Yeah. But between rounds, it'd be very difficult for turn around time.
But between rounds, we pulled the transmission out, we put the service clutch back together again, give up some and also service the motor as well. Check the balance. They've asked about, we can almost get probably a couple of them. Yeah, it depends.
It depends on what Toyota is and how it's running. You're doing it. Yeah, we can get a couple of passes from one of those courses in the Formula One only in the last 30 laps. It's totally different.
It's all talking to you. We spend more time off the track than on the track. Yeah. That's true.
I was going to say, it's quite a while. You spend more money than spending less time on the track. So basically, you've done everything you want to do in Australia, then you said, hey, let's go. The direction of Australian sport, Andrew was running a sport.
Then I HR Ray came into it. So it was two governing bodies. You've got messy. Very legal.
I had a young family to start a young family. So I decided to retire. From the Australian team. Yeah, from the Australian team.
Then back in, I set out for a few years and then Jonathan came to me and said, hey, are you interested if we start racing in America? There was an opportunity there. I started coming over, organizing to get somewhere to position ourselves in the US. So I had to buy a new Transporter, motorhome and trailer.
Almost new everything. We got to get it. They got the 2010 Mustang. So what cars did you bring the cars from Australia to you?
I bought the 20th at the 2007. 2007. I bought that over. Left the 2010 car.
That's the championship winning car. That's still sitting on stands. So the categories in Australia pretty much were on the US? Some of the categories, it's not pro stock in America.
Because in America they run a 500 big block. In Australia we run a 400 small block. I can run a comp eliminator category here. And it almost marries out.
So either way, the cost of bringing the car, you put it in the car here, so you want to find the car wasn't that much of a big deal, but it's setting up the operations. A transporter, a warehouse, I'm assuming. What did you base yourself? Is it California?
We were out of Moscow Mills, Missouri. OK. So we run out of there. It's south.
It's a Midwest. It's a Merry Pico. Because we're a jerry pickle race component in Australia. OK.
So we aligns ourselves with them and they had a shop there that was vacated. So we set up there. I was going to ask you about the cost. I'm assuming that operation funds the race.
No. I've got a few ventures that I have. I've got an automated repair business. Plus I do development sites.
Yeah. So. But where is America now? Is it Big bucks compared to Australia?
Like is it chalk and cheese? Is it like, is it like being the best basketball player in Australia? And then you come to America and you're like fucking 100, 100. Like, look, have you found it?
Look, we will get there. Last race here in Vegas, we qualified number two. We can do it. I've got to change my way of driving because the way I used to drive on the pro tree is different now.
We've got a sportsman tree and I'm having a hard time trying to get out to that. The car has been great. It's a four-hour listener. Yep.
There's one listener out there. The tree is what they call, is where the lights sort of line up at the start of the race of the drag street. So is it different to Australia? It's not a big light waiting for the green light.
So basically the pro tree in Australia and America is exactly the same. But then when they get it with sportsman tree, in Australia it's a 400 light between the ambers to the green, where here in America it's a 500 light. So it's 500 is the time? Yeah, so 500 is the second between the three ambers to the green.
So it's a little bit of adapting the car and the driver to suit. So he's not from a pro tree to a sportsman tree here. So that's an extra amble light? It's the same amble, but what it is, it's a 500 difference.
So the police are trying to get the police at a different point on the street. So you're slowing yourself down? Yes. We're going to slow the car down, slow the driver down.
So we're going to see that long goes. That's what you're saying about adapting the engine to sit a little bit more. It's crunching the car and turn the driver. It all works together.
It went down a few seconds. It's pretty much. And that makes a big difference. A bit different.
And reaction time when it goes down the bottom? Yes. There's no, it doesn't change. It's always the same time.
It's always the same time. But the guy in the other lane, he might be a different index. He might be a 960 index and we're a 760. So that's how it works.
Yes, that's how it works. I have to wait two seconds. That guy's gone down the strip. He started two seconds in front of me.
I've got to wait and not let me sit on the other side. I've got to blind myself away from looking at that. To just say, because when I watch drag racing, I mean, I'll be watching a lot of motors. Reaction time.
There's always that reaction time. That makes a break. At the end, in your category, there's still a reaction time. But the other guy shot off.
He's got the advantage on the handicap. So you're still focused on your side of the tree and ignore that jump. So if you are running at the same time, do you rely on the guy jumping? No, no, no.
I'm focused on my own. Just your own. And I wanted to ask you, are you fucking shooting yourself in there? Are you sitting on a time bomb?
Is there? I'm not a professional sports and I've never reached a stage where I imagine playing cricket. The cricket ball comes to you at 100 mile an hour. But they make it look like they've got all data.
Is it the same for you? We're talking 500 milliseconds per light. But for you, is it in slow motion? Are you going through a checklist of a thousand things clutch gear?
That this? But we're talking about... It comes natural after a while. It comes there.
It's muscle memory. We had a point the other day we changed ratios to suit the weather here. So we were in the desert. Yep.
So we changed ratios. So it got to the point of the RPM quicker than what it was three weeks ago. So we adjusted the shift light to suit. Yep.
And as we adjusted the shift light, it became good again. So the shift light when it hits your eye and then your muscle memory to change gear. So you've got to adjust to all that. Have you also...
Like, because we're humans, we sort of have that reaction. Have you ever changed the timing? Because by the time you engage it, it's like reaction time zero. Do you do that?
You're like, making sense now or once? Can't have a finger. Can't have a finger. Just gotta go up there and know what he's going to do and focus on what he sees.
We can shoot the car around him. Yeah. Like the other day he went a little red. So we'll tune the car down to suit.
So his reaction time and his muscle memory is obviously sitting down now. So it's easier for the driver to be constant and you... If you can be consistent on what he does, we can tune the car to suit the driver. To suit the environment, the driver, the light.
Exactly. Wow. Okay. How does it feel?
It's good. I am really enjoying it in America. The people around here in the racing scene. Is it comradery?
Like, were you like the young gun from Australia? Like, who the hell do you think you are? No, they were all right. They're all pretty good.
They're all very good. They're all very good. They're all very good. They're all very good.
Have you put a kenaroo on the car or a stick on that? No, not on the trailer. We're on the trailer. You have to.
You're on the market. Yeah. You know, Siemens with Halloween. I used to come dressed to Steve Irwin.
You have the crock, the wig and the accents built in. So it was great. They love it. It's good.
They've been coming to America for a long time now. So I've got a lot of people that I've met through the time and we enjoy each other's country. The crowds? Is it like full on?
You get like 10,000 people out of me. National event there. Yeah. They know who you are.
They recognize the teams. It's a lot more, I suppose, racer based. Because the guys that come into the crowd. They've called him the funny cars.
The top fuelers. You know what I mean? Ask what we're on right now. They don't really know a lot.
So it's more racer based. So guys we race against and guys in other classes. And we'll know us. And they see us around.
And they come and introduce us themselves in time. Yeah. He's one to date. He's son's car for the world championship.
Yep. In Superstock. And he was great. You know what I mean?
He introduced himself and was looking around the car. Love the car. And you're what we were up to. He knew everything about us.
So we've done their research. Now we're getting to sitting in the car. I've got a Tesla. When you get it hard.
Is it like that? I was like, what Tesla's quick as a six second gourd. I went up the touches just over three G's. At 3.2 G's because we measure all the cars.
Yeah. So do you feel that through your gut? Is it like a raw stuff? It doesn't.
I know when it's on a good run. You can feel it. It shoves you back in the seat. Yeah.
You're already seated in there and you can feel the car. Yeah. You know. When I got here the first pass this week, last weekend, I thought what a slob this thing is.
You know what I mean? It was so lazy and all that. We're far out in the desert. You know what I mean?
They spent everything up and we did a few changes and it fixed it. The loose was better on these motors with the conditions. So what we do is we check the motor with Rachael. So it doesn't know any better.
And is it the same fuel mix as it was? Can you play with it? No, it does. It's constant fuel.
Straight out of a VP. Can? Yeah. And we get tested.
We get tested. We get tested. Do you work out? Do you train?
Do you work on next? Look, I've got all safety gear in my boat. But I do train three days a week. So I stay 52.
So I still look at it. You look pretty good. Actually, 52. No, what are you, 18?
No, I'm actually 42. Yeah, because you're the ten years between us. The engines there, the drivers get all the glory there. I get in my hands dirty.
Between rounds, I'm actually doing the motor now. Maintenance. I'll actually get in and pull the transmission. Liberty transmission out as well.
How many did the crew? That's three of us. So three is enough to turn the car around. In Australia, we used to have six to eight people.
Is that because they were over there? Come and have your days. Come and have your days. Come and have your day.
Look, and I said when I come here, I didn't want to have that. I just want to have metal crew. Metal crew. But they roll.
They don't do it. Yeah. And get it done. The way we set the car up and the way it gets done.
Work on yours. You can do it like that. Yeah, yeah. It's all efficiency.
Less people. Less things to go. We go down the track every run. We've had pretty good success in the way we've ran the car.
We haven't had to do a board. And doing your homework early. We've mentioned at the cost. You're not blind engines.
If you've got a reliable engine, you can continue to use it. That's great. Getting good use out of it. We already know the tune up for tomorrow.
Because we looked at the weather today. It should be closer to the run. So we'd, you know, have a diff change today. We'd pull the transmission apart and put it.
And matter of fact, I pulled the transmission out. And I had the transmission. I put different ratios in the e-box. They're ready to go.
Yeah. Different from last week to this week. It might be too much. But it's not fair.
We can go slower. So we want to be back to where we were. Anyone else is doing the same thing. Ah.
Look. In our category. Not all of them. But a quick and.
They're chasing. Yeah. They'll be doing the same. Rise money.
Is it good here? We haven't gone that far enough. Can you make a living out of it? You can.
Right. There's guys out there that are running for championships. And plus the big dollar stuff. Like Roger Bropton put on a division four category where there was a hundred grand off the grass.
You know what I mean? So there is money. And then you've got big dollar race meetings as well. Where you can win $10,000 or $20,000.
So you can make money. But for me, I'm based in Australia. I come over when I can. And I try and do three weekends and three races at a time.
I would call it a hobby. But it's something that you're passionate about. You've got a professional outfit. You know what you're doing.
Is it just to test yourself? Is it like you've had enough fun in Australia. Let's take it to the big boys. They still know how much the challenge.
They love the motorsports in the US. They love it. It's different here. It's not like in Australia.
Here you've got people that work full time as a race guy. You know what I mean? You can get a tuna to help you out like a race tuna. And you can call up a guy and say, hey, I've got this and he'll help you out.
And it's all calculations at the end of the day for them. They're not guessing. Obviously there's a bit of the old shit moments. We did.
We did. Same for us. It's something you talk about like you said. Like I said earlier, you're sitting on an engine that takes you to the end of the day.
Like I said earlier, you're sitting on an engine that can blow up, that can throw pistons out, it can do. Yeah, no, wasn't that. What I did is I had a buy to the final. So we were testing the line out because we weren't going to probably have lane choice.
Yeah. Went down and I didn't want to hit my index. So I stabbed on the brakes and it will be too hard with the carbon. The car turned hard right, rolled over on its side on its roof, hit the wall, and then went up in flames.
So the car that we're currently racing, we've repaired it over the winter. We had Chazie repaired three quarters of the body replaced, painted. And then we come back in June, rewired it and plundered ourselves. Put it all together, come out 12 months to the day later, race at the same racetrack that we crashed at in the same way.
And it went down and it's never looked back between the last one. So I'm bleeding up to the side. I'm saying, you look fine, you look healthy. Is the car designed like it's rolled cages and it's the fire part.
I mean you're wearing a suit. I didn't know it was on fire because when you're upside down your pancake, then the wind's running was up against the ground. The racetrack, the flames were going out. They're going up.
So I jumped down the knee to the car and the flames are gone. So I got out of the car. And there's a YouTube. So the fact that you're on your roof probably helped you?
Yes, they were hard because you've got other issues that were down there. Well, I was bracing myself with the steering wheel and then had to undo the latch and then drop myself down. And that's where you've got to be a bit agile. At the end of the day, your fire safety is good there.
Is it something you've practiced? I mean you don't practice. But you said it must have been really early. You knew there's a clip there that I would do that.
Is that something else from training or blood? Everyone's in slow-mo. But look, safety is paramount and we make sure everything's right on the car because you can have a plan for an accident. No fire.
So even we added safety precautions to the car on the rebuild. So if that ever happens again, we will be better off. It's safety for the driver and we added safety for the car as well. So we just updated it and that's just what happens because like I said, we can't let it happen.
Because it was a 2007 car and we updated the safety to the 2023 the car. But there's no, like I'm just going through the emotional and the mental side of things. It's something that the sport comes with risks. Any motorsport comes with risk.
Is that something that you've sort of prepared for one day this could happen or? Every time you hop in the car, we have a chaplain that comes over and says, a prayer and I always take a prayer with me. And the only thing that happened to me in that accident, I got a broken tailbone. And it's a long healing deal.
But hey, it's... Do you have any rut? Ritchels you get left fully in first or hop on your right ear or something? No, I've got my own little finger.
I don't want to talk about it. A little wallaby in the glove box. I've got my own little finger on how I put my gear on. And that's it.
I've been doing it every time. Because as I say, you're at a professional level. Everyone's got their little thing that golfers sports with. They've got their little whatever.
Steve wore that red hand-kim that he had for 20 years because I probably got 100 with it and kept it with him. So I've got a bit of a audio-to-80 question. It's from the... How fast are you getting up with the Mustang?
Okay. You said six seconds? Yeah, yeah. The car has run as a 690-free.
I think it was 197. 197 miles an hour? Yeah. That's quick.
That's quick. You have a naturalized freighter car. And you've got to stop. So parachute?
Parachute? Parachute? And it's like fucking stop. Yeah.
The tracks here are pretty good. You hit the chutes as you go for it. I'm not late. I always pull the chutes as I'm going through the finish line.
Drive in all. And then as you're getting up there, you're just touching on the car. Because that's a thing. It's a straight.
You've got the walls on the side. You've got your lane marking. Once you hit the corner mark. Are you reaching each track different to the end?
Is there a centre at the end? I mean there's a two. They're all up sand pits. Turn back.
Some. Some. Some. They turn right.
They normally have marshals there. You're ready to go. Yeah. So you've just got to wait for them.
Is there an etiquette? Is there a zing side lane? Turn right first. It'll depend on the track official.
He'll tell you. So there's a guy there with a flag or a marshal there with a light telling you. Yeah. But there's always enough.
There's some tracks different. Some short up. This track here in America. Sorry.
The whole track goes up. The whole track goes up. The finish line. It goes up.
Not enough to jump it. Like it's not enough to jump it. No. It's not enough to jump.
And that's a good thing. Yeah. I might be throwing it up. Because it's not enough.
I can't see. Yeah. You can't see. I'm not really saying.
Oh, wow. Yeah. So I'd rather be saying. We're about to go on the base in Australia.
I do not see. In Sydney. So I've been there used to create. I've been there used to play with the new drag strip there.
But there's usually three of us but I was lucky enough to come back. How does a lot of roll racing. So yeah. A GDSR.
Yeah. Does his roll racing. So he's the only GDSR that's never used to. We'll just go straight.
We make fun of you. But say he's big into the drag racing and the roll racing. I've gone to see him. I just don't know.
The little things are what you're telling me now. I must remember him. But that initial burst. How it feels.
It's just crazy. If you got it, you got it. Yeah. So it's a natural.
What you're going to learn how to do it. It doesn't matter what age you are. You're basically riding a sled. It's like it's your crew and how you set it up.
Yeah. Well, I won't do it without Jonathan. I know that safety is a hundred percent for himself. Of course.
That's it. Someone else I'm safe in the car. Any other questions? You hanging out with me?
Yeah. I've told Jason now we can actually win over here. Yeah. HDT stickers on the tail.
Is that the difference? It's quite a mile an hour and a little bit. It's a huge extra five. I think it's money as well.
It's money as well. I think it's not a lot. That's a huge too. That's a lot.
That's a lot. What is it? It's what they're like. You know how to afford Mustang.
Yeah, I know. I know. I can tell you a really good story about the dollar. But that was a dollar's mate.
In Ballet is in Milwaukee. Mustang. Yeah. Yeah.
The story there. Yeah. That's the derivative. There you go.
Jason, Jonathan. Mate, for too late. Thank you for coming on. Plug away.
How can the audience find you or follow you at your Instagram? No. We haven't looked. YouTube.
Yeah. They can get on YouTube and find a bit about me. You'll see me from... Eyes and eyes.
You'll see when we won championship. Yeah, there'll be a bit of vision from a start. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do have to get our social media pages up for a bit.
Since we've been here, it's been a stop-start deal. We've had COVID-19, stopped us for two years. Oh, no, don't go there. Because we started in 19 racing.
Don't go there. Then 2020, we were coming here. And that's when they shut America down. So we had to then fly out.
We were one of the first Australians in America where they shut the country down. We arrived at Dallas and we shut the country down. And we basically cut the trick short and went home. And the cars were left here.
You just moved the... Literally, just about the start of our second season. Yes. And basically sat there for two years doing nothing and we come back and started getting last night.
And everything was a city here. Yeah, everything was good. It was surprising how well everything was just sitting there. So then we come back and we had the accident.
So that put us back another 12 months. So hopefully we can just get on the roll of turn up and race and for a while. Is there a website? What's the association called here?
So we've run into NHRA. So they've got tables that are taken up from the end of the day. And we've got a website to see your results and file a track. That's great.
Well, thank you for coming on. We've all come a long way. And the other thing is, because there's always a drag race during the week soon as I've always known it. So we had the national event last week.
Yeah. Seema and then we got the divisional tomorrow. We started today but we qualify tomorrow. And then that's regular because I've always known it as the drag's on.
So I'm trying to organize, I'll reach out to you early and come out next year and bring the little mic and come out and help you out. And then we go to the Pomona after this. That's in California isn't it? That's a wild track isn't it?
Yes. That's a well final. And then that's it for the year. So we'll send a ring back to Moscow Mills and we'll be back before Christmas.
Oh yeah, we'll be back November. Yeah, we'll be back November. Oh, sorry. Mind the catch up down there.
Thank you for coming on. Follow us, rate us, review us, send your questions. We'll probably catch up with Jason again when he's with him and his team's back in Sydney. We'll talk at outlook.com.au and bye for now.
Thank you. Thank you. Easy peasy.