DO IT FOR A LIVING – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Stewart grew up in a Seattle suburb and was an active kid. When he turned 16, he got a beater $500 car and was tasked with keeping it running. He used this car to learn maintenance and slowly acquired mechanical skills. He went to college and continued to modify cars. He was living gin the dorm and didn’t have a place to do the work so he called several shops, but nobody would allow him to do the work at their shop. It was at this point that he shifted from wanting to be a surgeon to owning a DIY garage. He spent all winter break creating a business plan and researched other self-service garages to see if the idea was even feasible.

After dealing with a shady real estate broker, difficulties with city zoning, fire marshal fixes, and having to relocate with a 3-day notice, he was finally able to open his self-service garage. He has now been in business for 5 years and has signed another 5-year lease. The goal for this year is to expand and grow the business. He currently has 7 bays with lifts, provides tools and some specialty machines, and employees 4 employees to help around the shop. They keep things simple by charging a flat rate for time and not doing a la cart charges to use tools or ask questions.

Nathan grew up in Florida working on cars to help his dad’s business. In his twenties, he moved around always chasing entrepreneurial ventures but wasn’t always focused on cars. He eventually purchased a 2002 WRX Wagon and then he was hooked! The modifications began and he couldn’t get enough. This led to starting a performance shop with two buddies and eventually meeting Doug Wilks who was the owner of Top Speed Performance. Nathan then began organizing tuning appointments for Doug to fly in and tune several vehicles at once.

After some time, Nathan offered to buy the business from Doug and run it on how own terms. He kept the original employees, changed the name to Top Speed Motorsports, and grew the business over the next ten years. He recently changed it to Cicio Performance and now has two locations. One is in Atlanta, GA (the Top Speed Motorsports location) and the other is in Virginia Beach, VA. He has plans to open a third location in another year or two.

With the new name, Nathan focused his efforts on running the business efficiently and tracking every metric possible. This has allowed him to open the second location and he is able to split his time between the two and manage them. His goal is to ensure his customers have a pleasant experience and work to get the cars completed as quickly as possible. He still works on GTR’s but is expanding the services to 911’s and plans on doing a ton of work with the new C8 Corvette when it comes out.

Reid has been very busy lately managing several businesses. He still has KSTuned which is the Honda racing side and then has Kaizen Speed for the domestic cars. But his new venture is a weatherproof. solid-state relay that can handle heavy current and is interconnectable. This makes it very easy to daisy chain additional relays without having to run more power wires. He also made it so that you can attach a CAN control module as an option. This gives the customer the ability to keep it very simple or more complex with the CAN module.

Reid has entered the relay into the 2019 SEMA Launch Pad Competition presented by the Young Executive Network. Reid needs your votes to move onto the finals. So, follow this link and go vote!

Voting link – http://bit.ly/VoteLunde 

Jeremy is a 4th generation gearhead. He grew up working on everything from go carts to dune buggies to race cars while growing up. And he still has the same passion today as he did when he was a kid. The traditional college path just didn’t feel right and Jeremy decided to go back to work with his dad at one of his body shops. This is when he began transitioning towards working on hot rods. He got a job at a small hot rod shop and eventually purchased the shop. They have since moved from the original location and have grown to 50,000 square feet and employ 60 people.

Jeremy is very focused on making improvements at the shop. As the business has grown, he and his brother have had to take on more professional roles and drift away from getting their hands dirty. This means implementing new software to manage and track the workflow called GlobalShop. They work hard to ensure their fabricators have all the parts and tools they need within easy reach. They talk with the chassis guys to hear ways to speed up and simplify the processes. They attribute a lot of their success to constantly improving their operations.

Don explains the ins and outs of running a successful dealership. While dealerships are often considered in a negative light, they are in the business of making money and are pretty efficient at doing so. Don provides valuable insight about the methods and metrics they use to gauge success and make decisions. They hold weekly status meetings and utilize software to track and delegate every aspect of the business. Listen in to gain knowledge about ways that you can improve operations at your shop!

Don Herring Jr. started his automotive career at 12 when he began washing cars at a dealership. During high school, he moved up to work in the parts department. He went off to college thinking he was going to become a doctor, then changed plans with the hopes of entering the air force. Unfortunately, his timing coincided with the end of the cold war and his aspirations of entering the air force diminished. So he again turned his attention to the automotive industry. He was making very good money being a car salesman during college and moved back to Dallas to join the family dealership. By 2005, his family had 3 dealerships and Don Herring Jr was in charge of the third dealership. He survived the 2008 economic turndown and 2015 has been their best year since then.

In this episode, we go down a slightly different path and interview a smaller shop owner to get his perspective on running a performance shop.

Justin Miller started working as a dealer tech at age 17in Raleigh, NC. He began doing work and selling parts online in his free time. Justin has worked hard to grow his business with an initial investment of his own $1200. He now rents a 4200 sq ft building with a dyno and several lifts. And he employees 1 full time technician and a receptionist.

In the first Do It For A Living roundtable discussion, we discuss the idea of certifying shops, tuners, and engine builders to work on customer cars. Kevin Dubois assumes the role of a shop owner. Ben Strader takes on the task from an education standpoint. And Todd Earsley will act as a consumer.

The idea is to bring a sense of legitimacy into an otherwise fragmented market. Think of something like ASE certification for mechanics, or Better Business Bureau for businesses, or even Master Plumber certification.

We go over topics such as: Does the industry need some sort of standard? What might the qualifications be to become a “Certified Shop/Tuner/Engine Builder?” Who would enforce this standard? How would this benefit the consumer? And many more!

David Localio was fortunate enough to have a family who fully supported his addiction to horsepower! He bought his first car in 6th grade. (That’s correct. 6th grade!) His first experience with turbos came when he got ahold of a Buick Grand National and spent all of high school modifying it into the 10’s. He got a job at a local repair shop and realized that service work just wasn’t for him. So he enrolled in the School of Automotive Machinist (SAM) and ended up working there as well. He then went on to be involved with a ton of influential racers and engine builders over the years. He eventually began working on import motors because he saw a void in the market. This was the official beginning of Headgames Motorworks.

David was hit really hard by the financial crisis in 2008 and barely made it out still in business. He was forced to let most of his people go and got several months behind on his bills which has wreaked havoc on his credit. But he toughed it out, worked hard, and emerged stronger than ever! Now he works out of a 5000 square foot building with several employees and cranks out some of the best heads in the market.

Andrew Brilliant was gracious enough to continue to talk with us about aerodynamics. Tune in to this special Bonus Episode to hear more details about what he can do to improve aerodynamics on your car.

Andrew grew up in LA loving cars and knowing he wanted to be involved in racing. He attended Berkeley where he got his Mechanical Engineering degree. During his first job as a software engineer, he started helping the owner of the company who happened to have a couple race cars. This was his first experience with a racing team.

This let to Andrew creating simulations to determine gear rations and then expanded it to aero simulations. He continued to get more and more opportunities with racing teams and decided to leave the software company. He discovered that aerodynamics was that “thing” that he wanted to do for the rest of his career. This is when he created AMB-Aero. The chips started to fall into place and he moved to Japan where all the most advanced aero cars were racing.

He has worked on some very famous Time Attack cars from all over the world. And he is available to visit your team and discuss ways to improve the aerodynamics of your race car…without breaking the bank. But if you want to go all out, he is the best in the business and his car’s lap times can prove it!