How You Can Get Into The Racing Industry: My Story of Getting College Credits to Race

If it means driving four hours and showing up out of nowhere, expecting to meet no one, you do it because if you go with intention, more often than not you can achieve it. That's how you get involved. That's how you do cool things. You just show up. The only barrier to entry is simply showing up. And Facebook helps a lot. We'll continue the story of how I managed to get college credit for racing my own car all summer. On the Escalade in Street Car Takeover. I received six credits from Penn State for this internship. This was serious. Quite seriously. Moreover, it was a requirement for obtaining a diploma. That's why I had to do an internship. And to put it all into perspective, the most important lesson you younger guys will learn is that you don't have to search for jobs online to make sure there's a job available. Sometimes it doesn't even exist. But if you ask someone, you'll find out, or they'll create something for you if they like you. That's how the world works. So, Street Car Takeover is what I've been doing all last year. That's what really opened the door to this world for me even more, compared to where I was before. But, uh, I went to SCT in Bristol at the end of April 2019, it was nearing the end of the semester at university and I needed to do an internship to get my degree. This was part of the requirements for my corporate communications major at Penn State, where I studied, and I had n't done it yet. So I needed to do an internship that summer if I wanted to graduate in December. I started searching and looking at the requirements: it doesn't necessarily have to be a list of approved places. It just has to be a real business. You have to work a certain number of hours on these projects, and it has to be somehow related to your major. And I thought: well, okay, let's see what I can do with this. I'm going to Bristol, doing this, and it's cool. There I talk to Justin a little, not much. I met him, you could say, through PRI. I first met him at LSFest West in 2018. I made a video about how Cooper Bogetti changed my life. This is a whole story. I met Justin through Cooper. He runs Stank Killer Productions on YouTube, if you know who he is. After I got back from Bristol, he wrote to me for some reason and said, "Hey, I know I'm opening a workshop soon. I need a welder." And I said, "That sounds cool, but before I can become a welder , I need to finish my studies." I said, "I need an internship to get my degree. Maybe I could do it with you. I'll still be there. I could help you with whatever you need, you just need to sign the papers and give me assignments ." And he replied, "Yes, of course. Send it." So I did. He filled them out, I went back to my supervisor, and they approved everything, it was 100% legal. And I went to the next Street Car Takeover event in Oklahoma City, where I met Chase for the first time, and he's like, "Oh, hi , you're the same intern." I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Oh, cool. Like, we don't have any special work for you , so do whatever you want." I said, "Well, okay." This is not what I want at all. I want to do something. I want to learn new things. So I just started participating in everything . And really, it was, I think, May in St. Louis when I arrived, and they were unloading crates of T-shirts or something. I arrived early so I could help. I was the first to arrive when they started unloading everything. I saw where they get the boxes from and where they put them. So I just grabbed one and started carrying things. And the tree is terribly loud. So I'm like: okay, I'll just get to work. Whenever I see something that needs to be done , I take on it, even if no one asked me to. That's what I did. And you know, over the summer I attended all these events. Even if I was n't racing, I still rode when I could to be involved. Because if I was without the Escalade, I could immerse myself more in the operational processes of the event and understand how it works. How does an event like Street Car Takeover work? How is it organized? What makes it work? And that's exactly what I learned. By the time September rolled around , I finally bought Chase's old trailer because it was an incredibly good deal. Simply incredibly profitable. I went to I put a deposit on it at the place he dropped it off before I even had a truck to tow it, and I had to go back to Pennsylvania, urgently looking for a loan not only for the trailer, but also for the pickup truck. I did it, went back to Missouri and picked it up, just because I knew—I had to do it because I would never get another chance like this. Well, this trailer allowed me to, you could say, just disappear. So I went to LSFest, and from there to Tulsa, to the Street Car Takeover. And after Tulsa, I was going to go to Oklahoma City and hang out there for a while, because that's where Chase lives and the guys on the team, they're all either from Kansas City or Oklahoma City. I had already done a lot of things in Kansas City, so I wanted to live in Oklahoma City. I went there and eventually stayed there forever. And after that, I moved almost all of my studies online . But I did get six credits for participating in SCT over the summer. I had to make a small report about what I was doing. Chase had to sign these papers and explain what I was doing. We filled them out sometime in November or thereabouts . We thought, " Dude, I literally did everything they asked ." And it wasn't even planned, it all happened naturally. No one forced me to do anything. Plus, it was exactly in line with my major, which is the most amazing thing— I literally had a course in “ event planning,” and I was thinking, “ When will I need this?” This is stupid. When will I plan an event? And it turned out that SCT is event planning, which is quite funny. And I'm sitting here thinking, "Damn, I just got six credits for hanging out, driving, learning from people who have already achieved something, meeting cool people, learning a lot, and seeing so many interesting things." And some of my classmates got internships at some random company in Pittsburgh. A friend of mine got a job at an asphalt paving company where he was paid minimum wage for working 40-plus hours a week doing all sorts of nonsense, and he got the same six credits as me . Why? You just have to ask. So if you're in college and you need an internship, see what the requirements are and just go talk to people. No one refuses free help. You could go to your local track and they would probably show you how to use this track preparation equipment, how to work the traffic lights, all that stuff . And you know what? You would probably get on the track for free. It's just that no one will come to you with these things. You have to ask for it yourself. Nobody's going to just come in and say, "Hey, you stranger. Here's a cool opportunity to avoid all that crap you don't want to do and still get results." You have to be creative and look for it yourself. And one thing I realized very early on: it's not always what you know that matters, but who you know. I figured it out because when I was making mini sticks and I was knowledgeable about all the hockey equipment, I knew all the types of hockey tape, all the stick models, all the codes and what they meant. I wanted to work on the Penguins' equipment team. Because I saw guys working there. They carried clubs and stuff . I thought, "They look my age. " "I want to work there too." So I started asking around, talking, you know, to the security guard who works in the tunnel and all that. It turned out that the people who worked there had parents who either played for the Penguins or were in management or something. They had nothing to do with it. And I was just stunned , like, what the hell? I know much more about it than any of them. And they got it, it's just ridiculous. So from then on, I realized that acquaintances are extremely important in such matters. And yet, no one refuses free help. Here's the story : A NASCAR driver named Chase Briscoe, I heard this recently, he was on Dale Jr.'s podcast. Uh, you can find a video on YouTube where he talks about it. He's currently replacing Clint Boyer in the Cup Series or something. I don't follow NASCAR closely, but I found this story very interesting. He got his spot because he had been volunteering at the Arca workshop for over a year. Maybe even two years. He slept on one of his friends' couches for 6 months and, you know, just ate at Wendy's or somewhere, I think he said. And he just kept showing up. He was simply the first to arrive and the last to leave. You know, it sounds corny, but it's true. Eventually, he met the owner or someone like him. He was allowed to test the car in practice and then he was supposed to go back to Indiana for the holidays or something. He knew the team owner lived somewhere in Indiana. So he just called him up and said, "Hey, I'll be in your area. I'd like to drop by and, you know, shake your hand for letting me test drive this car." "And, you know, that's not always true. When you can call anyone and say, ' Hey, I'll be in your area.'" and you can drive six hours just to talk to them. They don't necessarily have to know this. I've done this before. That's pretty much what he did. He comes to this guy's house, talks to him, and the owner says, "You know what? We'll put you behind the wheel." That's what he did. So, he endured adversity for a long time , and now he got a spot in the Cup Series just because of it. These are the stories. I really like Dale Jr.'s podcast for this reason, because a lot of these stories have bits and pieces about how to get into the racing world when you do n't have, you know, family connections or anything like that. Chad Canal is another good example. He did the same . Slept in his car, randomly called Hendrick Motorsports and asked them to call Ray Evernem, and they actually connected him . You'd be surprised how often you can make a phone call and reach someone you thought was unreachable . The car is moving. I'm on a walk now. I do this every night. And the same thing happened to me with Jeff Lutz. Just kept showing up after I got to know him a little and understood what they were doing. I ask, "Okay, what are you doing tomorrow?" And, you know, he told me. I'm like, "Okay, cool." And I just show up. And one day I arrived there around 8 am . I walk in, there was an older guy, and he says, "Oh , hi, what are you, what are you doing here so early?" Because he knew I usually don't wake up before ten or something like that. And I'm like, "I don't have anything anyway. That's why I'm here. Do you have any work for me?" And he's like, "Oh, yeah. Can you use a grinder?" And I'm like, "Yeah ." He says, "Okay, cut all of this." And he made me spend almost all day cutting off the rest of this chassis. I just sat there cutting all day . Cutting and sanding. Cutting and sanding. And then he says, "What are you doing tomorrow?" I said, "I 'll come here if you have a job for me ." He said, " Okay, tomorrow we'll do scarves or something." That's how it works. Too many people want to get paid right away or a lot of money at once . So they do n't do it, and it holds them back from being successful . And that's the stupidest thing you can do. Because if you come in and work for free and do a good job, eventually they'll get paid. And if they don't, someone else will, because you know what you're doing and you care. And that's hard to find these days. Well, that's my talk for today. Although it's probably not really a talk. It's very valuable information. But yeah, I would recommend you listen to that episode of Dale Jr. Download on YouTube with Chase Briscoe and Chad Canal. They're really great at that. Listen, I've slept in my truck more than I can count this year. I've probably spent at least two weeks, maybe more, sleeping in the back of my truck. in the back of a pickup truck or in the trunk of an Escalade this calendar year. And that's what it's all about . You have to make an extra effort. Literally, if you have to drive four hours to show up out of nowhere with no hope of meeting anyone, you do it because if you act with intention, you can often achieve what you want. Maybe you're thinking, "Oh, I can't do that." Well, then that's your problem. There's always a way to achieve what you want, you just don't want to see it because you're stuck in the framework that you think you have to fit into. I swear, everyone has the ability to do something like that. You know, if you're in a tight spot and you can't work for free or even help out for free sometimes, well , you know, it's a shame. But I think almost everyone, especially young people in high school, has the time to work for free if they really want to. You make the time. You can do it. It's really not that hard. You don't have to. Here's how you you get into this . That's how you do cool stuff. You just show up. The only barrier is to show up. And it helps a lot to have Facebook. If you've seen this far, I haven't worked on Uncle Rob yet because I only got a few parts. I'm going to start working on that soon. I'm going to redo the hot part, I'm going to redo everything, right? Because I realized that if my creative efforts aren't properly directed at something that I care about, then I don't care about it at all . And that's what happened. I was trying to build this out of junk. I just didn't care. So I'm throwing it all away. I'm going to build it the way I want to, not for the content. I'm going to build it the way I want to ride it. And you guys are going to watch it. That's how it is. That's how it has to be, so that I'm in the right frame of mind and doing my best. And these videos don't get as many views as the repair videos or the crap videos. So if you like it, if it was useful for you, please share this with someone who you think needs to hear this or might be interested in it. Something like this. Tell your friends. It might help them. If this helped you , help me, because the usual superficial idiots who watch auto-content on YouTube are not going to watch this video. And if they are , they've already turned it off because they want to watch someone blow something up. And, you know, let them be. Those are the ones who can't figure it out, so you have more options. If you 've seen this far, you have everything you need, whether you know it or not. I'm just saying. Yes. And I know it's dark outside and the video quality probably wasn't the best the whole time. I don't care. It filters out the superficial idiots , because you real pros probably just put your phone down and went about your business, because you're business people and you can listen to it anyway. That's actually my intention. I just don't care. I don't care . I'm not trying to beat the algorithms. Algorithms don't matter if you tell your friends how cool things are actually made. A lot more people can make cool things. The opportunity is there. I just want to help people see that, because I was lucky enough to be among those who showed me how things work. For example, my dad was always into networking and explaining these things to me. But not everyone has that kind of father. Not everyone knows that it's possible. You don't have to follow the beaten path that society or school imposes on you when it comes to finding a job or a career or anything else. You can just call any company in the directory and say, " Hi, I'm so-and-so." I want to work in this industry someday." Can I take out your trash? "Or something like that. Just go and do it . It's a lot easier than anyone thinks. I swear. There are a lot of companies that make tuning parts, and they always need good people. They need dedicated people, and they're hard to find. And I think that's because the people who are really trying to get into this industry don't know how to do it. They don't know how easy it is. So hopefully I can shed some light on it for you. So hit the subscribe button, leave a comment about what you think, what else you want to hear about, or anything like that. I'm thinking about making a playlist of YouTube videos that I like and that I find useful, so you can watch what I watch and absorb this information even better. So I'll see you in the next video.