Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

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Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy.

With Me Catherine Legg.

This week we have a special guest on the pod.

It's a new friend of mine.

I did not know him previous to this year, but we've become fast friends and it's been a pleasure getting to know him and do some work with him.

He's been awesome.

He's let me and Elf and Droplight use his track for some pictures.

He has his own racetrack people.

He's an inspiration in terms of business acumen, and he's part of a very famous NASCAR related family, but he's forging his own path and he's an awesome, awesome human being.

This week we have Ten Tenths owner Graham Smith.

This week I have the pleasure of being joined by Graham Smith, who is a relatively new friend, but a very interesting person to be acquainted with and not having come from the NASCAR world, my first introduction was to his dad.

Actually Marcus at the Atlanta Race by a friend mutual friend, Brent Layton, and he said, this is Marcus Smith and I was like, hi, Marcus, and he said Brent said to me, have you any idea who that is?

And I was like no, And so I went down a rabbit hole of like researching the Brince Smith family.

And after that, I think you reached out and asked me to be a part of a charity of it that you had it ten tenths and ten tents is most is the reason why I want to talk to you, because I find that that project fascinating.

But welcome to the show, Graham.

Thank you, Thank you for having me, Katherine.

You're very welcome.

So for those people out there that aren't NASCAR fans, because a lot of people have kind of followed me from the IndyCar world and the sports cart world.

You have quite storied family history, don't you.

Why don't you explain who your granddaddy is?

Yeah, of course, of course.

So my grandfather founded Speedway Motorsports, which is the company that most people know us by, and we, as most people in NASCAR industry know, are track operators.

We own and operate eleven speedways across the US, and we've been in that business since nineteen fifty nine when Brutin built Charlotte Motor Speedway up in Concord.

He actually always wanted to be a race car driver.

His mom shot that out of the sky pretty much immediately, so he started promoting races young age at local tracks.

He grew up actually not too far away from Charlotte, Oakragh and North Carolina.

Youngest of nine children this family.

And yeah, he was an awesome grandfather to have around and we're living his legacy now.

But he's he's the reason we're all here today.

And we started out with Charlotte.

That was his first project, and actually he went bankrupt in the process of building that track.

He moved to Illinois to Rockford.

Some people know Rockford Speedway is a tiny little short track up there, and he moved up there and started selling used cars and opened up a used car dealership.

Was able to work up enough funds to come back and buy some shares back in the speedway and eventually was able to buy and own it outright.

My dad was actually born up in Rockford, so that's where their family kind of began, where he met my grandmother, and they moved him back down to Charlotte and they kept it rolling from there, and here we are when he passed.

We were at leave ten or I think we had just acquired dover in Nashville, right for you.

So what a cool story.

I had no idea that he wanted to be a driver as well.

So did you have a good relationship with him?

Will you close?

Very close?

Yes.

So my dad grew up in the house next door to where I grew up, So we ended up buying the house next door and we had connecting driveways with My grandfather called him Boo Boo growing up, so I would go over there all the time and we would hang out.

It's funny as in the racing world he's always known as this very like stern businessman, and he truly was like full character.

He was not apologetic about it.

But yeah, as a grandfather, he was the biggest softie that you could possibly imagine, especially with my sister, Like absolutely just showered her with attention and love and all the cookies and sugar that she wasn't supposed to have and all those things.

Like it was the typical grandparent relationship that you would see but it was just right next door.

So every other day it felt like we were riding bikes, you know, the one hundred yards over to uh booboo's house.

That's amazing.

I was a so really close with my granddad, so it's like brings warmth to my heart to think about it.

He's no longer with us either, So you have racing and tracks and promotership and also a bunch of dealerships because he went on to run like a whole business of dealerships as.

Well, didn't he?

Yes, automotive so that's in your blood right, Like did your dat want to take it over and like go down that route?

And then subsequently did you just like love racing?

Did you want to be a race time driver?

Like?

How did that work?

It was?

Actually, it's funny because you get that question.

I think a lot of people assume considering that the family line is continuing down this way, but no, neither one of us actually were like fully destined for it.

At the beginning, he wanted to be a pastor.

Well, at one point, you want to be a doctor.

And then he took intro to biology in college and did terribly at it and realized that he had no business being a doctor.

He then in the process of interning and working at the Speedway, and he had a fairly entry level sales position at the time.

He met Franklin Graham and that's Billy Graham's son, don't know, and he was talking about the idea of being a youth pastor or getting the ministry, and my dad's you know, he was pouring this out thinking the guy was gonna be like, that's awesome, Like what a great idea.

And he said, why don't you think about a way you could use this wonderful platform you've been given and use the resources you've got ahead of you and just live that life, but live it on this stage.

And I thought that was really what kind of put that not necessarily the privilege, but also just like the magnitude of the resources we've been blessed with.

We're like, oh, yeah, that makes the total sense, Like this isn't a given, so why not use that platform?

And so he's lived that way for his whole life and that's really what drove his passion in that business.

I mean, I was more like brutin, I want to be a race car driver.

I was, I was all in.

I really started raising Banaleuro's and I was like nine years old.

I raised some legend cars, had some fun there.

Then I just kind of gravitated to team sports for a while and still enjoy it.

I played lacrosse for lacrosse was my my big sport.

I played that.

But at some point it became pretty clear where like you hear the story of William Byron, he and I are about the same age and we didn't really intersect.

It's weird.

We lived three four minutes away from each other, race the same cars, did all the same stuff, and never really like intersected until we were adults.

And one of the funniest things about that is is like he he made the conscious decision that this was what he wanted to do.

He was like, I want to be a race car driver, whatever it takes.

And when it got to a point where it was like, Okay, I've got to make a decision.

Do I want to have like a normal kind of summer and like hang out with my friends when I'm not in school, or do I want to like really dive in and be in the car every single day.

And I chose the other path, and it led me, you know, back to the sport eventually, but like it's kind of just funny to see, like those two paths could not have been more aligned.

On the start.

We both got into it young.

He had more experience than the simulator deal, but like we both were like really into it, really into it, and then you just saw this little split and it was like, okay, like now I know I'm going to go off and do this way and he's going to go do that way.

And I think we were like nineteen when we met, which was kind of weird.

We may have met when we were little kids, but like we met at a charity event where neither one of us were able to drink.

That's why I remember seeing the only two people in the whole room that were unable to drink at that event.

So the charity events is where you make all your friends.

Apparently same apparently, So yeah, apparently.

So I want you to explain to the listeners a little bit about what ten tenths is, because I honestly think that I haven't been to a more incredible newly built racing facility ever.

Yeah, we appreciate that I've been to.

A lot of them.

So ten tenths and I'll let you explain, but it's basically a It's like a country club race track, right.

Yeah.

What got me back into racing is a lot of the same elements that got us thinking about a club for driving.

I started getting into cars, like, not race cars, but just being in I don't know what changed.

I remember the day that I really fell in love with cars again, and being able to tell you all about a car just by looking at it.

I drove at a far too young age.

I was sixteen.

My dad made the biggest mistake and also probably the biggest winning moment for him, was letting me drive a car that I was way too fast to drive as a Jaguar.

I was a F type R super charged V eight British.

Yes, I had a great British sound to it as well.

It crackled and popped and had a lot of like that just that grimy V eight sound I love so much.

And I remember I shove it to go see a girl that I was dating at the time, and I like, I sped the whole way there.

Of course, you know you're flying, You're sixteen, you have no consequences.

I took her little brother for a ride and I got pulled over, and I remember feeling so terrified, like the whole time that I was never going to get to drive again.

And I lived through it.

But it was also like as soon as the heat from that died down, I was like, COLI, I love cars, Like I want to get back into a car, Like, how do I get to something faster?

So my dad similarly like grew up loving Mustangs and like he always idolized the four GT.

It was a car that my grandfather around, he was a huge fan of, and neither one of us really just like we weren't doing a lot of driving.

We drive him around the city, but to drivel all the way up to vir for two people that aren't race car drivers, like, it isn't just a normal thing to just go hop in a car and be okay, we're gonna to turn laps.

Like so we started to identify like something we wanted.

And really it was starting with him about eight years ago.

He wanted to figure out a way where he could take He inherited the four GT.

And he's, you know, he's got this car and he wants to go out there and drive it.

He said, where in the world do I take it?

I can take it to the Rovol, but like there's nobody else out there, it's kind of fun to have a community around it.

And so the original idea was, can we put a driving club that centers around the Roval?

And we learned very quickly through some meetings with OEMs that we'd invited to come out and see the track, they said, that's a great idea, except the Roval's terrifying.

It's like, yeah, it turns out it.

Actually is so and you can hit a lot of things.

Concrete walls exactly.

Oh my gosh, yeah, the walls, the speed.

I learned that most modern cars, their traction control doesn't understand banking, so as you go into it, yeah, the whole car would start freaking out.

Lights on the dash, yeah, because the wheels are doing different speeds on the banking, which is what freaks them out.

Right.

I've seen a lot of people run interesting lines around that track and the GT racing and that we had that IMPS event there a couple of years ago.

All that is to say a fast forward.

We decided we wanted to build a track, and we identified the piece of land.

We identified track designer Alex Warz, which.

Is right outside Sade Speedway.

It's like opposite on the other side of the road.

Yes, Morehead Road runs right along the side of the track.

It's a road that lots of people use to get in and out of that area.

And just another side of that road is this piece of property.

We've had camping there for the past few years.

We have a lot of land at the track and that whole property.

So we decided, okay, let's make good use of this.

Let's build a track, and let's build it for the purpose of fun.

Let's you know, when we talk to Alex about designing a track, if you take a track designer and if their main skill is designing a track for racing, you have to really emphasize, hey, like, this is for fun.

This is for me to get out there, someone who's you know, pretty novice in my abilities in the car, but just able to go out there and have fun.

And it make it feel like something you can learn more and more of your driver's skills on.

And he helped us design the track.

He designed it start to finish, and we started working on this concept.

I'd say the outside road course concept started developing probably four or five years ago.

Fast forward to present day, or really last year October tenth, we had the track finished.

We opened it up to the public for a launch of like, here's what we're going to do.

We told everybody, here's the project, here's ten tenths, here's what that means and racing like you know, like driving to the ten tenths, it's one hundred percent, it's all out.

That was kind of the mentality for the name.

But right before we went public with it, my dad went to Rick Hendrick, a longtime friend of my grandfather's and like a fatherly figure to him and a grandfather to me.

He went to him and said, I'd love to do this with you, like I want you to be a partner on this project if you're interested, and without consulting anyone, in very Rick Hendrick fashion, and he just said yes.

He's like, what do we need to do, Like, how do we get it going?

I didn't know that.

That's super cool.

Yeah, So that's where their partnership came up, and it's been awesome.

I mean, you have their expertise in the racing side of the business, I mean getting the cars set up, getting instruction and training and things for people that want it and then our side of promoting and building racetracks and maintaining facilities.

It's really cool too, just to see how we've taught each other.

I mean, I had no clue the amount of work that goes into setting up a car over a weekend.

And then they didn't realize like, Okay, this track doesn't just sit here waiting for people to come here, like, it has a lot of stuff you have to do, like just like the house, like you got to keep the lights running.

The clubhouse is immaculate, the grounds are immaculate.

Like it's just a really cool place to experience in general.

So even if you're not driving any of their supporting somebody's driving or something like, it's just a really neat place.

And what amazed me was how quickly you got it done.

So it was like how long to tarmac and how how long is the track?

And how long did it take to actually come and get the building up.

We started building the track early last year and had it done by October tenth, so right around February, I believe February March, they started paving and they got the whole thing done.

They graded it, they got all the dirt down that banked corner that we took some photos with the Alpha people the other day.

It was wonderful that corner was originally going to be twenty four degree and it was I don't know where.

I don't know if they wanted to play on Jeff Gordon or what the twenty four came from, but twenty four is the banking at Charlotte Durspeedway that is extremely steep.

Like that is would be feasible with it.

It would be very dangerous, we learned.

So we laid the dirt out and we had Jeff Gordon come out in the side by side like a hilarious They're like, all right, drive the track.

See what you think.

He's like, this is going to kill people.

You have to lower the banking so it's fourteen degrees.

So we got that done.

I'm glad that I get that.

We're all very very happy when that got completed.

We opened it on ten tent.

So on October tenth, we said here's the track.

We opened up.

We had a big tent pop up and we said we're going to show the tractor everybody to do hot laps around the track, and then here's the project.

And then from that day, So on ten ten, on ten eleven, so October eleventh, we started construction on the clubhouse, and by April second there were people walking out of the building with hard hats on and furniture being unboxed, and you guys showed up two days later.

My dad is a building, so I kind of have an idea of how long these things take.

And just to be clear, I don't know how you got everybody to work together to make that a reality, because getting trades people to work in conjunction with each other is an art form.

I mean, it is a logistical nightmare.

Really.

I was super impressed.

It seemed to me that with such a really cool thing in mind as the finish line, when everybody can see what's being built and they know what's coming, you have this event set up that was there both as a motivation for us to realize the project and can get done, but also for them to say, hey, this is going to happen.

This event is scheduled, we have people showing up.

There's going to be half a billion dollars worth of cars parked here by the end of the week, So what do we need to do to get this done?

But you had executives at SPA Motorsports like c suite people in shorts and t shirts onbox furniture and setting it all up because that's what it took.

Amazing it, you know, makes you a lot more proud of it when it's done.

Yeah, it does.

When you want something so badly and you've worked really hard for it, it means a lot more.

Which is the same in driving.

You know, you've got those drivers who like just turn up and have it handed to them on a plate and it doesn't mean as much to them as when they like put blood, sweat and tears into it, just like you did absolutely with ten tenths.

I think watching Ross's when six hundred, that's someone who absolutely loves racing, like full and full.

And you saw the emotion.

I mean it took him an hour and a half to give to the Champagne toast.

He was so excited.

He was talking every money he was that's what you want.

So he and I were racing for a very little known Exfinity team for a few races back in twenty eighteen.

Together we were like teammates and that's.

How I got to know him, and so he's one of the ones that I feel like is super down to earth and hasn't let his recent successes go to his head because I can always go to him and ask him for or help or you know.

It's nice.

Great guys, So I need you to invite me back next year for the same charity event if you're going to do it, because I really want to beat Jeff Gordon.

Okay, so right here on your podcast, I decided we already had the invite ready to go, or just yeah, you're already on the invite list.

Perfect.

And another thing I wanted to talk to you about, which your family is like renowned for, is giving back and doing amazing things in the community.

The Speedway Charities is obviously well known again by everybody in NASCAR, but will you explain a little bit about what that's all about.

It's a beautiful thing born out of a sad occasion.

My grandparents, my dad's family, lost a child at a very young age.

Through that process, they realized that there wasn't a lot they could do to remedy their specific grief, but they wanted to be able to share some sort of love with the rest of the world, specifically to children.

The projects started out I Believe Locally and Charlotte as Spewa Children's Charities and then expanded pretty quickly to being something that operates at every single one of our facilities across the country and they're all yes, so each each seaway as a chapter and they contribute to that chapter directly.

And part of what we learned through working with charities is that there are a lot of expenses that come with running a nonprofit, and because they are inevitably a nonprofit, you kind of have to take some of this money that is being donated and you're still it's still going to the good of the organization, but it's not always going directly to the people that need the money.

And that's just business.

It's unfortunate, but that's how it goes.

And our goal with Spewach Children's Charities is to directly fund organizations that are putting their hands directly on the problem.

So, for instance, I like to use the Petty Family has Victory Junction and it's an awesome camp where kids with special needs get to go and experience summer camp to a level that you and I would experience it like.

It's a very fun experience for them.

They get to go bowling, they get to go on horseback rides and things like that.

But it's when we take our grant money from the Charlotte Chapter, it goes directly from our hands into their.

So the business that we run funds are charity.

So it's this is all being done to go directly into the pockets of the people that are making a difference.

And so each one of our tracks works with their local charities, so that way something Sonoma that happens.

If we've got a big charity event out there, those funds aren't going all the way to North Carolina, They're going back directly in northern California and Texas and so on, and so you create a relationship with your community and it's a genuine one.

Every single one of our crown events at these tracks is coupled up with some sort of charity element.

And that's why you got to be a part of the experience that we had at ten Tenths because it just feels so natural for anything that we do to incorporate some sort of level of giving.

So did you go to school for business to learn how to do all of this?

So I went to Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina with full intention of being a business major.

I was going in there ready to learn more about, you know, the math of business, because that's anyway that's gotten their master's in business or an underground and business will tell you it's a lot of numbers.

It's a lot of just learning best practices.

And somebody told me along the way, and it was something that I took very literally.

Everybody's got their own set of skills, and if you can sharpen the ones that you know you're already really good at, they become like really valuable assets.

And surprise, surprise, talking, which is what I agree to do today, talking and writing or things that I have always enjoyed.

I like to speak to people, I like to write.

I've always enjoyed, Like I never really got all that stressed about essays.

I was the kid that kind of enjoyed getting the story right.

It was something that I wanted to expound upon a little bit.

So at Firman, I switched my major to a munication major of it with a focus in rhetoric.

So I learned a lot about speeches and how to deliver a message.

And I figured that rather than wrestle with the actual business itself.

I knew I could learn that on the job, and so when I got out of college, I spent some time interning even postgraduation, where I'd learned so much about our sales teams and how we promote events.

It all comes down to sales.

If it's sponsorship, if it's corporate, if it's business to business, whatever it is.

And I learned that sales is a lot of talking.

It's mostly telling a story.

You can learn the business aspects of it as you go along, but really like the personality piece of it was something that I was happy to say I came in with.

So that, in a general obsession with motorsport, probably helped a lot.

I watched a lot of old races.

I watched all kinds of racing.

If it's on four wheels, I'm even I need more racing to watch.

So I'm starting to learn more about motor GPS, so I'm getting the two wheel stuff too.

You'll watch anything he's watching some formula full series from India.

It's fun.

I mean, like dirt is something I never raced on dirt, but like having learned more about Larson and Bell and some of these guys that have had so much success.

I'm like, great, I need to learn more about it, Like I need to know how these guys got so good.

Same, we should go, we should go do a dirt race or something.

Because I did the Chili Bowl midget race and it was the first time I've ever driven on dert.

Did you get the old Chili Bowl flu?

I did a little bit, but I also just got like it was just a bizarre experience that I was terrible at because it never did before.

But it made me want to learn about doing other dead stuff because the driving part was fun.

It was just a lot to take on.

You look at like back in the day with Tony Stewart and everybody coming back through it and talking about door and those.

Kind of places.

It makes me want to learn about it and drive on it and make you a better driver, because people like Kyle Larsson are legendary really and their ability to drive different things.

And I kind of pride myself on driving different things, so I would be a lot of different disciplines.

It'd probably be fun to pick up.

I feel like these these off road and dirt guys, they're more comfortable at the limit.

It's because that limit shows up a little earlier.

I mean, the grip is just lap after lap, it's developing different levels of grip and different places on the track.

And so when you thinking about oval racing especially, I mean when the sun goes down to the Coke six hundred, like, the whole track is a different track.

So to have that confidence in your limit that seems like a cheat code when it comes to the off road deal.

I agree, and it's got to make you better.

Speaking about the Coke six hundred going into Charlotte, having never driven it before, everybody told me it just changes all the time, and it could be really difficult, and it can be slick, and there's this bump, and it's like this epic racetrack that kind of defies everybody, if you like.

And so I was.

Kind of scared of it going in, thinking what's it going to throw at me?

But it is just a really unique play.

I said, why don't they repave it because of the bump?

And everybody's like, no, how could you?

That's what makes it special.

But it's really its own place.

There is no other track in North America like it.

I learned about the bump firsthand.

I've not driven a stock car on that track.

But I've driven Mustang, so it's a couple of different driving schools out there, and I remember feeling that.

You know, you go into one and two and you're like, Okay, this feels somewhat familiar, like it's good, I'm feel confident.

And you get to three and four.

Not only do you feel the bump, but it's got so much age in it.

You can feel all this rumbling and the car's not really settled ever, like it's ever quite where you think it is.

I was very keen on hearing your response after you got out of the qualifying run, which you probably had the coolest save of the entire qualifying tank.

Oh god, it's terrifying.

And then the same thing that happened in Nashville, and I was like, really, I've got to on this one.

That qualifying business.

But it did the track change.

We were struggling because it was super loose.

We were chasing it the whole race, and as the track was changing, we're trying to change the car.

And then I feel like the last stints, Yeah, the last stage really so stint and a half.

We kind of got it a lot better and.

We were a bit more racy, And what I wanted to do was say, Okay, everybody can stop now and we'll go and rerun it from the beginning and we'll start.

Yeah, but I feel like we've got a good we've got a good setup for next year, so I just want to do it again.

Yeah, practice is a very important piece in the sport.

And yeah, I was gonna let you say it.

Yes, So do you think you will take over from your dad one day and run the whole thing or do you want to do something else or do you just want to focus on ten tents?

Like what do you see your future looking light?

You know, we've talked about it before, and I think the age gap between my dad and his dad was almost twice the age gap between my dad and I.

Wow.

Yes, So my grandfather led me ninety five and at my dad was just about fifty when his dad passed, So I'm at the time I was twenty five and I actually we kind of had this moment when I turned twenty five where I was like, I'm half your age and he was like, wait a minute, that's that means that you're you're the age that I was when you were born.

I'm like, yeah, like that's a weird thing to think about.

Yeah, but because he got started so early and my parents decided to hit the ground running with having kids, Like, we've got this really cool relationship where, yes, he is my father and I respect him as my dad, but we're also kind of friends.

Like it's this weird like you always talk about when you get older you get like friendlier with your parents.

But we've been like that for a while, and I want to work with him as long as I possibly can.

I'm not really, I'm never None of this is really a Frienny sort of personal gain.

I want to see the business do well, and I really enjoy working with my family.

So you know, as things developed, as people gain trust in me then and my abilities, then I'll probably gain that same trust in myself.

But right now, I'm pretty comfortable.

Just learning the Ropes ten Tenths is something that I am fully, fully committed to.

I want to be as big of a part of it as I possibly can, and with this new role, I'm excited to be there daily and getting to see the operations.

You know, from that seat, it's a different experience, But I'm not a rush.

I just enjoy learning.

I also feel like like both you and your dad are super well respected and it's not just you know, you see a lot of families where the next generation takes over and it's just kind of like a given thing that that's what's going to happen, and that person may not want to or may not have the skill set.

But I feel like with your family, it's in your blood and you're all very well respected.

I mean, for how young you are really to be running and doing this stuff that you're doing, it's incredible and I think everybody sees that, so I don't think you've come across any issues from that standpoint.

I try to imagine it where if I keep the same level of humility for myself, then I would expect that people can see that.

And that's I don't I don't believe that I'm like supposed to be here.

I don't feel like there's anything guaranteed.

It's more like I'm really happy and I know I'm blessed to be given the opportunities that I haven't given, so I kind of see that as a you know.

A chance to really hard, really hard.

That's that goes back to my grandfather.

Though we we've always been work should be fun, and the privilege element of it is that I really love what I do.

That's that's what I count as.

I'm blessed for that.

It's not normal.

Not everybody gets to do what they love for their day job, and for that reason, it makes me want to try a lot harder, not to put pressure on myself, but just because I'm like, this is fun, Like I get up in the morning, I'm excited to go to the office.

I can't relate that to most people.

I don't want to take that for granted.

I feel very much the same like a lot of people don't know what they want to be when they grow up and they don't have that direction.

And I think we are very blessed to have something that we are so passionate about that makes us want to get up in the morning, because I think it would be terrifying not having something that you really look forward to doing.

No, I can't.

Someone once told me as well that not everybody finds their passion and their job, and you got to find it somewhere, like one thing or another.

And so I'm very thankful that what I do for a living is also what I love doing and opens up, you know, really truly in the day, my biggest passion is just cars in general, and so it's given me opportunity to drive a lot of my favorite cars and experience things that I would otherwise never get to do.

So I'm excited about it.

So you building a garage for yourself as well, I'm going to.

Share it for a little bit.

I've owned a lot of cars, but they're always one at a time, so I only keep one fun car in the garage.

Yeah, I like that car.

It was wonderful that one's going to leave a little bit of a scar on.

I have an Audi R eight.

I've always wanted one, and that's kind of where this My whole car decision making over the years has always played out, is I will enjoy what I am in.

For the most part, there's been a couple of duds.

There's been a couple where I was like, I regretted.

After a few thousand miles, I was like, what have I done?

You are not going to tell us what those are.

I will go through the whole list, but it's embarrassing how many there are.

Really.

Okay, what's the worst one?

Give us the top three of worse duds.

Oh, I mean, that's tough.

I mean they've all been pretty great.

The Supra, the Mark five Supra was wonderful.

If I could go back and drive the manual one, I'm sure I would love it.

The problem was is that the seating position is for not someone my height.

I'm not like an insanely tall individual.

But when I got in the car, because it was an automatic and I wasn't shifting with the clutch the whole time, it was very apparent to me how small the cabin was, and it was like without more things to do, and like, I don't know if that makes sense, Like if I've got a third pedal, then it's like my left legs working the whole time.

But without the third pedal, it was just kind of sitting there and I kind of had to tuck it underneath my other leg because it was so small, and so it's like it just didn't work.

Yeah, that one was That one was something, and uh yeah, I mean most of them I've really enjoyed.

Though there's not a ton I can say bad about any of the cars, but there's been.

You know, my first car was a Toyota FJ Cruiser, and it was like the modern interpretation of like the original land Cruiser, and I thought that was the coolest thing I've right, the big off road.

Oh, the og ones are sweet.

Like the original FJ chassis are super cool.

We actually TLC is a company we operate in Harrisburg that does like full rest a mode like builds on those cars.

They're really really cool.

But the original.

So I had the FJ and then I had back to back.

I had two Focus RS's and we only got one Focused RS in the States.

So I had the all wheel drive.

You said, English, I grew up on your top year.

I didn't grow up on him, Like that's why.

So I had those.

I had one and then it got flooded from an actual flash flood.

I drove it under a bridge and I thought it was a puddle and it turned out to be a lake, and yeah, it actually killed the car.

Replaced it, and then I was driving back and forth in college.

I couldn't drive a tiny little hatchback I had from moving things back and forth.

I ended up getting into an Audi SQ five, which was one of the only SUVs I've owned, and then right back into a Focus RS when I graduated.

So that was number three that one, and I got a really good deal on it.

Those cars were really hard to get here, so I knew there was something wrong, but I wasn't man enough to admit that there was definitely something wrong.

And sometimes the engine light comes on and it goes away.

Sometimes there's like this, like you should service the car immediately, but then it goes away, and I'm like, I'm gonna sell this car, and I did.

No, you didn't it to a friend.

I didn't didn't sell to a friend.

I was traded it in and the car got bought very quickly.

That once again, they didn't make many I think they made them from like twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen, so we didn't get very many years of the rs.

I wrapped this one green because I green is my favorite color, and they didn't have a green racing green slightly lighter.

It actually ended up being more like baby poop green, which was not the intent, but it was supposed to be closer to BRG.

This sounds delightful.

So I traded it in and a friend called me and he goes, hey, I was out walking my dog and I saw someone's garage open and I saw green focus rs and so naturally I knew it was yours, but I wasn't going to tell him.

So I walked up and I said, I like your car, and he said yeah, I liked it too.

For about a week and then a rod came flying out.

Whatever I was feeling was rod knock, and it threw a rod.

So dodged a bullet or a rod in that situation.

I had an M three and f eighty M three three.

Oh, it was a great, great car.

I don't really know why I sold that one, to be honest with you, that was a mistake.

I should have kept that one was fun.

It's because the Super came out, and I thought the Super was awesome.

I loved fast and furious and wanted a Super.

Yeah, I'm every bit of the like when you think, look the we're not even a quarter of the way through the list, and I can tell you like they're all like this, the Super that a golf are another all wheel drive.

Another English boy raced the cover that was.

I still say to this day it is probably the most complete car that I've ever owned.

I wanted one when I was younger too.

It's so good.

I mean, not super fast, but not slow, quick, super quick, manual all wheel drive.

I mean it felt like sitting in an Audi and you're in a golf.

And it weighs nothing.

It's like a great, great car.

Awesome car.

Of course, had to get rid of it, because any good car doesn't last very long with me.

Sadly, I got into an X three M.

I really thought that was like the coolest thing ever because it was the M three power plant in an suv.

It made no sense, but at the time I needed an suv and I had a five hundred and ten horse power like inline six and the SUV, so I was like, this is great.

And I actually drove that for a year, which is long for me.

I did the Jeep SRT I had the same so loud.

Those things you never know they're coming though, because you see like what you would think is like someone's soccer bomb car coming up in your rear view and then it blows by you and like the hemy and that thing is absurd.

IM and the Hemmy's coming back to NASCAR now.

It is, I know, congrats Dodge on coming back in the Drug series.

Quickly to round it off, I had a very short stint in a C eight Corvette that I got a really great car.

I got one of the earlier ones and it had a couple of technical issues and I was at the time like terrified that it was like going to be a Lemon Law or something, and then sold it really really quickly and got into my first Portie.

The twenty eighteen came in that I loved.

It was great, but I was paying way too much money for it, Like I was trying to bargain with myself like oh yeah, like I'll take a car payment on it, and I'm like barely making enough to keep my own lights on and I've got this thing in the driveway.

I'm like, this is a terrible, terrible mistake.

Mortgage, Yeah it is.

It was actually more than my mortgage at the time, so like this is not okay.

But RS three that was fun.

I kind of stepped away for a bit and drove some cars that I was able to drive on like a company deal, so it wasn't necessarily my car they were allowing.

Toyota allowed me to drive it.

And it was a Lexus IS five hundred, which was great, kind of like an older M three but with a Lexis badge on it, with a V eight.

I mean, that's awesome.

And then the GR Corolla.

We're back to boy racer and loved that car.

Super fun car.

And then one of my all time favorites was a R thirty five Niece on GTR and there.

It goes again.

That was perfect.

It reminds me of the old Skylines that we used to like winning.

It's basically what we got.

We didn't really get skylines every year.

And uh now to import an our thirty four Skyline GTR, it's like four hundred grand in the States, which is crazy money for what is still at the end of the day in Nissan.

So you know, I think I want nine eleven.

You should get a turbo, right, you should need.

To do a deal with as dealership.

Absolutely.

The only other car that you don't know about would have been the Well there are a couple more.

But I did have an NX that it was the same one that you raise right right right, I remember so that it was really cool.

I wish it had a fronk.

If it had a front could still get my garage.

There's no that thing front trunk like the sorry back front boot from front.

It had that rear one, but it was over the exhaust, and so if you went grocery shopping for whatever reason, then you had milk in the back of your milk was it was by the time you got home.

Oh my goodness.

I never even thought about that.

I mean, I never went grocery shopping in it, to be fair, because.

Most people wouldn't.

But that's kind of how I am with cars.

I try and live with them on the daily basis.

And it was tough, but yeah, there were some other BMW's and things in the way, but I settled into that portche I really really wanted to keep that, and I do want a GT three like that is what I'm working towards.

But the R eight was one that it's always been a question work for me, and I'm really into it.

Yeah, And I was gonna say, I'm not actually a car person.

I'm a racing person, like competition.

Yeah, but maybe I'm a little bit of a car person because I was thinking back to the cars that I've really loved, and I drove for Audi in DTM for three years, so we got like RS six's RS or loved it.

The TT that was another great yar.

But yeah, I think I think the turbo though you can use as a daily driver.

The GT three is a little aggressive, Like I wouldn't go grocery shopping in that either.

I'm driving a now from Chevrolet and I've got it, like, you know, that's my If I really need to do something that requires a real vehicle, I can do that.

But oh it's great, Oh it's wonderful.

The GT three is like it's about as close as you can get to a race car for the road, but it's still a race car.

That turbo.

You could drive that for three thousand miles straight and be totally back.

Yeah, so that's what you need next time you come back to the Heritage're very pulling up in.

A turbo Okay, Yeah, Graham, thank you so much for joining us on Throttle Therapy.

It was a pleasure to hear about your journey.

Pun totally intended, and I hope.

To see you very soon.

Yes, looking forward to it.

Yes, sir, thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy.

We'll be back next week with more updates and more overtakes.

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