Do It For A Living

His passion for performance really got started when he went to college for mechanic engineering and joined the Formula SAE team. While at a competition in 2010, he met a representative of Pratt & Miller and ended up getting a job with them at their design office. This transitioned into a job at the Cadillac Racing team with Pratt & Miller. He worked on the CTS-V team for 4 years and now works on the ATS-V team. They use complex simulations and advanced telemetry data to make the cars perform at the absolute limit. With the rules constantly changing, the team has to adapt to stay ahead of the competition.

  Alex grew up reading automotive magazines and aspiring to be one of the feature builders. He moved to Southern California with high hopes but no real direction on how to get into the racing industry. He got his first automotive job at Web Camshafts where he learned a lot about drag racing. Alex went on to build several Honda’s that got a lot of attention but the real break came when his Integra went 8’s in the ¼ mile. The side gig of making and selling manifolds out of his garage transformed into Sheepey Built. Given that Alex doesn’t actually weld, he has taken great steps to set up his process flow to be as efficient as possible. He took what he learned at Web Cams and applied it at his own shop. He has specific people dedicated to tasks in order to keep the parts moving out the door.

 Kyle Shelley is the sales director for Turn14. He was good friends with the founder of JSC Speed (and then Turn14) and got to see the business be created. He had several sales jobs before becoming the first employee at JSC Speed. He started out at the bottom and worked his way up over the years. Turn14 was actually established in 2007 and JSC Speed was sold off in 2011. This is when all the efforts were put into the wholesale business. Turn14 has a new “authorized seller” solution where the Turn14 customer must be approved by the part manufacturer to sell its parts. This allows the manufacturer to vet and validate that reseller as a legitimate business. Turn14 is trying really hard to ensure that legitimate businesses are reselling aftermarket parts. They are looking for shops and people who respect the pricing structure and give the industry a good reputation. Kyle goes over the meaning of MAP (minimum advertised price) and UPP (unilateral pricing policy) If you are a manufacturer and want to ensure nobody

Dale has been tuning turbo EFI V8’s for many years, but the American drag racing market has traditionally been dominated by carburetors and nitrous controlled by antiquated methods. Dale made his break into the US by way of a forum post to Dominator (from Street Outlaws) offering to tune his car on EFI. Since then, he has also converted the Dung Beetle car to EFI as well. This has really changed the game for the domestic drag racing market and requires a much different approach to tuning 3000+hp cars.

Steve Ciabattoni started his career in payment processing right out of college where he was recruited (by his current partner) to work for a very large payment processing company. In 2011, he and jumped ship and created 360 Payment Solutions. Now, 360 Payment Solutions serves nearly 3000 merchants and employs 28 people. They label themselves as a Payment Processing provider, meaning that they help companies accept all types of payments including: checks, gift cards, electronic payments online (paypal), as well as credit card processing In this interview, Steve discusses the new chip card technology (known in the industry as EMV - Europay MasterCard Visa), Apple pay, pay with phone, and integration with business software. Back on Oct 1, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express shifted their liability statement and said you are going to be responsible for any chargebacks that come through if you don’t have the ability to accept the chip cards. And you cannot fight it. This is a shift in responsibility and somethi

Jim McIlvaine used to play professional basketball but now he runs the social media and web-presence for Optima Batteries. While playing basketball, Jim would do freelance work for magazines where he would meet people and attend events across the country. After Jim left the NBA, he eventually joined Optima Batteries as their “E-care Manager” where he created the Facebook page and began answering questions or comments on web forums (You may be familiar with his forum handle OptimaJim on almost every forum in existence). Today, you will see him at many automotive events taking pictures, streaming videos, and answering questions from customers about Optima’s products. Jim says it is extremely important to gathering as much information about your potential customers as possible. The most important thing is to obtain an email address which can be used in Facebook to target an audience similar to this specific person (likes, location, age, sex).

Peter started TX2K back in 2000 after he went to a Supra event in Las Vegas. From the humble beginning of 40 Supras banding together to go to the drag strip, the TX2K franchise has transformed into the premier Supra, GTR, Roll Racing, and Drag Racing event in the country! TX2K16 is improving this year by showing the roll racing speeds up on the large display boards at the end of the track. This betters the experience for the attendees by allowing them to easily see the winner and how fast they were going.

Back in early 2000, Chris Raymond was building websites and forums for other people. He saw a void in the market for a DSM forum and set out to make one himself. This is what spawned DSMTuners.com He also runs Garage 40 which focusses on automotive businesses to help them with social media, email marketing, web design, and reputation management. Brand management is tough because you have to be in every place when your shop or product is talked about by your audience. In this interview, Chris explains the ever-changing atmosphere of online marketing and what you need to be doing to succeed.

Tim Bailey was one of the early Subaru tuners when the WRX hit the states. Eventually, he started Surgeline Performance which was later purchased by Trey Cobb. While Tim still works on the actual tuning, most of his time is spent controlling the dealer and tuner network for Cobb. Now he travels all over the country to set up new dealers and help out existing ones. In this interview, he goes into detail about how they manage that network and why it is so important to regulate the prices of their products.

Chase Lautenbach & Justin Keith created Street Car Takeover just a few years ago because they saw a void in the racing market for more “streetable” cars to compete in drag racing and roll racing. Their series has expanded to 10 events in 2016 and they are looking to keep growing. While the main event is the drag racing, Street Car Takeover also incorporates a shop open house, car show, and other meetup prior to the actual racing. They want to offer more experience for the fans and encourage people to participate.

When the Modified Magazine decided to stop printing the physical magazine, both Peter and Dave found themselves without a job. So they looked for alternative means to produce content and decided on YouTube. In their channel, Speed Academy, they “focus on bringing performance oriented content to car enthusiast.” They have found that a website and YouTube channel are the perfect combination to generate content, get participation from fans, and provide the means to collect advertising money to keep going.  Listen in as they provide advice for shops looking to reach a greater audience.

Rhys is a professional driver. But did you know that he is also a shop owner? He has taken his love for racing and turned it into a successful company. Rhys Millen Racing produces parts, builds movie cars, and champions race teams. His repertoire includes Global RallyCross, Pikes Peak, Formula Drift, Fast & Furious cars, Penzoil commercials, and RedBull sponsorships. The dedication to the sport and the constant drive to get new contracts puts Rhys in the upper echelon of specialty shops. Tune in as he talks about the challenges of meeting deadlines and the time required to maintain his place in the industry.

Lucas English of English Racing currently has built the fastest Evo X in the world. They have also been a key player in pushing the GTR to the limits at the drag strip. He has grown from humble beginnings in the DSM scene to a world-renowned shop for fast imports. English Racing is located next to Lucas’ house in a rural area outside of Vancouver, WA (just north of Portland, OR). He has struggled with land usage permits, neighbor complaints, and unrealistic expectations from customers. But his story shows that hard work and determination can make you successful.

Mark Jager doesn’t own a shop and he isn’t a professional driver. He is an enthusiast who loves to go fast and continues to push his car to the limits! Mark’s efforts off the track have raised the bar for how a driver/team can help their sponsors by actively providing updates, attending events, and using social media to generate exposure.  Mark addresses some of the shortcoming that are prevalent in the racing industry when it comes to sponsorship and hopes his story can help change it.

Jimi Day from FM3 Marketing discusses how he went from being an investment banker, to a shop owner, and finally to a marketing company that hosts and promotes motorsports events.  His company is most well known for their involvement in the Hot Rod Power Tour, Holley LS Fest, the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car series, and their newest event called Road Trip. He took his expertise at writing proposals and took that knowledge to get sponsorships for builds. He emphasizes that you need to be humble and try to continually improve how you do business.

In Kevin Dubois’ first interview as an additional host, he talks with his partner, Todd Earsley, about how they are going to keep Do It For A Living going! They will be helping Reid to do more interviews and provide more episodes for the listeners. Todd took his experience in business school and partnered with Kevin Dubois to help make shops more profitable. In today’s immediate satisfaction, internet market, it has become more and more important for shops to ensure their service side is operating at its fullest potential.

Kevin Dubois is the co-founder of My Shop Assist, a project management system designed specifically for aftermarket automotive shops.  He took his experience (and mistakes) as the owner of Evolution Dynamics to create a tool to help owners run their shop more efficiently.  After a tremendous crash at Pikes Peak in 2012, he decided it was time to buckle down and get serious about turning his performance shop from a hobby to a real business.

Belak Industries is a wheel manufacturer based out of Miami, FL focused primarily on Honda drag racing. Damian Borroto established Belak Industries in 2012 after a decade working in multiple Honda speed shops in the Miami area, and eventually opening his own shop, TD Autowerkes. Damian has a “can-do, make-it-happen attitude” and he survived some serious setbacks in the last year. In 2014 he had his race car and trailer stolen, only to get pieces of it back. So he set out to build another car, and did! But on it’s first outing, a freak accident caused it to wreck, and total the chassis. Now he’s on to building his third SFWD race car and he hasn’t even considered giving up! Game Changing Product: ID1700, Belak Wheels, AEM Infinity, FTW Fuel Most useful software program: Windows Favorite App: Pandora, WhatsApp, Instagram   Favorite Shop Tool: Hammer!... and his Dyno

Chris Jewell has been around the import performance industry since the beginning with multiple different companies. He currently owns Competition Clutch, a clutch company focused on import performance clutches. In this interview Chris talks a lot about mixing friends with business and how he’s mistakenly thought that his business partners were his friends. Chris says that his Achilles heel is “that I fucking care about people too much.” And he says that he focuses too much on the personal relationship and sometimes forgets that “it’s business.” With only a 9th grade education Chris built an influential business and he talks about how it all went down.   

John Veloso owns and operates K-Tuned, a product manufacturing company that is hyper-focused on the Honda K-series engine. They make high-quality, functional engine parts focused entirely on the K-series. John and I discuss his background, and his view on the world. He tells the story of his upbringing and how it all came to be. We discussed his business, and business in general. John’s business is customer focused and he makes a point to not take a customer’s money until he has the product to fulfill the order. He puts the responsibility on himself and his team to make sure they have inventory on-hand. In a time when everybody is trying to be everything to everyone, K-Tuned is successful largely because they stay focused and know their strengths. There’s no fancy this or that, just common sense and treating people right. This is a good listen. Enjoy!