Do It For A Living

Brain is a self-proclaimed geek who spent most of his early years at Radio Shack. He was very interested in electronics and building model rockets. Never did he imagine that he would be programming machines to port heads for some of the fastest cars out there. When Brian turned 18, he joined the Navy and bought a Z28 Camaro. This sent him down the path of performance cars. In 1993, he started Total Engine Airflow and started porting heads. He then began working for Holley Performance doing product development. He didn’t last long at this job due to disagreements with the management. So he left the job and restarted Total Engine Airflow in 1996. He really stepped things up in 2001 when he bought a 5-axis CNC machine building heads for some really big name shops. He was approached by Trikflow who ended up buying his business in 2004 to join the Summit team. All of this leads to him starting Brian Tooley Racing around 2010. His business only sells what it has in stock and even has a real-time quantity tracker ri

Brian Mack initially had aspirations of becoming an astronaut and got his Aerospace Engineering degree in college. After college, he took a job at Pratt & Whitney where he got to work on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. He went on to work for a company designing replacement parts for gas turbine engines for power plants. But, within a year, the company was sued by GE for patent infringement. This was Brian’s first experience with patent law and got to see the mix of engineering, science, and law together. From this, he decided to move and pursue his law degree. He has worked with software companies, energy companies, engineering firms, and one of the Big Three auto manufactures on patent work. Lathrop & Gage has a long history of providing counsel for all sorts of legal matters. This podcast covers the specifics of patent law and we will be featuring more podcasts that cover other areas pertaining to the aftermarket automotive industry.

JJ entered the car scene by helping friends out with audio and alarms. When he went to college, JJ opened up a small car audio shop. During his senior year of college, he started working with a friend who owned a performance shop in 1996. Before he finished college, he realized that he needed to devote all of his efforts into the performance shop and decided to work there full-time. Fast forward to 2004 and JJ has started his own shop. He began buying and flipping cars to make some money. This morphed into buying and selling just Subarus and turning modified cars back into stock cars. Then he would sell off the performance parts to make even more money. 2007 was a turning point for JJ and his shop. He had been selling just parts but saw a need in the market to install these parts as well. But then the market took a turn for the worst. To keep the doors open, he resorted to selling Christmas trees during the winter and scrapping U-Haul trucks. He weathered the downturn and has been rocking ever since! Nowadays

David first realized the potency of a turbo when his dad (driving his Turbo Buick) smoked his V8 Monte Carlo from a light. This led David to trade in his Monte Carlo for an AWD Eagle Talon in 1989. He bought an air filter and an exhaust for the car and ran a mid-13 sec ¼ mile which amazed all the big V8 guys. From this point forward, David was hooked! He immediately began making parts he needed to see what the car was doing and to make it go faster. David got involved with an email community and began selling parts he made all over the country. David and a few of his buddies got together and had the first unofficial Shootout with a total of 4 people in 1991. The next year, David organized the first official Shootout and 8 people showed up. His attendance to the event doubled (at least) every year as the platform became more and more potent. Now in its 26th year, The Buschur Shootout (DSM/Evo Shootout and some GTR’s) is enormous and cars come from all over to compete and show off. In this interview, David stay

Terry Fair started doing paint and body work at 14 even though his family really didn’t have any interested in cars. Terry’s decision on which college to attend was based on an invite from a friend to go check out an autocross held by Texas A&M in College Station, TX. He had never seen anything like it and he totally fell in love. He went for a couple rides with people that he still works with to this day. After college, Terry and his wife, Amy, moved to Houston and he began working in the oil industry. He was still wrenching on the side to keep the automotive passion alive. In 2005, Terry had moved to Dallas and teamed up with an old college buddy to create a real business out working on cars. They created Vorshlag (which means absolutely nothing) and started to specialize in LS swaps back before it was cool. In 2006, they flew to Holland and teamed up with AST to create a mono-tube motorsports shock. Eventually, Terry bought out a business that built camber plates and this became the main product for Vo

AJ didn’t really come from an automotive enthusiast family. But when his older brother purchased a white Fox Body Mustang, AJ immediately fell in love. During high school, he began working at a collision business and began working on cars. He worked there for 6 years and picked up body work pretty quickly. After that, he got an associate’s degree in automotive technology and got a total of 8 ASE certifications. He began working at Pep Boys but quickly moved back to a collision shop. AJ purchased a house and began doing side jobs out of his garage. These side jobs kept getting bigger and bigger until he finally made the leap to make a real business out of it! His first composite part was a headlight duct for his Mustang. One thing led to another and AJ ended up purchasing another composites business which really got the ball rolling on AJ Hartman Aero. He leveraged his experience repairing cars to begin making composite parts. His current shop is 5200 square feet with several rooms dedicated to each process of

Greg Caloudas has been tinkering with cars his whole life but he never imaged that he would be developing and manufacturing engine internals. His first experience with an import was back in 1999 when he purchased a 1994 Supra. He had seen an upgraded one at a race track and though, “I’ve got to have one!” While in college, Greg majored in Business Management with the plan of working for himself. He wasn’t really interested in the family business of restaurants and real estate. He began modifying his Supra and quickly realized there was a market for him to become a dealer and sell parts online. What started as a side business turned into GSC Motorsports (using his initials as the business name). One day, Greg was approached by somebody who had some unbranded cams available for Evo’s. There was a long wait for the HKS cams at the time so Greg decided to purchase the 50 or so sets and market them as GSC Cams. He sold all of them in a few months’ time with a relatively unknown business. This result caused Greg to

Steven Aghakhani is a 13 year old who races exotic cars for a living! Everything from McClarens, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and even Formula 1 cars. His racing career began when he was 6 in go carts and it quickly morphed into something more serious. He has participated in several half mile events as well as raced at numerous circuit tracks. Even though money is an obvious help in getting started racing super cars, Steven explains that there is a ton of mental and physical training required to sustain the strain of racing at 100% for hours at a time. He trains all the time and is at the track almost every day. But he has to balance this racing life with his school life with hopes that he can attend UCLA to study law and follow in his father’s footsteps.

Jay Payson’s love of motored vehicles goes all the way back before he can remember. He began working at a repair shop / filling station in his late teens where he learned a ton of information about cars. He gave college a try but that wasn’t quite his thing. So he found an automotive program through General Motors at a community college which really peaked his interest. He worked at a few dealerships and then transitioned to a testing facility. His various jobs over the years moved him to Michigan to go where the work was. In 1999, he went to work for SuperChips as a calibrator. Things have come a long way from floppy drive flash tunes! He moved into upper management by 2004 where he helped them grow several hundred percent over the years. He then moved to HP Tuners where he has been for almost 10 years. He has helped grow this company as well and focuses on creating mutually beneficial relationships with other companies.

Ravi Dolwani is a 4th generation member of the CSF Radiator company and is the CEO of the High Performance Division. This division is something that he started around 2010 with the intent of expanding the business to markets besides OEM manufacturers (such as Isuzu, John Deere, Mercedes Benz, etc.). He thought this expansion would be very seamless, but he soon found out this was not the case at all. He had to hit the pavement and go out to meet shops and spread the word about what he wanted to provide. Over the years, he grew the brand and proved that CSF could make a superior product. Ravi put a lot of thought into how they sell their products. He made the decision to only sell through distributors and not go direct to consumers. The margins may be less, but this allows his team to focus on developing great products and not spend so much time on customer service inquiries. This all falls on the shoulders of the retailers who sell the product. Ravi has also been able to leverage economies of scale by piggybac

Lee Sweitzer has been around Mustangs all his life and even had a 1984 5.0 Mustang for his first car. At 17, he graduated high school and joined the service to become a Marine. He was stationed in Southern California and continued to race Mustangs. He has spent several years planning and preparing to open up his own performance shop to follow his passion. Lee has seen shop owners work themselves to the bone and is trying very hard to avoid falling into those pitfalls. He understands that it takes a bunch of hard work, but he wants to avoid making mistakes by researching ways to operate more efficiently. He has attended the Essentials of Operating a Shop seminar, many business seminars, talked with business coaches, and read business books. He has just received the keys to his initial shop space and has begun to get the business going part time. It is a very small space but he really isn’t tied down to a lease agreement so he has the option to move out whenever he needs more space. Lee already plans to work pa

Carlos Tirado remembers reading car enthusiast magazines while riding the school bus every day. His brother bought a 1995 DSM and he fell in love with imports. His brother sold the car but Carlos was able to track it down and purchase it back when he was in high school. After graduation, he went to college to work with electronics and it just didn’t interest him as much as he hoped. He shifted gears and changed his major to automotive refinishing. This is where he found how he could turn his passion for cars into a way to make money. He stumbled into powder coating when he saw some people posting on the forum needing their DSM valve covers to be powder coated. Carlos met Jorge of JMS Racing and they formed a business and personal relationship of working together. The business officially started when Carlos asked his forum buddies what he should call his business. He has since moved locations to be right by JMS Racing and continues to capitalize on that business relationship. He now rents a 1000 square foot fa

Jack McGee’s earliest memories of working on electronics, and even repairing VCR’s when he was 8. All of this was taking place in Jack’s home country of Spain and a little bit in Italy. It wasn’t until he was 15 that his father retired from the military and they moved to Colorado Springs, CO where he still lives today. His first real business venture was partnering with local electronic stores and repair various items these stores would collect. This was a great venture for a while but he could see the market beginning to shrink and decided to stop this side repair business. He entered the workforce as a typical employee: guaranteed work, benefits, overtime pay, etc. But it just didn’t satisfy his need for exciting work. So he left this job and spent some time taking a break from life responsibilities. A few years go by and Jack ended up purchasing a Galant VR4 which he eventually rebuilt the trans for. Word spread that he was doing this and he started doing more and more work on these cars. One thing led to

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 sim

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 salesma

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! No

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,