Hit the Brakes!!

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:31:03
Unknown
Hey. What's up? Ken from Palm Beach Dyno here. Welcome to the latest episode of Hit the Brakes, where we sit down with industry leaders and racers and have long conversations. You may not know our next guest, but he started the blower reporting craze 20 years ago. He ran it at the age of 23. He brought the engage to our market and has a host of other impressive accomplishments.

00:00:31:08 - 00:00:51:22
Unknown
Today we sit down with Brian Herron. Well, welcome to Palm Beach Dyno, Brian. It's been a while. Yeah. Thank you for having me I appreciate it. No problem. So, you know, obviously, not a lot of people might know your name that listen to my podcast, but I think you're super important to the industry and how we got to this point.

00:00:51:27 - 00:01:16:08
Unknown
And you had your hands on a lot of products that people touch. They just don't necessarily know that you're involved in them. So I like to start out with, you know, my connection with you, which is back, I believe that was like 2004 ish, was that that's been like 20 years, right? Yeah, yeah, 20 years. So if anybody's watching this podcast previously Jerry Wroblewski, was on it was my first guest.

00:01:16:08 - 00:01:38:38
Unknown
And that's how I know Brian. And so. Well, let's talk about how you got into the to the business itself. like most people, I don't I believe that, you don't really have an automotive education. You have a business background. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I started with, you know, working on my own car, and I was a computer science background.

00:01:38:38 - 00:02:04:03
Unknown
And at some point, the internet came around. Right. And some of those early internet forums, there was modular Fords. I had a small group called MTC where we were just chatting about things like Ford transmissions and doing modifications and, and eventually Jerry showed up on scene, and I think we all started to get connected with him. And the idea that we could change code in the cars and, at the same time, I'm kind of watching this.

00:02:04:03 - 00:02:29:07
Unknown
I'm, I'm starting to modify Thunderbird Super Cubes and getting into the Ford scene and, it just came together really nicely, like, because Thunderbird would blow head gaskets. That was their thing. And so my first repair was, the 3.8l supercharged engine. They would just keep blowing head gasket. So I would find these cars with blown head gasket, put new head gaskets in, and then drive the car and then, like, like everything else, you want to go fast or.

00:02:29:07 - 00:02:57:37
Unknown
Right. So like, this is great, but can I have more. And computer tuning was kind of the early days of that right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. so Super Coupes was basically where you spent was my first love. Yeah. Which, you know, I think that's what Jerry was known for. Like in that group, I believe he did the, the transmission thing was in that group of people, you know, not the Mustang world, obviously eventually came over to that world.

00:02:57:37 - 00:03:20:04
Unknown
But, you know, this goes way, way back. So at what point do you make the jump from well, let's talk about apt and performance, right. Is that it? Was that your first it was this in this. Yeah. I was trying to figure out what to do with myself. And I was in college for computer science and learning software programing and realizing maybe it wasn't really for me.

00:03:20:09 - 00:03:42:31
Unknown
And then, apt end was I wasn't really sure at the beginning what it was going to be. So I wanted to build Supercharger Kids. I thought Ford Explorers would be a fun arena and as I'm trying to make that work and trying to do some performance tuning, I realized that superchargers for Ford Lightning, Mustang Cobra, the old 304 had just come out.

00:03:42:36 - 00:04:05:42
Unknown
There was opportunity to get more horsepower by porting those. And so pretty quickly after I went from a bunch of different small projects to lots bought superchargers. Yeah. And I think, that's obviously how I knew about you back then. and something I just was thinking about when you're on your way here, how much blower porting was around at that time?

00:04:05:42 - 00:04:30:58
Unknown
Now it's just super common, right? There's companies like large companies that specialize in that. We use them for the GT 500. And obviously it's very popular in the Jim world as well. But back then was back then there, there was a little bit here and there and the industry of people doing m90 m12 Eaton blowers. But I think there was a lot of skepticism like, does this really work?

00:04:31:03 - 00:04:51:42
Unknown
And so when we got our hands on the porting setup and we started doing testing, we got, I think Muscle Mustang's and Fast Fords was the first magazine. We brought them in and we said, look, let's put the car on the dyno, let's run a stock. Let's as quickly as possible, swap out the supercharger, let's leave everything else the same same day, same dyno, everything else, and let's see what happens.

00:04:51:46 - 00:05:08:18
Unknown
And, so we ran that test a couple of different ways and consistently it was like 30 horsepower. That magazine article hit. And then we went from here and there, 1 or 2, two. I remember we had our 500th supercharger porting. It's like, wow, these things are everywhere. And it just started to kind of grow from there.

00:05:08:18 - 00:05:32:24
Unknown
And you're right, today it's like kind of a common practice, right? Everybody knows you could port the supercharger, but you remember all the snake oil things back then, like you could do this throttle body and it's 30 horsepower and you sort of all of these things and like they never really added up to much. So when you could find something that actually worked and was repeatable and gain horsepower, you know, people just started to follow behind that.

00:05:32:29 - 00:05:53:31
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, nowadays on the, Gt500 world, people ask me what's the number one mod? And other than just like a quick pulley change port, the supercharger, it's 100 horsepower or 80 to 100 on a Gt500, which is pretty incredible, right? It is. Yeah. I mean, I showed you some of the cars on your way in here, and, you know, we can make 900.

00:05:53:31 - 00:06:18:01
Unknown
We'll on pump gas and 1100 on E85 with the factory supercharger. That's just blows my mind when you talk about, you know, originally back then coming up with supercharger kits, I don't think people realize how things were back then compared to how they were now. It was a little bit even though there was larger companies back then, like the Vortex and Paxton's and all them, they were still fairly rudimentary, I would say, you know.

00:06:18:05 - 00:06:37:18
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, I remember the, the base package. Oh three Cobra you start to put on the small pulley and like, tune and the basic photons and you're maybe like 475 people were barely cracking 500 at the tire. And then we started porting superchargers. And this was before they had other kits that were for that car.

00:06:37:22 - 00:07:05:15
Unknown
But we got 550. It's like, wow, you know, it's a big difference going from 450 to 550 in a stock configuration. Now it's like in a thousand horsepower. It's like a totally different game. Yeah. Oh it is a totally different game. And I'm not throwing shade at any of our customers that make less power than this. But when we dyno a car and it makes 800, it's just like, oh, it's pretty good, I guess, you know, like it's just it's, you know, if it's not if it's not four digits, it's not even four digits is barely exciting anymore.

00:07:05:51 - 00:07:24:48
Unknown
but I say that to make sure everybody currently appreciates how easy it is. And that's not necessarily a good thing, because there's a lot of people, building these cars that just can't handle them. You know, we get a lot of customers that, wind up having issues on the street. I would say, you know, with, you know, wrecking the cars.

00:07:24:48 - 00:07:52:05
Unknown
So, maybe back then, it was for our own safety that they didn't make quite that kind of power. but, you know, fast forward a little bit, at what point did you get into doing anything with calibrations? You know, the computer in the car. So the whole time I was at APT and I had a relationship with Jerry that spanned from even before the starting of APT in and we would go out and do dyno tuning on weekends.

00:07:52:10 - 00:08:12:39
Unknown
I would help support him as he was building calibrations and I mean, like that whole side of the world was just kind of beginning the idea of flash tuning ECUs, and I was trying to figure out what my role in that world might be at some point. And the industry hadn't really developed those chips at first. Or I remember the, the, the Jtag, it's like, yeah, plug it into the ECU.

00:08:12:39 - 00:08:37:18
Unknown
And you had a chip with a switches and you could flip between. And then, you know, the ECU Reprograming started to come around. And that was kind of really the beginning of my career. Like if I reflect back ECU Reprograming now I do it a lot for repair and you know, vehicle just service. But it's really been one of the foundations and so is ECU reprogram started to come to life.

00:08:37:22 - 00:08:55:28
Unknown
I remember I get a call from Jerry one day and he had started it and I was up at APT and he's like, hey, do you want to come down here? we need somebody to run the company. And, and I'm a 23 years old and I'm like, well, how could I say no to that? I mean, right, I'll give it a go.

00:08:55:33 - 00:09:27:43
Unknown
And, so I that that was, you know, like, I had this app in business and I'm like, okay, I have to figure out what to do with this. And at the same hand, I have to pack my wife up and move down to Florida and and try to run. It wasn't even set back then. It was super chips, custom tuning, because they had started as an off spin of super chips that once I got down there and we started working about strategies like, okay, let's build a flash programmer, let's rebrand the company so it's on its own, and then the supercharging porting business as well, so I can what do I do with

00:09:27:43 - 00:09:51:54
Unknown
that? Right. Yeah. I remember, it's a long time ago, but if my memory serves me correctly, Jerry called me up and he's like, hey, I got an idea. And I was like, what's that? He's like, you should buy apps and performance from Brian. And I was like, wow, why would you sell apps and performance? He's like, well, I want him to come run it, but he needs to sell the company to kind of close that chapter.

00:09:51:59 - 00:10:22:08
Unknown
I go, I don't have any money to buy a company. And he's like, well, maybe you guys can work out a deal, talk it out. Maybe you can make payments on or whatever. It's a healthy company and you know, you can use profits to pay for the business. And, I mean, you made it super easy to do for me because, you know, for those people that don't know, you know, a lot of people out there and probably don't know the segment name now, but at that time, they were the ones that were kind of in the background doing the actual physical porting that you came up with and, and all that.

00:10:22:19 - 00:10:44:38
Unknown
And I maintain my relationship with them, which we're going to go how that relationship. But it went really, it went well for a while. Yeah. And it was definitely a good decision for me to buy the company. And then eventually, politics and personalities didn't really mesh very well. And, you know, we parted ways with Steg Myers or he actually parted ways with me, to be honest, he thought I was going to cut him out of it.

00:10:44:38 - 00:11:02:24
Unknown
So he cut me out first, and I tried to get somebody else to do it, but honestly, the guy that we got to do it did a visually great job machine work, but it didn't make as much power. And I said to myself, you know, if I keep going with this, it's just out of ego. And I proved that, like, I could do it without stigma.

00:11:02:25 - 00:11:25:23
Unknown
But like, at that point I had made plenty of money on the deal. And I'm a tuner. Not that's not my business. Wasn't. So I decided to just, you know, close it at that point or just stop doing it. But, it was an awesome deal. I mean, the amount of volume that we had back then, like, we don't even do anywhere near that even today that we were doing back then.

00:11:25:28 - 00:11:49:01
Unknown
And, you know, I think in the original, obviously a lot of guys came out after you that started doing it out of their garages. But in the beginning, there really wasn't a lot of people that could do it, or at least make power doing it. There was people trying. So, you know, I don't know, we there were I think there was times we would do like 6 or 10 in a week or something like that, which is crazy, like we don't do anywhere near that much now.

00:11:49:15 - 00:12:12:09
Unknown
And that's because there's a lot of different options on the table, just like everything else. But, you know that that was an awesome, awesome deal for us. And it kind of exposed me to a different area of business. you know, when I started Modular Depot, there was no flash tuner or I think maybe we were using the super chips custom, the the blue one, the goofy one.

00:12:12:10 - 00:12:26:40
Unknown
Oh, right. Yeah, but mostly it was chips. You know, I remember I was selling 50 chips a month and I was like, oh my God, I'm going to be rich, you know? But I was also like one of five dealers at the time. So, you know, they couldn't go anywhere else but me. but obviously that's worked out.

00:12:27:01 - 00:12:56:09
Unknown
but so let's go to the set thing because a lot of people, you know, we had Jerry on and he kind of told the story of, but what part did you play there? I mean, you kind of touched on it, but you were responsible for what? The x2 like that starting. Yeah. It was really, at the point in which I entered the business, they were trying to bring engineering and how to develop products and grow the brand.

00:12:56:09 - 00:13:20:10
Unknown
And if you remember, like Modular Depot was the original distributor of the Razor pack. Yeah. For that. Yeah. we talked about that on the On Jerry's podcast, and I feel a slightly responsible for there being as many, good tuners that were born in that. Yeah, a lot of them came out of, of that era. And so what she was trying to do was to scale.

00:13:20:15 - 00:13:42:06
Unknown
Right. How can we get more people to collaborate vehicles and, you know, putting modifications on cars. you want to calibrate the vehicle so it runs right. So you know, it's clean on emissions. It follows all of the standards and the safety. And it's just it's a good running car. Right. It's not just sort of hacked together. And so the vision was how do we scale.

00:13:42:10 - 00:14:06:42
Unknown
And you know, chips didn't scale very well because there was all this, you know, complexity around the ports. And if they do and don't work, so flash programing was really it. And so my mission there was to move away from super chips to like a it's own standalone company and to be to build technology. So and we had, you know, software developers building that tuning software.

00:14:06:46 - 00:14:31:51
Unknown
I didn't contribute a lot to that because it was already going, but developing flash tuning product. So the first flash tuner that launched was called the X calibrator, which was kind of a joke. I totally skipped over that. The box with the LEDs on it. I got about two buttons and a couple of LEDs. And you know, we're trying to figure out how to name this thing, and I think Jerry was the one who's like, it's kind of like an X calibrator, you know?

00:14:31:51 - 00:14:55:57
Unknown
And, and so the X cal like that was the long hand of it was the X calibrator one. so I found a company who was very familiar with building tuning technology just for loading files, like they didn't know anything about what goes in it. They could have loaded an Excel file inside of an ECU, but. So I got them to partner with you to build the X calibrator one.

00:14:56:02 - 00:15:16:57
Unknown
And it was literally like read the stock file out, put the modified file in the box. Didn't know what was going in and out. and that was the beginning for a set of kind of a whole new wave. And early on it was very clunky. you had to use a serial cable to load tunes into the box, and then it's like, oh, we want USB, we want to have a screen, we want to have a keypad.

00:15:16:57 - 00:15:42:22
Unknown
So then the X calibrator two came out and then, you know, it was okay, we figure it out. Ford X, let's do GM. And you know, I had this whole plan like I want to do all of the ECUs and we're going to figure everything out. But a growing company only has so many resources. So like I was constantly throttling back because, hey, we only have so much cash to spend to develop and we can only go so fast, even though we want to take over the world.

00:15:43:01 - 00:16:09:01
Unknown
but that was that was for me, like the beginning and also like developing myself as a leader, figuring out how to manage people. And, racing and performance industry is quite different than other places I've been. So how do you work with, you know, tuner guys and dino guys and racing guys and and try to build a company that is healthy and growing and has good culture, and, people want to work out and all of that.

00:16:09:01 - 00:16:26:48
Unknown
So I spent as almost two years in that seat. And, when I departed there, it was kind of time for me to move on. I thought that racing and performance was always a really exciting space to be in, but I my wife was pregnant. I'm like, trying to bring up a family. I'm thinking, I want to go outside of this space for a while.

00:16:26:52 - 00:16:45:30
Unknown
And that's how I ended up with the next chapter was more in the diagnostic and repair side. So, and I knew you were younger than me, but I didn't realize you were only 23, 24, 23. Yeah, yeah, that's that's impressive. Especially now. Maybe at the time it wasn't because I was probably like 29 or something like that at that time.

00:16:45:36 - 00:17:00:45
Unknown
It was scary looking back now and being almost 50, like getting that 23 year old guy running a company like that, that that's pretty impressive. You know, I appreciate it. You know, when it happened, it was like, you always have to take the opportunity when it comes, right and just be fearless about it. But I was pretty scared.

00:17:00:45 - 00:17:23:47
Unknown
Like, okay, I don't really know what I'm doing. All these challenges are coming up like HR issues and cash flow issues, and it's like, let's figure this out. And, I mean, I'm really grateful that I had that opportunity because, you know, that kind of set the tone for me of like, don't be afraid to take risks. And, you know, I think the best way you can grow a company is to design a product that customers want and need.

00:17:23:47 - 00:17:40:20
Unknown
And and that was like the tuners, like everybody wanted to have a flash tuner. Like every time you can find an opportunity to build something. I mean, your business is the same way, right? If you see something that's not being served by the market, this is my opportunity to go make something and make a name for myself and and build a customer base.

00:17:40:33 - 00:18:06:34
Unknown
Yeah. And I think that's a good point to bring up the whole opportunity thing. You know, a lot of people sometimes are like, I wish I had the chance to do that. But a lot of times they do. But they just don't take that leap, you know? I mean, me personally, it's Jerry's kind of like sometimes call him the puppet master of my life, you know, like he's been part of a lot of the different, Y's in the road and helping me go certain ways.

00:18:06:34 - 00:18:27:39
Unknown
And he's why I'm in Florida. He got me the job at Diablo Sport, which ultimately wasn't a great job, but I learned a tremendous amount there. that most tuners don't know from the back end. And, you know how the software defines the file, how you know, the information is stored in the file and all those sorts of things.

00:18:27:39 - 00:18:51:10
Unknown
And, and that's why I live in Florida because of that. So, but just like you at 23, I don't know exactly how old I was. I was probably like, 36 or something like that, you know, and, Mike Wesley from Diablo's Ford hit me up and he's like, hey, man, I'm looking for, somebody to come in and help my Ford business.

00:18:51:10 - 00:19:07:48
Unknown
And I'm like, are you asking me? And he's like, yeah, I am. I go, what would you ask me? I have a business. He's like, well, Jerry said, I should ask you, so I'm asking you. I don't think you've ever been afraid of a job. I've seen you take on a lot of challenges and you just take it head on.

00:19:07:48 - 00:19:26:22
Unknown
Yeah, that's the story of my life. They don't always go very well, but sometimes they do, you know? And that's, It sounds like almost ridiculous to bring up, but, like, I think there's a movie called Yes Man or something like that. I forget who's in it, but the story is the guy's going to just say yes to everything, see what happens.

00:19:26:27 - 00:19:47:11
Unknown
And I, I actually somewhat took that advice after I watched that movie. I, you know, maybe that's what I need to do. Like, you can't be in the game unless you try. I feel like people who have never had, like a catastrophic failure or something that they really wish they hadn't done, haven't tried enough things. Right. Like, you have to be like, oh, that didn't work out.

00:19:47:11 - 00:20:06:46
Unknown
Well, I'm not going to do that one again. Well, and those failures are what give you the courage to do it again. Because when you fail at the moment, you're like, this is the end of my life. And then you get through it and you go, well, you know what? That wasn't that bad, you know? And then that gives you the courage to do it again, you know, and hopefully you do it right the next time.

00:20:06:46 - 00:20:27:31
Unknown
So like is is my career has grown into bigger and bigger companies like the failures and the risks get bigger. And like you have to sort of overcome them in steps like, okay, I thought this was the end of the world, and I figured my way through it because, you know, it just gets bigger and bigger and it's like a comfort level and understanding how to approach those things, right?

00:20:27:36 - 00:20:52:33
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, when you're in the moment, sometimes it's hard to really realize the impact of what you're doing. You know, like even though it was a big deal for you personally to move to Florida and take over city, impact on your life, that was impact on everybody that's probably watching this podcast alive because, you know, that might or not gone the way it went if you weren't involved.

00:20:52:37 - 00:21:13:53
Unknown
I mean, I'm sure they would have they would have done done something have been different. It might have been different. So you are part of that. And you were part of many more things, probably devices that people love to this day. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But let's talk about the next chapter, because this is where I know a little bit less about what you were involved in.

00:21:14:34 - 00:21:34:28
Unknown
so did you go directly from set to Drew Tech? I did, so when I left, I took a few months off and I was trying to decide, what what do I want to do next? And I had an opportunity to stay in the industry and become an executive for some company. And then I had this true tech opportunity, which originally was to help him sell the company.

00:21:34:33 - 00:21:53:51
Unknown
And, you know, I had this decision like, I could either go all in, withdrew or I could go after some executive job. And, you know, what do I want to do for myself? Like, not just car goals, but financial career goals. And, like, I want to be a business owner, you know, I want to have more say in how things are done in the future.

00:21:53:51 - 00:22:11:55
Unknown
And so originally the deal with Mike and I was he wanted me to help him sell his business. And, so we went down that path and I found some buyers and, and we got pretty far along. There was an offer on the table and a purchase agreement, and Mike and I sat in a bar one day, like two weeks before this deal was going to happen.

00:22:12:48 - 00:22:29:31
Unknown
you know, think we could do better? Like, it's going to take us a while because I think we want to change, like the products and but the technology is there, and I think we could do more with this business. And at that time, drew was less than $1 million a year in revenue and, and like, 4 or 5 people.

00:22:29:31 - 00:22:53:27
Unknown
And like, I think we could just do more. A lot of people watching this podcast probably don't know what, what kind of company Drew Tech was. Why don't you explain a little bit about what drew was doing at that time? Okay. Yeah. So at that time, the canvas had just come in two vehicles. So vehicle data architecture, it was all serial busses and then the canvas comes around and all of the car companies had to have new tools to engineer and service cars.

00:22:53:27 - 00:23:16:28
Unknown
And so Drew Tech was really at the front line of how do vehicle manufacturers deal with the canvas coming into vehicles. At the same time, the EPA was looking at how do we service vehicles outside of the dealership with software updates? And they had, this regulation for Reprograming to say everybody, anywhere in the world should be able to update software in a car.

00:23:16:28 - 00:23:43:10
Unknown
And if you think about 20 years ago, nobody cared back then, right? You had one ECU, maybe two in a car. And so software updates weren't a thing, but they were really forward looking and saying, we need to build a standard and tools that anybody can update factory software in cars. So Drew's very early days were developing the standard for reprograming with the SEC and with automakers and other suppliers, and then building the first box to do it.

00:23:43:12 - 00:24:06:56
Unknown
Now, when I came into the picture and drew was thinking about selling his business, he had built this box to do software updates, and he was trying to sell it to car companies. And, you know, selling to a car company is really difficult because it's a very long sales cycle. it's relationship driven. Once you win the business, you're under purchasing scrutiny and long contracts and it's like feast or famine.

00:24:07:01 - 00:24:27:34
Unknown
And so the first thing I did when I got there is I said, let's sell this tool to the aftermarket, let's sell it to distributors, let's find partners. Because if we could sell the tool, they need it, right? And they might not need it a lot today in 2006. But they're going to eventually need it everywhere. So let's sell this tool.

00:24:27:39 - 00:24:43:53
Unknown
And so we got a partnership with Snap-On. And now we're selling the tool under the Snap On name. We got a partnership with all of these different companies who would sell the tool for us because we didn't have a big sales force yet. We, you know, we went from five people to ten and, we're just getting product out there.

00:24:43:53 - 00:25:12:36
Unknown
And it was all around reprograming at first. And then something really interesting happened, around 2010, it was clear to a lot of us in the industry that the OEM diagnostic software was becoming important and more for repair of cars, but even the tuning guys, like all of a sudden, if you're tuner doesn't have access to certain data or a bi directional control, you have to go get a tattoo right, or tech to win, or a GDS two or Ford IDs.

00:25:12:36 - 00:25:34:41
Unknown
And so we saw this vision. What if the factory diagnostic tool could work through this Jay box through Jay 2534 instead of having to buy every tool? And I remember the day I was in the parking lot at Nadda and I get this call from this guy, Aaron Lowe. I didn't know him at the time. He's like, hey, I'm with Auto Care and we want to do our right to repair law.

00:25:35:13 - 00:25:59:52
Unknown
what do you think? Somebody told me to call you, and I'm like, Aaron, you should require OE diagnostics to go through this pass through device, because then everybody in the aftermarket could have access to OE diagnostics. And so that became a part of Right to Repair. It covered other things like service information, but it also covered how you could get the factory diagnostic tool through this standard Jay box, which drew made one.

00:25:59:52 - 00:26:23:25
Unknown
There was some other people who made them, so this this whole time this is going on, drew tech is starting to grow and build more. Jay 2534 tools for just different repairers. And then right to repair comes around and makes it. Law basically says every car company has to have this standard solution. And 2014 was when the law I mean now we're going back just ten years, right?

00:26:23:25 - 00:26:41:40
Unknown
So ten years ago, the law comes around and says, okay, everybody has to have diagnostics. And again, like if you related to racing and performance, like I always down this other path, service and diagnostics and collision repair. And it didn't really play into racing in performance. Yeah. And I will tie that together kind of at the end of the story.

00:26:41:45 - 00:27:02:04
Unknown
So Drew's like building these boxes right. To repair is pushing OEMs to use it. Actually the car companies benefited significantly because they used to spend a lot of money developing diagnostic tools. Now they could just make software. They didn't have to make the tools because you could use any standard tool. And then car technology changed. I'm sure you dealt with that.

00:27:02:04 - 00:27:25:05
Unknown
On the racing side, gateways came into play. Ethernet was put on ECUs. The can technology changed from just regular can't, flexible data. Ray can like all these new protocols and enabling technology for autonomous cars started to come in. Well, we had laid the first, of course, a foundation with standardization. So it just fell into the it fell into the mold.

00:27:25:10 - 00:27:58:53
Unknown
So now now drew is just building diagnostic tools and repair shops are starting to flash cars a little more and a little more like I remember, probably the oh five Mustang was one of the first electrically complicated vehicles, right? Throttle, high wire, and then probably around 2010, 2011, 2012, we started to see more ECUs, more stability control, like, just the architecture of cars changed from one ECU to 5 to 60, you know, almost overnight, like heated seats.

00:27:58:53 - 00:28:25:03
Unknown
They had computers in them and stuff. So, we're growing, we're building our business. and, you know, at the same time, we also had emotion as a second company. And, because I had this passion still for racing and performance right there, I thought, let's make digital gauges. That would be fun. And, so Drew Tech had engineer engineering resources to do that, but didn't really fit our brand or like, building service tools.

00:28:25:03 - 00:28:51:41
Unknown
So we built this emotion company to build digital gauges. And the first product and probably not a lot of people remember it was called Dash stack. And, people didn't even know what it meant. It's like Dash data acquisition deck, and it was a touchscreen ran Linux. It had configurable gauges. You could move the gauges around, you could design your own gauges and it interface with OBD, but also with like the fi tech system.

00:28:51:41 - 00:29:17:33
Unknown
And like all these different Hal tech. You know, whoever was out there at the time that had ECU data. So we're doing digital gauges. So like we had these two balancing acts of drew tech on one side and then emotion on the other side doing digital gauges. and then in 2015, something really interesting happened. We, we were building emissions tools at Drew Tech for California, and we ran into this company, opus.

00:29:17:38 - 00:29:43:42
Unknown
And opus was building emissions tools for the state of California. And Drew Tech ended up winning a big contract for the bar program. And then opus came around and said, maybe you should join us. And, Mike drew was, you know, business had really grown. And at that point we were probably like 40 or 50 people. And, you know, Mike is a brilliant engineer, but also an owner of the business.

00:29:43:53 - 00:30:03:48
Unknown
And your risk goes up, your exposure goes up. We had already been sued for patent infringement by a major player. Like all these sort of, nuclear events that can kill you. Like, the bigger you get, the more they pop up. So Mike was kind of like, I think I'm ready to step back from this. And opus made an offer to bring us in.

00:30:03:48 - 00:30:20:24
Unknown
And what compelled me was, the low target and the CEO of opus. We sat down and he's like, Brian, I want you to grow the business. So what if you had access to, funding? Like, what if you could buy companies? Like, I never thought about buying a company a drew tech. We just built everything, and.

00:30:20:24 - 00:30:37:40
Unknown
Right, we just innovate. I'm like, we could we could acquire companies. And, so that was the opus chapter, and, well, let's back up just a second, because we skipped over a very important thing that's probably gonna be in the title of the video, because that's probably going to be one of the products that people know your connection with the best.

00:30:37:40 - 00:30:58:21
Unknown
Other than that, of course, which is the engage. Yes. Some people, no emotion made that not everybody does. But the engage, which is a very, very, very loved device. I mean, I still get, you know, that it's been out of business for like 2 or 3 years now, but I still get messages today. Is there any chance you have an extra engage laying around?

00:30:58:33 - 00:31:24:01
Unknown
Because people just love that device so much. so, you know, that's probably the most success. The other device was a did or did they call it something else that, I think it was called the N Dash and Dash. They had. Yeah. Changed it to. But that's kind of where it went south a little bit because some of the people that were getting that device ran into some issues with the EPA.

00:31:24:01 - 00:32:00:25
Unknown
And we'll leave it at that. but the technology was awesome. And, you know, so, with the engage building a device like that, is that because of all the OEM type level dealings that you had with Drew Tech, and it allows you to do things right? I guess what I'm getting at is, you know, I worked at Diablo Sport and I was involved, and when they tried to come out with their newer device, I think it was called an Itune or something like that before they sold to Holly.

00:32:00:30 - 00:32:25:21
Unknown
And my opinion of that company and not throwing shade at anybody that worked there, it was like very smart people, but they're like in the dark, like they didn't know how anything worked and they were just figuring it out. And I'm like, how do we know we're doing this right? Like they're just guessing, you know, like as far as Bootloaders and how long to wait to wait for response and it's a little bit over my pay grade.

00:32:25:21 - 00:32:55:26
Unknown
Talking about, I was somewhat involved in that. And my impression then was like, this is how it works. Like they don't really just know the right commands to send and and all that. So did that give you like an advantage because you guys knew that from a much higher level of, you know, how it worked, like even from the days I've always been excited by technology and innovation and like, how can you build a product that does something better or has a better user experience?

00:32:55:26 - 00:33:28:46
Unknown
And when emotion came around, it was originally a digital gauge, right? It was a Linux computer and it had OBD inside of it. And so we had the OBD connection. We're doing digital gauges. and I think, you know, where the direction shifted and probably, you know, led to emotion no longer offering products is it was such a customizable, flexible platform because I like every product like, let's design something that we can anticipate future opportunity and make this thing configurable and customizable.

00:33:28:46 - 00:33:57:45
Unknown
And so it wasn't just a dash, it was a Linux computer with OBD. So people could write software on that thing that would do things. You could write software on an emotion, never made tunes. They were not a tuning company, but their product then was programable to be able to do things which unfortunately, you know, there was a lot of good actors in the industry who were using the product as a gauge or sort of any one of the unlimited things you could use a computer for that had an OBD port.

00:33:58:21 - 00:34:18:13
Unknown
but a couple of bad actors got Ahold of it and used the product in a way that it wasn't intended to be used. And, when you look back and you say, what do you do as a company at the point when you've built this open, flexible thing and it's being used in this way? The only real answer was stop selling it.

00:34:18:18 - 00:34:51:48
Unknown
Yeah. And that's the unfortunate part about the performance world, is they're now, of course, certain things you can do and be 100% compliant and do it 100% the right way. But a lot of, the, higher end, real high horsepower stuff that people want to continue to do, even if they whether they're being honest or not, saying, I want to make it a track only vehicle, that's not really a path that is available legally right now.

00:34:51:59 - 00:35:15:25
Unknown
And we'll talk about this in a little bit. But the main reason that we started talking recently was because you're running for the board of CMA, say, right. So maybe you can help us there. or at least you know the best way possible. I mean, you can't just make the government change their mind, but there has to be somebody fighting for us in a way, that makes sense, right?

00:35:15:25 - 00:35:37:54
Unknown
It it's not like we just want everything to go our way. But right now, there's no path for God that's going to go. I am building 100% race car out of this vehicle. Yeah, if it has a Vin, you can't do that legally, right? I mean, there's just. I hate to say it, but that's the truth. Yeah. There's no legal way to do to make a 2000 horsepower car.

00:35:37:58 - 00:36:02:27
Unknown
Yeah. And you know, the path that tuning went down is something that I think we hope to avoid with custom calibration and modification of future vehicles, because the tuning path was, and in the beginning, nobody really knew, like when the car was in the early days with tuners, nobody really knew what was going to happen. You know, carves out they're saying, we want you to be EO certified.

00:36:02:27 - 00:36:27:00
Unknown
There was some people were saying, oh, that's only in California. You don't have to do that. And I mean, sort of the writing was on the wall like there's emissions regulations. You have to meet them. Right. And and the industry ultimately as a whole didn't get there in a productive, smooth way. Right. And that led car companies to put in secure gateways and encryption and all sorts of government actions.

00:36:27:00 - 00:36:52:09
Unknown
And, you know, just reflecting on that, and with CMA, why I'm running for the board now is because I see all of this autonomous technology coming. And it's not just racing and performance, it's all vehicle customization. And I really don't want to see us make the same mistake as an industry twice. And instead of like customizing cars and automatic braking system, stop working, because that's what's happening today.

00:36:52:42 - 00:37:13:54
Unknown
2025 the federal government mandates that all vehicles must have automatic braking. And, you know, it's it's saves lives. So it's a safety feature and it works. And it was developed for autonomous cars. Now we don't have autonomous cars yet. Right. Because it's hard it's a lot harder than everybody thought. It's not like autopilot on airplanes that you it just goes to point to point.

00:37:13:58 - 00:37:39:29
Unknown
Car has to detect things and we will get there. But in the process now the government says, hey, we like automatic braking. It saves lives. Most consumers and industry say, yeah, why wouldn't we do that? Right? But the technology that is required to stop the car if you raise or lower it, if you change the tire size, if you paint the car like all these things now you do could cause it to malfunction.

00:37:39:34 - 00:38:00:19
Unknown
Now I just want to relate this back to tuning for a second, because I think it's really relevant for CMI and everybody remember what happened when you modified a calibration and it disabled emissions equipment. You were tampering with the vehicle, right? It's a federal law and you're tampering with it. And that's not sustainable. Well, there's one bad actor or 100.

00:38:00:19 - 00:38:31:23
Unknown
Like it's not sustainable. You shouldn't do it. So now we have automatic braking systems. And clearly the industry is going to be modifying these vehicles in ways if we don't do something that they'll stop working as designed. Right. Tampering. I don't want to go down that path again. I would like to see, companies like, well, industries like CMA and auto care and like, all these large industries work with regulators and automakers and say, look, we have to support customization of cars.

00:38:31:28 - 00:38:55:55
Unknown
We have to it's a lifestyle. It's an industry. The consumer wants that. At the end of the day, right. Then the reason you can get ten different wheel and tire packages on cars is because people buy them, right? They want them. So how do we get car companies and industry aligned so you can customize cars and and maybe at some point the door gets open back up for things like calibration and performance racing.

00:38:55:55 - 00:39:17:58
Unknown
It got slammed so hard because all it takes is pointing to one bad actor, you know, or one bad thing that happened and we just weren't proactive. And so that's why when I look at Sema and what I think I can do, I've had a lot of government interaction with right to repair. And I think right to repair really could become right to repair and customize.

00:39:18:03 - 00:39:42:10
Unknown
And then we can open the door to what is something that we could support as an industry. What is something that doesn't, you know, cause emissions problems, doesn't hurt people, benefits the consumer. And, that's where I see the future going, especially as vehicle tech just grows and grows and grows. If we don't find a way as an aftermarket, it to, maintain access, we will lose it.

00:39:42:10 - 00:40:05:31
Unknown
And in fact, in Europe, the, the way you have to log in to a vehicle to do just basic data diagnostics, like, you know, if you want to diagnose what's wrong with some of these German cars, you have to be a trained technician with credentials and credentials into the ECU. And it's only getting more and more like that for cyber cybersecurity and so connected vehicles, all these reasons.

00:40:05:36 - 00:40:28:19
Unknown
So we have a very limited amount of time to try to open this door in a way that meets everybody's goals. Yeah, I definitely agree with the proactive side of things, where it was lacking because, you know, I've been doing this late 2003, so a little over 20 years. And for the large part of my career, it just wasn't even considered.

00:40:28:28 - 00:40:49:21
Unknown
Honestly, it's been on the radar, but not to the level. It's been over the last three to 4 or 5 years. You know, where companies are actually getting in trouble. I wasn't educated enough on that because the whole entire industry just kind of ignored it. I think a lot of industry didn't really know what to do in the very beginning.

00:40:49:21 - 00:41:12:45
Unknown
Right. It became more clear as time went on. And like all credit CMA, they've really done a lot with the emission side of the world. They put together the CMA garage where they have testing labs, and they're encouraging members to become EO certified with their products. And there is no question in my mind, if you make a performance product, you should meet all of the legal and regulatory requirements for that product.

00:41:12:45 - 00:41:38:04
Unknown
That's there, there for a reason. So CMA is supporting industry to do that because I think CMA looks at this the same way. Like we want to thrive as an industry. And the only way we're going to do that is to be transparent with each other and with automakers and regulators on what we need and what we're doing, and make sure that we're basically, you know, collaborating instead of what did happen with some players in the tuning industry.

00:41:38:04 - 00:42:04:19
Unknown
And it really gave everybody a black eye that didn't need to happen. Right? I mean, like, those diesel guys were off doing things that just they shouldn't have been doing them all right at the end of the day. And I think that's what really brought a lot of attention. Do you think some of the blame of people not paying attention to as much as they should, being with the EPA and government not being as clear?

00:42:04:24 - 00:42:23:04
Unknown
That's one of the complaints I've heard from multiple people. It's like, well, just tell me in like plain words what I can and what I can't do. Like, it took a long time for that conversation to happen. When all this was developing over the last few years, and it got to the point where it's like, well, you can't do anything.

00:42:23:04 - 00:42:41:09
Unknown
Like technically, you know, if it's got a vent. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I've learned interacting with regulators and government is you don't normally get an answer to a question, you know, because then in an answer requires lawyers and, you know, qualification and study. So like, there's nobody you can call and be like, hey, are you okay with us?

00:42:41:09 - 00:43:04:33
Unknown
Like, you almost have to understand for yourself what, potential risks are of okay, like it says this. And what does that actually mean? Like you have to translate it. And so industry is started to translate these regulations. And I think hindsight it's pretty clear like if they say you need to be a compliant to, federal emission standards, you just have to be compliant to it.

00:43:04:33 - 00:43:25:57
Unknown
Like they don't want to give you a yes no, because it's like in writing and like, kind of relating that to the automatic breaking thing, you know, it's a has a standard for automatic braking. And at the end of the day, I think the message to industry is that car needs to meet that standard. Right. Well, I guess it's really, you can compare it to other government agencies like the IRS, right?

00:43:25:57 - 00:43:39:52
Unknown
Like they have a huge stack of rules, but a lot of people are confused by it. It's up to you to figure it out. And if you don't get it right, you're in trouble. It's a great example, like when you send your taxes into the IRS, if you sent them a note and said, are you good with this?

00:43:39:52 - 00:44:00:40
Unknown
But like you will not get an answer right, except if they're not good with it, and then you'll get an answer in due course. And you may not like that answer. And it's unfortunate that things can't. I mean, I don't want things to be more lax. You know, there needs to be rules. But I guess if there was a way to humanize these government agencies a little bit better and, you know, they're supposed to be serving us at the end of the day.

00:44:00:45 - 00:44:23:16
Unknown
So, yeah, they can't have every idiot in the world calling them up and asking questions. But there needs to be some recourse for better, information sharing, because not only are you dealing with the written word that you have to file, you have to deal with the person behind that that's interpreting that and what they're mindset is compared to yours.

00:44:23:16 - 00:44:45:30
Unknown
Right. You could take the same wording and look at it differently. It's a little it's pretty clear with when it comes to the EPA. Now where it's like pretty much if you touch anything emissions related or defeat anything, it's like, yeah, I think like their intent is now very clear. But yeah, a lot of laws are intentionally written, vague, like, and I've been a part of the lawmaking process in drafting things.

00:44:45:30 - 00:45:04:05
Unknown
And I've watched drafts that were very clear, become very vague, and it's almost purposeful because of the political nature of, of the world. Right. Like, we don't want to be clear if we don't have to be. And I think as an individual, as a racer or as a business owner, that is where you need your industry networks to serve you.

00:45:04:10 - 00:45:27:10
Unknown
And like I mentioned, CMA, they have been a great resource and they're growing their capabilities to be able to be a liaison between government and, you know, car enthusiasts. Because as a car enthusiast, you may maybe you can write your senator a letter, but, you know, entities like, CMA and auto Care and Meemaw, and they're actually in the meetings with government, they're educating.

00:45:27:10 - 00:45:56:16
Unknown
In fact, CMA has, a DC, political date coming up, and they're actually in Washington, DC with members to talk about some of these issues. And you need like, the power of banding together and, and sort of some transparency within your network of like, these are the things we're going to band together on. Right? Because, CMA does everything from, trails that have been made illegal to drive off road to ice versus EB, you know, mandates and internal combustion and, you know, right to modify.

00:45:56:16 - 00:46:20:42
Unknown
And they're like, they have a lot of different things going on. and so they need to understand from their membership, like where, where should their priority be, you know, from a legislative lawmaking side and, you know, I feel like new vehicle technology is you can't ignore it, right? I mean, 20, 25, and by 2030, we're going to see a fair number of fully autonomous cars on the road.

00:46:21:05 - 00:46:37:03
Unknown
so let's just put ourselves in that world for a minute and think about, like, your business. Right. So now you have an autonomous Mustang come in the door. Like, what do you need from industry to be able to and like, what do you want to do with that car? You think he's gonna want to have higher performance?

00:46:37:03 - 00:47:01:03
Unknown
Do you think he's like, what are the things that you need to do and how do we support that? And, yeah, you know, the cynical me, it makes me think that that's just not going to happen at that point. Performance is over. And if you want performance by, 2023 and earlier, Mustang or F-150 or whatever. but I hope that's not the case.

00:47:01:03 - 00:47:26:22
Unknown
You know, I think we've been saying that for the last 20 years. Like, it's true, as every new tech comes out. I remember, like, issues getting crypted and things. It's like, well, nobody will buy those cars anymore and nobody will modify them. And the, the consumers still desire that. Yeah, right. Unless something changes and a couple generations and no longer do people desire to have big wheels and tires and customized cars and to go fast.

00:47:26:22 - 00:47:47:12
Unknown
I mean, you know, Tesla was interesting because it's EV, right? But it's also a performance car. So they're pulling in people who used to buy Porsches and like sort of other cars because it's performance and I think like we have to find our way through this, but it's scarier to me than it's ever been if we don't do something.

00:47:47:16 - 00:48:14:42
Unknown
Yeah. And, you know, maybe as I get older, maybe, like, the harder stuff seems less. You know, the hard path. I'm. I'm like, you know, whatever. But the people are what drive the market, not me. And a good example of that is, you know, the Bronco. Yeah. was is an encrypted, computer. And, you know, people have been working for a long time trying to figure out how to tune that.

00:48:14:52 - 00:48:32:02
Unknown
And now people are putting different pkms in it and doing and, you know, I have a good relationship with Eric at HP tuners, and he hit me up because I have a Bronco Raptor and he's like, oh, dude, we got this. And I'm like, wow, I'm not doing all that. Like, it's a Bronco. Raptor. Like, I don't need another 100 horsepower.

00:48:32:13 - 00:48:54:41
Unknown
But people are calling here. other companies, like living on a bunch of other companies are doing it. And I'm like, man, I can't believe all these people spending that kind of money to just tune a Raptor or Bronco. Raptor even. Yeah. You know, but it's happening. So you're right. It's, regardless of the difficulties involved, there's going to.

00:48:54:54 - 00:49:11:49
Unknown
Now, I do think it shrinks the market quite a bit, you know, because for every guy that before, if you could just flash a Bronco, you're going to get maybe 5 to 10% that are going to spend an extra. I don't know how much it is. I haven't done one yet, but, you know, you're probably adding another thousand plus dollars by the time you get a PC.

00:49:12:14 - 00:49:41:47
Unknown
and do all the programing and all that kind of stuff. But there's people that are going to want to do it. It would be much nicer if there was a a more direct path around that. I want to get I want to talk to you some more about PKM encryption and, and all that and what you might know about it, but we did skip over, opus and, that interests me quite a bit because I know zero about that other than, you know, we're friends on Facebook and you post stuff about it and I see little blurbs about it, and I'm like, wow, what the hell is this stuff?

00:49:41:47 - 00:50:03:01
Unknown
Like remote diagnostics. And there's a person on the other side helping you launch. Tell me a little bit like, what opus does? I'm sure they do a lot of things, but yeah. So going back to 2015, you know, Drew Tech gets acquired by opus. And Mike drew retires and I stay on. And then I get the title president of Opus Ideas.

00:50:03:01 - 00:50:24:45
Unknown
And at the time it was true tech bovver like IVs intelligent vehicle support. That was the vision. So how can we help repairers deal with complicated vehicles? Andrew had, I want to say they had solved the problem of access to diagnostics, but that was their mission as access to diagnostics. And, what we saw is a lot of people couldn't use it because it's hard to use.

00:50:24:57 - 00:50:44:33
Unknown
And, you know, you're brand specific. So you're like, GM master tech and a Mercedes rolls in and so your shop can't do that. But now families are blending cars together. Remember when it was like a Ford family or a GM family? Yeah, like that's rarely the case anymore. Now there's a Tesla, there's a Volvo and there's Ford and the garage.

00:50:44:42 - 00:51:04:07
Unknown
There's a Toyota and there's a Honda and there's a Nissan in the garage. So the requirement for repair shops is all brands. So we see complex vehicle technology and all brands and thought, oh, this can solve this problem. What we're going to do is we're going to build a platform for diagnostics. It's going to be a windows based thing.

00:51:04:12 - 00:51:20:54
Unknown
It's going to run all this different software. We're going to make our own diagnostic software, and we're going to run a software. So all this different software is going to run on this platform. And to make our own software a true tech didn't have any software. This is where the Opus Capital came in hand. So we acquired out of logic.

00:51:20:54 - 00:51:41:39
Unknown
They were a European diagnostic company and that was my first acquisition. You know, I'm I'm now leading this opus IBS and, we bought this European based business, 100 employees in Europe and, you know, European diagnostic tools and European tax. And, the first thought was, all right, we're going to turn them into all brands. Like, this is going to be easy, right?

00:51:41:43 - 00:52:02:58
Unknown
Everything sounds easy at first. So so we acquire them. And then we realized that it's a lot of work to build all brands of support. So then we acquired another company called Auto Ingenuity, which made American Diagnostic software. And then we acquired a company called Far Sight, which was all remote services. And then we acquired a company called Blue Link, which was remote diagnostic technology.

00:52:02:58 - 00:52:25:06
Unknown
And you bundle all this together. And what we ended up with is this platform our customers use and whenever they have a problem, they they reach out to us through the platform. And we have 150 techs now in our call centers. We every brand of tech, we have people who work on Rivian's, Teslas, you name it. So they reach out to us when that car rolls in that they're just not ready to do.

00:52:25:06 - 00:52:44:56
Unknown
But it's in their shop. And then our tech is on the line. He connects to the tool remotely. He even uses we software or reprograms it and we help them fix the car. So that's our business model today. And we're even using I know it's like, how can we make the process more streamlined for that? But we just want to help people fix cars.

00:52:44:56 - 00:53:04:48
Unknown
And so that's that's what opus grew up to. And, you know, now we're like 400 people. Yeah, we're not 400 people. But that's a good parallel with tuning, really. Right. It's where remote tuning vehicles, where they don't have a local person that could do it properly. So we're doing, not as advanced. It's like custom software and all that.

00:53:04:48 - 00:53:32:58
Unknown
It's a little simpler email and all that. But for the most part, it's the diagnostic repair version of what we do with remote tuning, but just at a much higher level because there's way more repair and diagnostic work needed than performance work. I imagine every car you touch is different. Yeah. The issue with remote tuning, it depends on who you're talking about, talking about us, where we do a fairly large volume of remote tuning.

00:53:33:03 - 00:53:51:34
Unknown
You know, some people think that that's a negative because we're big. It's like now that's a positive because there's a chance we touched a car very similar to yours before. And the advantage there is we can usually identify an issue. Right. This tune should be good. You have, positive 50 fuel trims at idle. You have something wrong?

00:53:51:36 - 00:54:13:36
Unknown
You didn't do something right, you know, and we can speak on that with 30. Whereas there's other times where I have two in the vehicle and it's kind of like a one off deal. And I'm like, where's the fuel air coming from? Is it, you know, a leak? Is there a fuel injector? I have the wrong fuel injectors or fuel pressure's wrong, or there's a million reasons it could be wrong.

00:54:14:27 - 00:54:32:13
Unknown
so that's the big challenge. Like you're working in a what I would call a standard world, right? Like, because there's exact, like, there's pinpoint tests. There's exact ways things should work. There's you should get a special an exact response from a module that you're talking to. And if you don't, you know, that module might be messed up.

00:54:32:18 - 00:54:56:11
Unknown
Whereas we're more like, you know, yeah, we have service procedures and we follow what the OEM writes in their service manuals for a diagnostic procedure. And at the end of the day, that's that's what technicians are trained to do, is now certainly like being on the phone. And you point out, like in the remote tuning world, like you hear the same problem a couple times and the remote experts, it's the same thing.

00:54:56:11 - 00:55:16:03
Unknown
Like these guys, they're on five, ten, 15, 20 minute call. So they're on maybe 30 or 40 of them a day and they're all in the same brand. Yeah. And so like in a course of a week, you might run into the same problem 3 or 4 times. And but at the end of the day, we can always default back to we're gonna look at the factory service information.

00:55:16:03 - 00:55:38:58
Unknown
And this is going to prescribe a set of diagnostic steps or calibration steps for this vehicle. And so it's a very manageable situation at scale. And that that's how offices scale because we basically build a formula of qualified technician, you know, access to diagnostics remotely. training.

00:55:39:03 - 00:56:00:34
Unknown
We train everybody like, oh, we service procedures. Yeah. I find that whole deal super interesting. so the texts that are doing this, are they former, like, normal repair text that this is like, a way for them to get out of the garage kind of thing or there's a lot of that. A lot of our techs come from car dealerships where they've been there ten, 15 years.

00:56:00:34 - 00:56:14:22
Unknown
And, you know, working on cars is hard, right? I mean, like, I, I don't have a career where I work on cars, but I still love to wrench on cars. And, you know, my hands are still cut up from the last job. And every time I do it, I'm like, man, you know, this is like, I'm sore.

00:56:14:22 - 00:56:37:01
Unknown
I've got fluid on my face. Like the whole thing. Right? And, so if you've done that every day for your entire career and you're not ready to retire, but you have all this knowledge built up, that's your intellectual property and your skill as a technician. Now, you can come into an office environment, and you can actually use your experience in a way that is not so physically straining on your body anymore.

00:56:37:30 - 00:56:54:56
Unknown
would you say, like the majority of your business is like body shops versus repair shops, or is it kind of evenly spread? I would it seems like the body shop thing there. when I thought about it, there be a huge opportunity there because shops might have somebody who's good at dialog, but a body shop definitely doesn't usually.

00:56:55:01 - 00:57:17:09
Unknown
We've grown a lot in the last five years in the collision space. And so, opus has major customers like Gerber and Crash Champions and Classic Collision. They all use our tools and so do thousands of other collision shops, but we're kind of equally broken down into three segments. We have collision repair, we have professional diagnostics, which is just repair shops.

00:57:17:09 - 00:57:37:52
Unknown
And then we have specialty like reprograming and transmission installation. Because you install a GM transmission, you have to flash the computer to install it. So even transmission repairers, you know that they probably looked at the world five years ago and said, I can't flash that thing. So we'll just do you know, we'll do the four speed transmission. But now everything's flushable.

00:57:37:53 - 00:58:06:18
Unknown
So they've come along and so those are our three segments and they're almost equally divided now. Collision is definitely growing you know because there's just brand new cars get crashed. Yeah. So what's the general business model. Is that like a yearly subscription that, shop does or like how how do they how do they. Yeah. So for that in, in our three different segments, there are three different business models in collision.

00:58:07:31 - 00:58:26:43
Unknown
in some ways that like the pain piece is it's completely different than mechanical repair. So like you're you run a repair garage or a performance shop, you got to call the owner, right? I, I want to sell you this part or you need this part or your car broke. And so you're dealing with the owner. Every single transaction there's a different owner, right?

00:58:26:43 - 00:58:48:20
Unknown
A different set of criteria on how they're going to decide can they pay for it in collision you're dealing with insurance companies. so in some ways it scales better because you start to understand what insurance companies will and won't pay for and how and how that work. And in other ways it scales worse because, you still have to fix the car and the insurance company may not understand it.

00:58:48:25 - 00:59:11:09
Unknown
Hey, hey, because every industry has some bad players. So even in collision, some some people bill for things they don't do or they, they charge for things they don't do it. It's not widespread. I think the collision industry as a whole is very well managed, but some insurance companies will deny things that are completely legitimate repairs because they just don't know, like they don't have the information to know, like this was actually needed to be done versus not.

00:59:11:09 - 00:59:35:16
Unknown
So that's how collision deals with it. So everything we do in collision is transactional okay. Because it goes to the insurance company. And then everything we do in mechanical is either a subscription based for like a tool or a software update or a live expert service or it's transactional for like a flash programing. because like the all the car companies now are moving their own software to pay per use.

00:59:35:26 - 00:59:59:53
Unknown
Okay. You remember like you'd get a subscription to tech to. Yeah, there's like a couple thousand dollars a year. Now, every GM vehicle, you have to pay a certain amount of money to reprogram it. And we're starting to see diagnostic fees. Okay. You want to access that car for diagnostics, you're going to pay a fee. Gotcha. So like, the reason I ask and I'm so curious about it is, you know, we have a Ford IDs here.

01:00:00:25 - 01:00:27:52
Unknown
but I wouldn't say that's common in the performance world. especially if they're not Ford specific or Ford specific. I might have an IDs, but chances are they don't. And as things progress, it becomes more and more important. You know, like, constantly we're having to tell remote customers, man, you know, like a good example would be, computers locked from another tuner.

01:00:27:57 - 01:00:46:10
Unknown
Sometimes we can get around that and get a new tune on it, but sometimes it's like the easiest way to handle this is just put the car back 100% of stock with ideas. I don't have that. Okay, well, you need, you know, and they, they try to deal with a Ford dealer and some most Ford dealers are pretty good about it.

01:00:46:15 - 01:01:03:10
Unknown
You know, you explain what you need done, they'll do it. But a lot of them are like, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. I don't I don't know what you're talking about or whatever. You know, in a, in a it's important even if you put a new transmission in and you got to program this Illinois strategy into the computer.

01:01:03:10 - 01:01:27:28
Unknown
And but the problem is, is things still kind of work if you don't do that. So then people just skip it. yeah. And then it's like all messed up, you know, and it's like, well, you know, or you've got there's so many ways you can mess up. And we just had, old Bronco. What was it like an actual old one that you buy the old body and build it and it was a coyote, ten b blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:01:27:28 - 01:01:43:32
Unknown
And like you basically you put it in drive and it would take like three seconds and then bam, bam, you know, and we started like looking into it and I'm like, okay, well where'd you get the trans from? This is four wheel drive. Oh, that's out of F-150. Well what year F-150 okay, where's the engine? What's the PCM?

01:01:43:37 - 01:02:07:22
Unknown
And it wound up being that it was tuned off the wrong year strategy in the PCM. And once we fix that, because all the, like, all the stuff or the cylinder heads were different, you know, beyond just programing the strategy, just the calibration stuff was completely different. But the problem is, is like, this guy built a Bronco in his garage and it was beautiful.

01:02:07:37 - 01:02:28:51
Unknown
And he thought he did everything as right as he could. Yeah. And he couldn't even drive it, you know? So it just be or even like, good examples. We've been helping Whipple dyno a lot of these 24, Mustangs, which are completely locked out. I mean, they're such a pain in the butt. I don't know that the automatics do it, but the stick cars, you have two dynamos, and then.

01:02:28:51 - 01:02:50:33
Unknown
And that's it. And then you get a wrench slide, and it's something with the speed sensor. And guess what? HP tuners, even Whipple's own tool can't fix it. You. I have to either before I knew the idea. If you get to it's ideas. So Ford has ideas for JDS and PhDs. They're off the RC, the factory service things.

01:02:50:33 - 01:03:11:40
Unknown
And now you're right on. You know the this is a growing problem for anyone in repair or performance. And if you don't have access to that dealer diagnostic system, you're going to have to get in and out of modes on the vehicle where, you know, maybe it's like one example is you have to reprogram the ECU. And and I think that one's that one's growing.

01:03:11:40 - 01:03:33:09
Unknown
But it's also like kind of a corner case because, I, a lot of tuner guys sort of solve that problem. But like, okay, I've got to reprogram the car so you can use if it's Ford, you know, like f f JDS is available on their website to download. I think it's like 50 bucks for three days. And then you can use a J 2534 device and you can just reprogram it.

01:03:33:32 - 01:03:58:07
Unknown
but you can also do diagnostic functions and like these Adas calibrations like just like changing your windshield or if your car's out of alignment, you, you know, you have to recalibrate the vehicle for all these circumstances. So it's going to start to happen soon. Where you're not just going to get calls for, I need to reprogram the ECU back to stock, but I need to run a service function to get that vehicle back into a state where it will drive again.

01:03:58:12 - 01:04:13:46
Unknown
And, whether it's calibration or just a coding event and the dealer tools. Now, because the right to repair like you have access to all of that and that right to repair is always under fire, and there's always challenges for the future. But, you know, that's another fight, but you have access to those tools. But a lot of people don't know that.

01:04:13:51 - 01:04:40:09
Unknown
Right? Right. Yeah. And I think that's the place in the performance world that is super bad is diag work, right. Just throwing parts of cars and you know, I don't have as much education on like pinpoint tests and all like a good example. We had a car come down from Georgia. New motor. It's it had a bunch of cam codes.

01:04:40:13 - 01:04:56:55
Unknown
So, I told the guy, I said it was a shop that brought it down, not the customer. And I was like, man, this thing's something's messed up. And it was a 2011 on top of it, right? So now you got a car that's decently old. The engine's been out. It's got cam code my mind went to harness.

01:04:57:00 - 01:05:15:41
Unknown
You know, the harness is messed up. Yeah, but he left the car. And then my head tech, Adam, who has a long history at Ford and you know, does think knows the right way to diagnose things. He came to me yesterday and he's like, oh, I'm finally ready to mess with that car. What's it doing? And I was like, oh, it's throwing all these cam codes.

01:05:15:41 - 01:05:36:36
Unknown
I think it's probably like a wire this and that. Yeah, 20 minutes later came back. It's fixed. I was like, how'd you find it that fast? He's like, I just followed the pinpoint test and they basically had the intake and exhaust cam sensor swapped. And they're different style sensors. One's a VR, one's a Hall effect. I don't know why.

01:05:36:41 - 01:05:53:18
Unknown
The one's like a three wire. One's a two wire. And, when they went to go put the motor in, they just put whatever plug fit, whatever sensor, the sensor was in the wrong spot. yeah. I'm like, you know, most of shops that would have been like months of figuring that out because they don't know how to do a pinpoint test.

01:05:53:31 - 01:06:08:40
Unknown
They want to call it that. And like, I'm just pointing that out because, I mean, it's not because of me. It's because of my employees that are so good at it. It's like, man, if that was like ten, 20 years ago, we would have been like, well, I don't know what's wrong with we put a new engine harness on it.

01:06:08:42 - 01:06:35:58
Unknown
We changed. We would put the same damn sensor back in the same hole because we would have taken one out and been like, oh, this one goes here. Not that, oh, that's the wrong sensor, you know. So and and that's a 2011 car, you know. So as things get newer and nearer and nearer it gets so incredibly complicated that, I don't know that the economics would be there for a service like what you have, but the need for it is there.

01:06:36:03 - 01:07:18:36
Unknown
Most shops, performance wise, are not necessarily run properly, as a business. So, you know, the budget might not be there for a service like that, but the use that would be transformative to the performance industry because so many people are just part after part after part. so I have a, a huge amount of respect for doing things the right way because I kind of was brought up not necessarily doing a thorough job, like, I mean, I see a lot of things going on there, and it's incredible, like the work that's going in and the capability and, you know, it's definitely whether you're repairing cars or modifying cars, there is really skilled

01:07:18:41 - 01:07:36:25
Unknown
talent. And then there's there's people in the industry who won't last very long who are throwing parts of things and, you know, just not really figuring out what's wrong with that vehicle. And, you know, your problem is it just it's getting bigger, right? Like the complexity of the vehicles is getting bigger. There's just more barriers to enter it.

01:07:36:25 - 01:07:56:58
Unknown
It's harder to find good technicians. Right? I mean, that's another industry problem we have is we're not getting enough technicians coming into the industry. You know, like, yeah, we're sort of aging out in terms of our skilled, qualified technician base. And we we're going to need more technicians. Yeah. And that's, one problem we're currently facing. We're shorthanded right now.

01:07:57:25 - 01:08:19:42
Unknown
but I've asked myself multiple times, like, how do I find the right guy? You know, because it's a very unique type of situation and we're in a different position than a lot of performance jobs because we do have the large, business with remote tuning and parts online. Our revenue is good enough that I can offer, very good health insurance and things like that, which almost no performance shops offer that.

01:08:19:42 - 01:08:37:21
Unknown
And that's I actually added health insurance here because of the guy I just told you about, because he's coming out of Ford and he's like, man, I'd love to do it. But what about insurance? I go, if you take the job, I'll have insurance in six months and that's really because it came up to that point. I'm like, man, I don't know if we can afford it right now.

01:08:37:21 - 01:08:55:35
Unknown
But I told Adam we were doing it, so we're going to do it, and we did it. And it's been great, you know? And it's a I love taking care of my employees. but that's, you know, just because you want to doesn't mean you can, like most shops, are not economically in the right position to be able to do that.

01:08:55:35 - 01:09:17:38
Unknown
So, I don't know, maybe we need some more, performance business coaching or something that I'm not not necessarily the guy to do it, but, well, I mean, young people, I definitely value things differently. Like the next generations. Look at work life balance, they look at benefits. They look at time off much differently than I think you and I are cut from a mold where it's like, yeah, you know, it's time to go to bed.

01:09:17:38 - 01:09:36:19
Unknown
I guess it's time to get off work. You know, you just go, go, go. Yeah. Or you're pretty much you're not considering the we're not considering what you had just mentioned, and we're just considering like, that's what I want to do. And if I have to do it without health insurance and I have to do it the hard way, I'm going to do it because that's what I want to do, and it'll work out in the end.

01:09:36:19 - 01:09:51:48
Unknown
And those types of mentalities usually do work out in the end, because they're goal driven. Right? Like, this is what I want to do in my life. I'll figure out how to make that work. Whereas, well, yeah, that sounds great. And the salary is pretty good. But there's a list of things that make it not sound as attractive.

01:09:51:48 - 01:10:09:52
Unknown
And it's like the world's not going to be perfect. You know, I see all these videos people share people complaining that have degrees. And like the only job I can find is McDonald's. We'll go work at McDonald's until you can find the job that your degree is for. If that's what you need to survive, do it. Yeah. Oh, I totally support.

01:10:09:52 - 01:10:27:23
Unknown
Like, just get somewhere, get going. Like, yeah. You know, and sometimes the right path takes years to find. Yeah. You know, but you got to be you got to be ready for it. You got to be open to it. And and you can't wait like life goes on in the meantime. Yeah. No. Absolutely. And sometimes you might fail.

01:10:27:23 - 01:10:54:39
Unknown
The first time Modular Depot was a big shop. We had a huge facility and from people on the outside looking in and they were like, man, that is so badass. And it's like, not really. I wasn't making any money. I closed down my business to go work for Diablo Sport. and then, you know, when this Palm Beach channel, was born, I initially didn't want to get into the to the mechanical side of things because it's the most challenging part, right?

01:10:54:45 - 01:11:20:29
Unknown
If I'm tuning, I'm in control 100%. The minute I have employees and techs and all that, and you got to stand behind work. but I did it, and I'm super happy I did, because this time around, it's awesome. We're having a blast. We're, you know, it's there's nothing, more rewarding than building the entire car, right? You could turn a car, but if you didn't build it, it's, like, not as cool.

01:11:20:29 - 01:11:37:12
Unknown
But now all of a sudden, it's like, this guy just brought us a bone stock F-150, and now it makes 1000 horsepower super happy. It's great. So, you know, you gotta you always have to push through the failures. If you love something, you have to continue to try it. I mean, I guess at some point, if you if you're not very good, you gotta realize that.

01:11:37:12 - 01:12:03:19
Unknown
But most people are capable enough with enough effort to get to their goals and they just count themselves out before they get there. one thing I wanted to bring out before I forget, because you brought it up, is you said you guys started using I. Yeah. And that's obviously a hot topic. And I am personally interested in that because I have 20 years of documents and PDFs and, my customer ticket system and all that stuff.

01:12:03:19 - 01:12:26:16
Unknown
And, I've dug into it a little bit to try and build my own, train model off of my own data to where we can offer maybe a chat bot to where people, you know, even my own even even for myself, because there's lots of times where somebody will get a code and I'm like, oh, I solved this like three years ago, but who was it?

01:12:26:29 - 01:12:44:23
Unknown
What was the, you know, and maybe I should have documented it better there, but it's somewhere in my hard drive or in my ticket system or whatever, that possibly I could just go in there and say, have we ever run into this code? And it tells me, yeah, you know, and it's just like huge, and I'm going to get there.

01:12:44:23 - 01:13:08:54
Unknown
I just haven't had the time to do it. And I like to do everything myself. Maybe I should get somebody to help me with it. But yeah, I probably use AI almost every single day for something. And, like the language models are very useful for things that maybe people don't consider. Like, I'm going to put out a press release, I'm going to make a flier, I'm going to send, email communications to a bunch of customers.

01:13:09:05 - 01:13:39:25
Unknown
You can let it. I just you type the message, you run it through AI, and it it can make it simpler to understand cleaner, more consolidated. It's like, you know, a spellchecker on steroids, basically. But in the automotive space, we've been experimenting with AI for sending a diagnostic data and letting it decipher, probability. Possibility using. Because every phone call that opus gets, we record, and our phone system can flatten them all the text files.

01:13:39:25 - 01:13:59:22
Unknown
So we have hundreds of thousands of oh, wow, text files of professional technician to professional technician paired to diagnostic data, results. And so some of the products that we're working on really center around. You have a question or a problem. And we have our live experts ready to go. But there's only so many of those in the universe, right?

01:13:59:22 - 01:14:19:33
Unknown
So why don't we first let you interact with AI with your trouble codes, and we're going to give you some statistical information like these are the probable causes of this. And then maybe you can chat with it and say, I tried that or I tried this. And and then like when you reach a point with AI where you're like, okay, it's it's not in the database, AI is not helping me.

01:14:19:33 - 01:14:34:58
Unknown
Let's put the professional tech on. It goes faster. The repair is faster because I like instance like, you know, just responds right away. But like I was in menards the other day, I needed a car battery for one of my projects and they didn't have the one in stock that I need. And I'm looking at all these other ones.

01:14:34:58 - 01:14:50:58
Unknown
I'm like, shoot, I didn't measure the battery. I just came to the store. So I just jump into AI and I'm like, I had a group 65 battery on this car. Can you recommend other ones that are close to the same size, same amperage and same polarity? And it just gave me a list like from top to bottom priority.

01:14:50:58 - 01:15:12:36
Unknown
Now, I could have done that on Google in like 25 minutes, but I'm in the middle of the store and it just tells me, and I go look at the next group and I take it home and it's like the fits the same size. So every little thing like that with AI, it's just. And, a lot of technicians fix cars on Google search and, it requires you to read, you know, open threads, you end up on enthusiast boards.

01:15:12:36 - 01:15:29:35
Unknown
I like a lot of repair comes from enthusiast boards, where it's like the modular depot days, where people are talking about problems and. Right. so you got to read all of that and you got to read maybe three pages of five threads to draw your conclusion of what was the common elements of those were I had already read all of that.

01:15:29:40 - 01:15:48:24
Unknown
And so it's just going to jump you to the sort of the top of the summary, like if you were to Google on the very top, sometimes it's like, this is what it means that that's what AI is doing right now. And that's the easy stuff. we've asked it to read wiring diagrams and like, send it an image and ask it what it is.

01:15:48:28 - 01:16:08:18
Unknown
And like it was close. Yeah. It's like this is, 2008 Ford Taurus. And, you know, it was, it was an escape. It's like, you know, there is no Ford word on that diagram. So, so it's getting close and eventually you might be able to feed it, you know what documents repair documents is images. And let it read them and help you out.

01:16:08:18 - 01:16:36:59
Unknown
So it's unlimited possibilities. It's early. Like, let's not overpromise what it could do for us today, but certainly it has a future. Yeah. And the way I look at it is it's, it's almost like, I would think of it as like supercharged memory. Right? Like, I have 20 years of experience, all this stuff that I've forgotten, but a lot of it is in, you know, it's in text and emails and all that stuff.

01:16:36:59 - 01:16:57:19
Unknown
And I'm like, if I can harness that, I basically can instantly remember anything I've done. If it's fed the right information. And I'm just talking on a personal level, not like general knowledge, but just even my own personal knowledge. Train it on all that stuff, and then you train it on all your photographs for the last 20 or 30 years and you're like, hey, when did I go here?

01:16:57:27 - 01:17:20:00
Unknown
And boom, it knows because it found the right photograph or whatever. And I think people don't really understand that. And you mentioned Google. I don't know if you've turned it on or not, but it has the summarized AI at the top now. And it's not the best yet, but it's way better to start reading through everything. It usually gets you close and at least get you down the right path.

01:17:20:15 - 01:17:37:44
Unknown
And, everything I'm doing now, it's like I just went on Facebook. I don't know if you noticed on the phone, if you go to the search, it's no longer search. Yeah, it's AI, which I don't like too much because, you know, and it's new, so they're trying to figure it out, but it's like giving me things I don't want.

01:17:37:44 - 01:18:00:00
Unknown
I just want to search for that name, show me that page. But then it's giving me all these weird results. That's just fine tuning from here. So, I think people don't realize how much their life is going to change over the next five. I mean, it's, you say 5 to 10 years, but to me, it's accelerating at a pace that's kind of crazy, you know.

01:18:00:00 - 01:18:20:52
Unknown
Yeah. And, like generative imaging, you know, like, you can generate an image of, like, a Palm Beach dino in the desert, you know, with a mustang with flames on it, and it just makes it right. I use I constantly, I use it, it's built into Photoshop now. I've used it in Photoshop where you can be like, get rid of this and it gives you three shots at it.

01:18:20:52 - 01:18:39:00
Unknown
And it's like, you know, whoa. Like a good example. We do a lot of media on the cars we build, like that red car that they were washing when we came inside. I after this, I'm going to go take some photographs of it. I used to spend a lot of time trying to find the exact perfect background now, and I would be like, oh, I would do this, but there's a fire hydrant there.

01:18:39:00 - 01:19:07:06
Unknown
That's kind of easy to do with take out without I. But, you know, other times there's been like a bunch or crap or like a semi in the way or whatever. And it's just like, who cares? Yeah. Go in, circle it, boom, it's gone. You know? Or, like you said, press releases. Not every single one of them, but most of my not personal but Facebook posts for the business or press releases or almost anything that I have to write, I use.

01:19:07:06 - 01:19:26:33
Unknown
I do write because the way I would do it before was I would write out bullet points, and then I would be like, well, how does this need to be organized? How's the best way to make people understand it? And then I would write it and send it to my wife, who is super crazy grammar, grammar and spelling and like, really?

01:19:26:38 - 01:19:49:28
Unknown
And I would send it to her and she would make a million revisions and back and forth. And now I just go to ChatGPT or I, I've tried to Twitter one grok and yeah, there's a bunch of them go in just hey, I own Palm Beach Dyno and we're going to release this new product. And here's all the benefits and just talk to it like I would be telling you about it.

01:19:49:33 - 01:20:05:22
Unknown
And it blows my mind most of the time. A lot of the times it's a little overly descriptive. Or you could tell it was written by AI, but then you could take that and just make a couple little tweaks to it to make it more human. And I'm like, and I'll send it to my wife. And she's like, that's perfect.

01:20:05:22 - 01:20:30:50
Unknown
Did you use AI? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, like ChatGPT isms, where like, it always starts with this, like lead in and it's like, oh, somebody will send me an email. I'm like, oh, I know that came from ChatGPT. And yeah, you know, but like, relating AI back to service for a second, like walk down a road with me, like, okay, so generative text and like we're giving descriptions and, and we have some generative imagery.

01:20:30:50 - 01:20:56:24
Unknown
Right. And now generative video is the next chapter that is developing. And I haven't seen really good generative video yet, but it's in process to say, could we make a video on how to replace a part and that will come and like in the next five years, like I'll say, make me a video on how to replace this alternator on a 2015 Ford Mustang and it will generate a video.

01:20:56:29 - 01:21:12:45
Unknown
And then let's pair that with some, because I love to pair technology together. It's like, take these two things and put them together. And I have you seen the Apple Vision Pro yet? Yeah okay. So we got one. It's incredible. Like I still haven't quite figured out how to use the keyboard with my eyeballs. But you look at a letter and it highlights it.

01:21:12:45 - 01:21:27:07
Unknown
And then you click to type. But so now we have a video screen on us, and maybe we have it in the garage. And, you know, at some point maybe it can correct your vision and do all these other things, but so now we're going to generate a video and we're going to put it on the Vision Pro.

01:21:27:21 - 01:21:49:12
Unknown
Say make me a video on how to replace this part and show me the wiring diagrams. And then you can move them around or you can zoom in on them like, okay, I'll stop right there. And like, we've probably all done this with our laptop where we've got a YouTube video and they're stepping through something. So you would like maybe pause a YouTube video and you got dirty hands, and then you go change the part and you go to the next step.

01:21:49:12 - 01:22:12:05
Unknown
Well, with like VR and AR and then augmented video, like there's a whole new segment that could develop. It could develop for performance racing too. so I wanted to get back to the newer vehicle stuff because you probably have a bit more insight into that than most people that I speak to. As far as encryption and the gateways and the locking down of computers.

01:22:12:05 - 01:22:34:19
Unknown
And I get a question on that all the time. Obviously, Ford was the last of the between GM, Dodge and Ford was really the last to start locking stuff down. And I don't know if that's by design. If they were trying to resist it as long as they could. And people ask me like, why do they do it?

01:22:34:19 - 01:23:08:16
Unknown
And a lot of people take the more obvious view of it is like they don't want you to modify the vehicle and that's part of it. But how much of that plays into, over-the-air updates and those reasons, you know, so what's your opinion on that? So I think it was 2016, pretty famous news case where a guy named Charlie ran a Jeep off the road through the telematics system, exposed a, a bug in the infotainment system, gained access to the vehicle's canvas remotely.

01:23:08:16 - 01:23:26:33
Unknown
And then once you're on the canvas, disabling a vehicle could be as simple as sending the ECU too many commands, and then it just shuts down and locks up, or you get into more sophisticated breaking in. But in any case, Charlie and his partner broke into a vehicle, a production vehicle over the air, and they caused it to drive differently.

01:23:26:33 - 01:23:58:35
Unknown
And at that moment, changed when that Jeep incident occurred. everybody at the car companies realized, oh, we better secure our systems because we're putting them on the internet with telematics. Telematics is essentially, wired internet, wireless connection to the car and the vehicle buyers. So Fiat Chrysler in 2018 was the first to launch a secure gateway. And, early ones were quite simple where there was a box, at the OBD plug and you had to authenticate through it.

01:23:58:35 - 01:24:19:01
Unknown
And, some scandal companies were making like radio connectors and you could get in over the radio, but, but that was a first attempt. And then as time has gone on, other automakers have followed them. And now the can communications that's happening behind the gateways now becoming encrypted. And so not just like, you see, you unlock the actual messaging between two modules.

01:24:19:02 - 01:24:45:58
Unknown
It's all getting encrypted. I mean, that and there's security tokens and credentialing and, you know, all sorts of sophisticated I.T architecture going into place. Every car company will eventually have a secure gateway and a part of right to repair in 2020. In Massachusetts was to say if the car has a secure gateway, we want the aftermarket to have standardized access to that car.

01:24:46:03 - 01:25:06:58
Unknown
So we're not locked out because some of the German automakers have come up with, requirements like, if you want to go into our secure gateway, you need to prove you're a technician. you need to be trained. So that would mean if you have this German car show up and you, you want to authenticate into the car just to do basic things, not even like ECU rewrites.

01:25:07:03 - 01:25:22:26
Unknown
You have to go get training, prove that you're qualified to work on that car, and that goes against everything. Right to repair is all about because Right to Repair was really like, you own the car. It's it's yours. Right? You anybody that you the owner wants to work on the car should be able to do that for you.

01:25:22:51 - 01:25:47:35
Unknown
so these gateways and late last year, the European Court of Justice made them illegal. And, so now Europe is kind of scrambling around with, okay, now that it's illegal, how are we going to get around this? And how are we going to continue with these secure gateways? And then, like the diagnostic systems, the inside of his use are also changing to a technology called CVD, which is a secure on board vehicle diagnostics.

01:25:48:01 - 01:26:10:51
Unknown
so the attack is changing. And like on one side, right, repair and team on auto care. And these guys are fighting for access. And on the others, the OEMs are thinking about Charlie and these vehicles, you know, being disabled or driving off the road. And and there's probably also some OEM personal, profitable reasons why they want to lock the vehicles down.

01:26:10:51 - 01:26:29:40
Unknown
I mean, we've seen the parts industry dramatically changed in the last five years that you can't use use parts anymore. you know, and, the reason is that because it's the theft related, that's the official reason. Like, if if they steal our car and they sell the mirrors that, you know, that's bad. So we're going to make the mirrors not reusable.

01:26:29:45 - 01:26:57:43
Unknown
Yeah. That kind of thing. Right? I guess I guess that's one way to solve a problem. Maybe not the greenest way or the best for people who install parts, or even consumers who don't want to put all brand new parts on every car. But all these sort of lockdowns are happening and, you know, the tuning world is sort of getting a side effect of that because as the lockdowns are happening, I used to just go in and open a ECU and rewrite it like, Jerry once said, like I could put an Excel file in the issue if I wanted, you know, I wouldn't do anything.

01:26:58:46 - 01:27:21:54
Unknown
the ability to get like, let's call that like level five, you know, it's like level four is sending a command. Level three is reading live data, level two is clearing codes, and level one is checking codes. They're locking down level one. So like you want to get to level five. And level one is getting locked down. So that that architecture is definitely on the rise.

01:27:21:59 - 01:27:48:20
Unknown
And something that, you know, we should all support right. To repair having the sentence in there saying, hey, if there's a secure vehicle gateway, the owner needs to be able to have access to it and provide access to anyone they want. So somebody gets to decide, besides the car maker who has access to that car. Yeah. And I think, a lot of people don't really I haven't absorbed how big of a deal this is.

01:27:50:13 - 01:28:15:37
Unknown
the first. Well, 23 EcoBoost. Most of the I think the Broncos. But those are important. But when the 24 Mustang was on untouchable, now everybody's. Well let's back up 21 F-150 was that way. And I don't know the details. I don't know if you know anything about it, but that had encryption. But I guess they accidentally left access to some.

01:28:15:52 - 01:28:46:33
Unknown
You could turn off the check. I guess that's pretty much how, you know, security breaches happen as, like, somebody builds a great firewall and then there's like, accidental consequence of sending the wrong message, which causes you to get around it. And I remember when I was in the tuning world, which spent a long time there was RSA encryption, and I remember one SKU we could send the file up to the ECU, and at the end of it receiving the file, it would check the encryption and then it would give the error.

01:28:46:33 - 01:29:10:59
Unknown
And all we had to do is cancel the reprograming right before that check occurred in the file in it. Oh, so like that's the sort of fun that it was the like hack and you know, and get through firewalls. but that world is increasingly getting more sophisticated and it's almost like bank security now. And there's more people looking at it and testing it and relating back to the over the air cars.

01:29:11:04 - 01:29:38:24
Unknown
They're not really doing it to stop tuners. I don't think they're that's Brian's opinion. I think they're doing it to protect the vehicle owner from having a malicious attack through over the air. But in doing all of that, it's so happens that those ECUs get locked down and then you can't go and do your tuning. Yeah, because the argument is, a lot of the times when I tell people, look, man, I don't know if we're ever going to tune that computer, maybe they'll be a different computer.

01:29:38:24 - 01:29:56:22
Unknown
We can put it in there that we can tune. oh, yeah. That's what they said about the 21 F-150. I go, but you have to understand, they didn't break any encryption. They got around the encryption. It's. But the problem is, is every time you find a way around something, they close that door, right? So that works 21 to 23.

01:29:56:27 - 01:30:21:30
Unknown
But that does not work on 24 Mustang, 24 F-150 or pretty much anything new at this point. And they're like, they'll get it. I go, based on what there has to be a back door that's either on left on purpose, which is doubtful, or by mistake. I believe the 21 F-150 was like, a test mode. You turn the test mode switch on, and then it ignores the encryption or whatever.

01:30:21:30 - 01:30:45:13
Unknown
I don't know exactly something like that. And I go, but. So it's not like some genius, like reverse engineered on how to break RSA encryption. Somebody got lucky. It was like an accident. Yeah. Got lucky, found the switch. And I don't care if they're lucky or smart, they got it done. But unless there is that same type of vulnerability.

01:30:45:18 - 01:31:04:34
Unknown
They never happened, you know, so people don't really understand how bad it is, you know, and I, I don't have the answers for anybody. And obviously it directly affects my business. I tell people all the time, I go, I'm almost 50. There's enough mustangs and f-150s out there that I can already tune. I'll be fine. Like I'll be doing.

01:31:04:39 - 01:31:34:57
Unknown
I still do oh, three Cobras, right? So of course there's always going to be something for me to tune, but the whole entire performance market I think has taken a hit already for 24 Mustang. Like, you know, I had a conversation about with a friend of mine, he's in the suspension is a company suspension company. And you know, when it first started happening, he's like, I was like, you don't understand the economic impact here is like, oh, you know, this and that.

01:31:34:57 - 01:32:00:52
Unknown
And you know what? Paul has a deal. So everybody go buy weapons. I go a I don't think so. And then what about Vortex Pro Charger Magnuson. You know, some of them have OEM relationships. They might be able to get something but not a pro charger, right? Maybe. Magnuson I don't think so. Roush probably has their deal with Ford, and they can do what Whipple does, but for the most part, there's no way it's not going to shrink the market.

01:32:00:52 - 01:32:27:32
Unknown
It has to shrink the market. I go, where a year in the 24 Mustang, how much revenue have I lost off of that? I probably have lost 2 or $300,000 in one year because I'm not tuning any 24. I'm not selling any 24 Pro Chargers, cold air kits, anything that requires a tune. Well, yeah, I guess you could do a cold air kick because those are not actually they have mass air meters, but I don't think they function like a mass.

01:32:27:46 - 01:32:42:56
Unknown
It's like more of a check. They have a map sensor. And so I think you can put a cold air on it. But for the most part, most of the things you would do that would need a tune. None of those parts are being sold. Pro charger has had a kit that looks awesome. Dual throttle body, carbon fiber pipes.

01:32:43:01 - 01:33:02:20
Unknown
What are you gonna do with it? You know, and I don't know that there's a solution to it. So, you know, hopefully there's something that could be done about it. I mean, it's it's not based on any real knowledge, you see any path forward where that could continue. I mean, that's my fear. It sounds like kind of like doomsday.

01:33:02:20 - 01:33:23:01
Unknown
I mean, it it it's a long path. We have to go down to get the access back, right. Because the access is being shut down to all of this ability to customize, whether it's tuning or sort of all of these different areas, even wheels and tires, you know, the ability to change tire revs per mile and factory service tools has been going away.

01:33:23:56 - 01:33:45:48
Unknown
and there's sort of no easy answer. I think the, the real answer is that we need to get access to customized cars and sure, calibration needs to be a part of that to the extent that it can be done, you know, in a way that is, you know, preventing the bad actors. Right. And keeping the owner safe.

01:33:45:48 - 01:34:14:06
Unknown
But it feels like that's a path worth traveling down because the alternative is exactly like you said, where you just have to find whatever back doors are left and go through them. And, you know, it just feels like there's not like when I was in that space 20 years ago, the front doors were open everywhere. Right, right. And now, like, I just I know from friends and talking like there's not a lot of back doors left and it seems like they're just closing them one after another.

01:34:14:06 - 01:34:35:22
Unknown
So, rather than just sort of let the inevitable happen where you get maybe 1 or 2 OEM partners and what we call like dealer packages of equipment, like how do we get the the industry associations, how do we get the voice heard. So we're we're keeping that door open and maybe getting some front doors open again because customers, they want this right.

01:34:35:22 - 01:34:56:42
Unknown
People want to buy cars and have choice and customization. They still want performance cars. And I think the whole world has agreed and understood they need to be emissions compliant and clean, and nobody's really arguing that, right? I mean that that's what needs to happen. But, there's demand for that until consumer demand dries up and people don't want to modify cars anymore, which I don't see happening.

01:34:56:47 - 01:35:17:29
Unknown
We just have to solve that problem. And I think it's like in Ford's best interests or GM's or anybody else to support that commercially, because I mean, you know, like you've seen it, right? I mean, as the performance parts start to dry up for, performance car, you know, like, what would a mustang be in 20 years if you couldn't customize it?

01:35:17:29 - 01:35:39:50
Unknown
It would be just like every other car. Yeah. And then why would you spend Mustang money? And, like, Mustang may not be the most luxurious, comfortable car to drive, right? It's a performance car. It's like that's what you have it for. What if it can't do that anymore? You know? Is it still going to be around? Yeah. But I think one of the most realistic paths forward is and it's not going to be like it is today, right.

01:35:39:50 - 01:36:06:50
Unknown
Because let's say, you know, let's say we tune, a twin turbo kit on an 18 to 23 Mustang GT. Well, everybody's running different boost and different fuel injectors, different fuel, and their fuel systems configured one way versus another way. And it's like everyone's a little different. Not exactly. I mean, we do we do so many that they're not all different, but there's so many different combinations.

01:36:06:50 - 01:36:40:19
Unknown
I think the only path forward that I can see is a getting more, homogenized combos where it's just like a, B or C, right? And then better, access to like, for instance, for, Whipple has a relationship with Ford, who has a, you know, with or has a relationship with, I believe he's a former engineer for Ford, Ford Racing and all that, that has all the proper certifications to be able to use the Ford server to sign the file, whatever.

01:36:40:24 - 01:36:57:05
Unknown
I don't want to get into the details of that. But even if I said, like the package I showed you, it makes 900 horsepower. We do those exactly the same. I literally took the file off the last one we did and put it on there and didn't change it once. Right. So that and it has cats and all that.

01:36:57:05 - 01:37:24:55
Unknown
And could it be a certified calibration? Possibly. Right, as larger injectors might make it tough, but it's possible. But you know, now we have Sema that maybe can help me do that. but I think that access to being able to create those calibrations needs to be done in a way that's not pretty much out of the question for a lot of companies.

01:37:24:59 - 01:37:43:17
Unknown
Right. It's not cheap to do. Right. So I don't know what it costs to, go to the Sema garage, but, it's $10,000. Sound, right? Or like somewhere in that range or. I mean, the garages are publicly open in terms of, like, what it cost to go do, an emissions. You know, EO certification that I don't know.

01:37:43:30 - 01:38:03:12
Unknown
Yeah. And I think it depends. Right. How quickly you can do it. If you didn't do it on the first time, it's going to cost you more money. But, I was told somewhere in that $10,000 range. Right. So now I've got a package that I sell for X amount of dollars and, you know, out of that huge amount of money and I make a few thousand dollars on that package, maybe.

01:38:03:25 - 01:38:31:13
Unknown
So now you can go. Well, you know, I can have a certified calibration for after I sell 4 or 5 of these, right? So for somebody like me who does a lot of volume, that package is really popular. Yeah. That's not, out of the question pass, but there's very few people like us that do things in enough volume where they come out with a package and they sell 50, 100 or 200 of those a year, right?

01:38:31:13 - 01:38:54:58
Unknown
Whipple sells thousands of years. So they the budget for them is not really as much of a factor as it is for even, you know, this conversation about people, about other, supercharger companies like Pro Charger. They're very big, right? And they're very well-run company. I love dealing with them. And if anybody else besides Whipple has the budget to do it, Whipple's doing Pro charger does.

01:38:55:03 - 01:39:17:09
Unknown
So. Now, the question is, can they do that? do they have that access? Can they call, the guy Whipple uses to do it, or is Ford? Because there's a lot of people. I don't want to go into it because I get told things I can't always repeat. But there's a lot of politics going on with the access from Ford in a way that is a little contradictory to what you said earlier.

01:39:17:11 - 01:39:39:46
Unknown
As far as like, Ford wants that stuff to happen. It sounds like there's some players in that space that are wanting everything to come back to Ford, right? Like being locked into Ford Performance and handling the tuning and all that. And like, well, I mean, you're describing a world we live in without any kind of regulation for access, right?

01:39:39:46 - 01:39:58:28
Unknown
Right. I mean, and that's what happens. And that happened in diagnostics too, by the way, is without any kind of right to repair, right to modify that has clear rules of the game and engagement for OEMs and industry. You get whatever you get. Right. And and that that's no way to scale. That's no way to grow a business.

01:39:58:28 - 01:40:28:55
Unknown
Because, let's just say you're getting your, partnership with an OEM and you're getting calibration information, and then that person retires. You might be done the next day, right? You have no idea. Right? So, if we can get to a point where we have clear rules of engagement on access, then, you know, like, I can invest in this because I know that it's, you know, it's going to return, it's going to be around for the long run and without any of that like that would make me nervous to, to say, all right, I'm going to bank this on a relationship with a no.

01:40:28:58 - 01:40:47:13
Unknown
And I've got a lot of long term relationships, but I also know they people retire, people move on to different roles, and, you know, the next person comes into that role and then they they have a different mission, a different objective, different friends. You know, whatever the case is, it's even sometimes personnel, they can save money. They don't like you, you know.

01:40:47:18 - 01:41:06:12
Unknown
Absolutely. I mean, I think that's the way the world works a lot of times, but without any kind of rules of engagement for the tuning industry or for customization, this this is the problem we have, right? This is the world we live in. Yeah. And that's something I would like to see. And I don't know if it's possible, but I could commercial version of right to repair.

01:41:06:25 - 01:41:30:09
Unknown
Right. And so Whipple has the right ins to get their stuff done. Everybody needs to have the access to that. Right. So if Whipple can do it, then if you're Pro Charger or Vortex or Ming or whatever, if here's here's exactly if you want to get to this, here's your path to that. And you have just as much availability to that as possible.

01:41:30:09 - 01:41:49:03
Unknown
Now you have to be the right, you know, company has to be have the right certifications or whatever credentials to do it. But it's not like, oh, well, I don't, I don't, I don't know that guy like that. That doesn't sound very good to me. So, so let's bring up, CMA and you're running for the board.

01:41:49:08 - 01:42:12:50
Unknown
So what led into your decision to, want to do that? Well, I've, I've been going to the CMA show for 20 years now, and I've always liked CMA and just the industry that it represents. It's everything. It's not just racing and performance. It's everything. Aftermarket. and so is is I've gotten involved with all these right to repair and, you know, advanced vehicle diagnostics.

01:42:12:50 - 01:42:33:39
Unknown
I started having conversations with CMA early on to say, hey, there's right to repair laws. Why don't you get involved in this? And initially and this goes back probably a decade, the answer was, well that's repair and we're modify. So, you know, we're not interested. But then it became clear at some point to them, that they are connected.

01:42:33:39 - 01:43:06:20
Unknown
Right? I mean, it's not just, repair by itself or customize and modify by itself. It's it's the same legislators, it's the same vehicle technology. So CMA has started to get engaged and pretty heavily engaged in the last 3 or 4 years related to Ada systems and advanced vehicle technology. And, you know, the reason I want to get involved at a board level is because I want to help steer the strategy of where CMA has headed with this, because it tactically, okay, you can see certain activities happening, but what's the strategy?

01:43:06:25 - 01:43:30:21
Unknown
We talked, you know, at length over the problems that you see and and performance racing and there's other parts of CMA membership like lifting trucks. Big problem right now because all the camera and blindspot and 360 system stop working. So. Oh I didn't even think of that. Oh yeah. Lifting and lowering. And CMA just put out a white paper with a on a truck, that Silverado that they raised.

01:43:30:21 - 01:43:58:16
Unknown
And while in that one single test case, the vehicle still functioned, it functioned differently. Right. Because, you know, you've moved sensors and and so I, I really think that CMA has the opportunity here to open some of those front doors again for us. And, I want to be involved in and I have enough connections within other parts of the industry that I think I can provide value for them, not just sitting on the board and like voting on things, but like, hey, let's let's connect these pieces.

01:43:58:58 - 01:44:19:48
Unknown
and so that's why I want to jump in and it's, you know, an election for, board member, like, I'm kind of the guy in the back, right? I'm usually not out in the front promoting myself. And so it's a little bit strange to have an election and and go through that, but, I'm motivated to get through this and win because I see the cause.

01:44:19:48 - 01:44:38:09
Unknown
And, you know, it's like you're just like me. I think, like, cars are our life at the end of the day, right? Like you wouldn't you wouldn't leave this career and go into medical or. Right, like it's automotive. So I want to protect that for myself and for my kids. And I want to see the effort that I put into things benefit not just me.

01:44:38:09 - 01:44:59:52
Unknown
I, you know, I feel better about myself if I can, like, invest my energy into something that goes farther. Yeah. One thing I would like to see, from CMA is somebody and maybe there there's somebody there. I'm not very involved in CMA. I don't think we're a current member. I have been a member of CMA and we should be a member.

01:44:59:52 - 01:45:26:26
Unknown
ACM yeah, you got to get your membership. I gotta get I gotta be able to vote for you, so I gotta renew that. but, I feel like it would benefit having a representative for guys like me and below, like, I wouldn't say below me, but, like, people that are not as far advanced in their career in this, like, like a normal performance shop.

01:45:26:31 - 01:45:47:09
Unknown
Doesn't even think of CMA, right? People like me think of CMA. you mentioned, Justin, a VP was at a thing that you did, and he's very involved in CMA. I know he's you seem a garage. So there's that level of company that is somewhat involved or very involved in CMA, but the average performance shop zero involvement with CMA.

01:45:47:24 - 01:46:12:12
Unknown
Right. But but on the same hand like if, if you were to name a network of, you know, industry like that, everybody knows like give me three names besides CMA. that's like CMA. Yeah. Like that powerful that big, that far reaching. Well, I'll bring this up because I was going to ask you earlier, but like you brought up Autocare.

01:46:12:12 - 01:46:36:19
Unknown
Yeah, I should know what that is. I don't know what that is. Is that a CMA? So opposition used to be called RIAA, and I think they're best known for the apex show. Okay. So but Autocare is is like CMA but focused more on non performance non modification. They have some performance and modification but it's more like aftermarket parts and aftermarket repair.

01:46:36:19 - 01:46:59:30
Unknown
And but there's there's sort of a sister institute that has a wide network of people. But I mean like to me those are the big players. And like if you were going to run a Super Bowl commercial to consumers and say, like customization of your vehicle, like the CMA brand is really strong. A lot of consumers have heard of CMA on the CMA show.

01:46:59:34 - 01:47:36:46
Unknown
And so I think it has untapped potential to influence automakers and vehicle design in the future. Like we want vehicles to be designed so they can be customized. Yeah. And consumers can only vote with their wallets. Right. And that's that's not a leading indicator. That's a trailing indicator. So when you've done something wrong as a car maker, like maybe you made the Mustang so it can be modified, maybe that's going to show up two years later and your sales report says like, wow, how come we're not selling and, you know, long investigations, but CMA can come in on the front, activate repairers, consumers and say, look, this is what we want.

01:47:36:52 - 01:47:56:38
Unknown
You know, give us what we want. And it's such a strong voice. Yeah. And I do agree. And it's obviously everybody know in this business knows who CMA is. I guess what I'm getting at is I would like there to be a way where those types of companies feel more like they belong. Yeah, more engaged, more engaged with that.

01:47:56:38 - 01:48:10:39
Unknown
Like, like I said, I've never been to CMA. I've always gone to PRI. That's been more my where you should go to CMA. Let's start there. Yeah, well, I know, you know, it's always been like, I'm going to go this year and then say, look at me. I'm not even on their board. And I'm recruiting for.

01:48:10:41 - 01:48:36:22
Unknown
Yeah, you already got a new, a new, member and, show participant or show, person showing up. but yeah, I just think, I think that they could, and it wouldn't take much. It would just take, you know, 1 or 2 people that are a little bit more focused on that grassroots, I guess I'd call it grassroots performance, not the multi-million dollar companies.

01:48:36:27 - 01:48:54:58
Unknown
You know, the smaller people that feel like they could have a voice at CMA, you know, where they're not like. And I'm not saying CMA is like, ignores those people. I think they would love to have those people there. I think they're trying and like they've created individual memberships now. So as an individual person you can become a CMA member.

01:48:55:03 - 01:49:19:15
Unknown
They have different councils that focus on different things, whether it's trucking off road or racing and performance. And and they have a fair amount of activism. And it's mainly regulatory to say, hey, we need you to write your senator, show up at this rally because they're going to, like when there was mandates for everybody to switch to EV, like some states were going to mandate, you must only sell electric vehicles after a certain year.

01:49:19:17 - 01:49:35:49
Unknown
CMA became very engaged to say, look, you should have a choice in powertrain. Like why is the government get to decide if ATV or not when the free market should really decide you know, you set the standards for emissions, but then the free market should decide how to meet those standards. so they they've been doing a lot of that.

01:49:35:49 - 01:50:04:44
Unknown
And I think that there's unlimited potential for them to grow like you said, and engage more people. And, you know, I'd I know some of the board members at CMA and you get a mix of, you know, people from big companies, well known brand names, and then people who come really from the grassroots. And I think that the potential here is on the grassroots side and getting more engagement, because if we want to move big boulders with car companies, we need a lot of momentum from a lot of places to do it.

01:50:04:44 - 01:50:28:31
Unknown
It's not as simple as a phone call, hey, let's make a law that there's going to be a right to customize. It's actually probably going to have to be what's called a referendum, which is a public vote. That's how right to repair happened in the state of Massachusetts. They had a public vote on right to repair, once in, I think it's 2012 and once in 2020, and they had to run commercials and get shops and consumers engaged.

01:50:28:31 - 01:50:48:22
Unknown
But that was in one state, right? So if CMA takes us on, on a national level, there you go. Like now is the opportunity to bring in voices of voters who are going to vote for a referendum to make this thing happen. And, I mean, like, if I were to pick like any organization I think could do this, it would be them.

01:50:48:27 - 01:51:14:01
Unknown
So, yeah, I think a lot of people CCMA as a big organization that helps at a large level, like almost like some people look at government like it has good things, but it's not really servicing them or that's not like they don't have any resources there that are really for them. And I, you know, and I'm talking like small shops, you know, three, 4 or 5000ft² shops that are local only.

01:51:14:02 - 01:51:40:39
Unknown
They may not be internet businesses and those outnumber people like me and BNP and other people that may be more involved. but they're probably just as important or more important because there's so many more of them. and so and I don't know the answer to that. but, you know, I would like the average guy to have a more positive view of him, and not that they have a negative view.

01:51:40:39 - 01:52:09:07
Unknown
It's more just they don't really have an opinion of it. You know what I'm talking. Yeah. So there's this brand awareness for it. Right. But then like, what is it doing for me is. Yeah. And and I think they could do a lot of things for those people. And things are already in place. So I guess to me that messaging needs to be more out there, you know, and I think that one way to do that is social media runs the world, right?

01:52:09:07 - 01:52:32:07
Unknown
Yeah. But guess how many times I ccma in any of my social media? Not much. I just don't see as much awareness out there. Like like I said, everybody knows CMA. But like I've never done the biggest impact I've seen CMA have. And that type of conversation is the act that they. Yeah, we're doing or I don't know if that's dead or what.

01:52:32:43 - 01:52:59:54
Unknown
and they got a lot of people out there trying to push that like, oh, we need this to help us, even though, you know, that really wasn't exactly going to solve the problem. It at least is a step in the right. You have to take baby steps. But yeah. So that's a good example. Right. Like when that was happening or very the hot topic I think that needs to happen just more regular, more regularly and on more topics and getting people like me involved.

01:52:59:54 - 01:53:40:17
Unknown
You know, I have a big YouTube channel. There's a bunch of those out there. Like, I think they need to get more involved with that type of messaging, right? Like make a, an everyday conversation. Right? Because that's what's going to help us solve these problems. Yet the average guy, it's not it's not really being talked about. But you know, I hear all the time like CMA does this and like the, you know, the, the garage and there's so many things involved with CMA insurance and things that you can use them for that I just don't think it's I think that's great utilized you know, to give the CMA has okay.

01:53:40:17 - 01:54:00:25
Unknown
Maybe the messaging is not reaching all levels of of all the value of the organization. Yeah. And it doesn't really take a huge amount of manpower from CMA. It's getting their network of influencers. Really. I hate using that word because it's there's a lot of negativity, attached to that. But there's a lot of positivity attached to that.

01:54:00:25 - 01:54:23:38
Unknown
Like, you know, I can name 5 or 10 YouTubers in any space that, are hugely influential in a good way. Right? Like on any topic. Right. Like, I, I, I teach myself to do all sorts of things on YouTube and people do the same thing with cars. So now all of a sudden, like Cleatus McFarland, he's one of the top guys out there.

01:54:23:40 - 01:54:44:47
Unknown
Yeah. Is he talking about CMA? No. Do we want to hear a commercial about CMA everyday? No, but there's somewhere in between to just get the ball rolling to like, everybody cheering CMA on like save a CMA. Let's do it. Like where people are like oh yeah that's that one show. And you know they do cool stuff. And there's it's like they want to go to the show.

01:54:44:47 - 01:55:01:33
Unknown
Like everybody wants to go to the show. But I don't think people realize how powerful of an organization it is and can be, if we all rally behind them, you know what I mean? So I agree. Yeah, I guess I'm seeing it more for, like, what I think it can become. Right? And, they certainly have done a lot for our industry.

01:55:01:33 - 01:55:30:59
Unknown
But again, like going back to what's the one organization that could do this, right? And the brand that people have heard of like it feels like it's CMA now. I agree 100%. And that's why, I'm giving you that feedback because I feel like it's there and it's already doing great things for many, many companies. But there's a next level of, awareness and not only awareness of the brand, but awareness of what they're doing for us every day, you know, and great feedback.

01:55:30:59 - 01:55:50:27
Unknown
And I can't even answer that necessarily. But if you get on the board, we can talk more, and I could talk more about it and more and more people will talk about it and, and, and, you know, help get things actually accomplish. I see that as the mission for CMA, the right to modify and customize, that's that they can serve that more than anybody else could.

01:55:50:42 - 01:56:10:24
Unknown
Yeah. All right. Before we wrap it up, I always like to talk a little bit about personal stuff. So what do you what do you do when it's not car related? I think you do airplane stuff, don't you? Are you a pilot? Yeah, I got involved in, flipping airplanes, and, I got a pilot's license. gosh, it was maybe 12 years ago.

01:56:10:24 - 01:56:34:46
Unknown
And then, like, immediately, I didn't even have my license. And, like, I found a good deal on a plane, and it's like I flip cars and and airplanes are just like cars, except they can't break down on the side of the road, you know, it's, So I started, with one plane and then another one. And, like, you know, you just kind of work your way up and, so now when I find them, it's typically like a plane that is maybe out of maintenance.

01:56:34:51 - 01:57:03:39
Unknown
So it's been sitting for a year or two not too long. You don't want it too long, but a couple of years maybe. It's been sitting and, so I have a mechanic I work with and, and we'll fly down there and we'll get the plane working, running safely. And we do what's called a ferry permit. We pull and then we fly at home and ferry permit means it's mostly mostly working, like, you know, you can keep the blue side up and the engines running, a swing, the gear, and then we find a home, and then we fix them up, and then I just kind of fly them around while they're in maintenance.

01:57:04:37 - 01:57:19:44
Unknown
and, after you fix a plane, you don't want to sell it, like, after it's been sitting two years. You want, like, some good history on it. So it's my opportunity to fly it for a couple of years and put some time on it, and then I'll, I'll turn around and sell it and get another one. And it's been really fun.

01:57:19:44 - 01:57:39:18
Unknown
And I think my favorite story is I buy planes at auction and they're like sight unseen. And so you have to buy it for like parts value. And I bought a plane down here. It was maybe four years ago, and, it was one of El Chapo planes. Oh, wow. So, he had bought it. He wasn't in the plane.

01:57:39:18 - 01:57:55:52
Unknown
But there's a story on his pilot getting arrested. You know, they bought this plane. It's like this fast twin turbo prop. I'm sure I. You know what? He was going to use it for. So they got seized at the border and, you know, went to auction, and then here I am. It's like, yeah, you know, this is.

01:57:55:57 - 01:58:14:52
Unknown
So I bought it, flew it home, fixed it up, and it was on the market like one minute because like, everybody wanted to have El Chapo supply. So that's great. That's a great story. Yeah. That to me that's a super interesting like side hustle to have. And I'm assuming I'm sure you make money at it. But it's more just for the fun of it too.

01:58:15:01 - 01:58:44:13
Unknown
You know just it's like not a career right. Like I don't think I could scale with it. I definitely couldn't because there's not that many on the market. and you win some, you lose. the goal is to be net positive and get some flying time in and, you know, just have fun. so it's positive, but it's also, you know, a small fraction of my time just because you know, running opus and the daily work stuff and, you know, family and kids and cars in the garage and everything else, they all compete for time.

01:58:44:18 - 01:59:01:04
Unknown
Yeah. And I find it interesting that you've taken something like that on. And you flip cars too, sometimes you say, I noticed that on your, Facebook a lot. I'm like, what is he doing with that car? You know, or this car or that car? And, I just find that that's why I wanted to ask you about it, because I'm like, I would think he's so busy.

01:59:01:04 - 01:59:21:57
Unknown
Like, why is he messing with that? You know, it. It only took a minute for me to realize everything I put on Facebook Marketplace goes to my friend feed because. Right. You know, it's, like it started with simple cars. And then, like, I had a moment where I went through, like, the collector car series, and I was like, I would buy them on Craigslist and sell them at Barrett Jackson or, you know, Mi.com or bring a trailer.

01:59:21:57 - 01:59:47:58
Unknown
So I, I mean, I probably transacted 50 or 60 cars through the, the big auction houses selling them and stuff, and it was fine. But, you know, not super profitable and risky because when you go into most auctions, it's whenever it goes for, it goes for and like I've, I've made great money, I've lost money. Like I flip Davey Allison's NASCAR and like I, I took the opportunity to take it to McDonald's before I sold it and drove it around a little bit.

01:59:47:58 - 02:00:02:40
Unknown
It was like one of his race winning cars. And, you know, I bought it, for a great price. And I'm like, I'm going to make a killing on this. And I send it to Barrett Jackson. And the economy's a little down that month, and I lost a ton of money. So it's, you kind of win or lose.

02:00:02:40 - 02:00:21:30
Unknown
But, you know, I've done garbage trucks. Fire trucks, school busses. When Covid hit, I bought 18 school busses, like, all in a week from a school district. So I got them for like 600 bucks each. Oh, I think 2012, 2014 model year busses. just buy more. And then we had to get them home and put new batteries into them because they all had bad batteries.

02:00:21:30 - 02:00:37:33
Unknown
And then over Covid, it was, kind of a fun side hobby. Is I would have they're called schoolies, you know, people who buy busses and live in them. And it was Covid hit like they came out of the woodwork. And so every couple of weeks somebody would fly in, they'd buy a bus for me. I'd send them on their way.

02:00:37:33 - 02:00:55:26
Unknown
I mean, I made sure they were all mechanically sound. And, you know, I put some miles on it myself to just ensure that they were because, like, one couple drove, they flew from Washington and they like, they brought all the money they had, they got in the bus and they headed south. All right. That's funny. I've I've never played much with that.

02:00:55:26 - 02:01:12:25
Unknown
I bought, I bought, two cars from Copart at the same time. Not on purpose. And, it didn't go that great. it was a, I, I did it online. It was in Georgia, I think, and it was a Gt500 that had a front impact. And I was stupid because I should have had somebody go look at it or I went there myself.

02:01:12:25 - 02:01:28:17
Unknown
But I was like, I hope the engine's okay. And then while I was waiting for that auction, an F-100 came up and I started bidding on that. And it had a reserve. Yeah. And then it didn't hit the reserve. And I didn't think too much about it. And then I won the Gt500, and I probably went a little higher than I should.

02:01:28:17 - 02:01:46:24
Unknown
I got sucked into the whole auction thing. We're all standing around the TV in there and I'm like, I was battling one specific person. And, like I had of some country, probably some shill bidder or something. And I'm like, whatever, I want this car. And then, I want it. And then the next day I get an email saying, you won.

02:01:46:24 - 02:02:02:56
Unknown
And I'm like, oh, I know I won. And I'm like, no, you won the F-100. Oh, they decided to take the, lower than the reserve. So I'm like, I didn't really want that. but I actually doubled my money on that. And then the Gt500 got here and the crank had gotten the crank pulley had gotten hit.

02:02:02:56 - 02:02:21:10
Unknown
It wasn't like total loss. I, I, I still have the car, because I decided to keep the shell for, to make a real Gt500 racecar out of it. Yeah. but I, you know, I was able to rebuild the engine and make money on that and the transmission and a few other things, but I'm like, yeah, this didn't work out.

02:02:21:17 - 02:02:41:18
Unknown
I think I probably broke even, you know. Yeah, I've done some cool car cars and they're really tough because more and more there's so many sellers and buyers on there and, I have gotten an awful lot of copart cars with bad engines that said, runs and drives. Yeah. And it's like it shows up and it's knocking. It's like, oh, God.

02:02:41:18 - 02:03:08:45
Unknown
Like, So I feel like it has become a little bit of a place where people go send cars that, have problems. Doesn't mean they're all like that. But I've certainly had more cars show up with unexpected mechanical traumatic failures, engine and transmission than, anywhere else that I've bought in cars. Yeah. I like to, there's a few YouTubers that do that kind of often they buy copart cars, and I love watching those videos because I'm going to be like, I want to like, how did this guy get screwed?

02:03:08:45 - 02:03:25:44
Unknown
I want to see, like, where he messed up. I don't know. I guess, that's a little dark way to look at it. I want to see how this guy got ripped off anyway. so, I mean, what other kinds of hobbies do you get into? Or are you so busy working and the, you know, running the company, is it?

02:03:25:44 - 02:03:41:25
Unknown
Pretty much. These are cars or. I mean, all sorts of just I mean, I'm always going. And so, my wife and I, we live on a farm, and, that's why I was going to ask you. I said, you got 18 school busses home. I'm like, yeah, so I must have a big property. We live on 70 acres.

02:03:41:25 - 02:03:56:40
Unknown
Okay. our pole barn is bigger than our house, which it should be, right? It's like every car guy wants, a couple lifts and a pole barn. is that the same area you started in? I grew up in Saint Louis. Oh. So then, you know, I lived here for a while, and then I went up to Michigan, and I moved around a bit.

02:03:56:40 - 02:04:16:37
Unknown
So we're pretty settled in Dexter. And so we live on a farm. She's putting together a winery and a vineyard. So she's been planning grapes, and we're getting ready to do a tasting room construction. And I love construction. I, I built my last. How? Well, two houses ago I built it I designed and built it myself. And then the house we live in was 120 years old.

02:04:16:37 - 02:04:31:10
Unknown
And I got it in and redid it and, I think it's kind of like cars in a way. Like when you work on a car, you're going to get bloody, and it's going to like when you're in the middle of it. It's like a bad experience half the time. And then like when you're done and you get to drive that car like, man, I did that.

02:04:31:10 - 02:04:48:55
Unknown
You know, it's like that sense of satisfaction that sometimes running a company, I don't get satisfaction from a project for nine months or ever, you know. But I can go build a wall. I could frame a wall up and put drywall on, like, look at that wall. It looks great, right? And no, I'm the same way. It's just, I guess you know, that's a good thing.

02:04:48:55 - 02:05:05:56
Unknown
That's what makes us human, is like, at the end, you have something to reflect on and go. And if it was hard, it makes it better, right? If it was easy, it's like, well, yeah, the harder it is. Like when you finish it, it's more I want to get it done. And the better I feel about it when it's done.

02:05:05:56 - 02:05:23:04
Unknown
And, it doesn't matter. Like how much blood is on me. Like I'm going to feel good about that. I might not want to do it again tomorrow, but, you know, I'm going to feel good about that. And, I like that. And it's like whether it's projects on on the farm at home or, you know, kind of anything I can get into.

02:05:23:04 - 02:05:41:38
Unknown
I just love mechanics, creating things, whether even if it's something simple like a wall or more complex, like a tool, like a tuning tool, I mean, that's the same way I am. I like just taking on something new and like figuring it out. Like I got, you know, for a long time, I wanted to get into CAD and learning how to design things.

02:05:41:38 - 02:06:01:40
Unknown
And, you know, I looked into, like, some schooling for and all that, and I just couldn't do it. But then I went and bought a 3D printer. Yeah, I got free fusion 360, and I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm at the point now where I'm designing parts and, you know, doing a lot of projects with that stuff.

02:06:01:40 - 02:06:21:27
Unknown
And to me, that's the most fun thing because you basically there's nothing existed. And then you don't have the feeling to, like, create something right and right. I had never been involved in patents. And then one day we got sued for patent infringement. And, it kind of changed my view on intellectual property in the patent system.

02:06:21:27 - 02:06:37:17
Unknown
So from that day forward, every time, like an idea came to me that was like, we're going to go do this, I'm personally going to do this, or Opus or Drew's going to do this. We're going to file a patent. So last year I crossed 100 patents. Oh wow, I filed that. I'm the named inventor on and most of them are work.

02:06:37:17 - 02:06:57:32
Unknown
There's like eight patents and, you know, all sorts of different things. But like, I've got some personal wants to, like, I like to play drums and I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if I could put accelerometers and drumsticks and I could, you know, I could datalog my drum performance basically, and I could look at how many calories I burned and, you know, see if I was on time or off time.

02:06:57:32 - 02:07:22:41
Unknown
So I'm like, I'm gonna go patent that. And then like, I got a patent on drumsticks now. So, you know, like that's also like, that's totally random. Yeah. did you do anything with that or just they got the patent with it or. I got the patent about a year and a half ago, and I've been kind of waiting to see how VR and AR could play into it before I go develop a product, because I think that there's probably a tie in and maybe a continuation of that to do something.

02:07:22:46 - 02:07:42:09
Unknown
But frankly, like, I, like I have the skills to go design that product and go to market, but like, that's kind of where it goes from hobby to job. And I saw a product that they may be violating your patent. It was so I said of like ghost drumsticks that I think had a set of headphones. And you play the air drums.

02:07:42:09 - 02:08:02:38
Unknown
Really? And they could be. Yeah. And they might have accelerometers in them. So there you go. Well, that's the one. The one rule I've always had with patents is I'm never going to be a troll. And so when I file a patent it's either it's an idea I have that I want to go make. Sometimes it's, filing a patent or trying to tells you your idea is not going to work.

02:08:02:38 - 02:08:23:38
Unknown
Right. Or a bad idea. Like, I'm kind of obsessed with sleep. Like, good quality sleep. And, like, I measure and monitor myself. And I've had sleep apnea. And so, you know, have you ever woken up from, like, you wake up, your alarm goes off and it's like playing music or something, and then you go back to sleep and then, like, you're dreaming about it.

02:08:23:45 - 02:08:38:49
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So like, I was like, I want to. I want to write a patent and come up with an innovation that you can alter sleep state. So like we can detect when you're in REM and then we can play like music or sounds or something and like trigger dream events and like, this would be so cool. So I go to write a patent.

02:08:38:49 - 02:09:01:44
Unknown
Somebody's already got it. I'm like, oh my God. Oh, well, somebody else thought of it and they never went to market, but it was just filed like five years ago. So maybe we're going to see like we're starting to see earbuds that help you sleep and like the next iteration would be okay. Like, what if you could play familiar voices or memories or trigger things to happen when you're in the REM state of sleep, which is where this would all occur.

02:09:01:44 - 02:09:23:36
Unknown
But. So I had this idea I was all excited for, you know, a couple weeks and then the patent attorneys do a search and they're like, look at this. And I'm like that, all right, out of the next thing. Yeah. so is that called lucid dreaming? Is. Yeah. Because, I recently watched a video about that. And, I never really thought much about it, but then I'm like, that's happened to me before.

02:09:23:38 - 02:09:41:24
Unknown
Like, just by chance. These people were trying to do it on purpose. Yeah, yeah. Trying to, like, stimulate how can we? Because think about how much of your life is in sleep state. So what if you could then sort of alter or improve your sleep state experience? Yeah, I just had something like that happen like two days ago.

02:09:41:29 - 02:10:03:40
Unknown
I think it was like me and my wife went to bed early or were watching TV in bed, and I fell asleep. And then I woke back up and then I dozed back off. But like, I had this super weird dream and like, my mind, like, invented this whole thing, but I was like, slightly awake, but I'm like, I couldn't have been awake because where did that.

02:10:03:45 - 02:10:27:57
Unknown
Yeah, like whatever was playing on the TV possibly altered probably. And I thought about on like, where did I come up with that? And like I go, I think that's the lucid dreaming thing that they're talking about. And that made me like kind of excited. I'm like, that was cool. Like really, really cool. So, you know, a way to actually harness that and make it happen on demand would be pretty cool.

02:10:27:57 - 02:11:05:05
Unknown
So anyway, I think we're going to wrap it up. We got a good time in. I really appreciate you coming, Brian. You're having me. Great luck at, Sema and hopefully we can keep in touch on that and make Sema a household name in the performance business. Awesome. I appreciate everything. Thanks. Thanks. Bye.