November 19, 2024 • 27 mins
In this episode of the DeWinter Difference, host Derek DeWinter sits down with John (Jay) Lamm, the creator of 24 Hours of Lemons, a unique motorsport event where participants race cars worth no more than $500.
They discuss the origins of 24 Hours of Lemons, the complexities of running such an event, and the unexpected business success it has become. Jay shares anecdotes about notable participants like Neil Peart and the challenges of maintaining a non-competitive atmosphere.
They also explore the intricate IT systems required and potential future expansions of the brand. Join Derek and Jay for an insightful and entertaining conversation about combining fun and motorsport in an unorthodox way.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to the DeWinter Difference
00:26 Meet Jay Lamm: Chief Perpetrator of 24 Hours of Lemons
00:50 The Birth of 24 Hours of Lemons
03:34 Challenges and Complexities of Running 24 Hours of Lemons
06:46 The Philosophy Behind 24 Hours of Lemons
13:16 Famous Participants and Personal Reflections
16:01 Future Plans and Business Insights
20:43 Fun and Personal Anecdotes
25:52 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, everyone.
My name is Derek DeWinter andwelcome to our listeners who are
tuning into the DeWinter Difference,an audio podcast where I spend
a bit of time with incredibleexecutives I've known for years.
And you get to listen in.
I hope our conversations are unique,fun, insightful, make you think a
little, and are just long enough tolisten while running an errand or two.
Our goal is to have a little bit of fun,provide something that you can apply in
(00:23):
your own career, life, and relationships.
First things first, haveyou ever heard of a chief?
Well, today you're going to hearfrom one and that is John Lamb, chief
perpetrator of 24 hours of lemons.
And I can already hear thewheels spinning in the audience.
What's huh?
24 hours of lemons.
Let me pull back the curtain andintroduce you to John who goes by Jay.
(00:45):
So Jay, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
You're welcome.
So Jay, talk to us about who you areand what on earth 24 hours of lemons is
for those who've not heard of it before.
24 Hours of Lemons is BeerLeague for Motorsport.
Essentially what that means is, isunlike baseball and golf and, you know,
all these other things that people arepassionate about, but maybe not expert at.
(01:09):
Motorsport has always been, boy, ifyou can't compete at a certain level,
like you can't even get out there.
And that just seemed ridiculous to us.
So we created this you go tobig racetracks, Sebring, Sonoma,
you know, things like that.
You spend all weekend endurance racingyour race car against other people on
the racetrack, but you cannot spend morethan 500 on the car, which pretty clearly
(01:33):
expresses like, this is not serious.
So it's turned into something quiteserious from a business perspective,
but you know, do you rememberthe day and place or moment that
24 hours of lemons became real?
And you know, there's certainly apart of me that hopes that it was
after You know, way too many drinks,a bottle of rum and someone dared
(01:55):
you to do something audacious.
Well, you're not.
Yeah, you're not as wrong as you think.
There certainly was beer involved.
There was years ago, 20 years ago, let'ssay every Saturday, a bunch of car guys,
friends of mine, and these two mentorsof mine, guys who became mentors of
mine, Eric Zausner and Martin Swig.
We'd all get together for thislunch at a Chinese restaurant
(02:16):
and sit around, talk about cars.
And I had been throwing this idea outbecause we'd been doing these 500 car
road rallies for years just for fun.
The idea being, look, if your car doesn'tbreak down, you don't have a good time.
So let's get really cheap, crappy carsand try to drive them on the street.
I'd been thrown out this idea,like, Hey guys, like, why don't
we do this thing on a racetrack?
Cause our cars are not breakingdown as much as they should.
(02:38):
And let's go to a racetrack andthat'll make sure that they break down.
And everybody thoughtthat was the dumbest idea.
And one day at that lunch, I said,well, well, what if I called it
24 hours of lemons and everybodythought, well, it's a pun.
So sure.
Why don't you build anentire business on a pun?
And there we were.
you were double dog dared at a Chinese
Yeah.
Yes, that's exactly, that's exactly right.
(02:59):
And I have to say it was not.
Intended to be a business at all.
I had started a bunch of businesses.
I was running a business at thetime, and this just was gonna be
a fun, a fun weekend for my 12buddies around the table and me.
I had no intention ofdoing it more than once.
It was just gonna be a party, and it justkind of spun out of control from there.
That's awesome.
(03:19):
No good deed goes unpunished.
Look at you.
And all these years later.
So, I mean, we're talkingabout a lot of fun.
We're talking about.
Something that I, I absolutely gravitatetowards, although I've never been to one
nor entered a car, so you can challengeme at the end of this to do that.
Yeah, but at the end of the day, Imean, getting a bunch of people out on
a racetrack finding sites, doing safetychecks the online presence, all that kind
(03:42):
of stuff is a really complex operation.
Share some of, share someof the unique complexities.
That maybe you didn't think about it.
That Chinese restaurant when you were adouble dog there that, that over the years
you've thought like, huh, I didn't seethat one coming or that's a bigger, bigger
issue than I thought it was going to be.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'llsay a couple of things.
(04:02):
First of all, yeah, it was not intendedto be a business and it has become a
business and, and as shocking as it is tome and everybody else through no fault of
our own mind and my teams, if you countmotorsport as People sitting in race cars
racing against each other on the track.
This is the biggest racingseries in the world.
We have something on the orderof 7, 000 individuals running
(04:25):
through this program every year.
It is a very complicated business with alot of moving parts, but it's important
because it's fun and it's supposed to benot scary for people and it's supposed
to be safe and I think it is safer.
It's a safe as it can be.
There's a lot of pieces thatyou really needed to attend to.
You know, fortunately for me, Ididn't understand any of that.
(04:45):
When I started this thing, it was notintended to be a big scaled business.
So I came at it withabsolutely no preconceptions.
And I think In a business thatturns out, I was really lucky.
It turns out if you go into it withoutany preconceptions, thinking, you know,
how things work, you're in a much betterposition to figure them out from first
principles, from best practices, fromyour own observations, and not to be
(05:10):
poisoned by what the standard that'salready out there in the industry is.
So I was really lucky with that, that.
I didn't know a goddamn thing aboutputting on a motorsport event or
risk management of a motorsportevent or any of those things.
I had to learn that from the ground up.
Challenging things that have surprised me.
You spoke to the complexity,you know, the it background.
(05:34):
Of a business like this isweirdly complicated, and I
wouldn't have expected that.
The main reason is because the car in anyevent, the car is an individual entity.
It has to be tracked, andthere are certain interactions
of other entities with it.
The person, the driver is an entity,the team is an individual entity.
(05:55):
That is a group of driversin one car in one event.
The event entry is an individualentity, and all of those entities
have to interact in the I.
T.
Space to get them registered and trackedand paid and refunded and all of those
things in an incredibly complicated way.
And that's not software.
(06:15):
That is not a tool.
You can go to Oracle or to Salesforceand say, Hey, give me that off the shelf.
So as much as anything else you know,we revolve around this very complicated
piece of custom proprietary softwareto manage all of these things.
We we're running the biggest series inthe world in terms of asses and seats with
(06:36):
a full time staff of like five people.
And, you know, frankly.
I'm one of those five andI don't work very hard.
So it's, that was areal challenge to me.
And I think philosophicallymaking a competitive event for
fundamentally non competitivepeople or to have a non competitive,
(06:57):
even anti competitive environment.
Cause that's what makes beer league fun.
That was really challenging.
And we struggle with thatfrom day one till now.
How do you keep it fun?
In this context of, you know, motorsport,any kind of high level sport is
about electing an elite, treating theelite special lionizing the elite.
(07:17):
But what we're doing is offeringpeople a place to go where you're
rejecting the whole idea of an elite.
And so that tension hasbeen really complicated.
I think well, over the years,we've done a pretty good job
of balancing all that stuff.
But yeah, way more complicated than youthink a bunch of idiots and crap cans
running around a racetrack would be.
I love that crap cans.
So and it makes me immediately think.
(07:39):
Of the disdain I would havefor the haters out there who
would be like, Oh, you idiots.
Yeah.
Well, there's a lot
of a thing.
It's gotta be a
of, yeah, there's a ton.
But of course if you're talking abouta business, you really want the 99%
of the world that has fantasized abouta thing, but never had the resources
(08:00):
or whatever it was to get there.
You know, traditional motor sport.
Is really their customers are that 1percent who had the rich father had some.
I'm not going to say crazy talentbecause that's a vanishingly small
subset of how people get into it.
Had the access, had the desire,had the lack of fear to do it.
That's a really small subset, and it'sgreat that motorsport exists for them.
(08:22):
But for the 99 percent of the restof us, I wasn't that I'm sure you
weren't that person for the 99percent of the rest of us who yeah.
Saw it, fantasized about it, butreally didn't feel I can make
that mental leap and be involved.
That's the market.
That's awesome.
By the way, I'm thinking to myselfright now, if you're listening to this.
This is a more interestingconversation to listen to if
(08:45):
you have the website pulled up.
And so I'll strongly encourage everybodyout there who is listening to this to
pull up not just 24 Hour of Lemons,but also pull up the 24 Hour of Lemons.
You know, 24 hours,plural, 24 hours of lemons.
And thank you for giving me anentree to spiff the website.
Well,
up 24 Hours of Le Mans as welland put them side by side on your
(09:07):
two big screens that you have.
It's really, it's, thedisparity is fantastic.
I love it.
I love it.
So, you know, on the Path ofLife there are attributes.
Which help anyone excel.
And whether that's personally orprofessionally there are different
attributes that, that work on thepersonal side and some that work better
(09:28):
on the professional side, what are someof the ones that you would say have
made you successful professionally?
And what, and do you think they'rethe same ones that have made you?
Relatively successful personally.
I will say, first of all, becauseI think it has to be said with this
business, I was incredibly lucky.
(09:50):
You know, I, as I said, I'd start,I've started other businesses before
and I'm involved in other businesses.
Now, this one has been way morefun, way more compelling, and in
a lot of ways, way more successfulthan anything that I actually.
put together a 40 page BP andworked out all the variables.
So I was incredibly luckyin this particular case.
And I've been pretty lucky my whole life.
(10:12):
I, I think it turns out, and I didn'tknow this growing up because the house I
grew up in, we were, we were journalists.
We were media people, my family, andI didn't have any language for this,
but I'm kind of good at business.
I mean, I'm organized.
I kind of get ops on an internal level.
I'm pretty good at imagining.
Well, if a what's gonna happen?
(10:33):
B.
C.
D.
Download the rewind.
My brain's just kind of wired that way.
And so, you know, I didn't knowit at the time, but I think I was
suited for this kind of a role.
And I was lucky in thisbusiness to stumble into it.
It's much more complicated.
It involves a lot more personalrelationships and projecting out
(10:54):
what's going to happen next year.
What's going to happen out 10 years,then other businesses I've been
involved in just kind of suited to that.
I have a weird brain, really.
My brain, and I've learned thisabout myself, it seems to focus
much less on what's in front of methan I'm curious about, well, how
did that get there in front of me?
And what's going tohappen to it after this?
(11:17):
That's just kind of the waythat my brain has always worked.
And it means I can neverremember anything in real time.
But I think I have a pretty good, justa natural feel for what's Why am I
seeing what I'm seeing now and what'sthe likely outcome of what I'm seeing?
I think I'm just wired that way.
That's pretty good wiring.
Well, I mean, you use the wordluck or you reference having quite
(11:38):
a bit of luck, not just in this,but over the course of your life.
And you also use the word organizedin terms of describing yourself.
That is I've heard the termbefore luck favors the prepared.
And so I think that organization givesyou more opportunities to be lucky.
Yeah, I, I really agree.
And, and, and I try to stressthis with our customers.
(11:59):
A lot of our customers because they havewatched racing on TV, they've read about
racing, they see it on the internet.
They fall into this trap of thinkingthat racing is about the car and the car
is the least important part of racing.
Racing is 85 percent organization and it'smade maybe 10 percent driving talent and
(12:21):
it's 5 percent hardware and people comeaway thinking it's all about hardware.
Because what they're exposed to outin the world is that tiny little
fraction of teams and drivers andentities that have been so successful,
they solved the first two problem.
They solve the organization problem.
They've largely solvedthe driving problem.
What they're left with are these.
(12:42):
Fractional unimportantdifferences in the hardware.
Our guys show up.
They're not organized.
They don't even know wheretheir gas can is They don't
know where their lug wrench is.
They're off the track for 45minutes scratching their head
like where's my power drill?
I don't know what's going on and yetthey think oh if I had more horsepower,
I'd win this thing and that's justfundamentally wrong Organization in
(13:04):
all things in life, I think is that'sthe foundation that yeah you You put
yourself in a position to be lucky,but again, you also have to be lucky.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I don't know if you can disclosethis, but who is Who is the most
famous person to have entereda vehicle in one of your races?
Well, actually we do get a lot ofprofessional and very successful
(13:28):
race drivers who come through andsome of them come once and say, we
want nothing And and that's fine.
They're entitled and they're not wrong.
And then a handful of them are like,wow, this is the most fun thing I haven't
had this much fun since I started mostof those people Do not want their names
out there because they're contractuallyobligated not to do other racing series.
(13:48):
Travis pastrana is one I can mentionbecause we had a Sponsorship deal
with one of his sponsors and so he waspretty public, you know, the guy Bye
We've had some Hollywood people comethrough the guy that I really had the
most fun with was Neil Peart, who diedrecently, which is sort of tragic, but
he's the he was a drummer from Rush.
(14:08):
He.
And I'm not a huge Rushfan, but I'm aware of him.
He was one of, one of the most talenteddrummers of the last century and the
sweetest, most enthusiastic, low keyguy, which is show up flew under the
radar, would hang out and have a hot dog.
We had great conversations.
(14:28):
He liked the same kindof cars that I liked.
I miss Neil.
He was really a great customer.
That's awesome.
So as a CEO of a smaller organization,do you feel like you have to bring
a greater love or appreciation forthe product or service than say
the CEO of a larger organization?
Or is that, am I, am I off the mark there?
Well, I've never had a realjob, so I can't speak to being
(14:52):
in a larger organization.
I don't really know.
I think with a smaller organization,we are all, all of us on the core
team and let's, you know, there's fivepeople who were FTEs core team, but.
And there's a dozen primecontractors who are pretty involved.
And then every event you're pickingup 60 or 70 humans to run an event.
(15:13):
So there's a lot of people, butthe core team is definitely small.
And I think everybody in a smallcompany like ours understands the
business in a much more complete way.
Then people in a larger anybodywho's on our weekly stand up calls
could step in if I got hit by a busand could figure out how to run this
(15:33):
thing and would do a good job of it.
And I think that's great.
I mean, that's really satisfying.
Are we more committed?
Are we more passionate?
I don't know.
I mean, maybe people who show up atApple are as steeped as we are in
their little piece of it, but I thinkthat we all have a much more holistic.
I hate the word, but a much moreholistic view of well, what's
(15:55):
going on with the business?
Where's the business going?
You know, what does itneed to operate every day?
And that's pretty fun.
Well, speaking of where the businessis going, you've got races and
rallies and big online presence.
Have you looked into anything else?
Maybe things that float or
Yeah, well, we've, we've had some for you.
So this thing has beengoing on since 2006.
(16:16):
I mean, it's been a realbusiness since about 2009.
It became clear in about 2009.
Like, okay, this, this is a betterbusiness than some of the other
things we're doing right now.
But so it's been around a reallylong time and in, in all those years.
We have looked at a lot of, I callthem brand extensions and, you know,
we've talked about boats and somebodysuggested 50 horses, which I thought
(16:38):
was a pretty, a pretty funny idea.
But the truth is, and we've gone downsome of those roads and done some
extensions and some of them still exist.
We have a street rallyprogram that still exists.
We've done internationalfranchising over the years.
We have an eye racing thing that westarted during COVID that still exists,
but for the most part, What I'velearned is, you know, we have this great
(17:02):
product and we have these really loyalcustomers because they like the product.
They like what we're doing.
If you're going to wake up in the morningand pursue something, Until you have
really found every single customer whowants that product, focus on your product.
And, and, and, and, and when we havegone after these brand extensions, I
(17:22):
realized now in retrospect, cause I wastoo stupid to realize it at the time.
What we were doing was trying to workaround the fact that we bumped up to the
limits of our own in house marketing.
You know, we had, Exhausted theways we knew how to reach more
customers and instead of askingthe right question, which is, well,
okay, we've done what we know.
(17:43):
How do we find someone who cando more than we know how to do?
That's the right question.
So we can solve more of our real product.
We would say, Oh, well, whatabout an electric car rally?
What about this?
What about that?
And I mean, I'm mentioning thisbecause you guys in your other hat, you
actually helped us solve that problem.
I mean, we found a great solution.
Guide or run a marketingprogram through you.
Thank you.
(18:04):
And he's been a wonderfulguy and a wonderful addition.
And that's the right answer.
Eventually, eventually you reach everycustomer and you want another product.
But, you know, we're not there and wewon't be there for a long time yet.
So we're looking at how doyou, how do you get more people
into this program that runs?
Well, we know how to do it.
(18:26):
Thanks for the plug you minks.
That's great.
I appreciate
it's true.
It's true.
I, I, I have to say, and I haven'ttalked to you much since that hire,
he's been great and he's reallymade everybody's life better.
So thanks.
And hopefully listening.
So that's great.
No, hopefully not because I don'thave to give him another race.
so I've done a bunch ofthese podcasts and, you know,
(18:46):
typically just the spoiler alert.
Bye.
I share a little bit about some ofthe questions that I'm going to ask.
And you know, this, the next questionis perhaps the dumbest question I've
ever asked on any of these things basedon the conversation that we've had.
And it's, if you could have the samelifestyle you have today doing something
different, what would that be and why?
And I can't imagine the answer isanything different than what you're doing.
(19:10):
Well, you'd be surprised actually.
I mean, I, listen, I am fully aware of howfortunate I am and what a great business
this is in a lot of ways and how funthe people that I work with are, I can't
imagine somebody in a better position, butyour question is a little bit different.
Your question is.
You know, if it were somethingdifferent and it's the lifestyle
(19:31):
you're living, what would it be?
And we I thought a lot aboutthis and weirdly I think it and
nobody's gonna say this in 2024.
Nobody's gonna say this becauseit's a bad word, but private equity.
I mean, it's such aninteresting business to me.
I know a lot of people who are in itand and as much as that is a cursed
(19:51):
word right now, and it's something elsewill be the bogeyman a year from now.
The idea that there are all thesereally interesting businesses out
there, and a lot of them really needthe kind of skill set that I think I
have and you could preserve a lot ofjobs, and you could preserve a lot of
happy customers just by being able totouch some of these things and get in.
(20:15):
That's really interesting to me,and I didn't even know that that
was a possibility out in the world.
Until I was in my, you know, 20s,I just wasn't exposed to that.
And I think that's where I would'vewound up, in a different life.
Interesting.
I, you're right.
I would not have expected that, but if I!
unpack who you are.
Yeah, but if I unpack who you are andwhat you're good at and the things that
(20:37):
you've accomplished and Being able to wearmultiple hats as you obviously have to
It actually makes a little bit of sense.
So I'll give you some credit forfor thinking about that all right,
we get to the the fun part of theprogram here where as much as we've
had some conversations about some ofthe questions that we were going to
talk about and you're going to answer.
I, I let you ask me a questionand I have no idea what it is.
(20:58):
So I'll do my best not to put my foot
wedge deeply in my mouth,but we'll see what we can do.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a choice.
Professional or personal?
Oh, it's personal.
Personal.
Yeah.
Alright!
So, I've always had this fantasy Iwant to buy a Citroen 2CV, preferably
(21:18):
a real old one with the small motor.
They're all small, but the smallestmotor top speed is like 55 miles
an hour on one of these things.
I want to buy one ofthese on the East coast.
It take about three weeks.
You can't go on an interstate.
You'll get cream driving thisthing back to California.
You want to come.
Yeah.
I thought about I don't know that Ihave the, my back might give out my, my
(21:42):
brain might give out, but I've alwayshad a romantic notion of doing something
like that, and there was a guy that I.
Worked with years ago who did oneof these in, I mean, an insane
trek across one of the AkustansWhat's the name of that thing?
It's like it's this incredible rally
peaking to Paris.
(22:03):
There, there's one that, you know,it does what it says on the can.
You start in Peking with these oldcars or Beijing, they call it Peking
to Paris, because that was the historicname of this rally and they go through
eight or nine stands on their way toEurope and and they end up in Paris
and yeah, guys are doing this in,you know, 1938 Fords and 1952 MGs.
(22:25):
I'll do that.
I'll do that instead of the two CV.
Well, I think the the guy that I knowthat did this the point was that when
you got to where you Donated the carto whoever it was that was there.
And I think a lot of the
Oh, I like that.
I
like
ended up being like old retrofittedambulances and cars that you could
(22:46):
use like civically within thetownship or whatever it might be.
And I think by the time you got to thatplace, I'm not so sure that they were.
But the intent was very good.
Yeah, there's always scrap value.
All right.
Well, you figure out what that one is.
That's vaguely familiar.
There's a lot of these kinds of things.
And yeah, I've wanted to do that.
There's one that runs to hold theperimeter of Africa in old cars.
(23:08):
I would do that one.
I want to, I want to do one of those.
If you're in, we'll do it together.
That would be, I'm going to have totalk to my, I hope my wife is not
listening to this one because shemay immediately put the kibosh on it.
Hey, by the way, I just curiosity.
Is there any chance you guys get toFrance and do one of your races on the
track for the 24 hours of Le Manses?
(23:30):
It's interesting you ask that question.
So about 10 years ago when we starteddoing a franchise business and our first
franchisee was Australia, that's ourfirst franchise territory that that what?
Cooked along fine for a year or two,and then I got this letter from the, the
ACO, which runs, you know, owns the 24Hours of Le Mans, and they said, Hey,
(23:53):
dude, like, what the hell are you doing?
You can't do this, right?
We're going to sue your ass.
And, and my first reaction, of course,was, well, screw them, like, ah,
And, you know, I have this great I.
T.
lawyer who Mark Steiner, whoimmediately talked me off of that.
I said, dude, they're not wrong.
Of course, like youwould do the same thing.
And I, and I immediatelyrealized like, well, yeah, no,
(24:15):
actually they're not wrong.
I get that.
So we wound up workingout a deal with them.
We are able to operatewith our, with our name.
I mean, the premise was if they'regoing to fight us in every country.
That kind of IP law is differentcountry to country, and you know,
we'd win some, we'd lose some, but Idon't want to live my life like that.
That's ridiculous.
(24:36):
And the fact is, they weren't wrong.
They were right to beworried about confusion.
Particularly in non Englishspeaking countries, where the
word lemons doesn't mean anything.
So, anyway, we work out a deal with them.
U.
S., Canada, Australia,New Zealand, no problem.
If we want to work anywhere else,We have to get their sign off.
And I think that, you know,sort of implies some sort
(24:58):
of working together piece.
I always, in the back of my mind, Iwanted to get on an airplane and fly to
Paris and sit down with those guys andsay, okay, what does that really mean?
Like, do we really want to try to do this?
But as I was saying before, I gotmore, I have more immediate problems.
But, you know, I certainlynever expected and we've had I.
P.
(25:18):
We've had I.
P.
Matches now with Mattel and with Disney,both of which we won very quickly, which I
don't know anybody else who can say that.
And I think I realized very quickly,boy, life is too short to be sideways
with people about that kind of thing.
I mean, you just don't wantto be in the middle of that.
(25:38):
So I guess that's a long roundabout wayof saying, I doubt we'll be running it.
I'm soon unless I can come up withanother pun as good as this one.
That doesn't make my French friends angry.
I don't think I'll be there.
that's hilarious, but look Jay,it was an absolute pleasure.
Talking to you like this so
you.
I bet it's
(25:59):
others can listen in.
You are, I, you are absolutely thechiefest perpetrator I've ever met.
And you know, I, you've, you've got me onthe hook for thinking about doing this.
I have buddies that would sayyes in about a nanosecond.
In fact, I should have texted them allbefore we started this podcast and see
if they all said yes, by the time Iwe finished and for those out who are
(26:22):
interested in a racing beer league.
I strongly encourage youto take a look at this.
It should, it would be a lot of fun.
well, thanks very much.
And I'm going to goshopping for that to CV now.
So I'll meet you in RhodeIsland with the car.
Excellent.
We'll talk to you soon.
Jay.
Take care.
Thanks.
Bye
Hello, everyone.
My name is Derek DeWinter andwelcome to our listeners who are
tuning into the DeWinter Difference,an audio podcast where I spend
a bit of time with incredibleexecutives I've known for years.
And you get to listen in.
I hope our conversations are unique,fun, insightful, make you think a
little, and are just long enough tolisten while running an errand or two.
Our goal is to have a little bit of fun,provide something that you can apply in
(00:23):
your own career, life, and relationships.
First things first, haveyou ever heard of a chief?
Well, today you're going to hearfrom one and that is John Lamb, chief
perpetrator of 24 hours of lemons.
And I can already hear thewheels spinning in the audience.
What's huh?
24 hours of lemons.
Let me pull back the curtain andintroduce you to John who goes by Jay.
(00:45):
So Jay, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
You're welcome.
So Jay, talk to us about who you areand what on earth 24 hours of lemons is
for those who've not heard of it before.
24 Hours of Lemons is BeerLeague for Motorsport.
Essentially what that means is, isunlike baseball and golf and, you know,
all these other things that people arepassionate about, but maybe not expert at.
(01:09):
Motorsport has always been, boy, ifyou can't compete at a certain level,
like you can't even get out there.
And that just seemed ridiculous to us.
So we created this you go tobig racetracks, Sebring, Sonoma,
you know, things like that.
You spend all weekend endurance racingyour race car against other people on
the racetrack, but you cannot spend morethan 500 on the car, which pretty clearly
(01:33):
expresses like, this is not serious.
So it's turned into something quiteserious from a business perspective,
but you know, do you rememberthe day and place or moment that
24 hours of lemons became real?
And you know, there's certainly apart of me that hopes that it was
after You know, way too many drinks,a bottle of rum and someone dared
(01:55):
you to do something audacious.
Well, you're not.
Yeah, you're not as wrong as you think.
There certainly was beer involved.
There was years ago, 20 years ago, let'ssay every Saturday, a bunch of car guys,
friends of mine, and these two mentorsof mine, guys who became mentors of
mine, Eric Zausner and Martin Swig.
We'd all get together for thislunch at a Chinese restaurant
(02:16):
and sit around, talk about cars.
And I had been throwing this idea outbecause we'd been doing these 500 car
road rallies for years just for fun.
The idea being, look, if your car doesn'tbreak down, you don't have a good time.
So let's get really cheap, crappy carsand try to drive them on the street.
I'd been thrown out this idea,like, Hey guys, like, why don't
we do this thing on a racetrack?
Cause our cars are not breakingdown as much as they should.
(02:38):
And let's go to a racetrack andthat'll make sure that they break down.
And everybody thoughtthat was the dumbest idea.
And one day at that lunch, I said,well, well, what if I called it
24 hours of lemons and everybodythought, well, it's a pun.
So sure.
Why don't you build anentire business on a pun?
And there we were.
you were double dog dared at a Chinese
Yeah.
Yes, that's exactly, that's exactly right.
(02:59):
And I have to say it was not.
Intended to be a business at all.
I had started a bunch of businesses.
I was running a business at thetime, and this just was gonna be
a fun, a fun weekend for my 12buddies around the table and me.
I had no intention ofdoing it more than once.
It was just gonna be a party, and it justkind of spun out of control from there.
That's awesome.
(03:19):
No good deed goes unpunished.
Look at you.
And all these years later.
So, I mean, we're talkingabout a lot of fun.
We're talking about.
Something that I, I absolutely gravitatetowards, although I've never been to one
nor entered a car, so you can challengeme at the end of this to do that.
Yeah, but at the end of the day, Imean, getting a bunch of people out on
a racetrack finding sites, doing safetychecks the online presence, all that kind
(03:42):
of stuff is a really complex operation.
Share some of, share someof the unique complexities.
That maybe you didn't think about it.
That Chinese restaurant when you were adouble dog there that, that over the years
you've thought like, huh, I didn't seethat one coming or that's a bigger, bigger
issue than I thought it was going to be.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'llsay a couple of things.
(04:02):
First of all, yeah, it was not intendedto be a business and it has become a
business and, and as shocking as it is tome and everybody else through no fault of
our own mind and my teams, if you countmotorsport as People sitting in race cars
racing against each other on the track.
This is the biggest racingseries in the world.
We have something on the orderof 7, 000 individuals running
(04:25):
through this program every year.
It is a very complicated business with alot of moving parts, but it's important
because it's fun and it's supposed to benot scary for people and it's supposed
to be safe and I think it is safer.
It's a safe as it can be.
There's a lot of pieces thatyou really needed to attend to.
You know, fortunately for me, Ididn't understand any of that.
(04:45):
When I started this thing, it was notintended to be a big scaled business.
So I came at it withabsolutely no preconceptions.
And I think In a business thatturns out, I was really lucky.
It turns out if you go into it withoutany preconceptions, thinking, you know,
how things work, you're in a much betterposition to figure them out from first
principles, from best practices, fromyour own observations, and not to be
(05:10):
poisoned by what the standard that'salready out there in the industry is.
So I was really lucky with that, that.
I didn't know a goddamn thing aboutputting on a motorsport event or
risk management of a motorsportevent or any of those things.
I had to learn that from the ground up.
Challenging things that have surprised me.
You spoke to the complexity,you know, the it background.
(05:34):
Of a business like this isweirdly complicated, and I
wouldn't have expected that.
The main reason is because the car in anyevent, the car is an individual entity.
It has to be tracked, andthere are certain interactions
of other entities with it.
The person, the driver is an entity,the team is an individual entity.
(05:55):
That is a group of driversin one car in one event.
The event entry is an individualentity, and all of those entities
have to interact in the I.
T.
Space to get them registered and trackedand paid and refunded and all of those
things in an incredibly complicated way.
And that's not software.
(06:15):
That is not a tool.
You can go to Oracle or to Salesforceand say, Hey, give me that off the shelf.
So as much as anything else you know,we revolve around this very complicated
piece of custom proprietary softwareto manage all of these things.
We we're running the biggest series inthe world in terms of asses and seats with
(06:36):
a full time staff of like five people.
And, you know, frankly.
I'm one of those five andI don't work very hard.
So it's, that was areal challenge to me.
And I think philosophicallymaking a competitive event for
fundamentally non competitivepeople or to have a non competitive,
(06:57):
even anti competitive environment.
Cause that's what makes beer league fun.
That was really challenging.
And we struggle with thatfrom day one till now.
How do you keep it fun?
In this context of, you know, motorsport,any kind of high level sport is
about electing an elite, treating theelite special lionizing the elite.
(07:17):
But what we're doing is offeringpeople a place to go where you're
rejecting the whole idea of an elite.
And so that tension hasbeen really complicated.
I think well, over the years,we've done a pretty good job
of balancing all that stuff.
But yeah, way more complicated than youthink a bunch of idiots and crap cans
running around a racetrack would be.
I love that crap cans.
So and it makes me immediately think.
(07:39):
Of the disdain I would havefor the haters out there who
would be like, Oh, you idiots.
Yeah.
Well, there's a lot
of a thing.
It's gotta be a
of, yeah, there's a ton.
But of course if you're talking abouta business, you really want the 99%
of the world that has fantasized abouta thing, but never had the resources
(08:00):
or whatever it was to get there.
You know, traditional motor sport.
Is really their customers are that 1percent who had the rich father had some.
I'm not going to say crazy talentbecause that's a vanishingly small
subset of how people get into it.
Had the access, had the desire,had the lack of fear to do it.
That's a really small subset, and it'sgreat that motorsport exists for them.
(08:22):
But for the 99 percent of the restof us, I wasn't that I'm sure you
weren't that person for the 99percent of the rest of us who yeah.
Saw it, fantasized about it, butreally didn't feel I can make
that mental leap and be involved.
That's the market.
That's awesome.
By the way, I'm thinking to myselfright now, if you're listening to this.
This is a more interestingconversation to listen to if
(08:45):
you have the website pulled up.
And so I'll strongly encourage everybodyout there who is listening to this to
pull up not just 24 Hour of Lemons,but also pull up the 24 Hour of Lemons.
You know, 24 hours,plural, 24 hours of lemons.
And thank you for giving me anentree to spiff the website.
Well,
up 24 Hours of Le Mans as welland put them side by side on your
(09:07):
two big screens that you have.
It's really, it's, thedisparity is fantastic.
I love it.
I love it.
So, you know, on the Path ofLife there are attributes.
Which help anyone excel.
And whether that's personally orprofessionally there are different
attributes that, that work on thepersonal side and some that work better
(09:28):
on the professional side, what are someof the ones that you would say have
made you successful professionally?
And what, and do you think they'rethe same ones that have made you?
Relatively successful personally.
I will say, first of all, becauseI think it has to be said with this
business, I was incredibly lucky.
(09:50):
You know, I, as I said, I'd start,I've started other businesses before
and I'm involved in other businesses.
Now, this one has been way morefun, way more compelling, and in
a lot of ways, way more successfulthan anything that I actually.
put together a 40 page BP andworked out all the variables.
So I was incredibly luckyin this particular case.
And I've been pretty lucky my whole life.
(10:12):
I, I think it turns out, and I didn'tknow this growing up because the house I
grew up in, we were, we were journalists.
We were media people, my family, andI didn't have any language for this,
but I'm kind of good at business.
I mean, I'm organized.
I kind of get ops on an internal level.
I'm pretty good at imagining.
Well, if a what's gonna happen?
(10:33):
B.
C.
D.
Download the rewind.
My brain's just kind of wired that way.
And so, you know, I didn't knowit at the time, but I think I was
suited for this kind of a role.
And I was lucky in thisbusiness to stumble into it.
It's much more complicated.
It involves a lot more personalrelationships and projecting out
(10:54):
what's going to happen next year.
What's going to happen out 10 years,then other businesses I've been
involved in just kind of suited to that.
I have a weird brain, really.
My brain, and I've learned thisabout myself, it seems to focus
much less on what's in front of methan I'm curious about, well, how
did that get there in front of me?
And what's going tohappen to it after this?
(11:17):
That's just kind of the waythat my brain has always worked.
And it means I can neverremember anything in real time.
But I think I have a pretty good, justa natural feel for what's Why am I
seeing what I'm seeing now and what'sthe likely outcome of what I'm seeing?
I think I'm just wired that way.
That's pretty good wiring.
Well, I mean, you use the wordluck or you reference having quite
(11:38):
a bit of luck, not just in this,but over the course of your life.
And you also use the word organizedin terms of describing yourself.
That is I've heard the termbefore luck favors the prepared.
And so I think that organization givesyou more opportunities to be lucky.
Yeah, I, I really agree.
And, and, and I try to stressthis with our customers.
(11:59):
A lot of our customers because they havewatched racing on TV, they've read about
racing, they see it on the internet.
They fall into this trap of thinkingthat racing is about the car and the car
is the least important part of racing.
Racing is 85 percent organization and it'smade maybe 10 percent driving talent and
(12:21):
it's 5 percent hardware and people comeaway thinking it's all about hardware.
Because what they're exposed to outin the world is that tiny little
fraction of teams and drivers andentities that have been so successful,
they solved the first two problem.
They solve the organization problem.
They've largely solvedthe driving problem.
What they're left with are these.
(12:42):
Fractional unimportantdifferences in the hardware.
Our guys show up.
They're not organized.
They don't even know wheretheir gas can is They don't
know where their lug wrench is.
They're off the track for 45minutes scratching their head
like where's my power drill?
I don't know what's going on and yetthey think oh if I had more horsepower,
I'd win this thing and that's justfundamentally wrong Organization in
(13:04):
all things in life, I think is that'sthe foundation that yeah you You put
yourself in a position to be lucky,but again, you also have to be lucky.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I don't know if you can disclosethis, but who is Who is the most
famous person to have entereda vehicle in one of your races?
Well, actually we do get a lot ofprofessional and very successful
(13:28):
race drivers who come through andsome of them come once and say, we
want nothing And and that's fine.
They're entitled and they're not wrong.
And then a handful of them are like,wow, this is the most fun thing I haven't
had this much fun since I started mostof those people Do not want their names
out there because they're contractuallyobligated not to do other racing series.
(13:48):
Travis pastrana is one I can mentionbecause we had a Sponsorship deal
with one of his sponsors and so he waspretty public, you know, the guy Bye
We've had some Hollywood people comethrough the guy that I really had the
most fun with was Neil Peart, who diedrecently, which is sort of tragic, but
he's the he was a drummer from Rush.
(14:08):
He.
And I'm not a huge Rushfan, but I'm aware of him.
He was one of, one of the most talenteddrummers of the last century and the
sweetest, most enthusiastic, low keyguy, which is show up flew under the
radar, would hang out and have a hot dog.
We had great conversations.
(14:28):
He liked the same kindof cars that I liked.
I miss Neil.
He was really a great customer.
That's awesome.
So as a CEO of a smaller organization,do you feel like you have to bring
a greater love or appreciation forthe product or service than say
the CEO of a larger organization?
Or is that, am I, am I off the mark there?
Well, I've never had a realjob, so I can't speak to being
(14:52):
in a larger organization.
I don't really know.
I think with a smaller organization,we are all, all of us on the core
team and let's, you know, there's fivepeople who were FTEs core team, but.
And there's a dozen primecontractors who are pretty involved.
And then every event you're pickingup 60 or 70 humans to run an event.
(15:13):
So there's a lot of people, butthe core team is definitely small.
And I think everybody in a smallcompany like ours understands the
business in a much more complete way.
Then people in a larger anybodywho's on our weekly stand up calls
could step in if I got hit by a busand could figure out how to run this
(15:33):
thing and would do a good job of it.
And I think that's great.
I mean, that's really satisfying.
Are we more committed?
Are we more passionate?
I don't know.
I mean, maybe people who show up atApple are as steeped as we are in
their little piece of it, but I thinkthat we all have a much more holistic.
I hate the word, but a much moreholistic view of well, what's
(15:55):
going on with the business?
Where's the business going?
You know, what does itneed to operate every day?
And that's pretty fun.
Well, speaking of where the businessis going, you've got races and
rallies and big online presence.
Have you looked into anything else?
Maybe things that float or
Yeah, well, we've, we've had some for you.
So this thing has beengoing on since 2006.
(16:16):
I mean, it's been a realbusiness since about 2009.
It became clear in about 2009.
Like, okay, this, this is a betterbusiness than some of the other
things we're doing right now.
But so it's been around a reallylong time and in, in all those years.
We have looked at a lot of, I callthem brand extensions and, you know,
we've talked about boats and somebodysuggested 50 horses, which I thought
(16:38):
was a pretty, a pretty funny idea.
But the truth is, and we've gone downsome of those roads and done some
extensions and some of them still exist.
We have a street rallyprogram that still exists.
We've done internationalfranchising over the years.
We have an eye racing thing that westarted during COVID that still exists,
but for the most part, What I'velearned is, you know, we have this great
(17:02):
product and we have these really loyalcustomers because they like the product.
They like what we're doing.
If you're going to wake up in the morningand pursue something, Until you have
really found every single customer whowants that product, focus on your product.
And, and, and, and, and when we havegone after these brand extensions, I
(17:22):
realized now in retrospect, cause I wastoo stupid to realize it at the time.
What we were doing was trying to workaround the fact that we bumped up to the
limits of our own in house marketing.
You know, we had, Exhausted theways we knew how to reach more
customers and instead of askingthe right question, which is, well,
okay, we've done what we know.
(17:43):
How do we find someone who cando more than we know how to do?
That's the right question.
So we can solve more of our real product.
We would say, Oh, well, whatabout an electric car rally?
What about this?
What about that?
And I mean, I'm mentioning thisbecause you guys in your other hat, you
actually helped us solve that problem.
I mean, we found a great solution.
Guide or run a marketingprogram through you.
Thank you.
(18:04):
And he's been a wonderfulguy and a wonderful addition.
And that's the right answer.
Eventually, eventually you reach everycustomer and you want another product.
But, you know, we're not there and wewon't be there for a long time yet.
So we're looking at how doyou, how do you get more people
into this program that runs?
Well, we know how to do it.
(18:26):
Thanks for the plug you minks.
That's great.
I appreciate
it's true.
It's true.
I, I, I have to say, and I haven'ttalked to you much since that hire,
he's been great and he's reallymade everybody's life better.
So thanks.
And hopefully listening.
So that's great.
No, hopefully not because I don'thave to give him another race.
so I've done a bunch ofthese podcasts and, you know,
(18:46):
typically just the spoiler alert.
Bye.
I share a little bit about some ofthe questions that I'm going to ask.
And you know, this, the next questionis perhaps the dumbest question I've
ever asked on any of these things basedon the conversation that we've had.
And it's, if you could have the samelifestyle you have today doing something
different, what would that be and why?
And I can't imagine the answer isanything different than what you're doing.
(19:10):
Well, you'd be surprised actually.
I mean, I, listen, I am fully aware of howfortunate I am and what a great business
this is in a lot of ways and how funthe people that I work with are, I can't
imagine somebody in a better position, butyour question is a little bit different.
Your question is.
You know, if it were somethingdifferent and it's the lifestyle
(19:31):
you're living, what would it be?
And we I thought a lot aboutthis and weirdly I think it and
nobody's gonna say this in 2024.
Nobody's gonna say this becauseit's a bad word, but private equity.
I mean, it's such aninteresting business to me.
I know a lot of people who are in itand and as much as that is a cursed
(19:51):
word right now, and it's something elsewill be the bogeyman a year from now.
The idea that there are all thesereally interesting businesses out
there, and a lot of them really needthe kind of skill set that I think I
have and you could preserve a lot ofjobs, and you could preserve a lot of
happy customers just by being able totouch some of these things and get in.
(20:15):
That's really interesting to me,and I didn't even know that that
was a possibility out in the world.
Until I was in my, you know, 20s,I just wasn't exposed to that.
And I think that's where I would'vewound up, in a different life.
Interesting.
I, you're right.
I would not have expected that, but if I!
unpack who you are.
Yeah, but if I unpack who you are andwhat you're good at and the things that
(20:37):
you've accomplished and Being able to wearmultiple hats as you obviously have to
It actually makes a little bit of sense.
So I'll give you some credit forfor thinking about that all right,
we get to the the fun part of theprogram here where as much as we've
had some conversations about some ofthe questions that we were going to
talk about and you're going to answer.
I, I let you ask me a questionand I have no idea what it is.
(20:58):
So I'll do my best not to put my foot
wedge deeply in my mouth,but we'll see what we can do.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a choice.
Professional or personal?
Oh, it's personal.
Personal.
Yeah.
Alright!
So, I've always had this fantasy Iwant to buy a Citroen 2CV, preferably
(21:18):
a real old one with the small motor.
They're all small, but the smallestmotor top speed is like 55 miles
an hour on one of these things.
I want to buy one ofthese on the East coast.
It take about three weeks.
You can't go on an interstate.
You'll get cream driving thisthing back to California.
You want to come.
Yeah.
I thought about I don't know that Ihave the, my back might give out my, my
(21:42):
brain might give out, but I've alwayshad a romantic notion of doing something
like that, and there was a guy that I.
Worked with years ago who did oneof these in, I mean, an insane
trek across one of the AkustansWhat's the name of that thing?
It's like it's this incredible rally
peaking to Paris.
(22:03):
There, there's one that, you know,it does what it says on the can.
You start in Peking with these oldcars or Beijing, they call it Peking
to Paris, because that was the historicname of this rally and they go through
eight or nine stands on their way toEurope and and they end up in Paris
and yeah, guys are doing this in,you know, 1938 Fords and 1952 MGs.
(22:25):
I'll do that.
I'll do that instead of the two CV.
Well, I think the the guy that I knowthat did this the point was that when
you got to where you Donated the carto whoever it was that was there.
And I think a lot of the
Oh, I like that.
I
like
ended up being like old retrofittedambulances and cars that you could
(22:46):
use like civically within thetownship or whatever it might be.
And I think by the time you got to thatplace, I'm not so sure that they were.
But the intent was very good.
Yeah, there's always scrap value.
All right.
Well, you figure out what that one is.
That's vaguely familiar.
There's a lot of these kinds of things.
And yeah, I've wanted to do that.
There's one that runs to hold theperimeter of Africa in old cars.
(23:08):
I would do that one.
I want to, I want to do one of those.
If you're in, we'll do it together.
That would be, I'm going to have totalk to my, I hope my wife is not
listening to this one because shemay immediately put the kibosh on it.
Hey, by the way, I just curiosity.
Is there any chance you guys get toFrance and do one of your races on the
track for the 24 hours of Le Manses?
(23:30):
It's interesting you ask that question.
So about 10 years ago when we starteddoing a franchise business and our first
franchisee was Australia, that's ourfirst franchise territory that that what?
Cooked along fine for a year or two,and then I got this letter from the, the
ACO, which runs, you know, owns the 24Hours of Le Mans, and they said, Hey,
(23:53):
dude, like, what the hell are you doing?
You can't do this, right?
We're going to sue your ass.
And, and my first reaction, of course,was, well, screw them, like, ah,
And, you know, I have this great I.
T.
lawyer who Mark Steiner, whoimmediately talked me off of that.
I said, dude, they're not wrong.
Of course, like youwould do the same thing.
And I, and I immediatelyrealized like, well, yeah, no,
(24:15):
actually they're not wrong.
I get that.
So we wound up workingout a deal with them.
We are able to operatewith our, with our name.
I mean, the premise was if they'regoing to fight us in every country.
That kind of IP law is differentcountry to country, and you know,
we'd win some, we'd lose some, but Idon't want to live my life like that.
That's ridiculous.
(24:36):
And the fact is, they weren't wrong.
They were right to beworried about confusion.
Particularly in non Englishspeaking countries, where the
word lemons doesn't mean anything.
So, anyway, we work out a deal with them.
U.
S., Canada, Australia,New Zealand, no problem.
If we want to work anywhere else,We have to get their sign off.
And I think that, you know,sort of implies some sort
(24:58):
of working together piece.
I always, in the back of my mind, Iwanted to get on an airplane and fly to
Paris and sit down with those guys andsay, okay, what does that really mean?
Like, do we really want to try to do this?
But as I was saying before, I gotmore, I have more immediate problems.
But, you know, I certainlynever expected and we've had I.
P.
(25:18):
We've had I.
P.
Matches now with Mattel and with Disney,both of which we won very quickly, which I
don't know anybody else who can say that.
And I think I realized very quickly,boy, life is too short to be sideways
with people about that kind of thing.
I mean, you just don't wantto be in the middle of that.
(25:38):
So I guess that's a long roundabout wayof saying, I doubt we'll be running it.
I'm soon unless I can come up withanother pun as good as this one.
That doesn't make my French friends angry.
I don't think I'll be there.
that's hilarious, but look Jay,it was an absolute pleasure.
Talking to you like this so
you.
I bet it's
(25:59):
others can listen in.
You are, I, you are absolutely thechiefest perpetrator I've ever met.
And you know, I, you've, you've got me onthe hook for thinking about doing this.
I have buddies that would sayyes in about a nanosecond.
In fact, I should have texted them allbefore we started this podcast and see
if they all said yes, by the time Iwe finished and for those out who are
(26:22):
interested in a racing beer league.
I strongly encourage youto take a look at this.
It should, it would be a lot of fun.
well, thanks very much.
And I'm going to goshopping for that to CV now.
So I'll meet you in RhodeIsland with the car.
Excellent.
We'll talk to you soon.
Jay.
Take care.
Thanks.
Bye
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