Operation Motorsport (Jason Leach)

Established in 2017, Operation Motorsport promotes the physical, emotional, psychological, and educational life skills necessary for recovery and reintegration of our veterans into civilian life through Motorsports. 

Operation Motorsport has three distinct roles: to provide motorsport as a recovery activity, to provide training and qualifications to return beneficiaries to work, and as relationship managers to the motorsports industry for vocational opportunities for ill and injured service members and disabled veterans.

And with us tonight is COO & Treasurer for Operation Motorsport Jason Leach to tell us all about their rehabilitation and outreach program.

===== (Oo---x---oO) =====

00:00 Operation Motorsport: Mission and Roles 00:57 Meet Jason Leach: COO and Treasurer 01:40 The Genesis of Operation Motorsport 03:46 Jason's Journey into Motorsports 05:53 Operation Motorsport's Footprint and Partnerships 10:34 Motorsports Immersion Program 13:08 Diversionary Therapy: eMotorsports and iRacing 19:12 Challenges and Support for Veterans in Motorsports 26:50 The Importance of Teamwork in Motorsport 28:26 Challenges and Opportunities in NASCAR 30:03 Joining Operation Motorsport 33:06 Supporting Veterans Through Motorsport 35:36 Volunteer Opportunities and Corporate Sponsorship 41:15 Future Plans and Events 47:58 Fundraising and Community Engagement 49:09 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
BreakFix podcast is all about capturingthe living history of people from
all over the autosphere, from wrenchturners and racers to artists, authors,
designers, and everything in between.
Our goal is to inspire a new generationof petrolheads that wonder How did they
get that job or become that person?
The road to success is paved by allof us because everyone has a story.

(00:27):
Established in 2017, Operation Motorsportpromotes the physical, emotional,
psychological, and educational lifeskills necessary for recovery and
reintegration of our veterans intocivilian life through motorsports.
Operation Motorsport hasthree distinct roles.
To provide motorsport as a recoveryactivity, to provide training and
qualifications to return beneficiariesto work, and as relationship managers to

(00:51):
the motorsport industry for vocationalopportunities for ill and injured
service members and disabled veterans.
And with us tonight is COO andtreasurer of Operation Motorsport,
Jason Leach, to tell us all about theRehabilitation and Outreach Program.
And with that, Jason, welcome to BreakFix.
Thank you, Eric.
I'm glad to be here tonight.
And joining me tonight is returningguest co host Mountain Man Dan,

(01:13):
who you might remember from manydifferent episodes of BreakFix podcast.
But did you also know thathe's a former enlisted airman?
So he's here to helptalk about this today.
Subject tonight.
So Dan, welcome back.
And as Dan will attest to the GTMclubhouse of our organization has
always been lovingly referred to asthe car club of the DOD since many
former and active duty folks, as wellas many support the U S military.

(01:36):
So this topic really hitsclose to home for us.
So Jason, let's talk about OperationMotorsport, how it got started,
the who, what, when the programand how you got involved with it.
Yeah, absolutely.
As you mentioned, we were founded in 2017out of Brighton, Ontario, and then it's
quickly into Raleigh, North Carolina.
So we're a dual organization engagingmedically retired and wounded service

(01:58):
members from the Canadian armedforces and the U S armed forces.
And we believe in three things that focuson, which is team identity and purpose.
That's something that every veteranor military member struggles
with as they leave the service.
But when you're being medicallyreleased, it's even harder because
your government is telling youyou're no longer fit to meet mission.
And depending on where you're at inyour career, that can be a pretty

(02:19):
big punch in the gut because youdon't know what's going to come next.
Where our genesis was born fromwas from the race of remembrance,
which is put on by an organizationcalled Mission Motorsport.
In the United Kingdom, they aresimilar to us, except they are focused
really more on the vocational side.
And they've got a lot ofconnections with OEMs in the UK.
They're backed by the UK government.
They are a much larger organizationand much more focused in that

(02:42):
rehabilitation vocational perspective.
So in around 2015, 2016, Dieseland his wife, Tiffany, went to the
race for remembrance, they wereinvited there and they just saw
really the power of what motorsportscan do for the veteran community.
Now, if you pause, I mean, everyveteran or military member listening
will recognize this, but for thecivilians that might be listening,
there are so many parallels betweenmotorsports and military operations.

(03:07):
You know, that small team dynamicworking towards the common goal,
you all have your lane, you allhave your job specialty, but.
When it gets down to it, you've gotto sometimes pick up that person
to your left or your right andhelp out on the day of competition.
Murphy's law is going to stepin and throw you a curveball.
You probably didn't plan for it, butyou've got to overcome that obstacle
and continue to move forward as a teamthat just resonates so well across our

(03:30):
military veteran community to wherewe see the change when guys come in
on Wednesday and load in and thenon Sunday after the checkered flag.
They are just completely different people.
They've realized, yeah, there'sstill value added, even though their
military career kind of came to an end.
Now, how I got involved, around 2019, Iwas looking to retire out of the army, and

(03:51):
I was trying to figure out what was next.
I was already interested in motorsports,I had a track car, I was doing track
days here in the mid Atlantic region,having a lot of fun doing that, but I
had to take a little bit of a pause,because at the time, my military career,
my family was taking a lot of priority.
So the car went away, thetrailer went away, all of that,
so I gave up that crack cabin.
And I started listening to podcasts.
I started researching online.

(04:12):
How do I get involved inthe motor sports world?
I had some help from an organizationcalled the commit foundation.
And really it was another podcast cars.
Yeah.
I was listening to MarkRalph off from YMSA.
Talk about the book they put out atthat time, about the 50 years of YMSA.
And his story really resonated.
I got online and went and found himon LinkedIn and reached out to him.
I was already planning to goto mid Ohio to the IMSA race.

(04:32):
I was going to be a volunteercrew member with Corp Motorsport
in the Michelin Pilot Series.
And Mark was like, Hey, come talk to me.
Give me his phone number.
And we sat down and we talked.
I've always known from a young age,from my military career, that you
make opportunities for yourself.
You have to go and seekwhatever it is you want to do.
And you can't be afraid to talkto people and tell your story.
While I was at Mid Ohio with COREMotorsport, in walked this guy in an

(04:54):
MZ uniform, red polo and black pants atthe time, and he's talking to the crew.
I hear him talking about jumping outof airplanes, and I was like, ooh,
he's a veteran, because I jump outof airplanes for my military job.
So I went to introducemyself and we got to talking.
It turns out it was Diesel Lotter, the cofounder and CEO of Operation Motorsport.
And as we were talking, he asked meif I'd heard of Operation Motorsport.
I said, I just foundhim online a little bit.

(05:16):
I wasn't medically retiring and releasing.
So I said, I'm not really theperson you're looking for.
He asked me who I was talking to.
And I mentioned, you know,somebody named Tiffany.
So he said, hold on, I walked out of thegarage, little area there and came back
in and here's this woman, same thing,in the uniform, and it was Tiffany.
We met, it almost seemed fortuitous thatafter we were done racing on Saturday,
I stayed there for Sunday, my dad livesjust a few miles from the track, and We

(05:40):
just started to build a relationship.
I really believe in the missionand what they were doing.
I saw some of the things they were doing.
Yeah, I came on board at that pointas a volunteer, and five some odd
years later, I'm still doing it.
What is the organization'sfootprint of operation?
Because I saw on your website that youguys have United States and Canada.
But you mentioned the UK as well.
Mission Motorsport is a supporterof us, but it's more of that

(06:02):
big brother type relationship.
Again, their missionis slightly different.
They don't financially support us.
They don't support us from a governanceperspective or anything like that.
They're there to kind of helpadvise and assist if we need it.
They were instrumental early on.
Tiffany went and spent, I think, a monthor two with them, kind of interning with
them to kind of understand the businessside and how they were using motorsports

(06:23):
for the UK veteran and military community.
So she learned a lot of good lessonslearned and brought those back and they
implemented that into what we are today.
I mean, even if you look at ourlogos, our logos are kind of similar.
I mentioned the race for remembrance.
We're going to launch a veterans racefor remembrance in November of 2025,
a similar type format with a 12 hourendurance race over veterans day weekend.

(06:45):
That's their remembrance day weekend.
Our footprint across Canada and the U S.
There's no geographical limitations.
If there's somebody in Fort Liberty,they're going to partner with a
team and they're going to go out toSonoma Raceway, we get them there.
We don't see a lot ofback and forth from the U.
S.
to Canada or vice versa unlessthe race schedule calls for that.
Also on your website, I'd mentionmedically retired or retired veterans.

(07:08):
Now, I was curious, does it alsoopen to veterans that didn't retire?
Because like myself, I only served ashy of eight years and got out, but I
do have service connected disability.
So we try to identify the servicemember before they leave the service.
That in and of itself can be a bittough because each branch of service
does things a little bit differently.
And a lot of that reallydepends on what your Rolodex is.
We do work with the USO on someoccasions and try to identify

(07:29):
people through some of their tracks.
But if you're a veteran, wetry to find people who are
less than 10 years released.
For And they will have had tohave gone through the VA process
or the equivalent of in Canada.
They just have to have aservice connected rating.
We don't target like a 50 percentor 80 percent or a hundred percent.
We don't target just post 9 11,although that's really the case.

(07:51):
Nowadays, you know, for the majority.
But we're pretty open in theveteran or the military member.
It doesn't have to haveany particular skill set.
They just have to have an interest inmotor sports or they grow an interest.
So I can remember we had one guy showup and he thought he was coming to like
a car show and little did he know, puton a team uniform and he was slinging
tires that weekend with the race team.

(08:11):
Yeah.
They just have to have aninterest in motor sports.
It resonated with me when youwere talking about everybody
had their own individual role.
But the reality is there's that endgoal that everybody's working towards
together, even though you have adifferent role to get there, the objective
and the mission is still the same toget to that end point as a civilian.
There's not many companies andstuff that have that sort of
mentality to where you have thatteam that gets together to do that.

(08:32):
And I think my experience in the track andlike the paddocks and all the different.
No matter what discipline I've beento, motorsports in general is a close
knit community, much like the military.
Yes.
It's a small world.
You might meet somebody one place andthen not see them for years and see them
halfway around the world and be like,hey, I remember you from this event.
And it's one of those things, too,where your reputation precedes
yourself across the paddock, right?

(08:53):
Your reputation, if you're agood crew person, that's going to
get promulgated to other teams.
They'll pick that up really quickthat your value add and then you
become a commodity to where otherteams might be trying to pick you up.
It is so cool to see.
I mean, for me, when I'm around theguys or whatever, it's like being in the
team room again, where you get some ofthat banter back and forth that I never
got in the civilian jobs I worked with,even when I was around other veterans.

(09:16):
It's just the civilian marketplaceis just, it's just different.
Rather bland.
Sometimes a little more PC.
Definitely.
You guys mentioned veterans.
Are there any specific ones you guysare geared towards reaching out to?
On your website, it mentionedthe horrible statistic about
22 veterans a day taking on.
I've had numerous guys I've served withor known through military service that

(09:36):
unfortunately have taken their lives.
So, that hits, you know,real close to home for me.
Is there a way that other than theindividual themselves reaching out to
you, do you guys have any sort of likereferral to where like, Hey, I got this
person, would you be willing to reachout to them to see if it's something
that they'd be interested in doing?
A lot of it's word of mouth.
I mean, right now we don'tfollow up under the VA.
We are working towards tryingto get more of a established
relationship with the USO.

(09:58):
But generally speaking, people findthis either word of mouth or we've
started to do a little more outreach.
We were just at the militaryinfluencer conference for the
first time this past year.
We've been to PRI acouple of different times.
We're a small organization.
We don't have a huge budget.
So getting in physically intosome of the places where we'd like
to go can be a bit challenging.
And then sometimes it's.

(10:18):
It's a matter of people trulyunderstanding what we do because when
they look at the website or they firstsee it, right, they see the race cars and
they think, okay, there's an opportunityhere to become a race car driver.
There is and there isn't.
So let me back up and let's talk aboutthe programs a bit more in depth.
The Motorsports ImmersionProgram is our bread and butter.
That's where we spend a lot of our effort.

(10:39):
That's where a lot of ourlimited funding goes to support.
Motorsports immersion is takingsomebody and putting them in to become
a crew member with a race car team.
That's 90 percent of it.
They can also go into tech.
They could go into marketing,hospitality, photography, videography.
If you look at everything from a businessperspective that takes place inside
of a paddock during a race weekend.

(11:01):
Minus putting somebodyin the driver's seat.
We have a partnership where we know peoplethat can make an opportunity for somebody.
So Dan, such as yourself, if youwere interested in getting into
race control, let's say we knowpeople in race control and we could
potentially find an opportunitywhere you'd come in almost like as an
intern or on the job skills training.
And that's where you would be for up totwo race seasons, learning everything

(11:24):
there is to know about race control.
And I'm going to talk about one guy.
His name is Matt Smotherman.
He was a medically retired U.
S.
Army major, and he came to us.
First started off in tech, had, hehad some back issues, so it kind
of held him back a little bit ondoing some of the physical stuff.
But.
The opportunity came up to gointo race control at SRO, and
he hit it right off the bat.
I mean, he describes it as feeling likehe was back in that tactical operations

(11:45):
center for deployed with all the computerscreens, all the information coming in,
having to make decisions to execute therace at the end of his second race season.
SRO offered him a paid position to wherehe's now doing that moving forward.
We've seen people get offered positionswith actual race car teams at the
end of their season, or for some ofthem, they do their two race seasons
and they realize that they're betterhuman beings or better fathers or

(12:07):
better brothers or better sisters,better mothers, whatever it might be.
So they take those skills and theyapply it back to their normal life.
Back home with the family, you know,because, I mean, let's be honest, if you
look at like an IMSA schedule, that'sa lot of traveling throughout the year.
You look at an SRO, not quiteas heavy, but still a lot of
traveling throughout the year.
That can be pretty taxing on afamily, especially when they think,

(12:29):
Any, your military service came goodand end yet you're still out there.
You're going all the time.
Some of them do that.
And then within the motor sports immersionprogram, and I want to make sure your
audience understands what I say, there'san opportunity to potentially try.
In the past, we've had partnershipswith different race schools and we
look at like the race of remembrance.
We've been able to put someof our beneficiaries into the
race car for that one event.

(12:52):
When we look at what 2025 is goingto look like with the Veterans Race
for Remembrance, that's still a goal.
If the beneficiary has the right racelicense, there's an opportunity for them
to actually get into the seat and drive.
Just like every other driver, they've gotto go through the process of a race school
and race licensing and whatever it may be.
Then our second programis Diversionary Therapy.
Here you can drive all youwant, but it's virtual.

(13:13):
We do e motor sports or iRacing.
We run an iRacing league.
It's a private league gearedprimarily towards veterans and
military members, whether they'rebeneficiaries with us or not.
So Dan, you do good.
If you're in iRacing, you couldjoin us for our next race season.
That's going to kick off,I think, in February.
And we run an eight week raceschedule, but what we found, it

(13:33):
was born out of COVID, when thebig racing world shut down, we had
to find a way to stay connected.
So we came up with this idea, tooksomebody else's playbook and said,
okay, let's adapt this to our own,create our own online racing league.
What was surprising about that, notonly just creating a place for people
to virtually come together, we founda new subset of veterans we would
otherwise never have found becausethey were in the e motor sports

(13:56):
or they're in the e sports world.
They're not the ones necessarilycoming to the event, or they may not
be the ones who feel comfortable yetkind of stepping away from the safety
and the sanctuary of their homes.
Matt Sumner was one of those guys.
I don't say he wasn't willing to stepaway from his home, but I don't think
we would have found a guy like Mattto go from iRacing to now helping out

(14:17):
in SRO race control on a paid basis.
I mean, that's a pretty cool story.
Motorsports Immersion, thatseems to be solely focused.
on the beneficiaries being veteranswith medical status issues,
disability claim, or whatever.
But did I understand correctlywhen you said the iRacing portion
of it's open to any veteran?
It is.
So we run three classeswithin our iRacing program.

(14:37):
So we have our beneficiary class.
So those are people who arecoming through our program.
Go through the same recruitment process,if you will, you know, the VA rating or.
Medically releasing, medically retiring,what have you, or if you're over that
tenure mark, let's say, yeah, youcan come on, you just come on board,
join our discord channel, fill out aform that says, you know, basically I
won't be complete idiot out on track.
We pride ourselves in the iRacingcommunity that we police ourselves.

(15:00):
But that we hold ourselves to a prettyhigh standard that we have clean racing.
We have people in our iRacing programthat are brand new to the platform, to
guys that are running in some of thehigher iRacing one off event type things.
We have professional drivers fromIMSA or SRO and FEL that come in
and join us periodically becausethey're friends of the community.
We see a huge skill level between that.

(15:22):
Every driver's meetingis completely emphasized.
Hey, I got it.
You know, somebody mightbe brand new here, but give
them grace, give them space.
And we tell the new guys, like it's atrack day, like be predictable on track.
That's how you communicatewith other drivers.
Plus we've got the discord channeland people are talking back and forth,
but yeah, so we've got the beneficiaryclass and then we have our open class.
It's pretty much everybody else.
And then we have our pro class.

(15:43):
And that will be dictated upon, areyou a rear door race car driver?
What is your eye rating?
What is your safety rating?
Certain levels would dictate thatyou would move into that class.
And then we've seen enough of ourbeneficiaries actually grow in
their eye racing skills to wherewe created a pro beneficiary class.
They're running the same cars as thepro class, except they're just in

(16:04):
a different subclass, if you will,kind of like the real racing world,
we run a professional livery, we runsponsor decals on all the cars, right?
We try to give it the look and the feelas if it's a real racing event that you
might see in an MZR or SRO or FEL pack.
When I was stationed over inEurope, one of the things, this
was back before online gaming andHalo 1, you could set up multiple.

(16:28):
So within USAFE, they set up a thingthroughout the European bases to where
there were competitions at each base, andthen they had us go to Germany for finals.
Each base said their best.
If you guys have had a chance to reachout to bases to see if there's something
they could, you know, get out therefor troops on the bases to participate.
So we were working withthe USO North Carolina.

(16:50):
They had a couple of donated simrigs in one of their centers.
They were joining us.
Brian Knight was the guy whohelped put that together.
And Brian's still involved with uson the iRacing side and whatnot.
So there's that piece of it.
There's also, I know it's some ofthe military organizations have their
own e sports organizations as well.
We've reached out and talked tothem to let them know who we are
and give them an open invite.

(17:10):
Kind of like sports car racing in theUS, where it's a very niche thing.
I think even in the e sports world,iReducing is a very niche thing.
We are looking to expandthose, some of that stuff.
One of the things we've talked aboutdoing is, again, we're doing primarily
sports car racing, but if we were tobreak that open and, uh, let's go do
a NASCAR league, because there's alot more people interested in NASCAR
than there are in sports car racing.

(17:32):
You know, maybe we dosome things like that.
And we also use some of oureMotorsports for charity events as well.
You've mentioned a coupledifferent racing bodies, whether
it was SRO or IMSA, et cetera.
So it sounds like you leanpretty heavy towards road racing.
Are there any other organizationsthat you're affiliated with?
Are there other disciplines of motorsportthat veterans get involved with?
Let's just say drag racing, dirt, offroading, you know, things like that.

(17:55):
So our goal is to be the leader in themotorsports world for all veterans.
That's a long term goal.
We're not quite there yet.
We're primarily only focusedon sports car racing.
So the three main seriesright now are IMSA, SRO, and
FEL Motorsports up in Canada.
There probably will be someadditional stuff coming on board,
specifically on the Canadian side.
And when it comes to the drag racing,when it comes to off road, we would

(18:18):
love to be in those places, but wejust don't have the bandwidth or the
capacity to expand too heavily into them.
That doesn't mean that if somebodycomes to us, And he goes, Hey,
that's what I'm interested in.
We know some people to helpmake those connections.
In the nonprofit space, I learned earlyon, sometimes when you start talking to
other nonprofits, and how do they do this?
How do they do that?
Can we partner?

(18:38):
They start to see you as a threat becauseevery nonprofit is fighting for the
dollar in order to support their programs.
We look at it a little bit differently.
We are not your competitionfrom that perspective.
How you guys get your financingis how you get your financing.
Good luck and Godspeed, but Iwant to know about your programs.
I want you to know about our programsbecause at the end of the day, we're
all serving the same community.

(18:59):
If somebody comes into OperationMotorsport that's a vet and
wants to get into off roadstuff, that's not what we do.
But here's some resources.
Let me help you make that connectionto those people who are doing that.
Cause we know some of those people.
So when you make those connectionswith those organizations and
you get folks placed, how doesit work on the other side?
Meaning on the receiving side,you described it as like an

(19:21):
internship, learning on thejob, those kinds of things.
Is there some sort of playbook that youoffer the organizers or the teams to say,
Hey, look, we've got a service disabledveteran coming in, you know, maybe with
these types of accommodations that mightbe necessary, et cetera, that sort of
How do you educate the teams on thepeople that they're bringing on board?
It's a constant piece ofcommunication right now.

(19:41):
I'm working to get stuff goingfor 2025, reaching out to teams,
sending them a small deck.
This is who we are.
This is what we do.
This is why we do it most importantly.
And here's the benefits forboth sides of the organization.
Here's what you're responsible for.
Here's what we're responsible for.
And then every activation we have, andthis is one of the things that limit us
from really expanding into other formsof motorsport right now, is We have an

(20:03):
event coordinator on site at each event.
If we just have one beneficiary inwith a race team, let's say at an
SRO race, somebody like me, somebodylike Tiffany is going to be on the
ground there for a couple of reasons.
One, we're there to kindof be that safety net.
If something happens, we'rethere to help defuse it.
Unless you served or unless you'relike a first responder, some of the

(20:25):
challenges that some of these guys orgirls have, it's hard to understand
because you haven't walked in their shoes.
The paddock could be in a placewhere things get triggered, you
know, whether it's the smells offuel or taking you back to a motor
pool while you were deployed, right?
Or, you know, the loudnoises or the sudden noises.
That could trigger something that bringsup a bad memory or a bad experience.

(20:45):
We've seen it.
Sometimes the crew members justdon't quite understand what
the individual's going through.
So that's why we have a staff memberor volunteer on site to kind of
put your arms around the individualand go, Hey, it's going to be okay.
We got you.
You know, we're here for you also tohelp defuse anything with the teams.
You know, the other side of it withthe team, specifically getting into
motorsports can be a pretty daunting task.

(21:06):
You know, there's a lot of peoplethat want to go do that kind of stuff,
but they don't know how to do it.
Sometimes our beneficiaries arealmost looked at as a threat.
To some of the crew membersbecause they don't understand why
the team is partnering with us.
So we're there to helpeducate them on that.
This is a good news story.
This is a good brandingstory for your team, right?
They're not here to take your job.
They're here just to learn how to dothis stuff because it helps them feel

(21:29):
a part of something again, right?
So here's your opportunity, Mr.
crew member or Mrs.
crew member to show them what you do.
Give back to the community.
Be a part of the solution.
Be a part of helping the movement.
forward.
We're there as the eventcoordinators to keep an eye on them.
But then we're also theremarketing and branding of the
organization, talking to teams.
Hey, how can we work together?
Maybe later on the season or ifit's, you know, already kind of

(21:51):
midway through the season, howdo we do something next season?
How do we create opportunities?
Sometimes we'll get up in frontof drivers meetings and give a
quick Five minute elevator pitchabout who we are and what we do.
Again, generate knowledge becausewhen these guys or girls go in with
their teams, they're wearing the sameuniform that the team members are.
There's nothing on them toidentify them as a veteran.
There's nothing on them to identifythem as an Operation Motorsport

(22:13):
program participant, becausethat's part of that identity.
That's part of being in that teamis looking like everybody else.
So they blend in to everybody.
So we don't really stand out.
So it's one of those things wherethat's so important to us that
we're not going to change that.
At the same time, sometimes froma branding perspective, nobody
knows who you are because theydon't recognize the organization.
And you mentioned earlier placingsome people that had no idea, like

(22:36):
what racing was about, what motorsportentails and things like that.
Yeah.
Take somebody like Dan, who his MOS was.
Working on helicopters and airplanes.
And he was on the flight lineand he's mechanically inclined
and all that kind of thing.
So to drop him or anybody, like yousaid, in the motor pool, into a racing
scenario, they're going to get it.
It's all going to click.
We're turning wrenches, changingtires, we're filling fuel.
But in those instances with the teams,how do you help them get over the,

(23:00):
Oh man, we just brought on somebodythat has no clue what they're doing.
Is there a continuing educationfor the beneficiaries?
Like, how do you get them up tospeed in the world of motor sport?
We start off with our Academy program.
That's just an online puncherthrough PowerPoint slides.
Right.
And we first start off with justtrying to get them accustomed to the
lingo, you know, the language, right.
Anytime any of us have ever steppedinto a new organization or a new.

(23:24):
One of the biggest barriers iscommunication, and that's usually because
each industry has its own way of talking.
And unless you've been aroundit, you know, you don't know what
Castor is, you don't know whatCanberra is, you don't know what
tow in or anything like that, right?
So it takes a while to learn some of that.
And sometimes that frustration comesfrom not understanding what somebody is
saying, which creates its own challenges.
So we've taken it upon ourselves totry to help just from that perspective.

(23:47):
And then we try to give them anoverview of what the weekend's
going to be like, right?
We're trying to get them comfortable.
I mean, if you go into, let's sayyour first time you're getting
thrown into an Amazon WeatherTechteam at the Rolex, you're getting
tossed in the deep end really quick.
But because of the relationshipswe have with the teams, we
assess what are the team's needs.
Are they looking for somebody, maybelike a Dan who has some mechanical

(24:09):
background that's going to help makethat transition a little bit easier?
Or do they want somebody to just, theydon't care, they want a green horn.
They might not know what a, thedifference between a Phillips and
a flathead or metric and standard.
Some teams are willing to takethat, because what they'll do, what
every, what we ask every team todo is give them a battle buddy.
Give them somebody that's going toshadow them and watch them and kind
of hold their hand a little bit.
through the process.

(24:29):
And we also temper the expectations,though, with the beneficiaries.
So again, I'm going to pickon Dan here a little bit.
It comes from the aviationcommunity, comes from that
mechanically inclined background.
He understands complex systemsand setup and all that stuff.
Well, you know what, Dan, your firsttime into the team, you might be
handed a rag and a cleaning bottle andgo, Hey, just go wipe the car down.
Everybody has to take a step back on thebeneficiary's side and understand that.

(24:53):
Whatever you did in the militaryis great, or if you come from the
motorsports world, or maybe you'redoing track days, maybe you got your
own garage and doing stuff like that.
Anytime you get into a new teamin the military, it was like this,
at least for me, you've got totake a step back and you've got to
earn your way to be there again.
It doesn't matter where you camefrom, that team is going to do
things a little bit different.
So core motorsport andMichelin Pilot Series.

(25:14):
Might do things a little bitdifferent than an archangel.
That's also a mission and pilotseries, but different cars, different
crews, different things, right?
So you can't always take what oneteam does or what one experience
is and expect it to be a direct onefor one translation to another team.
So you got to eat a little bit of humblepie and check yourself, but that's
part of earning your way onto the team.
And then once you startto earn that trust.

(25:35):
Then you start to see more opportunitiescome about within the team, where they'll
start to give you more tasks, they'llstart to give you more responsibility.
I know I've mentioned Matt a coupletimes now, but his first day, or his
first week, I think, in SRO Race Controlwas like, Hey, you just sit here and
watch, and just listen, and absorb.
And now, He's gotten to the point wherehe's actually running certain parts of it.
He's got that level of responsibility.

(25:56):
So is your goal also to flush outif any other vets exist on the
teams now and use that as yourpart of your battle buddy system?
Yeah, we have.
I mean, I can think of a guyby the name of Adam Roberts.
When we met him, he waswith Skip Barber Racing.
He was an Air Force veteran and he got it.
I mean, he understood already,but then also to hear him tell his
own story when he was like, youknow, nothing like this exists.

(26:18):
I wish it did because it would havehelped him in some of his own journey.
There are a lot ofveterans in the paddock.
So yeah, we, we lean on them as wellto kind of help the individual, because
again, they understand they get itin nine times out of 10, they really
appreciate what we're trying to do.
Even us, whether in seasonedwrench turners and stuff at one
point started out as a gopher.
So yeah, so you got to start somewhere.

(26:39):
So it's one of those things, as longas people are willing to learn and Take
the initiative, jump in there and do it.
It's like, for me, I love motor sports.
And Eric knows I talk people'sears off all the time when it
comes to anything vehicle related.
And you know, what's funny aboutmotorsport compared to other sports.
And a lot of people sometimes don'tqualify motorsport as a sport.
It's literally in the name.
There is physical exertion.

(26:59):
You know, we don't need to getonto that soapbox, but it is
one of the few team sports.
In the sense that the team must worktogether to get to that common goal.
Now you could say that about football, youcould say that about basketball, but at
the end of the day, you've got superstarsand you've got second strings and you
got this and that in racing, yes, you'vegot the pilot or the driver, it's the

(27:21):
whole team behind him or her that makesthat driver and that car successful.
So it's a completelydifferent echelon of teamwork.
And that's where I feel thatwhat you guys are talking about
really resonates with the veterancommunity, dropping these folks in.
There's a moment of change, butI think it comes rather quickly.
I think you can adjust a motorsportmuch faster than you could.

(27:41):
I'm going to make you a defensivecoordinator for the Ravens.
And you're like, wait, what?
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And in the motorsports levels we'reinto, again, I know I mentioned
like games and weather tech.
I mean, that's the cream of the cropwhen it comes to sports car racing.
But if you look at some of theother teams, like SRO with even
some of the mission pilot, they'rea bit more grassroot type teams.
So there's a bit more willingness.

(28:01):
to let somebody new come in, right?
Well, for a couple reasons.
One, our beneficiaries cannot acceptany compensation for their time.
It's strictly their volunteerOJT type stuff, internship.
If I'm a new team owner, I'm fightingfor money race to race, and you're going
to give me somebody who wants just tohelp and be productive and is a good fit?
Yeah, I'm going to take that becauseit helps me out from that perspective.

(28:22):
But also, some of those guysare just learning as they go,
so they can learn together.
Now, we get asked sometimes,let's say like NASCAR.
Are you guys in NASCAR?
Well, I can tell you here, NASCARin the US, those crew members, a
lot of them are like their top tierathletes coming out of college, D1
schools, whatever it might be, right?
That's a hard place to come inand bring a newbie, somebody
who's never done it before.

(28:43):
It'd be like F1 or IndyCar, right?
I mean, that's a much higher level.
It's not to say the guys or the girlscan do the job, but I think it comes
down to more, there's so much moremoney in those sports from a brand
perspective or marketing perspectivethat drives a lot of decisions.
Because the nice thing about NASCAR isthat as the sixth and seventh generation

(29:04):
NASCARs are coming out, you know, the carof the future, and now the next gen based
on the garage 56 car we saw last year,what you begin to realize is it's starting
to converge with the sports car world.
And so the skills that they'll pick up.
Through SRO and IMSA and thingslike that will translate to
the new generation NASCAR.
So it's actually a great place to cutyour teeth while NASCAR is trying to

(29:27):
figure out how they're going to evolve.
These lines are going to getreally, really blurry here
in the next five years or so.
But it brings up a reallyinteresting question.
If you talked about Matt a couple of timesand how he's become more involved in race
control and he stayed behind past his twoseasons and now he's got a paying gig.
Is there anybody else that's gone beyondmaybe to SRO in Europe or gone off to WEC

(29:47):
or some other disciplines of racing oncethey kind of graduated from the program?
No, this is the best of my knowledge.
We haven't seen anybody that's gone reallybeyond the series they were introduced to.
We might see somebody go fromIMSA or SRO or SRO to IMSA type
stuff, but we haven't seen anybodyreally branch out beyond that.
Well, you know, what we haven't talkedabout yet, Jason is how do you become

(30:07):
part of the operation motor sports team?
How does that whole process work?
The vetting what's involved?
It's pretty simple.
It starts off first by completingan interest form on our website.
And when you get to our website,you'll see two landing pages.
You'll see a U S page and aCanadian page for the most part,
they're mirrors of each other.
There's just some nuanced stufftowards each specific country.
If you go on our webpage, you'll seethe big red button that says apply.

(30:29):
Now that brings up an interestform that you'll fill out.
It just says some basic content.
Which then, once you send, hitsour inbox, and then that goes
to our beneficiary trustee.
Currently, it's Darren.
And Darren will review yourstuff, and he'll reach out to
you to have a conversation.
Why are you reaching out?
What are your goals?
What are you struggling with?
What is your time commitment?

(30:50):
When we talk about IMSA or SRO or evenFDL, right, we're looking, ideally,
for a 75 percent time commitment.
What's your life like right now?
Can you support that?
Can your family support that?
Because the team is making aninvestment into the individual.
And that's why we ask for at leasta 75 percent time because you're
going to be a part of that team.
Ideally, you'll become a lotof value added to that team.

(31:11):
And they want you to,could you elaborate on 75%?
Does that mean like make it to threeout of four races of the race season?
If we're starting off with, let'ssay Rolex with IMSA in January
and 75 percent of the season,taking you to Petit Le Mans.
And then once we kind of have a good feelfor who you are, what's going on, you copy
your DD 214, have you gone through theVA process, if you are not still serving,

(31:33):
then we'll go into a longer application.
And at that point, then we'restarting to look to see where we
can fit you in, what teams mightbe available or what interests you.
If you want to do photography andvideography, finding an opportunity
is going to be a little bit differentthan if you just want to get out to
a, if you want to get into marketing.
Again, that's going to be adifferent conversation with somebody.
So some of that can ebband flow as far as timing.

(31:53):
Timing is everything.
We typically don't activate after aboutthe halfway point of the season, depending
on what the individual is looking for,because the race teams themselves are
already very well solidified and they'reideally working very well together.
It starts to become a bit of adisruption by introducing a new
person halfway through the season.
Doesn't mean it can't happen.
It just depends.

(32:14):
There's an exception for themost part of everything I say.
That's pretty much the process.
We've activated somebody as quickly as.
A couple of days to where we've had somefolks that have had to wait, trying to
find them an opportunity where they mayhave had to wait a couple of months.
We're talking about SROright now, looking at 2025.
Well, their racing seasondoesn't start until March.
I might have somebody that comes to usin the fall of 2024 and I can't give

(32:38):
you an opportunity until March of 2025.
Some of it just comes down to timing.
So you mentioned it'slike an unpaid internship.
Is there any sort of way tohelp offset the cost of travel?
Cause you mentioned to yourself,the schedule is all over the place.
We'll use SRO, you know,used to start in St.
Petersburg and then they're offin California and then they're
in Texas, then they're in NewYork and all over the place.

(32:59):
And so with the cost of flights and hotelsand all that, I mean, that's a lot to
bear when you're not making any money.
So how do you help to offset that?
So it's zero cost to the beneficiary.
They don't pay for anythingunless they want to buy a t
shirt or souvenir at the track.
Any costs they incur as part oftheir travel, they're reimbursed for.
Fuel to and from the airport.
Parking at the airport.

(33:19):
Like the government or the DOD, right?
You've got to have yourreceipts for everything, but you
basically file a travel voucher.
Once they're with the team, theteam picks up the care and feeding.
The team provides their credential,whether it's an annual or a single
event, depending on where they're at.
The team picks up their lodging.
They live with the team.
It is part of being a Merson doll.
So the team is responsiblefor a lot of that.

(33:40):
Operation Motorsport,we cover the flights.
To and from, again, nogeographical limitations.
If there's somebody in New York that's gotto go down to Sebring, we get them there.
Kota, or wherever, right?
We get them there.
Right now, we're partneredwith Fisher House.
They've been a huge supporterfor us on the flights.
We would have a hard time executingour program with the amount of
people we have active right now if itwasn't for organizations like Fisher

(34:02):
House stepping in to help support.
And there's always theopportunity for you.
for a beneficiary to, let's say,ride along in the truck, right?
If they're in that type ofsituation, you don't have to fly.
You could be riding with the teamas they're transporting the cars.
You could, you'd probably only tendto see that if just by happenstance,
the beneficiary is co located inproximity to where the team is at.
SRO, AMSA guys, they tendto be kind of scattered.

(34:23):
A lot of the crews are flying crews, sothere's very few people that actually
have a shop that live and work on them.
But yeah, that's always a possibility.
I saw a post.
And it's stated that 98 percentof donations directly support
the veteran recovery program.
Yes.
As a veteran, I want to give some hugekudos on that fact because so many
other organizations out there havedisappointingly gotten to where they

(34:44):
have minimal percentages of donationsactually going to support us as veterans.
On behalf of the veterans, I'd love tojust say thank you on that because you're
not using the veteran community as agrip for you guys to fatten your pockets.
We are not and I can tell you thatis something that we hold true
and we will continue to hold trueto as an organization regardless
of financially how we grow.
We are run primarily by volunteers,even as the COO and as the

(35:07):
treasurer for the organization.
I am a volunteer.
I am not compensated for the time I give.
My compensation comes fromhelping solve problems.
My compensation comes from helpinggive other people opportunities.
The veteran is my way of giving backafter serving for so many years.
So yeah, one, thank you.
I appreciate that.
That won't change.
Our overhead, those who do draw a salarywith the organization, the pot of money

(35:29):
that they're paid from is from a grant.
It does not come from theprivate donations that come in.
What about corporate sponsorship?
They're an opportunity for companies toget involved or even for companies to
volunteer their folks to come help out.
Absolutely.
We are always looking for ways tocreate more corporate partnerships.
We have some already withlike a Michelin or mobile one.

(35:49):
We have good partnerships with them.
What we have found in the motorsportsworld, when you walk through that
paddock, there's an illusion of money.
There's a lot of money in the paddock,but the money is going to the racecars.
It's generally not going to thepeople who are running everything.
But that sometimes gives a false illusionthat because we're in that world, We've
got all the money in the world to dowhat we do, and frankly, we don't.

(36:11):
We could help so much more if we couldcreate more financial programmatic
support from different corporations.
So yeah, we welcome those conversations,those who want to get back.
If there's a veteran ERGs, employeeresource groups that want to get
involved, we absolutely welcome that.
We can have volunteers come outand support some of our events.
I'm sure we'll talk about theVeterans Race for Remembrance here

(36:31):
in a little bit, but that's goingto be a big event where we're going
to be keen on needing volunteers.
A corporate donating or corporatematching programs, you know,
sometimes those who want to comeon board and volunteer as well.
I know I used to work for Microsoft andfor every hour I donated to Operation
Motorsport of my time, Microsoft wouldgive them X number of dollars per

(36:51):
hour to this unreachable cap at theend of the year, which is awesome.
So I think the same programs out there.
You know, we're in fidelity charity.
If people want to donate that way, ifpeople want to donate stock, we can
take stock and help support our program.
So there's a lot of different waysthat people can get involved and help
financially support the organization.
So other than corporate sponsorship,like individuals, cause there's a

(37:12):
lot of people that support veterans.
Is there a spot on your website orpeople to reach out for, say, someone
that only can donate five bucksor something like that to help you
guys out to help a veteran in need?
Absolutely.
You can go right onto our website.
At the top of the page, there's a bigred donate button that will take you to
that portion of our website where you candonate as little or as much as you'd like.

(37:33):
On the U.
S.
side, it is a tax deductible per whateveryou and your accountant have agreed.
You will receive a tax donation for all U.
S.
side.
And then as of January 1st, we will have.
The equivalency of 501C3status in Canada through CRA.
So that's going to be a hugepotential game changer for us,
especially North of the border,because that's been a hold back.
There's a lot of corporations or there'sa lot of individuals that want to give

(37:56):
back or they want to donate, but sometimeswe're looking for that tax letter.
So come early 2025, we'll no longer havethat restriction on us inside Canada.
I sometimes feel likemoney's the easy way out.
It's like, all right, I'm goingto go hit that big red button
and I'm going to donate 20 bucks.
It's going to make me feel good.
You mentioned a couple of timesOperation Motorsport volunteers,
and that's where the rubber hitsthe road is volunteering your time,

(38:18):
getting up off the couch, getting tothe track, you know, whatever it is.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout the volunteer opportunities.
How can we help Operation Motorsport?
Where do you need help?
Program managers, event coordinators,people who want to go and support the
veteran at the event, you know, help dothat, website administration, marketing,
writing, helping tell the story, branding.

(38:38):
When you look at our organization onour, basically who's who in the zoo side
of it, you're going to see quite a fewfolks, but like every small organization,
there's really just a handful of folkswho are executing the day to day stuff.
So if there's anybody listening and wantsto reach out info at operation motorsport.
org or just hit the volunteer button,it's a blue button on our website.
We'll have that conversation.

(38:59):
And I think it's also importantto remember when you think about
the volunteer opportunities thatthe audience that we're talking
to, that's listening to this.
Isn't necessarily in our demographic.
There might be a lot, andthere are a lot younger folks.
So if you're in a position where youneed to clock service hours for your high
school or for your college or whatever itis, you want an opportunity to volunteer,

(39:20):
and especially if one of your relatives oryour parents are in the service or retired
and serve, this is a great opportunityto be involved in that community.
As a kid.
So that's where I was sort of thinkingabout this is what are those jobs?
There's plenty of opportunities.
I think there's plenty of people outthere with talents and they could
plug into this, become part of it.
Yeah.
If I could get somebody to come on boardand help me how to take advantage of

(39:42):
tech talk, definitely welcome that one.
For the beneficiaries, youmentioned like a time commitment.
Is it the same with your volunteers?
Yeah.
Let me use myself as an example.
Like if I can only be present at one trackto be like a liaison firm and everything.
We would probably have somebody else therewith you, because part of being the event

(40:03):
coordinator at the track is you startto build a bond with the beneficiaries.
To have somebody come in for just onetime out of the year, maybe not, we
would most likely have somebody with you.
The other thing we are looking todo, kind of how you guys found us
at Waukesha Squad, I think it was,for we were doing, A little bit of
marketing and branding outreach.
We had our pop up and I think Diesel'scar was there and stuff like that.

(40:23):
So that's an opportunity to volunteer.
There'd be a lead up.
How do you tell the story?
That'd be an opportunity tovolunteers to come and help man our
booth and help people understandwho we are and what we do.
Plenty of options forpeople to help volunteer.
That's a great thing.
Yeah, there's plenty and therecould be things that I'm not
even thinking about that.
Again, let's use a cars and coffee.
For example, maybe you're in aregion of the country where that's

(40:44):
a thing and you want to give back.
Well, let's talk about how you couldmaybe host a cars and coffee with
proceeds that benefit operationmotor sport, lead that in your own
community to benefit the organization.
That's another opportunitythat could potentially be there
from a volunteer perspective.
When you're saying the fact.
It, you know, there's eventhings you haven't thought of.
Do you guys, by chance on your website,have like a suggestion box for people drop

(41:05):
suggestions and things that could help?
No, it's a good idea.
I'll bring that up with our webmaster.
And sometimes crowdsourcing ideas canlead to stuff you haven't thought of.
We'll switch gears into our final segment.
Let's talk about.
Let's talk about the futureof Operation Motorsports.
Since you're the COO and treasurer, what'sthe two, five, maybe 10 year outlook?
New programs for 2025 andbeyond, new initiatives.

(41:26):
You talked about the race of remembrance.
What's going on?
Ideally, if I was to look at whattwo to three years down the road
looks like for Operation Motorsportsspecifically in the US, I'd like to
build regional communities or centers.
That's one thing that it's kindof sucks, frankly, with being
geographically dispersed that wedon't have a brick and mortar anymore.
What if we were to create regionswhere beneficiaries in the Midwest can

(41:50):
come together for special events orthat peer to peer support type things,
or host a cars and coffee, or hostsomething that gets people more involved.
But we're going to need a volunteer baseto really help build something like that.
Long term, again, it's creating moreopportunities for more veterans,
more potential beneficiaries.
Our goal, minimum, is to have 10beneficiaries in every race across

(42:12):
each series throughout the season.
If we can get there, that's a huge win.
And if we can grow that,we'll happily grow that.
We'd love to have somebodyin with every race team.
But for 2025, I'd say the big thingwe have coming up, it's called
a Veterans Race for Remembrance.
Now we just got back from Angleseathis past November, where we campaigned
two GT86 cars, a US and Canadian.
It was Mission Motorsports 10thyear of running that event.

(42:33):
I think it was our 7th.
It was also our final year.
So for 2025, we are bringing in theconcept and the idea of the race for
remembrance to Virginia InternationalRaceway over Veterans Day weekend.
So that will be November7th through the 9th.
It's going to be a 12 hour endurancerace for over two days, much like
it is at Anglesey, but we're goingto blur it a little bit in the sense

(42:53):
that for the UK, for Canada, it'stheir Remembrance Day, which is
the equivalent of our Memorial Day.
For the U.
S.
side, it's Veterans Day.
It's a celebration of veterans.
So what we're going to do is we're goingto put together an event that kind of
merges those two things a celebration ofveterans We want to create an opportunity
to have like a veterans resource fairor a military resource fair there to

(43:14):
track Give some of these companiesan opportunity to maybe engage with a
different product Part of the veterancommunity at a racetrack, which is
something that might be kind of foreignto them, but could be kind of cool.
At the same time, we're gonna have acouple different support race series.
Mustang Cup has committed.
We're in final discussions right nowwith the second support race series.
Is that would be like anSRO event or an SSA event?
Yeah, so it is a one off.

(43:35):
USAC is gonna be the governing body.
We are still finalizing whatthe class structure is gonna
look like for the 12 hour race.
I would anticipate it's going to bea mix of some of the stuff you might
see in like a WRL level and someof the stuff you see in an MSA SRO.
Because I'm also an officer within theVFW, do you guys welcome out like VFW and
American Legion people come out to tryto bring their members out to see this?

(43:58):
Yeah, we can definitely talk about that.
You know, it's a matter of time.
Just timing and what's goingon, depending on the event.
I mean, we could potentially work with apartner to kind of give a little bit more
of a hospitality or VIP type engagement,depending on the number of people.
We did work with Michelin a coupleof years ago at VIR and the boss
program out of Fort Liberty.
Michelin carried a lot of that weight,but we stepped in to help them execute

(44:19):
a little bit of that event wherethey had single soldiers come out
and we helped host them a little bit.
All that stuff's possible.
The nice thing is.
With people like Tiffany and Dieseland their contacts and our reputation
within the series and whatnot is mostof the series are willing to help.
They want to engage the veteran community.
They don't always know how and that'swhere we can help bridge that gap.
So for any of our listeners thatmight be interested in participating

(44:41):
in that event, Is that something thatyou look forward to seeing on your
website for being able to register for?
Yeah, well, once we get everythingfinalized with USAC on the class
structure and the timings and whatnot,then yeah, registration will open
and we'll start accepting teams.
You know, the other things we're goingto try to do there too is encourage teams
to host a beneficiary for that event.
We want to connect with the militaryveteran community that might be

(45:02):
interested in seeing what it's like tobe on a race car team for a weekend.
You know, we haven't quite figured outhow we're going to do that yet, but
again, you might have listeners outthere that want to go, Hey, I might
be interested in something like that.
And one race weekend, you might justbe wiping a car down and be a bit more
of a spectator in the pits, or youcould actually be setting up tires.
I don't know.
It depends what the team needs.
But yeah, we want to engage and givethe veteran or military community

(45:24):
something to do that weekend,other than just be a spectator.
Well, I'll definitely say from the manytimes I've been down to VIR, any of
our listeners that haven't ever beenthere before, they want to come out
just to support the veteran community.
It's an awesome track.
It's beautiful scenery.
It really is a nice location.
Yeah.
And we're going to have someother things down there too.
You know, we're going to dosome go karting down there.
We'll do some hot laps, most likely.
I mean, I think we're going to partnerwith a couple organizations for like

(45:46):
a 5k track walk or run type thing.
It's going to be more than just racing.
We're talking about maybe a comedy show.
We're talking about maybea concert of some sort.
So it's going to be really athree, four day event where we
want to engage the military veterancommunity across Virginia, North
Carolina, up to Washington, D.
C.
I mean, we've got people from the U.
K.
that are talking about coming overbecause they know about this, but, you

(46:09):
know, from anywhere across the country,come and spend your weekend with us.
Learn more about what we do andtake part in a really cool first
ever veteran focused motorsportsevent on Veterans Day weekend.
VIR has been a great friendof ours for a number of years.
That's where we had our firstactivation in 2017 for Operation
Motorsport on the US side.

(46:29):
It was at Virginia International Raceway.
So it makes a lot of sense.
That was our first activation in the US.
Well, now let's do our firstveterans race for a member.
It's at VIR.
Plus VIR is just such a cooltrack anyways to be at in the fall
of VIR is absolutely beautiful.
That's the big thing.
We were going to be focused on this year.
In addition to everything we've gotgoing on inside of IMSA, SRO and FEL.

(46:49):
You mentioned before the GR86 cup cars.
And I was wondering, is there anyambition for Operation Motorsport to
build their own team using the veteransthat they've trained on all the other
race teams after all these years?
That conversation comes up at least acouple of times out of the year, right?
The closest we've seen right now is acouple of folks that have come through
our programs, or there were driverswith us at the Race for Remembrance,

(47:12):
gentlemen drivers, they've put togethera team where they're trying to do some
stuff like in WRML level to put somethingtogether without more branding on it.
And again, they have the support.
Operation Motorsport, you know,where we could not so much
from a financial support, morefrom a thank you type support.
And then the other thing we've looked atthough, to do those work again with other
teams or other organizations that mighthave teams out there that are doing more

(47:34):
of the racing stuff and trying to connectthose coming out of the motor sports
immersion program into those arenas.
Because again, if I'm running a WRLteam or even a champ car, chunk car
type, right, and if you tell me, Hey,here's a guy or girl, they just came out
of spending two years at a IMSA team.
Or SRO team, there's a lot ofknowledge potentially coming in
with that individual that could helpa grassroots race team take it to

(47:56):
the next level that much faster.
And since we're talking about beingforward looking, you guys also do
an annual online auction and you dosome things around Giving Tuesday.
You want to elaborate on howpeople can get involved and
what the auction's all about?
For us, it's one of our biggerfundraising events out of the year.
In conjunction with GivingTuesday,we run an online auction.
It kicks off on Wednesdaybefore GivingTuesday.

(48:17):
It runs until the Tuesday.
But a lot of cool motorsporttypes events are items.
Some of them are one off.
Unique things you're not going to getanywhere else unless you maybe you're
already a part of the motor sports world.
We have what's called themobile one oil drop award.
If you're not familiar with that, it'san acrylic piece that mobile one puts
together in conjunction with Corvetteand Corvette racing, where they have
drops of the actual oil used in theCorvettes throughout the race season.

(48:40):
And then they got the littleacrylic Corvettes on there.
Really cool thing.
Unless you're part of that racing world.
That's not going to show upmagically under the shelf.
We've got some driving experiences.
If you want to go run a dark coursein Charlotte with Ford Performance
Racing School, we've got someNASCAR experiences this year.
We've got tickets to Indy 500.
We've got tickets to the Superbowl.
So it's really some kindof cool, unique things.
We're trying to expand it.

(49:01):
We've got a bunch of gift baskets,things that may be of interest to others,
other than just motor sports, right?
We're trying to expand as we go to ourauction here to reach a larger audience.
Well, Jason, we've reachedthat part of the episode where
we like to invite our guests.
to share any shout outs,promotions, or anything else
that we didn't cover this far.
Follow us on Facebook, follow us onInstagram, follow us on LinkedIn, you

(49:21):
know, website, Operation Motorsport.
org.
Get involved.
And at the end of the day, ifit's not going to be with us, get
back to the military and veterancommunity in some shape or fashion.
There are a lot of these guys orgirls that could really use your help.
We all have our own individual stories,but there's one common bond that ties
everybody together, and it's that service.
And once that service ends, It can be adifficult road depending on where you're

(49:42):
at, so if you see somebody struggling,just reach out and lend a helping hand.
By competing and racing andworking together in motorsports
hospitality, Operation Motorsportengenders a real team ethos.
As previously mentioned, every day 22veterans tragically take their lives.
A donation of just 22 to OperationMotorsport can provide a beneficiary
with a recovery opportunity.

(50:03):
To learn more and to donatetoday, be sure to log on to www.
OperationMotorsport.
org or follow them on social at OpsMotorsport on Facebook and Twitter
at Operation Motorsport on Instagramand Operation Motorsport on LinkedIn.
If you'd like to personally reach outto Jason, please feel free to email
him at info at operation motorsports.

(50:24):
org.
And with that, Jason, I can't thankyou enough for coming on break fix
and sharing your story and helping toeducate us on operation motor sport
and the absolutely incredible thingsthat you guys are doing to give back
not only to the motor sports community,but to the veteran community as well.
And like I said at the beginning,this is something that is near and
dear to our hearts here at grandturning motorsports headquarters.

(50:47):
So again, a big.
Huge thank you to what you're doingand keep up the good work and we
hope to see you in the 2025 season.
Yeah.
Thanks again for having me.
Sorry.
Took so long for us tofinally make this happen.
No worries.
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of break fix podcasts brought

(51:07):
to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
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(51:29):
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(51:51):
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