What Moves You | Speedway Motors Podcast

Bob Larivee, Sr. was born in 1930 and grew up in the Motor City. His father was a painter and Bob’s interest in the automotive industry started with the Soap Box Derby. He was studying to be a dentist, but his career path took a drastic turn.  

In the early 1950s, he got into cars and racing during the golden age of racing that many only dream about. In November of 1959, he started Promotions Incorporated with his brother ...

Steve Strope had multiple magazine features, lots of media coverage, and a top 10 car all before he had a shop or even a garage. What started out as a humble operation with a Craftsman 3-drawer toolbox out of his apartment parking garage, lead him to unveiling his first car at SEMA with Chrysler.

Steve Strope opened his shop, Pure Vision, in 2001 and has kept that same mentality from the early years. You don’t need a big shop to bui...

Elana Scherr didn’t find her way into old cars as early as most. In fact, she didn’t even get a driver’s license until she was 21. Then she picked up a cheap Duster and, with a little help from her friends, learned not only how to drive it, but also how to fix it when it broke. When she met her future husband Tom and started making passes at the dragstrip, she was hooked.

Many of us came to know Elana from her time spent on staff at...

David Newbern was always into cars, but he wasn’t always into cars on-camera. That is, until someone named Mike Finnegan moved nearby and needed shears and a finger brake. 
 
Growing up, David tagged along with his father to every car show possible, watching while his dad worked a kind of car guy magic to trade cars on the spot. They’d show up in one, and drive home in another, which happened as many as 20 times. His father...

In the early 50’s Peter Vincent saw a car that changed his life forever. 
 
He was a 6th grader standing on the corner for junior traffic control when a lowered, drop top Merc pulled up with frenched headlights, nosed and decked with a smooth bumper and no grill. Needless to say, it made an impression. He has been hooked on cars ever since, and his passion stayed with him as he bounced from mechanical engineering to archite...

Kyle Kuhnhausen sweats the small stuff.  
 
Over the last seven years, Kyle has built a reputation for showstopper builds made up of incredible details tucked behind every corner. Even the parts you can’t see are cool. Take for instance the water pump he made for his upcoming LT4 Corvette project. It’s a D-cast water pump converted to clamshell hydroflow, beautiful in its own right. Kyle has carved out his name building car...

Growing up at a speed shop doesn’t give you the “normal” childhood.

And when your parents were Bill and Joyce Smith, founders of Speedway Motors, your life looks radically different than most kids. Whether it’s piling parts in the rafters, sitting at a table with Carroll Shelby, or driving an Excalibur back to Lincoln, Nebraska, from Virginia, life comes at you fast.

That was life for Carson, Craig, Clay and Jason...

Brian Limberg didn’t set out to become one of the most sought-after metal shapers and coach builders in the automotive industry. He just wanted to build cars.  
 
But since opening The Tin Man’s Garage, he has been recognized by many, including the Al Slonaker Memorial award in 2020, for mastery of his craft in metal shaping, coach building, and chassis engineering. Even the tools he’s built himself over the years are now i...

Jess grew up helping her dad’s crew build a Streamliner. After the build and upgrades were complete, the whole family would road trip out to the Salt Flats to crew. In the final year, on its final run, the MacKichan/Schulz Streamliner set a new landspeed record. Streamliners make for an incredible childhood, but it wasn’t until later that Jess realized her family was pretty special. Not many people grow up with a parental figure as...

Emily and Aaron Reeves have always known they wanted to run a business together. After Emily’s successful modeling and acting career, as well as a Aaron’s previous business becoming harder to run, they sat down to figure out a new plan. They both loved cars, Aaron has enough experience to build anything, and Emily had a ton of marketing and small business experience. 
 
A Youtube channel made sense. They could combine their...

For our final episode of Season 2, we speak with a legend. But Ed Iskenderian isn't just a legend--he made his mark at the birth of hot rodding and has been shaping its course ever since. Isky came to visit us during the Speedster Reunion at the Museum of American Speed and was kind enough to give an interview in front of a live audience. 
 
We hear about the birth of hot rodding, the post-war automotive explosion, and...

Most people know Ian Roussel from MAVTV’s Full Custom Garage. He created of Space Junkie, Space Junkie 2.0, and so many custom hot rods it’s difficult to keep track. Ian grew up mashing together every Monogram kit he could dig out of the local garage sale. He graduated to tricking out his grandmother’s VW Bug with elbow grease and a J.C. Whitley catalog. Later, he hit the West Coast seeking glory. He found it in the form of a hot r...

Hundreds of drivers in each class converged on Boone Speedway for the 2021 IMCA Super Nationals. On Saturday, September 11th, four made it to the top of the podium. We talk to four IMCA Super Nationals winners about what it takes to win and the challenges they overcame to get to the top of the podium. This season's crop of champions are younger than ever before, with the average age of Saturday’s features at about 21. In fact,...

Steve Magnante joins us to talk altered wheelbase cars, drag racing history and so much more. If you don’t know Steve, he’s the writer of the definitive “How to Build Altered Wheelbase Cars," host of “Junkyard Gold” with David Freiburger and the Roadkill guys, one of the voices behind Barrett-Jackson auctions...among everything else.
 
While Steve maintains a staggering knowledge of all things cars (he walked into the...

If you’ve opened an issue of Wheel Hub, you get it.  
 
Stephen Kim and Robert McGaffin have created a publication dedicated to awakening the next generation of car fanatics. To do it, they give each build twenty immaculately crafted pages, just as carefully arranged and captured as the builds themselves.  
 
In an age when the words “print is dead” are heard more often than not, Stephen and Robert have created an i...

Racers know the name Schnee Chassis, but not many know how Brian Schnee started, or how he grew Schnee Chassis into such a fabled racing brand. In this episode of What Moves You, we go way back with Brian Schnee to his first race, his first chassis, some incredibly good fortune, a terrible tragedy, and the secret to building anything well for decades. He'll be the first to tell you there’s no magic to his racecars, just attent...