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082: Matt Beenen tells us how he climbed the ranks to become President of GrimmSpeed
Matt Beenen has always been interested in how things worked and his parents facilitated this fascination. As he grew up, Matt was interested in vehicle technology and pursued this passion by getting a Mechanical Engineering degree in college. He got involved with the SAE Mini Baja team at college. This gave him insight into teamwork, scheduling, and actually manufacturing a race vehicle. After college, Matt got a job at BAE Systems and worked as a systems engineer. On the weekends, he modified and raced his 2006 Subaru STI. This is where he met some of the GrimmSpeed employees. An...
077: Jens von Holten shares his story of sailing from South Africa to the Americas and eventually purchasing Fuel Injector Clinic.
Jens von Holten grew up in Cape town, South Africa during apartheid. While this was pretty difficult, it did open his eyes to understanding how other people experience the world. He received his Mechanic Engineering degree from the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town and had aspirations of becoming an engineer for a racing related company. His first position at a race team was the humbling job of sweeping the floor! Jens was willing to do anything to prove himself so he set out to be the best floor cleaner ever. This quickly materialized into promotions within the team and...
076: Ryan Basseri from Rywire details how he grew his custom wiring business
Ryan grew up in Monterey, CA and enjoyed the car scene of that area. His really got into cars was with a Honda CRX back in 1999 and began doing modifications and even engine swaps. He moved to San Jose for college and continued working on his passion for the CRX’s. He started a small wiring business out of his apartment during college to makes small looms and sub-harnesses. This started to grow and Ryan decided to leave college to devote his time to the wiring business. He moved into a house with some friends and turned the place to...
075: Brian Tooley, the founder of Brian Tooley Racing, tells us how he went from hand porting heads in his apartment kitchen to running 5-axis CNC machines
Brain is a self-proclaimed geek who spent most of his early years at Radio Shack. He was very interested in electronics and building model rockets. Never did he imagine that he would be programming machines to port heads for some of the fastest cars out there. When Brian turned 18, he joined the Navy and bought a Z28 Camaro. This sent him down the path of performance cars. In 1993, he started Total Engine Airflow and started porting heads. He then began working for Holley Performance doing product development. He didn’t last long at this job due to disagreements with...
Episode 073: JJ Jabaji used to flip cars to make a buck. Hear how he transitioned into building billet Subaru blocks at IAG Performance
JJ entered the car scene by helping friends out with audio and alarms. When he went to college, JJ opened up a small car audio shop. During his senior year of college, he started working with a friend who owned a performance shop in 1996. Before he finished college, he realized that he needed to devote all of his efforts into the performance shop and decided to work there full-time. Fast forward to 2004 and JJ has started his own shop. He began buying and flipping cars to make some money. This morphed into buying and selling just Subarus...