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00:00Now, this was the same truck that you had at SEMA that was dubbed the Ghost.
00:03Correct.
00:04Right?
00:04For the main reason of what we called it the Ghost is because it was not an actual vehicle that was registered, right?
00:09It wasn't anything that was sold to anybody.
00:11It wasn't any of those things.
00:14Welcome to Sam's Garage, presented by NH Oil Undercoding.
00:30Nine days, 2300 miles, and no GPS, this is The Great Race.
01:00We'll meet the families and first-time drivers who keep these classics alive, from Kentucky back roads to the capital of West Virginia.
01:09Then we head into the shop at Southfield Classics to see how craftsmanship turns old metal into modern perfection.
01:17And finally, we revisit a Modavi Motorsports legend for maintenance and memories with a turbocharged Honda S2000 that's still running strong.
01:30We have 135-plus cars in The Great Race.
01:34Checkpoints along the way that they don't know in advance, and so the goal is you're going to stay on target.
01:40From start to finish, it's like family to me.
01:42So keeping it maintained, keeping it running hard, it's a complete family member. It's an experience.
01:47All the workers, all the towns that have been welcoming us.
01:50Winning an ace in The Great Race is just, it's one of the things that just lifts you up.
01:54Were we on time and everybody else was wrong? Were they on time and we were wrong? I guess we'll find out tonight.
02:00Hey guys, this right here is our SFI certified flex plates.
02:04We also have them in an Outlaw Series, which is an Outright Racing, but we've got the hardened ring gear that's on here.
02:11Also, we've got stamped and embossed. We've also got them marked up right here, so they're stamped in there.
02:17Hook up with a Boss Hog torque converter, and don't forget to get your flex plate so that you can have it all matching gear.
02:24Here we are in Lexington, Kentucky. We're on our way to Ashland, Kentucky, and we're going to be ending up in Charleston, West Virginia tonight.
02:31And how cool is this? This guy right here is 15 years old. He is driving this car on The Great Race with his permit.
02:38Very good job. I'm so proud of you. Good luck and be safe out there.
02:41So here we are. Like I said, we're at the Marriott in Lexington. We're going to be going to Ashland today.
02:47My dad always wanted to do it. Back when they very first started it years ago, dad always talked about it.
02:54And dad passed away quite a few years ago, and this opportunity came up, and I asked my brothers to join me.
03:02So there's a group of six. My brother Joe and I are in the car, and my other four brothers is our support group.
03:10Most of these really old cars require constant maintenance the entire way through.
03:15The car is magic. It's really fun. It'll do 60 or 70 miles an hour if you get turned around and have to.
03:22But other than that, it's a really great car. We really enjoy it, and we love The Great Race. It's an awesome event.
03:28I'm also known as the official auctioneer of Great Race, which is generous.
03:32I like doing some charity auctioneering. We raised $42,000 for the RPM Foundation, which is also our X-Cup.
03:40It requires about $50,000 to put the teams together and to run them.
03:44So between that and some other donations, I think we've sealed it already that the five or six X-Cup teams will be able to participate next year,
03:53which is basically scholarships for young people to run cars in this.
03:58And it's a phenomenal networking event for these kids. There are people that are titans of the industry of automotive-type jobs, restoration-type jobs.
04:07And for these kids to spend that amount of time talking about things technically, using their skills they're picking up along the way,
04:14learning how to drive, learning how to navigate, it really lines them up for lots of great things in their careers.
04:19So we're really proud of that.
04:24All right, so one thing The Great Race is filled with is great people, like the Slattery Brothers. What a story.
04:29I knew Dad before he passed away, saw an ad for The Great Race in Hemings Motor News.
04:36He used to have stacks of them all over the house.
04:38Saved every month of The Hemings Motor News.
04:41Oh, yeah. And so that ad was in there, and it was just something that he always wanted to do.
04:46Well, he didn't make it long enough to do it, and so we decided, Mike and I, two years ago, we went to Great Bend, Kansas,
04:55and they were coming through, and we went down and met them, and I was like, Mike, I want to do this.
05:01I want to do this.
05:02Well, it takes a little while if you want to get on The Great Race.
05:06You've got to be patient.
05:07It took us two years.
05:09We talked to a few people that were there at The Great Race in Great Bend.
05:12I got to talk to drivers, navigators, support crews there, and we thought, oh, we need a support crew.
05:19So then we kind of kicked around the idea.
05:22It'd be really cool if the six of us brothers, we have a sister, Deb.
05:26We did decide, okay, we want to try to get all six of us boys to go.
05:30JGS, that stands for John Gerald Slattery, and JBS, John Byron, sorry, which is our brother.
05:35Our brother.
05:35Kind of got both those guys.
05:37To ride along.
05:37To ride along.
05:38Ride along.
05:45Sam's Garage is presented by NHOU.
05:50Brought to you by the following companies.
05:52Welcome back.
06:22We're back to Sam's Garage presented by NH Oil Undercoding.
06:29We're in Charleston, West Virginia, where endurance meets emotion.
06:33From blistering heat to flawless teamwork, Magic Dave and his crew show what two decades on The Great Race really looks like.
06:43The Great Race is brought to you by Rod In Supply.
06:47We don't just sell them, we race them.
06:52We are in Charleston.
06:59This is the ending on Thursday, which is the sixth day, I think.
07:04I'm not sure because everything is running together.
07:06Like I said, guys, this is an endurance race.
07:08It's an endurance race for the cars, but really for the people, the staff, the heat.
07:13It's been really impressive this year, but we're here in the capital of West Virginia, and it's really beautiful.
07:19It's a great turnout.
07:20It's hot, but everyone has a great attitude about it.
07:23We still finished the leg.
07:25We did not get a DNF.
07:27I almost threw in the towel around lunchtime, but I didn't because Doug would have killed me.
07:32We made the day.
07:33We stopped in Ashton for lunch.
07:34It was great.
07:36Now here we're in Charleston, beautiful city.
07:38I've driven by the city so many times going to and from racing venues, and it's so cool to actually visit this place.
07:44The people are great.
07:45They've got a band for us.
07:46They've got music everywhere, and this is what it's about right here, guys.
07:49Look at the way they welcome the Great Race participants.
07:52You know what I mean?
07:52Yeah, we're right on the water, and there's tons of boats down there.
07:55It's a really good time.
08:02How did I get involved in the Great Race?
08:04Well, I was having breakfast, and the phone rang, and I had been in the Great Race.
08:10My next-door neighbors looked down on me from their porch above me at my house and said,
08:15Hey, David, what do you think about the Great Race?
08:18So I went and had dinner with them, and we talked about putting them in the Great Race with an antique car.
08:25And so they had me restore a car for them to do the Great Race, and that was 22 years ago.
08:31So this is my 22nd year of doing the Great Race.
08:34So I got the nickname Magic Dave because all of my life, everywhere I go, things start working.
08:41Because whether it's the showerhead in the shower that's spraying all over the place,
08:47or a toilet not flushing, or a radio not working right, or a car,
08:53I just can't help myself but make it work perfect.
08:57It's just the sense of accomplishment that I get the biggest kick out of.
09:01So Magic Dave became something that people started calling me.
09:11This year, my dad was unable to make it with us, so I brought my lovely bride, Dana, with me.
09:16She's been in the car a few times, and she's working really hard to get some great scores,
09:21and she just puts together an awesome job driving the 1916 Hudson.
09:26So I was happy to step in for Howard.
09:27We're really sad that he's not here, but when they asked me a week before the race to jump in as a driver,
09:33I, okay, let's go.
09:35And we even got her name on the car before we took off,
09:38that she was super excited about seeing on the side of the car.
09:41So Howard's name's not on there, but Dana's is.
09:45I don't think it really, I don't think it really differs at all.
09:48We've been married over 20 years,
09:50and so we've been working hard on our communication for that 20 years.
09:54Yeah.
09:54I think a big thing that Doug and I have really tried to work on the last couple years
09:59is really telling each other, like, oh, I appreciate that you do that,
10:03or, hey, thanks for doing that.
10:05And so Doug's been super positive on the race.
10:07She was very positive today.
10:09I knew we could get a good score, so I just kept saying, okay,
10:12we're going to make this work today.
10:13Just trust yourself.
10:14Just drive the car, know how to drive the car, positive reinforcement.
10:19So I don't think communication is really any different than when we're at home.
10:23Yeah.
10:24Doug gives a lot of really great praise, so that was, it's always nice to hear.
10:41If you guys are in the business of making power, you have an LS engine,
10:43you want some cylinder heads with some CNC machine porting.
10:47Gwotny Performance Innovation.
10:48They do an awesome job.
10:50As you can see here, they've completely decked these heads,
10:52glass beaded them, made them look brand new.
10:55Redid the guys for me.
10:56Hand lapped the valves.
10:57We've got a three-angle valve job.
10:59They'll do up to a five-angle valve job,
11:01which just actually looks like a five-angle valve job.
11:03Very nicely done.
11:04They surface all of the surfaces, meaning the intake gasket mounting points,
11:09the exhaust gasket, and they deburre the whole cylinder head,
11:13so that when you're handling it, you're not going to cut yourself.
11:16They're in Arkansas.
11:17They've been doing it for a long time.
11:19If you guys just want regular work done, they'll do a rebuild for you.
11:22If you want stages of performance done, they'll do that as well.
11:25As you can see here, I've got a CNC ported all the way through the exhaust port
11:29and all the way through the intake port,
11:31all the way down to where the bowls live, where the valve seats.
11:35They've done multiple heads for me, and I've had nothing but good luck out of them.
11:39All I've got to do is put my springs, retainers, and keepers in it,
11:42put the valves back in, and I got me a new set of Guatney Performance Innovation cylinder heads
11:46to go on my LS3.
11:47Welcome back to more Sam's Garage, presented by NHOU.
12:01At Southfield Classics, it's the details that make the difference.
12:06NOAA walks us through how welded seams, reinforced hinges,
12:10and craftsmanship transform a vintage truck into a brand new experience.
12:14We're back here at Southfield Classics with NOAA,
12:24and we're going to be talking about this Chevy truck
12:27and everything that they do that you normally wouldn't see
12:30that makes these things so valuable.
12:35Simple things.
12:36We didn't want to take away anything from the truck, obviously.
12:38There's a couple things that we wanted to get rid of
12:40that kind of made it more of a conversion
12:43that we didn't want to portray for some of our trucks.
12:46We made sure that most of all of our seams are welded together,
12:49so we're not using a whole lot of seam sealer.
12:52But not only that, they go in and they take care of structural issues
12:55that you normally would not know about,
12:57like, for instance, the door is sagging.
12:59So before the doors go on and as they're assembling the cab,
13:03you completely reinforce the hinges.
13:05Correct.
13:05We do what we do.
13:06We add a piece of round tubing in there that kind of enforces that
13:10because we do have a crossbar that holds a lot of our stuff
13:13that we put inside, you know, underneath the dash.
13:15They also go in there and make a custom striker
13:18so that the door closes and stays closed.
13:21A lot of these trucks, if you don't do that right,
13:24the door will actually open on you as you make a turn.
13:26So you've got a real striker in place.
13:28Correct.
13:28And what it does when they do the welding of all the jams
13:32and they take away the spot welds,
13:34you're actually taking the two panels that are not married together
13:37and marrying it all together as one piece.
13:39So when you're going down the road, that truck feels like a brand new car.
13:43It's tight.
13:44You go over bumps.
13:44You don't hear the rattles that you normally would.
13:46No matter how well you build a classic car,
13:49you're not going to feel that new tight feeling of a new car.
13:53Correct.
13:53You're going to do that.
13:54That's what you guys did here at Southfield.
13:55Right.
13:56And you would say to a point that we are probably a little bit more
13:59than one of those other ones.
14:00And it's mainly because all of our seams in a lot of different places
14:04are stitch welded all the way across.
14:06You know, we didn't put spaces.
14:08It's all the way through.
14:09And it's all really for the fit and finish for the paint
14:11and everything else to lay up on there easy.
14:13So you have easy transitions.
14:15Like I said, with none of that seam sealer that where you usually would put it, right?
14:19We kind of just try to weld it all in.
14:21And that's basically what we use for seam sealer or bondo.
14:24In essence, right?
14:26We clean it up enough to where it's really just minimal work to it.
14:30You know what?
14:30These vehicles are not cheap.
14:32They're expensive.
14:33And this shows why they're expensive.
14:35You guys go through and really do all the little things that make it a brand new vehicle
14:40that's nice and tight, that's luxurious.
14:42You open the door.
14:43You can keep the doors open at a car show
14:45and everything is so nicely finished like a brand new car.
14:49That's where the value comes in.
14:50And that's what it's really all about.
14:51Very important, especially that striker.
14:53I really love that because my doors have opened on my truck going down the road.
14:56You have to really slam them to get it to actually close.
14:59Yeah.
15:00So that's very nice.
15:00Now, I see that you have the 51 Suburban getting ready for paint.
15:04Yes.
15:04So you've completely taken it apart and what are you doing now?
15:08So with the Suburban, which is our other project that we do,
15:11that's part of what we call our, I guess, what we typically call in the shop our patina vehicles.
15:16It's because it's still a Chevy product and we're finishing it off with the electric components.
15:21And what we have planned for it is to make it look like conversion, right?
15:24It's intentional to look that way.
15:26So maybe we can display the differences between what a conversion would look like
15:31and obviously what our trucks look like, right?
15:33So we didn't want to take too much away from anything that we built.
15:36We tried to just add little subtle things that can create, you know, value to it
15:40instead of drawing such a big, very heavily fabricated vehicle.
15:44We still wanted to keep a lot of what it actually is, you know, intact.
15:50So you guys, you can check them out at southfieldclassics.com.
15:53Next week, we're going to be talking education, so you don't want to miss it.
16:06Sam's Garage is presented by NH Oil Undercoding.
16:10It's brought to you by the following companies.
16:23Welcome back to Sam's Garage presented by NHOU.
16:41A turbocharged S2000s three inches deep and still running strong.
16:58We're changing the oil, checking safety, and revisiting the car that helped define
17:03Madhavi Motorsports' legacy.
17:05We have an old-school client of ours.
17:09You may have seen him on the Low Car Show about five years ago when we covered this awesome
17:13S2000 that Madhavi Motorsports built in 2011.
17:16The guy behind the camera actually built this car three times because he had to have three
17:21engines.
17:22Yes.
17:22And not because of anything that Honda did.
17:24It's just bad luck, really, in this case.
17:26It was just dumb luck in sequence.
17:28But this car is awesome.
17:29We built this as a 2200, meaning a 2.2, second-gen S2000, revs to 8,000 RPM.
17:35We did a turbocharger on this.
17:37This was the fifth car that Madhavi Motorsports turbocharged as far as an S2000 goes.
17:41And you've had it for this long now, and we've done a lot of other upgrades to it as well,
17:45right?
17:45Yep.
17:45Very cool, Raymond.
17:46So this engine has an aluminum pan that's glued on, and to remove it is a real bear.
17:55So instead of making a hole for the old pan, I used a couple of fittings from Summit Racing
18:01to where it doubles as a drain plug, but also you can put a dash 8 on it or a dash 6.
18:06So when I do an old change, I first remove the drain line from the dash 8 for the turbo
18:10and let it drain out.
18:12Then I go ahead and remove this also because there's this higher step, and all the oil will
18:16not come out unless you remove this because that is the drain line.
18:19So now that all the oil is out of it, I can go ahead and put this fitting back in.
18:23We're going to take our Wicks oil filter, go ahead and put that guy on.
18:27You just want to hand tighten the filters.
18:31Now while you're up under here, you want to make sure to do a full inspection.
18:34You want to inspect the wheels, making sure there's nothing got bent.
18:36These are forged wheels so they can handle a big hit.
18:40And the last time this thing hit my lift, I put the wheels and tires on it.
18:43That was like 2014.
18:44So we're walking back here and we see the tires.
18:48And look at that.
18:50At least his alignment's good.
18:51Nice and flat.
18:53Luckily, he didn't drive it in the rain.
18:54But he's going to need two new tires.
18:56And because they are over 10 years old, even though there's good tread on the front,
19:00we might as well go ahead and replace the front just to keep him safe.
19:03Take a look at the brake pads.
19:04You can see the inner brake pads from here.
19:05You can see the outer brake pads from the outside.
19:07Nice special diffuser.
19:09I see you've hit a couple things here.
19:11Not a problem, Raymond.
19:12At least you drive your car, take a look for any leaking.
19:15And because it's a Honda, there is no leaking.
19:19All right, so maintenance does cost a little bit of money, but in the long run, it saves you money.
19:22It's very important that you do maintenance, especially when you have a high-performance car like this,
19:26where you've invested so much of your own money into.
19:29For instance, that coolant, you forget this thing's got 50,000 miles on it,
19:33but it's also 10 years old, and if you neglect coolant, being an aluminum engine,
19:37it'll create electrolysis and start eating away at the inside of the block.
19:40So you want to stay on top of your coolant, change out the serpentine belt,
19:44because it's not about mileage, it's also about age.
19:46You don't want it to break on you.
19:47Really, everything on this car is perfectly fine.
19:50You guys, like I said, it's very important that you do maintenance.
19:53If you do maintenance or stay on top of your car,
19:55you'll see things that you'd like to see before to become a disaster,
19:58like spinning out because you have no tread on the rear tires.
20:01So it's important to do the maintenance, keep your investment going for a long time,
20:05and enjoy your ride.
20:09I want to thank Raymond for coming in today and doing the old change on his car.
20:13Anytime I can pawn that off to the customer or the owner of the car, we're good to go there.
20:18So thank you for that. Good job on doing it.
20:20We found some issues that we're going to address in a couple weeks,
20:22it's going to cost you a little bit of money, but not too much.
20:25And it's cool for you to keep our children alive like this,
20:28because every car that we built at Badawi Motorsports was a piece of us.
20:31So to see this 14 years later, looking the same exact way as it did when we gave it to you,
20:37says a lot. So thanks for respecting it.
20:39Yeah, because it's our car.
20:40Yep, it is. Just like the tag says.
20:43Be sure to check out Sam's Garage on these other media platforms.
20:56Send us questions and feedback to info at samsgaragetv.com.
21:01From the heat of the great race to precision builds and timeless Hondas,
21:06we've seen how passion keeps every project alive.
21:09Join us next time on Sam's Garage, where every car has a story and every mile has meaning.
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