We’re thrilled to publicly welcome Jesse Hasson to our team as the new Shop Porter and Apprentice Race Technician. Jesse started back in September and has been getting up to speed and helping the Racer on Rails wheels continue to churn. Jesse’s journey into the world of racing and car mechanics is not just a career choice but a lifelong passion that has been nurtured from a young age.
Jesse’s love for cars and racing sparked early, growing up with a wrench in hand alongside his father. “From the day that I replaced the water pump in our family truck alongside my dad, I knew that working on cars was my lifelong passion and hobby,” Jesse shares. This early experience laid the foundation for his deep-rooted love for all things automotive.
Further honing his skills, Jesse attended Renton Technical College, where he immersed himself in the world of car mechanics. His time at Renton wasn’t just about learning; it was about embracing the complexity and beauty of what makes cars tick. Jesse’s education went beyond textbooks, delving into the practical, hands-on experience that is crucial in our field along with helping on side projects around the shop and working during the race weekends for a while before he officially joined.
But Jesse’s ambitions don’t stop at just fixing and maintaining cars. He dreams of being behind the wheel, competing on the race track. “It is also my lifelong dream to one day competitively drive race cars,” he says with determination. This dream adds an extra layer of enthusiasm and understanding to his role with us.
As our new Shop Porter and Apprentice Race Technician, Jesse brings not just technical skills, but a genuine passion and understanding of the racing world. His role is pivotal in helping the shop operate properly and to help us maintain the high standards of race cars that we manage, ensuring they are in top condition for every race and event.
We believe that Jesse’s passion for racing, combined with his budding technical knowledge, makes him an invaluable addition to our team. His journey is a testament to following one’s passions and turning them into a career. We can’t wait to see the contributions Jesse will make to our team.
Welcome to the team, Jesse! The race track just got a little more exciting with you on board.
Licensed Road Race Car Driver Dyno Benefit – Annual Pre/Post Dyno Run
Our purpose, the reason we exist is to help people go racing, achieve their goals, have fun and make memories of a lifetime. The sport isn’t cheap either so as a way to help every racer’s dollar stretch the most it can, we are proud to offer a benefit for all road racers (including Time Attack) where a sanctioned racing license is required.
Pre and Post Season Power Hour for $250 + taxes
If you are a licensed (active and valid license) road racing driver or team, for an extra $55, you get two dyno power hours so that you can head into the season knowing how much power your car is making and at the end of the season, know how much the performance has changed, which can than inform your off-season maintenance, repair, or upgrade plans.
Note: Car on the dyno is in storage mode – making room of every inch of space where we can!
Details
Pre-season dyno runs must be scheduled and executed by June 31st of each calendar year
Post-season dyno runs must be scheduled between October 1st and December 31st of each calendar year
Both Pre and Post-season dyno runs should be scheduled at the same time
Post-season dyno run can be rescheduled 1x with at least a 2 week notice
No refunds if post-season dyno run is not executed by the end of the calendar year due to a no-show or scheduling issues on the driver side. If due to circumstances on the Racer on Rails side a post-season dyno run needs to be rescheduled more than 1x or past the end of the calendar year, there will be no incremental cost to the driver.
Benefit applies to a single unique driver for one race car. e.g. if a licensed race car driver has multiple race cars, this benefit can be used only for one race car per calendar year.
Any road racing or time attack/trials license where a driver must demonstrate safe operation of a race car on-track before being licensed and pay an annual due is accepted.
Examples of accepted competition licenses: ICSCC, SCCA, NASA, FIA, WRL, SRO, IMSA, AER
Thanks to the support of all our drivers and friends, Racer on Rails has been growing with the big move to our new shop space at Pacific Raceways, an expanded racing calendar (we are currently scheduled to be racing in all but on month in 2023 (December)) and to keep up, we brough on an additional Race Car Technician (Tyler Mayer) and now we’ve landed the second key role – Lead Service Advisor!
ce cTyler Campbell in action as developing data acquisition guy, race car engineer, slideways instigator and all around awesome team member!
Tyler Campbell, Lead Service Advisor
Tyler has been working with the team as an individual contributor and volunteer for the last year on several race weekends. His professional background is as Service Advisor and Project Manager in the automotive sector and will be leveraging those skills in the front end of the shop as our new Lead Service Advisor.
Additionally, he is an avid sim racing driver/coach with national level competitive experience racing GTD Class cars on various simulator platforms (iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, RFactor2) and is a developing race engineer.
Welcome, Tyler! We’re grateful and beyond excited to have you on the team!
And just like that, 2022 is gone and 2023 is here! And with the new year, comes some changes for Racer on Rails that have been in the works for several months.
We’ve moved to Pacific Raceways!
Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, January 3, 2023) we will be fully operating out of our new location at Pacific Raceways. We are in the new commercial buildings as you enter the Pacific Raceways main paddock on the left in bays 115, 117 and 119. There are two buildings – a “blue one” and an “orange one”. We are right in the middle of the “blue one”. Signs above the bay doors will be going up in January.
Official Address:
31001 144th Ave SE, Suite 115
Kent, WA 98042
We couldn’t be happier or more grateful for the new space and the multiple years of work Pacific Raceways and Proformance Racing School have done to get the development to this milestone. For those who have been to other major tracks across the country, having an ecosystem of automotive and motorsport companies on-site is invaluable.
Note: The signs above are rendered. Signs will go up in January. Find us in garage bays 115, 117 and 119.
The space is a big upgrade as we more than doubled the available indoor space to ~5,500 square feet. This will enable us to grow the team, add new race technicians (spoiler alert!), offer indoor storage, finally get our AWD dyno running in a dedicated garage bay (119) and all while being located right where our customers want to be… the race track!
Phone number, email and everything else stays the same. We will be setting up shop equipment throughout the month and kicking off a mezzanine construction project where we’ll have a dedicated customer lounge area, parts inventory room, clean room for engine assemblies and conference rooms. Crossing our fingers that this will be completed sometime in the spring/summer.
Welcome Tyler Mayer, Race Technician!
Tyler joins the team as our new race car technician and brings a wealth of experience and talent working on high performance cars in the Seattle area. Everything from alignments, corner balancing/setups to full custom fabrication projects, Tyler has worked on many projects.
But wait, there’s more! Tyler has been competitively drifting for the past 6 years, is Formula Drift Prospec Licensed, has been a drift instructor for the past 3 years and is an avid simulator driver/racer. We couldn’t be more happy to welcome Tyler to the team. He can not only work on almost any aspect of a race car but he has an in-depth understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish with motorsports.
Less than a month from our last race, we are already gearing up for the start of the 2023 racing season which starts January at Sebring International Raceways. To make it all happen, our team needs to grow so we’re hiring!
We are currently hiring for the following positions. All full time positions have a 90-day probationary period of which after passing that period, team members receive the following benefits:
Full medical, vision and dental benefits through Kaiser Permanente.
Paid time off that scales as tenure grows with the company.
6 Paid Federal Holidays Per Year.
1 week of paid sick time off.
After hour access to the full race workshop.
Employee discounted pricing on parts and services.
Play race cars, with your “office” at a race track… for a living – that’s right!
Work with one of the PNW’s premier and growing racing operations.
Please email resumes to: raceronrails@gmail.com, attention Memo Calderon and Gama Aguilar
NOTE: Must include the subject line: “Let’s go racing 2023!” Why? Attention to detail matters.
One Full Time Experienced Race Car Technician (Status: Filled)
This is a professional level position that requires an extensive understanding of complete vehicle systems and the ability to diagnose and correctly repair any malfunction or failure while working in a high pressure and time sensitive situation, keeping safety at the forefront of all work.
The ideal candidate will have a professional, forward thinking and positive approach to executing race car and high-performance track car repairs, maintenance, upgrades, be available for at least most local PNW race weekends and travel to at least half of the fly away races across the United States (~7-10 in total per year). A clear communicator, positive/can-do attitude with focus on quality of work carried out and excellence in customer service.
Key responsibilities will include:
Carry out preparation of race vehicles to the highest quality standard at the Racer on Rails workshop
Professional presentation of yourself and race cars both mechanically & aesthetically at events
Support customers at track events including track days, testing and race weekends.
Strong sense of customer service and professionalism representing Racer on Rails at all times.
Partner with the team on duties across the shop such as cleaning, organizing, servicing and maintaining equipment.
Key Skills:
Experienced mechanic including service, repairs, rebuilds and chassis dynamics (minimum 2 years mechanic experience).
Great communicator and customer service.
Hands on approach and hard work ethic.
Presentable with attention to detail who takes pride in their work.
Team player with a passion for motorsport.
Experience with BMW E30/E46 chassis, M235iR/M240, M2CS, Porsche GT4, Porsche GT3 Cup and any specific mid to high level amateur and pro level race car experience is a big plus.
Fabrication skills not required but also a big plus.
Technical Requirements:
Minimum of 5 years’ experience in the automotive field (other fields will be considered; i.e. aviation)
Provide your own tools.
Valid driver’s license.
Advanced knowledge of electrical, mechanical and hydraulic systems.
Work locally and/or travel for race weekends.
Ability to work foremost as a team member and independently.
One Full Time Service Advisor (Status: Filled)
Update: Service Advisor role has been filled!
The ideal candidate will have a professional, forward thinking and positive approach to helping the Racer on Rails team execute race car and high-performance track car repairs, maintenance, upgrades and track support. A clear communicator and can-do attitude with focus on quality of work carried out and excellence in customer service. Service Advisors are the primary face of the company to most existing and prospective customers and the lead project manager for all work.
Key responsibilities will include:
Be the primary interface for all of our main contact entry points; answering the phone, emails and social media comments/outreach – return all messages from customers within 1 hour or less.
Manage the overall production schedule within our chosen work management/CRM system (Shopmonkey).
Accountability for the quality and accuracy of each RO in Shopmonkey before they go out to a customer (e.g. Estimate w/deposit request, updates to RO as parts are ordered/requirements change, ensuring approval on an RO before work starts, details for parts and labor items, on-time invoicing and collection).
Leading daily standup to drive clarity of goals, daily tasks, required parts or any other blockers for team members to execute against their work.
Ensuring each work order has 100% accuracy on costs, taxes, supplies and EPA fees.
Follow all policies and procedures related to cash, credit, check, refund and return policies. Works with the management team to react to customer service issues, customer complaints, and/or business opportunities.
Ensuring that all parts are ordered within 24-48 hours after parts deposits are made by a customer.
Partnering with the Motorsports Director to ensure arrive and drive customers who are participating in planned race weekends and test days, have their cars in the production schedule so they are prepared and ready to hit the track.
Ensuring accurate tracking and management of parts inventory.
Key Skills:
Positive attitude at all times – with customers, partners and internal team members.
Great communicator and customer service.
Hands on approach and hard work ethic.
Presentable with attention to detail who takes pride in their work.
Team player with a passion for motorsport.
Effectively handle multiple priorities, organize workload, and meet deadlines.
Willingness to travel for fly-away races 5-10x per year.
Technical Requirements:
High school diploma or equivalent required.
Valid driver’s license.
Minimum of 2 years’ experience as a Service Advisor in the automotive field.
Great communicator and customer service.
Hands on approach and hard work ethic.
Experience with BMW E30/E46 chassis, M235iR/M240, M2CS, Porsche GT4, Porsche GT3 Cup and any specific mid to high level amateur and pro level race car experience is a big plus.
That’s right! Racer on Rails crew have been big fans of the Avants community for a while now and providing discounts but in 2022, we made it officially OFFICIAL!
What’s the deal?
Active Avants Members get 15% discount off all labor
$500 max discount for any single job
$5,000 max discount for a rolling 12-month period
That’s it! For reals!
What is Avants?
Do you like cars and car cultures? As in, you really like cars and car culture? You like hanging out, chatting and meeting up with other like-minded car nuts? Do you like those meetups to be legit and super cool events like dyno-runs, drives, car clinics, off-roading, photoshoots, track days, etc?
If you do, Avants is THE place to be, especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest – there’s a Seattle and Portland chapter.
With events going on almost literally every weekend, there’s no shortage of fun times with the Avants Community.
I’m an Avants Member! What kind of work can you all do for me?
Racer on Rails works on everything starting from high-performance street cars and up to fully dedicated track and race cars.
Normal daily drivers are awesome but there are many other places to give them some love. Below are some of the things that Racer on Rails can help out with:
Pre-purchase inspection of a track or race car
Pre-track day/race weekend inspection and nut/bolt
Alignments and full competition setups
Complete fabrication and chassis prep for roll bars and competition cages
General maintenance and repairs for track and race cars
Install of high performance power bolt-ons and suspension upgrades
Complete brake service and upgrades
Maintenance and support of factory based race cars
Full arrive and drive support with your own car or one of our race cars
Something else? Get in touch – if we can help, we’re on it and if not, we’ll help find the right path for you!
Note, originally we were supposed to be at Sebring International Raceways for the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour but the beautiful white Christmas we had in the PNW overstayed its welcome and by the time we need to have the trucks on the road to the SE, all the passes out of WA were closed due to blizzard conditions and the alternate route going down the west coast and across the SW was riddled with freezing or snow conditions in New Mexico, Texas and even parts of Alabama.
So with about 10 days’ notice, we made the change to instead to go sunny southern California where last year, we attended this same race but it was held at Autoclub Motor Speedway in Fontana, CA.
The Team
For the first race, we had three Spec E46’s running in Touring 3 (T3) trim and one Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport running in GT2 class.
#44 Dave Orem, #81 Simon Asselin, #109 Gama Aguilar and #4 Ann Doherty
The normal crew of Jordan, Bryce and Gama were on hand but this was also the first official race weekend with our new Motorsports Director, Memo Calderon and our service advisor, Reid Morris.
The Fog
Not going to mince words here, it was a tough weekend and mostly due to dense fog that rolled in each night and resulted in each morning’s scheduled run groups to be postponed due to low visibility conditions. One of the locals at one of the on-site race shops with a retail space mentioned that it had been close to 27 years since they had seen such thick fog and turns out that the volcano eruption in Tonga might have contributed to the fog conditions.
In the end, each day we didn’t get started on-track until 11am – 12noon. On the Friday test day, the run groups ran per the schedule as the organizer simply picked up when we started and had the 3 run groups doing 20 minute sessions each hour, until 5pm.
Racer on Rails cars ready to go on-track but under a fog hold on the Friday test day
Thank You Safety Equipment!
There is never a shortage of reasons to not skimp on safety equipment choices, design and preventative maintenance as we never plan on having an issue where safety equipment is needed but we’re always glad when it’s there and it works.
We had two incidents on the test day:
Failed front-right lower ball joint in the control arm (SE46): The #109 SE36 running in T3 trim got a near complete overhaul prior to the 2021 SCCA Runoffs at Indy, which included brand new lower control arms. Unfortunately it got taken out on lap 1 of the race which resulted in a front end impact with at least energy going through the suspension components but not a direct hit or contact. All in, the control arm and lower ball joint had 1-1.5 hours of run time prior to this weekend. On the very first session when the fog broke, lap 2, braking for Sunset corner (the last corner before s/f), the inner lower ball joint failed and the car went plowing through the corner and came to a stand still on the exit of the corner. On top of needing to make repairs to get the car back up and running, it also caused a black flag which ended running for everyone else.
Rollover on the exit of the kink before Phil Hill: With the fog and being in mid-January, the track was not just green each morning from fog moisture but also stone cold. It was 38F on Friday morning and barely broke 50F once the fog cleared for the afternoon. This meant really tough conditions in terms of finding grip and in the 3rd session of the test day, the #44 took the same line as in previous laps with maybe a tiny bit more steering angle, hit the curb of the kink like normal but this time it upset the car a tad bit too much and the backend came around. The car slid off-track and when it hit the dirt, which with the moisture and temperatures was more like mud, the wheels hooked into the dirt and the car barrel rolled. We’ll have another post in the future to dissect and share how the cage and all the safety equipment faired.
Making Lemonade Out of Lemons
New track, very limited run time and low grip conditions – what do you do? Make the most of it and work on the learning process! Expectations for big results are low, so instead focus on developing and that’s exactly what each driver did, with the help of driver coaches Seth Thomas and Ray Phillips!
Ann D studying her track notes and mentally preparing for the next time on-track.
Through the coaching from Seth and Ray, each driver made progress across the limited running and culminated in a podium position for each driver! Below are some areas that were focused on throughout the weekend:
Squaring off corners better in low grip/wet conditions and to setup exit of the following straights
Timing of transitions from brake to gas and vice versa
Establishing a connection or translation layer between what driving Buttonwillow in the simulator felt like relative to real life
Mentality to have when going into a race with changing conditions (both getting worse and getting better)
How to explore grip when conditions are improving
Ray Phillips doing a quick debrief after a session while in post-session tech.
Moving forward to COTA in February
So we came out of Buttonwillow with 3 of the 4 cars running, 4 trophies, 1 race win, 5+ second improvements in dry running lap times from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, a new T3 track record for Buttonwillow CW14 configuration with a 1:55.376 and ready for the next round at Circuit of the Americas February 4 – 6, 2022.
Simon made gains across both races and had an epic battle with a T3 Porsche Boxer, having led a good part of Race 2
Ann made a massive step from Saturday to Sunday, dropping 8 seconds in one day and snagging two podium positions in GT2
Dave had limited running due to the incident but was fully healthy after being checked out by medics and will be back on track for COTA
Gama won race 1, broke the track record by multiple seconds and was leading race 2 (and in a battle with an STU car) but the coolant expansion tank failed, resulting in an overheating engine which forced him to retire the race but not before improving on the track record
With one new track for most of our drivers under our belt, we can adjust the preparation in the simulator and the development plans for the test day and each of the on-track race sessions.
Thanks to the team, Ann, Dave, Simon, Ray, Seth and everyone from the Cal Club who made this weekend possible and making the most out of a pretty tough first race of the year.
2021 was a great way to bounce back from 2020 and while COVID isn’t behind us, we’re thankful that we were able to make it to all but one of the planned competition and racing events that we originally planned and even added in a couple of extra race weekends.
Thank you to everyone who was a part of our journey in 2021!
2022 is shaping up to be an even more jam packed with track action and while we’re mostly booked up for each event, we have limited available capacity to have you join us at the local .
If you aren’t already driving with us, consider this an open invitation. We are here to help! Our current SCCA, ICSCC (Conference), NASA, Revolution Racing League and GT Celebration events are listed below.
If there are any race weekends you would like some crew and coaching support for, please feel free to contact us via e-mail, phone or messenger – raceronrails@gmail.com – (206) 475-1114
The staple of what we do is provide service to the racing community. One of the primary aspects of that is to be at the track, to help you with the car set up and care, as well as trying to improve the performance of both you and the vehicle. We want to announce and extend an open invite for those that are interested that we are here to help. Our team has a calendar of events planned with room for additional support for each weekend as needed! Our current ICSCC Conference as well as intended NASA NorCal events and SOVERN events will be listed below. If there are any race weekends you would like some crew and coaching support for, please feel free to contact us via e-mail, phone or messenger! Let us help you be your best on track!
Give us an E-mail or call to discuss options! raceronrails@gmail.com – (206)475-1114
ICSCC Conference
Event Schedule:
April 19-21 (Fri-Sun) – Mission Race Way Park –
British Columbia
May 3-5 (Fri-Sun) – Portland International
Raceway – Portland, Oregon
May 10-12 (Fri-Sun) – Pacific Raceways – Kent,
Washington
May 31-Jun 2 (Fri-Sun) – Spokane County Raceway
Park – Spokane, Washington
Jun 14-16 (Fri-Sun) – Portland International
Raceway – Portland, Oregon
July 19-21 (Fri-Sun) – Pacific Raceways – Kent,
Washington
Aug 16-18 (Fri-Sun) Portland International
Raceway – Portland, Oregon
Aug 23-25 (Fri-Sun) – The Ridge Motorsports Park
– Shelton, Washington
SOVERN:
June 7-9 (Fri-Sun) – Spokane County Raceway Park
– Spokane, Washington
July 5-7 (Fri-Sun) – Pacific Raceways – Kent,
Washington
July 26-28 (Fri-Sun) – Portland International
Raceway – Portland, Oregon
Sep 7-9 (Fri-Sun) – Portland International
Raceway – Portland, Oregon
Sep 27-29 (Fri-Sun) – Pacific Raceways – Kent,
Washington
October 5-6 (Sat-Sun) – Maryhill Hill Climb –
Mary Hill, Washington
NASA NorCal:
Mar 15-17 (Fri-Sun) – Sonoma Raceway – Sonoma,
California
Aug 2-4 (Fri-Sun) – Thunderhill Raceway –
Willows, California
