Dan The Road Trip Guy
Join Dan the Road Trip Guy as he explores the adventures, memories, and life lessons of diverse guests from all walks of life. This podcast goes beyond the road to celebrate the journey of life by uncovering stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or simply love a good story, Dan the Road Trip Guy will leave you inspired and ready to embrace your own adventures. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
I hope you enjoy the episodes. You can find me at https://www.dannyneal.com.
Dan The Road Trip Guy
From the Frontlines to Fast Lanes: The Extraordinary Life of Liam Dwyer
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Have you ever wondered how a retired Marine can transition from the battlefield to the race track? Meet Liam Dwyer, our extraordinary guest, who has done just that. Liam's journey from Iraq and Afghanistan, where he faced life-threatening injuries, to becoming a professional race car driver is nothing short of inspiring. In this episode, we not only talk about his military service and the adversity he overcame but also his lifelong love for cars, ignited by his father's 1987 Mustang GT, and his thrilling experiences drifting in Okinawa with a Mazda RX-7.
From Norwich University to a pivotal encounter with an Army recruiter that led him to enlist in the Marine Corps, you’ll get a closer look at the moments that defined his path. We dive into his deployment in Okinawa just before 9/11 and the unique camaraderie shared among Marines from different coasts.
But the episode isn't just about the past; it's also about the future. We discuss the joy and anticipation of father-son road trips, imagining everything from high-powered Evo wagons to scenic drives through New England and a trip to his favorite racetrack, Road America. Highlighting the importance of preserving family stories and experiences, the conversation emphasizes the lasting memories created on the road. Finally, we reflect on the power of shared adventures and the enriching experiences they bring.
Be sure to check out a few of Liam's favorite charities including Veterans Vintage Racing Charity - High Performance Heroes (hpheroes.org), Homes For Our Troops - Building Homes, Rebuilding Lives! (hfotusa.org), Home - Semper Fi & America's Fund (thefund.org), Yellow Ribbon Fund - Enhancing the Lives of Veterans & Families
Absolutely nothing beats windshield time, a road trip and good conversation in the car. Welcome to another episode of Dan the Road Trip Guy, where we have entertaining conversations about cars and road trips, life lessons and maybe, every now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal Road Trip Extraordinaire, and now buckle. Now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal Road Trip Extraordinaire. And now buckle up and enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:I am back on a virtual road trip today. My guest is Liam Dwyer. Liam and I met a few years back on one lap of America. Liam is a retired Marine. He served our country very well. He had deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan over his career. Unfortunately, he was seriously injured in Afghanistan. Liam is also a race car driver and after that injury, doctors told him he probably wouldn't drive a manual transmission car again, as you'll hear him talk about. He set out to prove them wrong and was back in a race car racing. I'm glad you're here to listen in. I hope you enjoy the show. Well, welcome to the show, liam. It's good to be here, dan, thanks for having me. Yeah, well, thanks for taking this little virtual ride with me. We'll kick things off with. Tell my listeners.
Speaker 2:Take a warm-up lap around your favorite racetrack because you're a racer, and just tell my listeners who is liam dwyer I, I guess I gotta ask you know, uh, what track and what car are we doing a, uh, a warm-up lap? And are we doing a spec biata around road america, where we got about 10 minutes, or doing an f1 car on limerick, where we got about 33 seconds?
Speaker 1:yeah, we'll land somewhere in the middle. How about a fast, fast car around mid-Ohio? How about that? That?
Speaker 2:sounds good. I spent 13 years in the Marine Corps. I did diplomas to Iraq and Afghanistan. I earned Purple Hearts in both countries. When I was in Afghanistan, may of 2011, I stepped on a bomb. I lost my left leg above the knee and severe injuries to my right leg, right arm and my left arm. While in rehab I got some friends. They took me down to the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in 2012. And we happened to meet their Freedom team, freedom Autosport. They raised me the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge at the time and I got to know Derek Whitus, tom Long and Glenn Long, you know, over the next couple of years and I started amateur racing in 2013. I did really well. In 2014, they offered me a test at Sebring and I did well enough. I got three races with Mazda that year and then they signed me on full-time for 2015. So I went from serving my country dodging bullets and jumping over bombs, eventually finding them, to sitting behind the wheel of a race car and getting to live my second dream.
Speaker 1:And I believe you told me you're living in Florida now but you're from up east.
Speaker 2:That's correct. I currently live in South Florida but I was born and raised in Connecticut. Lime Rock was my home track. I know the back roads up there, some of the roads along the Housatonic River, route 7, going up to Massachusetts, vermont, new Hampshire, new York. I rode all those roads either on my motorcycle or on one of the many fun cars they had over the years. So I had some spirited drives in my days, you know, not too long ago.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for that, getting us started there on that warm-up lap. So tell me about your first car way back when.
Speaker 2:The first car? There could be two answers here. The first car that I actually drove on track was my father's 87 Mustang GT. He got that, I want to say, my freshman year of high school to start doing track days. I heard that you know people could, you know, drive their cars on track. You know he wanted to do it for years, so he eventually got a car that he could do it with and I started going to the tracks with him. It was really only limerick at the time that we went to, but I did all the prep work of the car and I was there with him. You know I didn't sleep the night before and I was so excited. But I actually didn't buy my first car until I was over in Okinawa, japan, uh, with the Marine Corps, and the first car that I bought was a third generation Mazda RX-7.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But uh, people don't realize. Rx-7s over there are very common, so I think I bought mine for like three grand. It was in good shape, the motor was great, body was straight and clean and I had some fun with it over there. I loved it. It was just a fun little car to drive and it was phenomenal handling, great looking. I still think today it's one of the sexiest cars ever made.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always liked that car. What color was yours?
Speaker 2:My car was red with black wheels. I bought some used rims from a buddy of mine. I think I went up an inch in size. The good thing about buying the wheels I started doing drifting over there. So I would always have a spare set of wheels to put on if I banged my wheels up for whatever reason or if I needed tires in a pinch.
Speaker 1:I guess you left it in Japan. You didn't bring it home, right?
Speaker 2:No. So I actually sold that to a friend. And then I bought a second-generation RX-7 turbo convertible, which we didn't get here in the states. We got the convertibles but not the turbos. Sure, and no, I didn't bring that one back either. I, uh, I looked at pictures of those, those cars online and I just I just wish I could have, but there was no way I was going to be allowed to. At a little E3 in the Marine Corps they were going to allow me to bring a car back, especially if I wasn't married. So no, those stayed there and I had to restart cars here, and the first car that I purchased stateside was a 2003 Mitsubishi Evo.
Speaker 1:Okay, in your lifetime, any epic road trips that stand out to you.
Speaker 2:When you asked me to be on the show a couple of days ago, I sat down. I thought about it. You know I've done some really epic motorcycle rides.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think the longest ride I did on a motorcycle in a single day was 600 miles.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a long way on a motorcycle right miles.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a long way on a motorcycle, right, it's a long way in a bike, and I did it on a gsxr 750 at the time. This is after I ran. I had to make me really jog my memory. Here we did. I want to say we did it down in virginia, west virginia and maryland. We started with me, with a bunch of friends, we went down to western part of Maryland for a guy's motorcycle trip. We traveled our bikes down. We were up at like 5.30, 6 o'clock every morning at our campsite, we had some quick breakfast and we took off and we rode from seven o'clock in the morning to seven, eight o'clock at night, uh, for three, four days straight and it was just the most fun you could ever have. You know you're with your friends but you're alone, but you're not alone. Those are some of my best days.
Speaker 2:But as far as about being in the car, I think the best one I could think of was 2016. You mean my co-driver, andrew carbinell. We were road tripping for the summer, for the uh, the summer swing with imsa. We drove up from miami to watkins glen. We're going to stay up there for the Watkins Glen SCCA race, then I'm so around there, go up to Canada, up to Toronto, to Lime Rock in Connecticut, and then drive back down. We did that in the, I want to say, four weeks span, but I ended up having some stuff go on health-wise with my prosthesis where I had to go up back to DC twice. So I ended up putting something like 4,000 miles in the car in the course of a month or something like that, maybe a little bit more. But yeah, I was fortunate that I was in a nice, comfortable Mercedes E63 wagon at the time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you traveled in style.
Speaker 2:E63 wagon at the time. Okay, so you traveled in style. I like my comfort, but I also like the brute power just being able to kind of walk up on an unsuspecting Corvette, mustang, viper or M5 for that matter, which is another car that I love. But yeah, so I got to do that in a pretty active cause. I was pretty lucky with that. Yeah, they're, I got to, uh, do that in a pretty active cars I've.
Speaker 1:Uh, I was pretty lucky with that. Yeah, they're all going.
Speaker 2:Oh, pass by station wagon yeah, what the heck is in that thing? Mine, I had mine all blacked out. Dark tints in the window. All the chrome that was on it was uh was blacked out. Black wheels, um, but anyway, so it was a. It was a great road trip car. It was fast, it was comfortable, held a ton of stuff being a wagon. So, yes, we got to do it in style with uh, with some power behind. It was a. It was a good car yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Let me uh speaking of thank you, thank you for serving our country and uh want to dive in a little bit to your journey to the Marine Corps. You and I chatted about that a little bit and it was a really cool story the way you ended up in the Marines. Just take us on that journey, how you went to the Marines.
Speaker 2:My family had all been in the military my father, his brothers, both my grandfathers. Actually, one of my grandfathers actually served. Of my grandfathers I actually served in world war ii. He's still alive. He's 102 now. Oh, wow, um, yeah, he's one of the most incredible men I've I've ever met my entire life, and that's, you know, between celebrities I've met and people that I know, let alone families is a astounding, astounding human being in person. He's a great man. I love him. Yeah, he served. My other grandfather served, but they all served in the army.
Speaker 2:I went to Norwich University. It's a private military college in Vermont. When I graduated high school, I went to UConn over the Thanksgiving break. Now it's important to note that when I was there, there was zero alcohol allowed on campus, let alone in your room. We didn't have refrigerators in our room, on our floor or in our barracks or dorm rooms or dorm halls, and we didn't even have, we weren't allowed computers or TVs at the time. So I we had a computer lab. You know, I emailed my buddy who got me into motorcycles, so I was going to go visit him. He was at UConn. I was going to visit him over Thanksgiving break, so I went down there and enjoyed it a little bit too much.
Speaker 2:I finished my semester at Norwich. I enjoyed, you know, the Thanksgiving prior. I took as a like my major. For the first half of the semester I wasn't doing really well and I had been thinking about joining the military. And then the USS Cole got attacked, got bombed, and that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back and I called the recruiting office up the Army recruiting office in Waterbury, connecticut, and I set an appointment time to be there. So I went down there, whatever day it was. Now, this office, you had your Air Force, navy, army and Marine Corps in the same office and there was a hallway that went down the side of the building. You had these four offices in a row. The last one was the Marine Corps office. I was not joining the Marine Corps. I can't do it. The Marine Corps was too hardcore for me. I had all these things in my mind. I could never be a Marine.
Speaker 2:I went into the Army office and nobody was there and this ended up being. A Marine Came around the corner. You know, marine recruiter, could I help you? And I told him who I was and what I was there for, and I could see him, you know, licking his chops, like, oh, you know, I'm going to get this one right here. And so he's like, oh, you know, come on in here with me, we'll just chat for a few minutes. So I just, you know, I just walk my you know my little happy ass in there. Okay, yeah, hey, good, I honestly I don't remember what we talked about, but you know, after like five or 10 minutes, you know I had to get going, you know, to go meet with the army guy. You know he wasn't trying to pull me away from him and he just said hey, you know, when you go next door here, you know, just take a look at my uniform, you know, just basically make a mental note of it, you know, and that was that. I said, okay, great.
Speaker 2:And now the maroon court recruiters. They wear what are called their dress blue beltas, or dress blue charlies's or Bravo's I'm probably going to get this screwed up now. I think it's Charlie's or Bravo's. It's blue pants with a bloodstripe on the side and you either wear long-sleeved button-up with a tie or short-sleeves with no tie, and then you got your ribbons on and everything. The uniform just looked pristine.
Speaker 2:So I go next door to the army office and it's this guy with this long hair, he's got long fingernails, he got like a five o'clock shadow going on. I can see his pants are too short and he puts me in front of the computer, in front of a laptop. There, you know, to watch this video and I'm like this yeah, I, I want nothing to do with this. I I want to say I lasted.
Speaker 2:Maybe if I was gave this guy 10 minutes, I was being kind and I was like, listen, you know I can't do it. So I left his office and instead of going left to you know head outside, I made the right and went back to the marine corps recruiters. Like hey, you know, I'll be back here on friday or monday or whatever it was. And I came back, signed up for the marine corps and I was was off to boot camp as soon as the fall semester ended, did boot camp on my MOS training and then I was in Okinawa, japan, august of 2001. So we got to watch the planes hit when I was in Okinawa and that's really where my career got going was over in Okinawa there.
Speaker 1:Where was your boot camp?
Speaker 2:Boot camp for me was at Parris Island, south Carolina, with the Marine Corps. You got two, you got San Diego and you got MCRD, parris Island, east coast, west coast. The Mississippi River is basically the dividing line from the west of the mississippi you go san diego through east of it. You know, essentially you go to, uh, paris island there. So I went to. You know we we jab ourselves with the east coast, west coast marines. You know I like to say on the east coast. You know I went to the real boot camp. I went to the home of the marine corps. I didn't go to to be a hollywood marine there you go.
Speaker 1:That's cool, not a military guy. When you uh, you got deployed to iraq, is that something you raise your hand for? Or they go, hey liam, guess what?
Speaker 2:no, it's. It's something I completely raised my hand for when I wasn't so like when I joined the marine corps, my, my mindset was a terrorist was attacked. You know this Navy ship sailors were killed. I want to go fight. When I joined, I went open contract and they gave me a job of being admin and I just sat there pushing papers. They're thinking that we're going to be going to Afghanistan or Pakistan or whatever it is where this war is going to kick off at, because we're pretty close to it.
Speaker 2:I was kind of laughed at. We call them POGs. P-o-g stands for Personnel Other Than Grunt. It's kind of a derogatory term. I never took it as that for guys that were not infantry, because the infantry guys, you know, they're the ones that go off and fight and they do all this stuff that's used in commercials and in movies. Sure, I never got to deploy in Okinawa.
Speaker 2:Then I got orders to go to Quantico and I got out. I got out in terminal, terminal leave, end of 04, and I was just bummed. So I'd gotten out and a prior service recruiter called me and said hey, you know, have you had any aspirations to join or rejoin? And I said to him, you know, in a very serious tone. I was like, yeah, you know, only if I could, you know, re-enlist and go to Iraq in a combat mindset. I do not want to be going to Iraq or Afghanistan to be sitting on a large base doing nothing. I want to be out there fighting and he goes. Got a unit for you right now.
Speaker 2:They just came back from Fallujah, iraq, and they were there during the big push called Operation Bain and Fury. They're just returning and they are set to be redeploying next year and I'm like sign me up. So I went there for the drill weekend and I was put in a regular headquarters team and I spoke with this master guns at the end of it he's a senior enlisted, it. He's a senior, non a senior enlisted guy. It's not that he's not an officer. He's asked me how it was. I was like, you know, frankly, I was disappointed. You know I forget to be going, you know, over to Iraq. I only wanted to on a team that's going to be actually going out. I don't want to be sitting back on a fob and he goes, dwyer, I got you and I came back next month and I was in a detachment that was going outside the wire on a daily basis and September 11th of 2006, I was on a plane flying over to Iraq.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I believe you told me while you were in Iraq you were in a Humvee that got blown up, maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was January of 2007. We were in an area that you know, we had been fairly kinetic and we were on our way back. I was the turret gunner, I was up on top of the Humvee. I, you know, stuck my head up the top there. I had the gun up there with me. You know, I stuck my head up the top there, I had the gun up there with me, and we're going down this road that you know, the only road to get in and out of this area that we were in. So we're just in a funnel. Essentially, there was an IED on the side of the road that went off and fortunately it only partially detonated, but it destroyed the truck. It showered me with shrapnel on the side of my body, face, arm and the truck got towed back to base. I was on like duty or whatever, for two weeks. I think I lasted maybe a week before I was itching to get back out there, and so I finished up.
Speaker 2:My tour got out summer 2007. My tour got out summer 2007,. And that's when I really started doing my autocrossing, to track days, to time trials. And then the bug hit me again. I wanted to. I go to Afghanistan and I try to call my old unit up and nobody was getting back with me until my old team leader called me up and says hey, you know, put a team together to head over to Afghanistan. Do you want to be on? If I couldn't jump through the phone I would have Signed up. Reenlisted August of 2010, quit my job and I was down in DC, my old unit like two weeks later. A week after that I was in Camp Lejeune. A couple weeks later I was in California training and then we left for Afghanistan early December 2010. So I went from you know civilian cush shop, you know driving cars, to dodging bolts in the matter of three and a half four months.
Speaker 1:And then you stepped on a landmine. Is that what you said?
Speaker 2:I did. I stepped on one in Afghanistan, may of 2011. It immediately amputated my left leg above the knee, severely damaged my right leg almost lost that Severely damaged my right arm, almost lost that, and was somehow able to hang on to my left leg or, excuse me, my left arm. So I have, as my friends like to call me, liam. You are 25% less of a person than you were when you went over there. Mathematically speaking, they are not incorrect.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I was showing. My wife asked me last night she goes, so who are you talking to? And so I was showing her your Facebook page, are you talking to? And so I was showing her your Facebook page and we got to some photos of, uh, of course, your time in in hospitals and rehab and and so forth. She's like, oh, okay, and uh, her nephew was in Iraq, um, and I'm not sure the dates, not, not, it was probably after after your time. So she, she has a has an affinity for people who go and serve.
Speaker 2:There's a special association with it. You know, that's one thing that people I don't think really think about is any person that signed up after September 11th, every person. They signed up while we were in the middle of a massive conflict the longest wars that the United States has ever been involved in, so there was a very high likelihood that they would be deploying to Iraq, afghanistan or other parts of the globe that were fighting terrorism, and so these guys are literally volunteering to go to war and people sometimes forget about that. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you to him for what he's done and what he's sacrificed.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you again for that and thanks for sharing that. You are my first, I think, purple Heart recipient on the show, so that's kind of cool for me. All right, yeah, so tell me, you've obviously done a lot Anything on your bucket list that you want to do in your lifetime. Just one of those special items that you just have to knock off.
Speaker 2:The biggest one that's been on my bucket list now for about 20 years is I want to go over to the Isle of man and watch the TT races there. I got a bunch of friends that say they want to do it and I. It's just a matter of timing, with you know, family matters and work, to being able to go over there and doing it. But it's I. It's something I wish I got to do back in the mid-2000s when I had my own bike and I was a bit younger. But yeah, that race is completely wild to me. I absolutely want to get over there and go see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were telling me you have more responsibility now because you got a little one-year-old running around with you yeah, I got a 29 pounds of fury destroying my house. It's amazing how something so tiny to take over something so large yep, that's for sure, and I told you, time will pass quick, so enjoy it that's yes.
Speaker 2:We found out we were pregnant two years ago, actually two years ago in July. And here we are, two years later and we got 29 pounds of meanie-me fury running around the house here. It's a wild change. That's for sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, congratulations, thank you. One of my favorite questions, liam, that's for sure. Yeah, well, congratulations, thank you. One of my favorite questions, liam, that I just love to ask people and it usually brings back some memories for folks, so hopefully you'll feel the same. But if you could take a road trip with anyone head out today, living or deceased, who would it be? Where would you go? What would you drive?
Speaker 2:where would you go? What would you drive? You know I listened to some of your other podcasts here. You know I was trying to think of people I'd want to do it with. You know, you know I thought of people like gandhi, uh, william willful force, um, you know, abe lincoln. You know some of the car guys. Um, my friends are kurt bush. So you know, I would love to do a road trip with him. He's a pretty cool guy. But if there was one person I really want to do a road trip with, can't drive yet uh, would be my son. Uh, yeah, perfect, I. I don't think about the future here. I, I know I am. You know you said uh, you know that you're deceased, so he's living. So we can't say I'm completely wrong there. But no, I would love to do one with my son just to get some father-son time, just be us and just enjoy, and I get to show him the world through his father's eyes. That's something I'm really looking forward to when he gets older.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you think he would drive if you headed out? Go and find one of those Mazdas.
Speaker 2:No, oh man, this is such a difficult question. So I love wagons. I love wagons. I've had a 2015 and 2019 E63 AMG wagon. The 19 was bonkers fast. That thing was just insane. I said I bought an Evo when I came back to America in 2003. What people don't know is the next generation Evo 9. Mitsubishi made a wagon version of that Same motor, same drivetrain. It's just a got a boot on the back end. So I, I think I'd probably want to do like an evo wagon. That's been worked on quite a bit. They're making those motors have some insane power nowadays, talking over a thousand horsepower out of them. So I, I think a wagon, um, with a fly speed with over a thousand horsepower, with my son, I think that'd be uh, a, uh, a car full of giggles for the days or weeks that we'd be in it together yeah, well, I hope you get to do that and, uh, I don't know where would you go so I guess it really depends on what happens between now and then.
Speaker 2:You know, florida is not known for its roads. The Mid-Atlantic, the Northeast, have phenomenal driving roads, you know, through the Appalachians up into New England. If I haven't done like a Mid-Atlantic or New England drive with Tim yet, like when he's in his teens or whatever, that might be one. The other one we could do is I wouldn't mind doing one to Kentucky, tennessee, maybe up to Indiana, or one straight up to Road America, which is one of my top two favorite tracks, up to Wisconsin. There I think that that wouldn't be a bad one either.
Speaker 2:Just some good roads, some comfortable, somewhat of a comfortable car, but really just enjoying the time with my son of being able to talk to him about whatever and not worrying about, you know, friends or other family or mom or whatever, just like it just be us and just get to go off and enjoy and I get to learn more about him. Then hopefully I hopefully there's not too much more to learn about him. But I'm sure the risk is kids like to keep things hidden from their parents. But you know, maybe just learn a little bit more that he hasn't divulged at that point already. So that's, that's what I really think about. Is, you know, doing something with my son?
Speaker 1:well, I hope you do that and, and when you do do that, if he's, you know, older, uh, just make sure you record those conversations because I tell people, uh, my parent I think I shared with you my parents died in 2014, 2015. I just felt like I was left with a lot of unanswered questions that I wish I had spent more time recording their stories. So I encourage you to do that.
Speaker 2:So what we've done, my wife and I, we created an email for Connor and with the photos that we're taking, we will ever so often do a photo dump and email those photos to him. And you know, hopefully those servers forever don't get shut down. But you know, when he gets older and you know much older, give him, you know, tell him about this email, the email address, here's the password for it. You got a bunch of emails. You know. Tell him about this email, the email address, here's the password for you. Got a bunch of emails. You know in there for you that that we sent. You know, when you get a chance, you know, you know, go to the oldest ones first and open them up and, you know, start going forward. You got some stuff in there that you might enjoy. So we're, we're starting early with that to try to get some memories for him so when he's older he can see what life was like for mommy and daddy before he was born. You know, right when he was born.
Speaker 1:Oh, what a great idea. Yeah, Wow, Maybe some of my listeners will pick up on that, particularly the ones with young children. So thank you, young children. So thank you. Well, we've spent a lot of time on this little virtual road trip and I really appreciate you taking the time. Number one we haven't seen each other in quite some time. We met on one lap, just like I've met a few of my guests. But I always like to ask if you could leave my listeners just a piece of advice, life advice. You've certainly been around the world and seen some conflicts. What would you tell people?
Speaker 2:just because someone tells you it can't be done doesn't mean it can't be done. The reason why I say that is I was told after I lost my leg never be able to drive stick again, and a therapist told me that and I always kept that in the back my head of you're a therapist. This isn't something you should be saying to your patients. This is something you should be encouraging them to try and go do or to try to figure out ways to help them. You know, go do this. It was at that point there I knew that that I was 100 gonna race cars, because if I could figure out how to drive stick again, then I could figure out how to get myself back out on track. And I'm not gonna do time trials now, I'm gonna go straight to racing, which is what I was able to do and have have success with it, because I I I basically ignored that person's you know negativity towards me and I went off and did what they say couldn't be done. So that's my piece of advice for people.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's great advice and and you did it well uh, racing cars.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was very fortunate, very lucky. I met the right people at the right time, people that decided to take a chance on me and people that became lifelong friends along the way.
Speaker 1:That's great Well again, liam, I really appreciate you coming on this, this little ride with me. Um, and I'd like to close up, if you want to give a shout out to, charity, business book, book, I don't know whatever you want to give a shout out to, if you want to.
Speaker 2:A few charities come to mind. The first charity is High Performance Heroes. They're a charity that uses vintage cars to get veterans involved into motorsports. That's really where I started racing involved into motorsports, that's really where I started racing. I actually did the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix at Shenley Park, which Mike Reiner goes to every year. I actually won that in 2013, I believe. The other one is the charity that built my house Homes for Our Troops. They're based out of Massachusetts. It's hfotAorg. They build handicap-accessible homes, mortgage-free, for our country's most severely wounded guys from the complex war on terrorism. And Semper Fi Fund is another charity that helped me and my wife out quite a bit, and another one is Yellow Ribbon Fund. They've helped us out quite a bit. So there's four good charities there. I know you said one, so I figured I'd go a little overboard for you.
Speaker 1:Hey, more the merrier in this, and I'll be sure to include those links and people can check them out. Well, again, liam, thank you for coming on this ride with me.
Speaker 2:Dan, thanks for having me. It's been a good trip here.
Speaker 1:Until we meet up again, you can find me on the Internet at dantheroadtripguycom. I hope you will follow this podcast so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes and share it with your family and friends so they can enjoy the stories of my guests also. Until we meet again on a future episode, keep having conversations with each other and keep driving.
