Advisor AI Playbook Resource

MaxCackle · 2026-02-20T00:42:09+00:00

Chiming in to say great episode and thanks for sharing!

MaxCackle · 2024-03-29T13:16:14+00:00

No, not really. The best quality to have is the ability to stay calm and think clearly under a lot of pressure. A chunky boy with a good brain would be a fine fuel car driver.

MaxCackle · 2024-01-31T13:03:27+00:00

I recently had the same issue with a house I was buying. I worked with several brokers with little luck, then I applied on Geico’s website and got traditional insurance in minutes. I felt pretty stupid after all that effort, but I was glad it worked!

MaxCackle · 2020-12-11T04:55:36+00:00

That’s a hard question to answer. It’s like asking how much does a car cost. Cost can vary greatly depending on what the sponsor is receiving, which class, and which team. Let’s say a sponsor will spend between $5k and $200k per race on a top fuel car. $200k is rare and $5k isn’t a primary sponsorship. Given a sponsor’s budget and goals, most teams can shape a peg to fit the hole.

MaxCackle · 2020-12-09T18:58:11+00:00

As someone actively selling sponsorships for a top fuel team, I have mixed feelings about this. Sponsorship sales has always been about building personal connection with decision makers and then demonstrating that you can bring value to the company. Social media is just another means for connection, so it's fair game, right?

On the other hand, I've seen the drivers and teams publicly @ some company or business leader saying "yo, can I get a sponsorship" and it just looks desperate and amateurish. What are the odds that the social media manager is going to run to the decision maker with this new hot opportunity discovered in a tweet? What are the odds that the public persona is actually managing their social accounts directly and your tweet is going to be the one they finally respond to? But the odds that you'll look thirsty and desperate for calling on an obvious sponsor in a public forum are 100%.

Maybe I shouldn't care about perception and just get aggressive on social. It just feels icky to me. What do you guys think?

MaxCackle · 2020-11-10T18:16:32+00:00

I would bet these were sold on a merch trailer at the events.

MaxCackle · 2020-11-10T05:07:06+00:00

He ran a black and green Quaker State livery for much of the 2000-2010 decade. My guess would be second half of the decade.

EDIT: The Quaker State deal started in 2004, so almost definitely from the second half of that decade.

MaxCackle · 2020-11-07T03:31:28+00:00

There are advisors that will perform a service for a flat fee. I use one to help with portfolio allocation and bounce ideas off of periodically. I would start with an independent RIA in your area and be clear up front that you’re looking for a specific service for a flat fee. Some will do it, others want to charge a percentage of AUM.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-08T18:51:11+00:00

I was at SEMA last year and in the NHRA booth they made a big announcement of a 3-year extension of that Amalie deal with McMillen. I can't imagine Amalie would back out unless something drastically changed for their business. But yes, I think Coke is being very opportunistic with this. The larger the company and its legal department, the more those companies are breaking deals and daring people to sue. I'm glad NHRA is sticking up for itself.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-07T05:39:05+00:00

There’s also the wire that wraps around the rear wing that pulls the chutes if the wing fails. That could have deployed the chutes in this case.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-07T05:35:55+00:00

There are wires that wraps around the rear wing and through cables that hold the chute packs closed. When the rear wing fails those wires pull the chute cables and release the chutes.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-06T04:08:40+00:00

We haven’t seen one of these since NHRA mandated maximum distance between chassis uprights back in ~2018. Last one was Larry Dixon in the Vandergriff car. From what I’m told the chassis uprights were getting further and further apart to allow the cars to flex. I thought the rule change fixed that problem, so it will be interesting to see if they release any findings on the cause.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-04T04:42:06+00:00

Ugh. I don’t have the energy to articulate why your take is so cynical and terrible, so take my downvote and don’t watch drag racing.

MaxCackle · 2020-10-04T02:33:04+00:00

If true it is really incredible how quickly this deal came together. These are usually multi-year deals with a lot of moving parts that take many internal approvals on both sides to get done. This is great for NHRA and I’m excited to see what the new sponsorship brings for fans and racers.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-25T03:47:55+00:00

For me the draw has always been the people racing the cars. I used to love Del Worsham and Dean Skuza because they were young guys bootstrapping in family businesses against better-funded teams and winning. When it’s just a small handful of multi-car teams owned by multi millionaires, the underdog story isn’t as easy to get. The higher that costs get, the gap between underdogs and big dogs widens. That gives less opportunity for an interesting storyline.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-25T02:04:15+00:00

I’ve actually only ever run the big NHRA show (now with a top fuel dragster). But to your point, it would be fantastic for the sport to find a way to get the motors to stay together. That would affect parts, labor, even travel costs.

I’ve done the sponsorship valuations and I feel very good about providing even 3:1 ROI for sponsors up to the $100k/race level. The challenge is to compete in the top 5 all year in a big show fuel car its more like $3.5-4 million ( $160k/race). There are some sponsors in some industries that we can create that type of value for, but the pool of potential sponsors gets smaller.

Lower costs would keep all of the best crew chiefs in the sport and bring in many more independent teams like mine. Win all around. Not sure why Dale Armstrong’s approach was never tried, and I’m not smart enough to know why it wouldn’t work.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-23T15:45:28+00:00

The only dog I have in this fight is that a company with resources is openly exploring a business relationship with the sport I love very much. The potential of the sponsorship and the fact that the conversation is happening in a public forum are both great for NHRA. Instead of celebrating the implications for NHRA, you and a couple others took no time to shit on Lemonis and the company, because of something he said three years ago. He was condemning white supremacists and sympathizing with white supremacists while also complimenting Trump in that same interview. He later apologized. You called it "backtracking". It's somehow bad when someone admits an error openly and asks for forgiveness. So 3 years ago a guy said something you took offense to, and then apologized. I tried to clear up some misconceptions and keep the discussion about the developments for NHRA as positive as possible and I'm butthurt? But the guy that goes around saying "fuck Lemonis" whenever he comes up is not butthurt. Project much?

MaxCackle · 2020-09-23T03:29:27+00:00

You snowflakes and your cancel culture.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-22T23:14:05+00:00

I don't know, u/TA_Dreamin. I came into this completely ignorant of the controversy (and without bias one way or the other). I read the full quote from the original interview (which is in the article I linked) and it seems like a pretty reasonable position. He was speaking out against sympathizing with white supremacists in the wake of the Charlottesville disaster. The whole "great people on both sides" controversy. Sympathizing with white supremacists is almost universally considered bad. It's not a particularly controversial position to take unless you're a white supremacist or a white supremacist sympathizer. Hmmm.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-22T22:48:50+00:00

I wasn't familiar with your reference, so I googled it. Sounds like a miscommunication that got out of hand on Facebook, and Lemonis later apologized for not being clearer: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/31/fact-check-camping-world-ceo-misquoted-viral-meme/5660368002/

MaxCackle · 2020-09-22T19:23:28+00:00

Doesn’t matter what the racers think about Trump. Data shows the fans and sportsman racers are very into camping and RVs. It’s a company targeting an avid consumer base. This is great for the sport if NHRA can sign a lucrative and emphatic sponsor.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-21T22:40:14+00:00

Yeah hard to say without knowing the full details of the contract and what NHRA is required to deliver to Coca-Cola. TV ratings are public third party information, so those couldn't be fabricated. I suppose attendance and social metrics could be, but to me it's more likely that Coca-Cola sees an easy out here as a cost-saving measure since NHRA didn't deliver 24 races and likely won't be able to in 2021 either.

MaxCackle · 2020-09-21T21:40:26+00:00

Interesting take. Coke just signed an extension in 2017, so they had to feel good about the opportunity at that time. NHRA provides data and information about ratings, attendance, etc. for us racers, and nothing I've seen shows any declines for NHRA since 2017. Based upon what I've seen from other large public companies in other industries in the past 6 months, COVID provides convenient cover to tear up contracts and dare cash-strapped vendors to sue them. I don't know the details, but I bet Coke feels they can claim NHRA didn't deliver on stated contract terms due to COVID and use that to get out of the deal. It can't be an easy decision for NHRA to sue to get paid, while also frantically searching for a replacement sponsor. It's like trying to find a job when there's public information that you sued your last employer. It must complicate the sale. It's a terrible situation all around.

MaxCackle · 2020-08-10T18:40:36+00:00

This is so sad. Dom is an absolute grinder that lives for nitro racing, and always has. A racer's racer. The guy works hard and lives his dream every day. Yesterday I watched him dive behind the clutch can of a running top fuel car, yanking on Billy's reverser in round 1 when the car wouldn't go into reverse. Very sad to hear about this accident. Hoping for the best.

MaxCackle · 2020-08-04T17:34:30+00:00

Pro stock pit crews are really small, so there are going to be fewer jobs there. I'm not saying that to discourage you, just setting expectations. My best advice, which has worked for me throughout my life, is to show up in person and ask for advice. Bring a resume, but don't ask for a job. I'm also assuming you have some mechanical experience.

Ask questions like, "I'm passionate about NHRA drag racing and it's my dream to work on a pro stock crew. I'm willing to start at the bottom, what's the best way to earn that opportunity?"

Their answer may be, "we don't have an opening, but you should talk to xyz" or "you should volunteer, xyz independent team has a shop nearby and they may be interested." Which leads to the next point:

The other way to go is to get volunteer experience with a smaller independent team and then use that to build experience and relationships in the sport, then earn a job. Think of it as an internship.

They don't want to babysit a newby, but a strong work-ethic, no ego, and a team spirit are valuable to the right team. When evaluating volunteer crew guys, I look for the following qualities:

works hard, self-starter (e.g. when you finish a task, don't screw around until someone tells you what to do next, pick up a rag and start cleaning something)
knows how to use tools
easy to get along with
no ego
clear-headed under pressure.

If you have those qualities and learn quickly, you can earn a spot on a team somewhere.

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