Accelerating Dreams: The Piston Foundation's Drive to Inspire

Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the In Wheel Time car show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11am. That's got a great start so far, live on iHeart Radio and the Smoke and Mirrors Network. It's the In Wheel Time car talk show Coming up. We're going to talk to Jeff Mason about auto restoration training. I drove the 2023 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Club. I'll explain what all that means. Okay, coming up in the car review Conrad has this week in Auto History. I'll bring you the stories making automotive news headlines this week. That more just ahead on the In Wheel Time car talk show Howdy, along with the returning Mike Dundun, covid, out of this world, mars. We always need more King Conrad along, and we also need more Jeff Seeker. We need everybody. I'm Don Armstrong, glad you could join us on this Saturday. Mr Mars, it's a pleasure to have you. Well, I wouldn't go that far. It's good to see you again. Well, it's glad to be seen. Welcome home. So how was the COVID gig?

It didn't start out bad, because it was just the granddaughter had it, but then the wife got it, so it was two against one. So I finally succumbed and just said, okay, I'm in, and for two weeks, yeah. And I ended up. They both got over it way ahead of me, yep.

Didn't go to the hospital, didn't go to the doctor.

Oh talked to the doctor several times. Did you get any meds for it? Nope, he said nothing works.

Run its course.

Take what makes you feel comfortable and get it over with Drink a little brown water, no no brown water. Lots of mucinics, lots of ad bill, lots of taking naps.

Naps, yeah, naps are fun yeah.

I was good Well good.

Well, it's good to have you back, thank you. Thank you. I've got a big deal coming up today and I'm all excited about it. Oh, what you got. Well, first of all, I'm going to go to the campus of the University of Houston later on today. My daughter and Leslie and I are going to go see the University of Houston play Southern Mississippi in volleyball. So and this is a big 12 game, so it should be really good volleyball. And yeah, I was looking at the girls on the team course. All of them were seven feet tall and it's ought to be good.

Well, Leslie's got volleyball coaching in her past, doesn't?

she, she does, and so it's all good. And of course you know, my daughter played club ball and she played ball in high school Club.

Volleyball is not cheap, no, it's not, it's like touring yeah it's an expensive sport.

It truly is, but anyway, that's coming up later on this afternoon, so looking forward to that, no car events. Today I did talk to Craig Bierman and next Sunday will be Croman Coffee and he'll be there with his new McLaren. Yeah, he bought a McLaren.

Did he what he gets?

I don't want to lie to you, but I think it's like a way. Just a minute, he emailed me pictures and I will show them to you here in just a second. Mclaren's are stunningly beautiful. They are with the, you know, the scissored up doors and all that good stuff. So here is the McLaren. It's a McLaren 720S.

Yep Is that gorgeous?

900 horsepower and does the quarter mile in nine seconds.

Oh my God A factory nine, second street car.

Crom business has been good to Craig, apparently so I know that matters. He's still selling Doug headers.

I know, and it wasn't. No, it was not. That was Headman headers. Yes, but I will tell you that he is now in the upper reaches of exotic cars. That is what he's dealing back and forth. As a matter of fact, on this. There's the other car that he bought not too long ago. His daughter is currently driving it. That's the Lamborghini.

Merci Lago.

Way to go. Craig, Was she training her Porsche? You said for that, yeah, the very expensive. Does he want to adopt me?

Yeah, exactly, don't be wish All right. Well, glad you could join us today for today's In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show. So, right off the bat, let's talk to Mr Jeff Mason. He's the COO of the Piston Foundation scholarships for auto restoration training. And, jeff, it's great to see you and thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks, good morning gentlemen, it's great to be with you again. Thanks so much. So tell everybody about the Piston Foundation first, so we get all that out of the way.

Yeah, Piston Foundation is a public charity. We began just three years ago. Our focus is helping more young people enter the trades of the collector car industry and so to do that, we focus on supporting education and hands-on training. So scholarships, apprenticeships, all of those basic skills that a young person needs to begin their career in auto restoration.

How do you reach out to the kids that don't know anything about you?

Yeah, that's a great question. Right now we focus on connecting through the schools to find those students that are already kind of expressing an interest in the program, but that the tuition costs for technical education is high. So there's always a need there and we've got some other programs in the works to kind of reach a little further back into the high school and middle school ages, mostly centered around car events. You guys all know if you go to a car and coffee you'll see a lot of 12 year olds, 13 year olds. So we've got some programs in the works to kind of reach back into that age as well.

Is that all up there in the Midwest? Does it reach down here to Texas?

Those programs. So we're based out of Connecticut. So a lot of that outreach program is based there right now, but will be national. Our scholarships are national. We accept applications from students all over the country. In fact, in our 2023 applications we had students from 37 different states.

Jeff, do you go to schools that already have an automotive program to have these students come over, or is it just any school that maybe a student expresses interest in it?

No, we focus on schools that have an established automotive program. That could be something like automotive technology, sort of that baseline kind of technical education, all the way to something more focused like an auto restoration program that you might see at Penn College or MacPherson. So there's a wide range. We also have some students that are focused on particular skills for in welding classes and fabrication classes. I have a local community college or a specific technical school, so it's not our scholarships aren't always focused sort of on that broad automotive, automotive knowledge. We have some scholars this year that are focused on some very narrow topics like welding. Who funds you? The public. We are public charity. We are funded entirely by donors from the car community.

Interesting, and I assume that you're doing well in that regard.

We could always do better.

Well, of course, we all have hope.

Yeah, and actually to that end this year we started something new, kind of a new fundraising campaign. We call cars for piston scholars and we're doing this with our partners bring a trailer and we are accepting collector car donations which we then auction through a charity auction on bring a trailer, and 100% of those funds from those auctions come back into our scholarship program to fund that.

You have any big donors, well known donors that you know. Guys have done well for themselves and they may have a collection of, say, 50 cars and and they want to help you out.

We do have some of those donors, for sure They've been. We have not received the car donation pieces of is a new thing. Our last donation, the auction that we completed last month, was with Adams polishes, who you might know. Adams polishes donated a very cool 1960s Willie Wagon that we auctioned on bring a trailer for a really great price. And so those funds are now back into the scholarship fund to be used for the next, the next round.

Can the kids bring a car to wherever they are, even though they're getting funds from you and work on a restoration program? Mom's Buick.

You know that it's really that would depend on the school. I know certainly some of those students that we support at McPherson or do that they have their own project cars. I I'm not sure if Pennsylvania Tech has that, but we don't. So we're a facilitator for the education piece, so we're not, you know, controlling the curriculum. Sure.

And is your campus campus located in Stanford, connecticut.

Well, we're not a school, so we don't have a campus. We're a we're the, we're a public charity that funds education and is an advocate for skilled trades and how do you decide who's going to get money? So the application process really focuses on uncovering, you know, the students, interest in collector cars and and being a part of learning the restoration trade. So that's our focus is mostly on the person, not on the program meeting. We're less concerned about what school they're going to and more concerned about who they are. So the application process includes, you know, some written essays, recommendations from students or or employers, a video presentation that they put together that focuses on, you know, what their interest is, what they want to do, what's gotten them into into classic cars. So do you have like a board?

of directors or people that screen this stuff and say, ok, well, we're going to give them some money. I'm sorry this one here doesn't quite cut the mustard. They need to go back to the drawing board.

Yeah, we've got a scholarship committee that's made up of our volunteers, led by a fellow named Kent Bain who's our director of the Academy. Kent founded a really excellent shop called Automotive Restoration Inc in Stratford, connecticut, so Kent leads that group. We have several other volunteers who make up that that scholarship committee, from car enthusiasts collectors to people working in the industry.

So have you ever worked with Wayne Corini?

We have not worked directly with Wayne. We all know each other. I saw him at Greenwich Concours a few a few a couple months ago and we had a nice conversation. But we don't have any programs with Wayne.

The reason that I ask. It seems to me that guys that are successful in restorations of cars and especially Wayne comes to mind. I mean, there's several of them, the guy that, the guy that runs a Phantom Works garage, for instance they do a lot of restorations. Those are just the TV guys, but there's hundreds, if not thousands, of others around the United States that are into that sort of thing. You'd think that there would be some sort of an internship program or something that would bring on, for instance, a high schooler for a semester or two or three and work that way and help them that way.

Because there's got to be a high demand for a skilled technician in that field, whether it's the skilled technician of like you talked about the welder, which is kind of cross genres from body shop to classic cars to modern, muscle and stuff but there's got to be a real high demand for technicians that are willing to understand how to work on a carburetor points. You know old drum break, not old drum breaks with drum break systems and stuff, all of that older technology that, be honest with you, they don't teach a lot in the high school programs. I've been involved in some of the high school programs here in Houston, and that's the point too.

You know, if the student gets involved in it with the carburetor rebuilds or the welding, they can go on to teach, they can go on to be part of that program in a different capacity as well.

Yeah, and there's a lot of those skills cross a lot of other industries. So whether they stay in classic cars or not, you know they've learned some very marketable skills that they can take in the direction that they want. Or you know there are a lot of, we know we know a lot of people like this we all do, you know, started on the shop floor, ended up owning the place right, so we're starting their own shop. So there's a lot of entrepreneurialism that's built in to the industry and so you know that gets fostered when somebody learns these skills.

So do you have any and I'm not talking about OE like Ford and GM, but do you have any manufacturer relationships that you've built in your program?

We don't, yet you want to help us build some? Yeah, we could try. Yeah, the thing to remember the Piston Foundation sounds like it's been around forever, but this is literally year three. This year was our second year of awarding scholarships. We launched at the beginning of 2021, built for a year. In 2022. We awarded our first scholarships. This year was our second scholarship round. We awarded 23 scholarships this year. That totals $105,000 in scholarship money going out to those students. We're young and building those connections that we need to within the industry. That's a big focus for the coming year.

Are some of the connections with schools that do that type of instruction. You had mentioned McPherson College before. You have relationship with specific schools that provide classic car training.

We have growing relationships with those schools. Those aren't the only types of schools that we interact with. Mcpherson has been one that we've had the closest relationship with, Also a terrific school in Georgia called La Niere Technical College, which has a very excellent motorsports program. The thing about motorsports is it dovetails really well with restoration, because there's a lot of fabrication and a lot of the things you're doing on a race car chassis building and things like that translate very well into restoration. While we don't limit the schools we will support, meaning if the school has an accredited automotive program and we have a student that we want to support that is enrolled there, we'll do that. But certain schools draw more of the kinds of students that we're seeking to support. We do have relationships with them.

Like McPherson that we keep going back to in Kansas. It's got a really big program that goes the whole gamut of different things. So is it a student that comes to you and says, look, I want to apply for a scholarship because I want to go to this school? Yes, then you look at that school.

Or do the schools bring you a program that they're saying hey, we've got openings for 17 students. Do you want a scholarship? Any of those in film?

No, we work directly with the students. There are other charities in the automotive world that work at the program level. We do not. We work at the individual level. We support the individual students as they're in their education and then also after that helping them find apprenticeships.

Who is the brain trust behind the Piston Foundation? Who started it? Is it you?

I was in early. It was actually started by Robert Minick. He's a CEO and founder. Robert was a long time automotive entrepreneur. He would describe himself as a serial entrepreneur Just a car guy just like many of us. The story he would tell you is that he got sick and tired of hearing his friends say there was nobody around to work on his cars. Young kids weren't interested anymore. After he retired, he said do you know what? I'm finally going to do something about this? I started the Piston Foundation. I joined about six months after launch and took on some growing roles on operations as well as leading the organization.

So, Jeff, what kind of car do you have?

65 Volvo Amazon. It's my rally car, a rally car.

Daily driver, not a daily driver, no, hardly.

No, no, it is not, but it's fun to drive every day.

Yeah, I'll bet it would be yes. Well, alissa, it's great to talk to you. How can our viewers, our listeners, get in touch with the Piston Foundation?

Easy. Go to pistonfoundationorg and you can learn about our programs. You can learn about opportunities to give to the Piston Foundation and see everything that we're doing with our recent scholarships. Read interviews with our scholars and get to know these young people that are ready to come into the industry.

Well, jeff, it's a great talking to you and sounds like a great program, and we'd like to stay in touch with you. So please do reach out to us when you need some help or want to talk to us and get something out there, and maybe we can get ahold of some kids that are interested in the sport of auto restoration and get them hooked up with you.

That would be great. We would certainly appreciate that. In fact, that's the one thing that everybody, anywhere, can do. If you know a young student who has an interest, a young car enthusiast who's considering an automotive career, send them to pistonfoundationorg and they can explore our scholarship and see if that's a fit for them.

Yeah, I've also. I've already Seniors.

Yeah, I've already posted your website to our social media link, and can I also assume that you guys didn't sponsor the Piston Cup? We did not.

Okay, all that would be good.

Yeah, it would be Well, Jeff, it's great to talk to you. Thanks again so much for joining us today and best of luck to you. Best wishes up there.

Thank you very much, you bet.

Jeff Mason, coo of the Piston Foundation. Hey, and thank you for joining us today and, by the way, if you'd like to get in touch with us, shoot us an email. The address here is info at inwheeltimecom. Time now for the Cruise-In Calendar. Conrad has the Cruise-In Calendar as he shuffles through his papers. Cruise-in Calendar, not the events, but the Cruise-In.

So again, the Mustang Club of Houston, october 7th, is having their fall open car show at Planet Ford.

Oh, that's a car show in spring. That's not a cruise-in, is it?

5050s is tonight Good Up in the woodlands. Yeah, change pages here. The All-American Muscle Show is at Kroger on 99 at Riley Fuzzle Road up in spring I love to say that name Riley. Fuzzle, riley Fuzzle, put some oil in it that starts at 5 pm, runs to 7 pm and it's pretty much classic muscle. Also tonight at 5.30 pm is the 409 car cruise at the Harbor Freight on Memorial Boulevard in Port Arthur, texas. You know, we got to get some of that golden triangle stuff in here because Golden Something? Yeah, because Mars had COVID and we need him to have something to do over there while he's having.

COVID driving. It's the Golden COVID drive. He's in his wheelchair rolling around trying to get well.

The Law Firm Summer Fest car show, wait, wait the.

Law Firm Summer Fest, if you don't show up.

They're going to sue you.

And that's at LA Fitness in spring and that's tonight at 6 pm.

It's a bunch of buffed up lawyers that want to have a car show in the parking lot.

And then Trucks and Coffee is tomorrow morning at 8 am at the War Memorial Drive in Houston. Trucks only cruise in and that's free Cars and cocktails at Little Wood Drows.

You know, there's something just wrong with the name of that A cruise in that has cocktails.

Cars and cocktails? No, no, well, the you didn't want me to say the word anymore, but the cruisers meet and greet. No, you were not going to say that word. At the Texas First Bank in Beaumont, Texas.

Well, that's a perfect place for it. Another Golden Triangle thing.

And then finally Tombaul Local Cars Meet is at FM 2920 at the Coles in Tombaul and that's tomorrow night 7 to 10 pm All right.

Thank you very much, sir. Time now for this hour's car review, and I was fortunate enough to get a look at the MX-5 Miata RF Club. Is that their track car? Well, yes, it is. There's the Club and the Grand Touring, so they have two trim levels. Now you'd think that the Grand Touring would be the race car. No, the Club is, and it's really not a race car per se, but it has some stuff on it like buffed up brakes. It's got different stuff on it in that different suspension.

But it's the car they make that they want you to take straight to the track Ultimately. I know.

No, you know it'd be nice if we had a car review so we could cover all that.

Here's the problem with that because the RF is a retractable folding roof, so it's heavier than the convertible. Because the convertible top is a cloth top. You just plop it down and you're good to go, so it's not as heavy. It's retractable. They do not have a roll bar. Does it come with a roll bar? That's an aftermarket thing, so you know. And if you want to race it, you've got to have a roll bar, you've got to have certain safety equipment mounted onto it. So, okay, did I answer that question for you? Yes, okay, now can you be quiet and let me do my car review.

Yeah, why don't you do your car review?

Don, this is a two-seater car. So it's got two seats, so two passengers. No babies allowed, you and Leslie. Exterior changes from last model year? None. The regular Miata redesign was in 2016. This is the fourth generation exterior features. This car is small, sharp looking, small, tiny sports car with a retractable hard top. Long hood, short trunk or deck lid with proportionate front grille, very short deck lid and I point that out because, well, you'll find out in a minute Front and rear lighting have distinctive looks and modern design. It's a clean overall design. What could use improvement? When the roof is up, the B-pillar or buttresses obstruct over the shoulder viewing. So there is that Now. The interior highlights include things like a three-gauge instrument cluster under a curved sunshade. The infotainment screen sits atop center dash, controlled by a knob on the center console. Not a big fan of that, but it works pretty good. Well placed shifter with easy to use HVAC controls. Full seating, believe it or not. However, for a man at six foot one, your knees will be in the dash with the seat pushed all the way back. Just saying Cargo trunk room very tiny. Remember I told you about the deck lid. It's very tiny. It's full of a roof. There's room in there for one overnight bag because the roof folds down into that portion of the automobile. But I liked about it the simplicity of the interior but could use improvement. Center console has an itty bitty, teeny, tiny little storage compartment that you could put nothing in the lid serves as an armrest. You could seriously you could put nothing in it. I don't even think a pack of cigarettes would fit in it. I don't know why they even did it. But whatever, two liter, four cylinder engine, non turbocharged, non supercharged, it's a straight two liter, naturally aspirated four cylinder.

Which has been the history of Miata 181 horsepower.

Now you say well, that's pretty good. That ain't much, but the car doesn't weigh much is not much of a car there 151 pound feet of torque, six speed manual transmission. Yes, an automatic is available, but why? But it's a sports car, you don't have automatic transmission in there. Mileage 26 in the city, 34 on the highway for a combined of 29. That's what it's rated. I got 33.9. Nice, over 353.1 miles High revving, well sorted, four banger I don't know how else to put it Is that they've been building them for years and they've made improvements throughout the years, obviously with the gas mileage on it. That's pretty awesome. What could use improvement? I, if I were to offer them any suggestions, it would be a turbocharged option for about maybe 210 horsepower. Give it a 20, 20 horsepower, 30 horsepower boost. That would be, and I bet you you could probably do it yourself. Tub it out, probably void the warranty, but who's count? What I liked? Quick respond, response to the ride and handling of the driver input, excellent. What could use improvement? Where's my invite to a road course event? That's all I've got to say. I mean for a journalist talk to Richard Tomlin. Yeah, it would have to be through Mazda because we have to sign a document that says no racing. The regular one, yes. No it has a noisy cockpit. I will say that Base trim price 35, 750. Prices tested $40,610. Base model price 38,950. Competitors Toyota Ger 86. That's a GR 86 for Gazoo racing 28,4. Ford Mustang 27,70. Yes, I had to throw it in there because it's not a whole lot of competition and then the Mazda Miata MX five at the soft top starts at $28,000. And that's my review of the 2023 Mazda MX five Miata RF club. The in wheel time car talk show is available 24 seven through the I heart radio app. Look for in wheel time car talk. We also video stream on Facebook, youtube and in wheel timecom and podcasts or at your fingertips and over a dozen of the most popular podcast outlets. The in wheel time car talk show continues. Right after this quick break, the original group of loopy tortilla restaurants will have you telling your family and friends just what the original recipes mean when it comes to the best fajitas in Southeast Texas. Founder Stan Holt invited you to visit the original loopy tortilla near I 10 and highway six. Here's the original house that inspired the design of all the rest and the original charm that helped make loopy tortilla the go to destination for Houston Tex-Mex. Speaking of original, nothing can compete with the original lime pepper marinade that everyone will agree makes loopy tortilla award winning beef fajitas the best anywhere. Loopy tortilla Katie is another location that gives you the same quality and service. Historians have come to expect it. It's located just off it's in the Grand Parkway. At Kingsland Boulevard in Katie, find yourself an Aggie land head to the loopy tortilla college station, located just around the corner from Kyle Field. It's a great place to enjoy those famous frozen margaritas before or after the game. Head to the East, to Louisiana. Stop in at the loopy tortilla in Beaumont. It to zone I 10. You can't miss it. The original group of loopy tortilla restaurants invites you in for the best Tex-Mex. Anywhere you own a car you love, why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it? Houstonian John Gray invites you to his state of the art facility to introduce you to his specialist team of auto enthusiasts. We promise you'll be impressed. Whether you're looking to massage your original paint to a like new appearance, apply a ceramic coating, install a paint protection film, nanoceramic window tent or new windshield protection called ExoShield, gulf Coast Auto Shield is where Houston's car people go. Curb your wheels Instead of buying new one. I'd have them repaired. How about a professionally installed radar detector? Gulf Coast Auto Shield does that too. Get a peek inside the shop and look at the services offered by getting online and heading to gcautoshieldcom. Better yet, stop by their facility at 11275 South Sam Houston Toulway, just south of the Southwest Freeway, and get a personal tour. Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your place to go for all things exterior. Call them today, 832-930-5655, or gcautoshieldcom. The award-winning in-wheel time car talk show is available on the most popular podcast channels out there in 30-minute episodes. We realize our three-hour live show can be difficult to catch in its entirety, so now you can listen every day to a convenient fresh 30-minute episode. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, amazon Music and Audible, along with a dozen more. In-wheel time has the most informative automotive guest interviews and new car reviews, along with popular features including Conrad's car clinic and this week in auto history, along with automotive news headlines. Our live broadcast airs every Saturday 8 to 11 central on InwheelTimecom, the iHeart app and on YouTube. Be sure to say hello when we're broadcasting from the tailpipe syntacos cruise in Auto Ram and the Houston Auto Show, among others. Now it's easier than ever to hear about all things automotive all week long. You're invited to join fellow car enthusiasts in becoming part of the ever-growing Inwheel Time car talk family. Don't forget those 30-minute podcast episodes on your favorite podcast channel. That's it for this podcast episode of the Inwheel Time car show. I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am. Central on Facebook, youtube Twitch and our InwheelTimecom website. 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