CORVETTE TODAY #80-Meet Famed Corvette Race Driver, Andy Pilgrim!
0 views
May 8, 2025
If you're a fan of Corvette Racing, you'll absolutely love this podcast! Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, sits down with famed Corvette Racing driver, Andy Pilgrim, to discuss his illustrious career. Andy takes you back to his days in Great Britain, where he started racing motorcycles. He tells you how he got to the United States and how he got invited to be part of the Corvette Racing team. Pilgrim talks about his 20+ years racing, his time at Le Mans and much more. It's an intriguing listen about one of the drivers who helped kick on Corvette Racing on the CORVETTE TODAY podcast!
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
0:06
that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
0:12
in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
0:19
the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
0:29
thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve garrett i
0:35
appreciate you tuning in you can listen to corvette today on all podcast platforms you can also listen on your
0:40
smart device just say alexa or hey google play the podcast called corvette today and you're connected also visit
0:47
the corvette today website it's corvette todaypodcast.com and while you're there make sure you
0:53
visit the corvette today merchandise store you can also sign up for corvette today emails notifications and updates
0:59
at corvette today dot ck dot page and don't forget join the corvette today
1:05
facebook group we have over three thousand members and i'd love to have you as a member as well i'm also excited
1:11
to tell you about the new youtube channel for corvette today be sure and check it out and see your favorite corvette today podcasts now on youtube
1:19
first i'd like to thank our flagship sponsors of corvette today aerolary wheels a true forged wheel with over 20
1:25
unique design styles to choose from for your c8 and wide body versions of the c7
1:31
c6 and c5 corvette it's an absurd value starting in only 1988 for a set of four
1:37
fully forged wheels and use the promo code ct100 for corvette today 100 and
1:43
get 100 off your purchase visit arrowlaurie.com that's a-e-r-o-l-a-r-r-i
1:50
dot com and use the promo code ct100 for your 100 discount also corvette fever
1:56
magazine corvette fever has been relaunched with an online and printed version the online version has
2:01
incredible interactivity with hidden photos and information and the printed version is nothing like you've ever seen
2:06
before huge and glossy get your free online version at corvettefevermag.com
2:12
you can also sign up for the printed version there as well corvette fever magazine come along for the ride also
2:18
mid-engine corvette forum.com the forum that focuses on the new mid-engine c8 corvette meet a lot of fellow corvette
2:25
enthusiasts like yourself at mid-engine corvette forum dot com also a shout out to
2:31
canadiancorvetforum.com welcoming corvette owners from around the world my guest on corvette today is steeped in
2:37
corvette racing history as a matter of fact he was part of corvette racing's first win in the year 2000 he's a race
2:44
car driver he's a journalist he's also a member of the corvette hall of fame he is mr andy pilgrim andy welcome to
2:52
corvette today thanks so much steve it's a pleasure to be here i'm looking forward to it this is going to be
2:57
fantastic andy let's start and talk about your early beginnings because you were born in nottingham england talk
3:03
about those early beginnings there in the uk and what was the moment when you realized that you were a car guy
3:10
that's interesting well i think the first yeah nottingham england let's say cold
3:15
wet miserable great education lovely city lovely people i love going back
3:20
there so really enjoyed growing up there but there was never going to be economic opportunities for me to race so
3:26
essentially but where the interest came in into cars was just when i was a little kid for whatever reason i was
3:33
just absolutely enamored with cars it was just one of those things as a young child i was just enamored with course i
3:39
was just fascinated with cars and at a very young age i could name cars and pointed at cars and ran after cars if
3:46
they look like sports cars i'd run away from my mom and go running after the car you know it's just crazy but i just had
3:52
a tremendous interest in it but there wasn't any kind of car interest in my family at all they probably thought i
3:58
was left at the hospital wrong kid or something you know right that was good yeah now you want a lot of british
4:03
titles in motorcycle racing talk about some of those achievements andy yeah the way it works in england is you've got
4:09
some sort of club championships there are some very old clubs in england that have been around and when i started
4:16
racing motorcycles essentially what that meant was i had a secondhand very old motorcycle i wanted to try to race and
4:22
when i was earning money around 21 years old i came out of college as a computer programmer so i started earning money
4:28
and essentially used that money to put numbers on my old motorcycle and just literally go to the racetrack whether it
4:35
was me riding to the racetrack which when you're road racing is ridiculous or i had a friend with a van who would drop
4:40
me off at the racetrack after he finished doing his bread round so that's where it started essentially so i won
4:47
several club championships which are not easy when it's a club championship it means that people come from all over the country to do it it's just organized by
4:55
one of the british racing clubs and then as far as british championships i finished second in two sort of british
5:00
championships which was the kh-400 series and a british 500 production championship but for two and a half
5:06
years i did motorcycle racing before i essentially got a job offer in the united states as a computer program yeah
5:13
you took a very interesting path to get to america because you were in the i.t field in the 80s and you were snapped up
5:20
by a u.s contractor talk about getting that first job in the united states with general motors yeah i was very lucky in
5:27
the sense that when i first got my job in it out of college i was sort of more
5:33
interested in sticking numbers on my motorcycle because i now had a paycheck and starting to race little did i know i
5:39
was at one of the most intensive places you could work in i.t at a place called
5:44
midland household stores and what it was back in the old days they had these huge telephone book size catalogs and
5:51
essentially we were the it for the catalog companies in the uk and we processed all these people you could
5:58
like buy a pencil on higher purchase and i'm not kidding i mean you could buy anything in these cathodes they were
6:04
massive i was part of the credit scoring group and that credit scoring group was
6:09
actually working with an american company and there was like eight of us in that group and we were at the
6:14
absolute cutting edge of credit scoring which didn't exist so i was one of the first people one of the first programs
6:21
involved in the credit scoring systems in the world and we were working with ibm we had access to the british
6:27
electoral role which we were the only outside the government we're the only company that had that so we had this
6:33
really cutting edge and i was like the youngest kid just come out of college and i was the youngest one in the group
6:39
but after two and a half years there the guys were always looking for jobs and the us at that time didn't have enough
6:44
i.t programmers which actually still doesn't and i was looking for a job sort of thought well you know might be really
6:51
interested i've always wanted to come to the states and sort of to try and work here and lo and behold programming was
6:57
the way to go and i just didn't realize it when i got into programming that that would be the case but there you go i got
7:02
a job offer i applied got an offer and came to the us now i was a contractor so
7:08
essentially i came over with abc company an abc company then placed me at my
7:13
first contract which was as you rightly said pontiac division in general motors in pontiac michigan yeah and i was there
7:19
for a year before i moved somewhere else but it was always like one-year contracts or something like that oh gotcha okay now that did lead to your
7:26
second contract job in el paso texas yes yes it did talk about that and how you
7:31
kind of got into racing here in america yeah the sales guy for the company i was
7:36
working with was a marketing guy he'd always come around to him pontiac and he says oh how you doing i said well you got any other jobs like outside of
7:43
pontiac and he said why i said because it's freezing here so it was like honestly and he said um
7:49
okay let me get back to you and he said how about el paso texas and i said is it warm there he said yeah yeah it's warm
7:55
you'll love it so essentially i got in my 500 chevy malibu classic and basically started driving south
8:02
and uh went from like minus 40 degrees in february to 75 degrees in el paso i
8:09
mean i thought i'd got a job on the riviera i remember getting the phone plugged in
8:14
and calling my mom and just saying mom i can see clear blue sky and it's 75 degrees outside i'm in heaven you know
8:21
it's like this is amazing so that was el paso working for el paso natural gas at the time again as a contractor yeah now
8:28
didn't that get you into racing down there in texas then it did it did in a very strange way so again racing's
8:34
always been economic space right so i got into racing in england when i could afford it and likewise in 1983 when i
8:41
was in el paso i still had my chevy but volkswagen came out with if you remember the rabbit gti yes and of course every
8:49
kid in europe just ogled after a gti in europe and they'd had it for a long time but the us hadn't had it now it was a
8:57
pretty much a milk down gti the one that came over here was only 90 horsepower it was a little bit of a different gti but
9:03
it was still a gti right so i got one and i was coming down i-10 which is basically runs all the way through el
9:09
paso and i was going past the sila vista mall which is right there on the east side of el paso and i'm looking to the
9:14
right and i saw this c3 corvette at the time it would be a c3 flying across this parking lot like at 60 miles an hour and
9:22
it was in cones and i was like what the heck is that so i went off the freeway went around the back and lo and behold
9:27
that was an scca autocross going on and that's what started it on my website i still have a picture of my black gti in
9:34
a open area where they had like a school parking lot it was from el paso actually you got like a three-wheeled gti it's a
9:40
picture somebody took of me doing an autocross in el paso in 1983 and that was scca and that was sort of what
9:46
started any kind of four-wheel competition that was the first time very nice now you also became a us citizen in
9:53
1998 yes that had to be a thrill as well yes definitely this country has given me
9:58
so many incredible opportunities and wanting to do things professionally essentially that was the opportunities
10:05
that america has given me whether it was starting my business whether it was getting into racing professionally the avenues are open here you have to work
10:12
hard you have to make some smart moves you have to stay focused so when i became a citizen it was extremely
10:19
emotional for me it really was every group i speak to now whether it's traffic safety related or whether it's
10:25
marketing stuff that i'm doing i'm very proud to tell people that this country has given me incredible opportunities
10:31
and it's something i'm very very grateful for that's awesome andy well let's take a quick break and in segment
10:37
number two we're gonna delve deep into your racing career we're talking with andy pilgrim famed corvette racer here
10:43
on corvette today stretch the life of your corvette's paint with nova stretch performance
10:49
protective covers nova stretch covers provide superior protection for your c5 through c8
10:55
corvette utilizing stretch fabric technology and an innovative fastening system for quick installation and easy
11:00
removal and storage made in the usa for a tailored fit the patented design and breathable mesh
11:06
protects your corvette without rubbing or chafing the paint like traditional bras and unlike clear film solutions
11:12
nova stretch provides full front end coverage including the grill keeping radiators and heat exchangers clean
11:17
without creating airflow issues visit novastretch.com and use the code corvette today 15 to get 15 off your
11:24
order protect your corvette with nova stretch american hydrocarbon your one
11:30
stop shop for custom interior exterior and engine bay items for your c4 through
11:35
c8 corvette we can help you create a custom look for your corvette with carbon fiber or 10
11:42
different color patterns and styles we've served customers in over 28 countries all around the world whether
11:48
it's a custom-made engine cover for your new c8 mid engine corvette or custom-made c4 interior upgrades
11:54
american hydrocarbon can help you transform your corvette into a best-in-class show car our products have
12:01
been featured in vet and corvette magazines so give us a call 813-476-5638
12:08
that's 813-470 and now we're proud to announce that we
12:13
can produce and distribute officially licensed gm products with a c8 corvette that includes the front splitter the
12:19
side skirts engine appearance panels and engine fluid caps see everything on our new updated website
12:25
americanhydrocarbon.com
12:30
this is the corvette today podcast with steve garrett
12:36
hey thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve
12:41
garrett with us today is fame corvette racer andy pilgrim in the second segment we're going to talk about andy's racing
12:47
career andy you started over 456 races in your career you've won 80 races in 37
12:54
seasons and five championships with over 202 podium finishes you've had 400 top
13:01
10 finishes which is over 90 percent of your races and you finished in the top 10. talk about some of the highlights in
13:07
your racing career well steve you've definitely done your homework amazing i don't think i knew those numbers are
13:12
certainly not the top of my head incredible gosh so many high points steve your first win your first podium
13:19
in pro racing which was in the renault cup series in 1984 which was my first year racing because as i think i
13:26
mentioned the first segment there was no way i was just going to run for trophies i couldn't afford to do that and i just
13:31
wanted to see if i was going to be any good and push it all the way to the limit so that was my first podium my
13:37
first pro win was the pontiac trans am in the firestone firehawk series which was very memorable that was at sears
13:44
point raceway a real driver's track so that was kind of cool to win at sears in 86 first championship of course is
13:50
memorable 1995. again that was actually with pontiac in the speed vision cup series it sort of goes on from there
13:57
factory related rides with porsche and bmw in factory linked teams and then a
14:03
full factory ride of course in the corvette program i mean so many so many opportunities and then cadillac's
14:09
factory program last but not least chevrolet camaro program in 2018 to have
14:15
a factory contract when you're in your 60s is quite ridiculous actually my hat is off to you my friend my hat is off to
14:21
you now andy you've also raced in the corvette racing series back in the late 80s and the early 90s
14:28
talk about when you joined corvette racing in 1999 and also talk about your
14:33
famous race partners yes the corvette challenge series was spectacular it's such a shame it only lasted two years
14:39
going back there that was an amazing series we could talk for hours on that alone i love the fact that i was part of
14:46
that series had some great races and some great met some superb famous i mean johnny bruntford i mean people like that
14:52
i mean how on earth could i race against johnny rutherford in anything other than a corvette series i mean the man was an
14:57
indycar legend and a lovely guy by the way lovely guy as well but going into corvette racing that opportunity sort of
15:04
came about doug feehan who has been the legendary team manager for corvette racing until very very recently all the
15:11
way through he gave me a call i was driving with porsche related teams at the time this was in 1998 and he asked
15:19
me whether i'd be interested in being considered for a corvette racing program that was just getting started he said
15:26
the opportunity for 1999 would be three races only i was obviously like hell yes
15:32
please so you know it was like please consider me i tested the car first in 1998 in
15:38
november at road atlanta i remember many of the guys were there the ron fellows chris neither john heinrich i think
15:45
scott sharp and others everybody was sort of getting in there or being tested and things like that and i was luckily
15:51
one of the people that managed to get into the team for 1999 when they started
15:56
ron and chris knifel did a full season in one of the cars the other guys like
16:02
john heinrich kelly collins scott show up and myself we would add in and i
16:07
think john paul jr as well actually we would add in for the longer races essentially that's how the program
16:12
started in 1999. lo and behold 21 years later still going strong absolutely
16:18
right and you also raced with dale earnhardt senior and junior as well as kelly collins yes kelly was my regular
16:26
teammate in 2000 there was a pass that i made in petit le mans which was in covet
16:31
folklore has become called the pilgrim pass that pass got noticed by dale earnhardt it ended up being the pass of
16:37
the week on rpm tonight and he actually contacted me and congratulated me if you can believe on that pass and said
16:43
basically that pass is exactly why i want you to be my teammate for next year's rolex 24 hours of course i know
16:50
had never been contacted by dale owner i had no idea there was any thought or contact or any anything about the
16:56
possibility of this 24-hour race with the earnhardt's at that point so i was incredibly excited and immediately told
17:02
by the team manager yeah well you can't say anything oh my gosh so it was like we're going to
17:07
announce it in about two and a half weeks and we're going to mooresville north carolina and the whole thing is going to be you dale jr and dale we went
17:14
over there we had a great time and so many stories from that first day when i
17:19
met the guy it's incredible a lot of fun great guy very humble actually and funny
17:24
fun mischievous and just enjoying life to the full we had a great time there he began the
17:31
process the first test we had at sebring that's when i suggested to dale that
17:36
kelly collins would be a good addition and he said well let me think about it and then kelly came to the test they'd
17:42
never run in the wet much and so luckily dale matt kelly and of course he thought
17:48
kelly was great and kelly came in as the fourth driver so a small point there that people have the clean cars the
17:54
clean cars were done early on in this sort of program and they only had three names on them
18:00
but when the dirty car came out after the race it had all four names on it because it was that wasn't a mistake it
18:06
was because at that time kelly wasn't in there but he was added on later which is why you don't see kelly's name on the
18:12
clean models that came out of the corvette piece of trivia there for people that might be listening very
18:17
interesting but so many memories from those guys they were both wonderful both did really well the biggest thing for
18:22
them was breaking they were just blown away by how late you could break for the bus stop at daytona how late you could
18:29
break on the infield for any of the international horseshoe or any of that stuff it was just so different from the
18:34
nascar and having done a little tiny bit of nascar i understand why essentially the nascar cars weigh 3 500 pounds and
18:40
they don't have big brakes right and the tires are made for taking incredible
18:46
amounts of punishment on the banking and they're not super grippy they're made to last with a very very heavy car at 200
18:51
miles an hour and we don't have that in road racing in the same way because the cars are much lighter and all the rest
18:56
of it but once they got used to the brakes they were both super quick but as it turned out in the race there was a
19:02
tremendous amount of rain and it was really really good that we had kelly there as the fourth driver because kelly
19:08
and i did quite a bit of rain driving and junior really had very little experience and he was able to do what he
19:14
needed to do but it was great to have kelly there very cool now you also race at the 24 hours of le mans with corvette
19:20
racing and porsche as a matter of fact you had five podium finishes talk about that because i'm sure racing at le mans
19:27
had to be one of the highlights of your career 100 le mans is a very special place i never
19:32
dreamed that i would actually end up racing there one day 1996 they came about there was a team being put
19:39
together and i got an opportunity to run with a new zealand team called the new hardware team and there were two porsche
19:44
911 turbos and we had a the team did well we got second place for one car and we got fourth place in class very
19:51
competitive in those races and then in 97 i ran with a different team the rook racing team and we ended up coming
19:58
second that year and that gave me some experience at le mans which i think was instrumental or certainly one of the
20:04
factors in me getting the call from corvette the fact that i'd actually been to le mans and in 97 actually qualified
20:10
on the class poll in pre-qualifying which was pretty amazing as well just an amazing opportunity for them to ask me
20:16
to qualify and then i ended up on the poll pre-qualifying which was a big thing back then which was pretty cool very cool yeah so it was definitely an
20:23
advantage and i didn't win le mans it's the only major that i haven't won like rolex 12 hours of sebring and petite of
20:30
the other three are sports car majors kind of like golf mages if you like but being on that podium is just so special
20:36
because you're so far above the front straightaway and at the end of the race there's a hundred and fifty thousand people on the front straightaway because
20:43
at le mans there's like close to 350 000 people and most of them are on the front
20:48
straightaway and they allow them onto the track after the race so it's so many wonderful memories of that race it's
20:55
incredible and on the friday there's a parade where all the drivers get to go on old cars and you go through the town
21:00
and again there's a hundred plus hundreds of thousands of people in the town for the parade group and it's
21:06
incredible incredible stuff they do love their racing in le mans france that's for sure absolutely andy talk about this
21:13
i know that you raced with dale senior and kelly collins at the 24 hours of daytona and you won that race three
21:19
times and then after daytona dale senior promised to get you into nascar talk
21:24
about your racing with dale jr and dale senior and getting into nascar yeah
21:29
racing with them dale and i had become buddies over the four months we'd become friends he would call me up and say hey
21:35
andy what kind of mopeds should i buy for my boat it was just normal kind of conversations
21:41
between two mates you know it wasn't the fact that he said to me i'm going to get you a nascar he had actually told other
21:47
people oh and he told dale junior that wow dale and junior had spoken about
21:53
something like that i think at some point after the race i was not part of
21:58
that conversation huh so there was a lot of things that i had didn't know about till sadly after he passed away uh steve
22:05
crisp who was dale's right-hand guy for like 13 14 years i love steve crisp he's one of the best guys period such a small
22:13
guy we've remained friends over the years and steve was the one who explained some things to me about how
22:18
there was how he didn't have that many friends you know he had people that he knew but he didn't have any friends neil
22:24
bonnett was a very close friend of his and when he lost neil bonnett there weren't that many people close to him you know so it was steve that sort of
22:30
gave me a lot more insight and he was the one that told me that andy you don't know that when we got back from the race
22:36
dale had already told me to start clearing out the trophy room and he said this is going to be where we're going to
22:41
put the corvettes wow and this is like this will be the car that me and andy race
22:46
and steve's i said so dale is going to retire from nascar but he wanted to go sports car racing and supposedly he'd
22:52
asked theresa to say hey is it all right if i go racing with andy i mean andy didn't know anything about
22:58
any of this wow but it was sort of an ongoing background thing i learned about it from steve after dale passed away and
23:05
then i spoke to theresa later and she confirmed it and also another friend of mine who'd had dinner with theresa
23:11
confirmed it it was quite amazing actually about the fact that he would potentially go corvette racing he would
23:17
potentially want to do it with me it's just an incredible part of the story but the nascar connection then going from
23:24
that dale and dale cena had had a conversation on airplane which was sort of referred to in a letter that dale had
23:30
sent me after the race thanking me and all the rest of it was really nice letter which i still have so i was
23:35
playing golf something that i love to do and i've done like once in the last seven years but i was actually playing
23:40
golf back in 2007 junior called me on the phone and he said hey andy what are you doing and i said i'm just playing
23:47
golf mate can i call you back he says well i got something kind of important you know it's like i said oh oh okay so
23:53
yeah no hang on a minute so i sort of walk away and i said yeah yeah what's going on he said well i just want to ask
23:58
you a quick question are you interested in running a couple of nascar bush races in my navy car coming up canada and
24:06
watkins glen road course races and i said yeah and he said that phone call is something that dad and i spoke about and
24:13
i want to repay the debt wow and i was like oh okay and that was it then of course that
24:19
ruined my gold game which didn't take much ruining anyway but it was like this is like i was so excited about it and
24:24
yes that's where the two navy races came from in 2007 which was great i mean
24:30
great opportunity all road racers i think or most of them have a bucket list thing like i wish i could do a nascar
24:35
race and luckily i did two bush races and i also got to do one spring cup in 2011. so again those are the bucket
24:42
listings you'd like to check off as a road racer if you get that opportunity absolutely right also in 2004 through
24:48
2008 you drove for cadillac in the speed world championship challenge and you won
24:53
that race in 2005. talk about the differences between racing for cadillac and racing for corvette well funnily
25:00
enough raising cadillac and corvette was almost like the same thing in a way oh because the cars were all built by pratt
25:06
miller engineering and some of the same guys that were working on the corvettes were brought over to that new budding
25:13
cadillac team and so some of the same guys that were working on the car and some of the same engineers and so it was
25:19
actually like old home week amazingly so yeah in 2003 there was a test at road
25:26
atlanta again funnily enough i ended up being picked my teammate was max angelelli and that started in 2004 and i
25:33
was there for 2004 till eight and then again the second time around johnny o'connell 2011 through 2015. fantastic
25:42
opportunity another factory program with gm racing also in 2009 and 2010 you
25:48
drove for kpax racing you moved back to cadillac from 2011 to 2015 what races
25:54
did you do for k-pacs and then what races did you do when you returned to cadillac so cadillac had always been in
26:00
this world challenge series which was essentially was the premium production-based gt series in america at
26:07
the time which has now become the sro championship which along with weathertech are looked
26:12
at as the premium gt series in the us of course weathertech also has prototypes but they're the sort of the two premiere
26:18
series so essentially cadillac wanted to be in the premiere gt championship and corvette were always running in the sort
26:25
of the imsa side of things as opposed to the scca pro racing side of things which is where cadillac was so essentially it
26:31
was just two sides of the same deal with cadillac it was always in that championship just different generations
26:36
the first generation car ended in 2008 and also gm had some hiccups in 2008 and
26:42
so what happened was i thought well don't have a job amazingly the phone rings and i get a call from jim hughey
26:48
at capex saying hey would you like to have an opportunity with volvo randy post was my teammate they were building
26:55
these new turbocharged all-wheel drive volvos which would also run in the world
27:00
channel series and that was also a factory connected project with volvo so it ended up being another sort of
27:05
semi-factory team deal really for two years we did that going into 2011 or the
27:10
end of 2010 i got another phone call on gm saying hey we're putting the band back together
27:16
johnny o'connell is coming across from corvette kind of like i did in 2004 right and he'd be your teammate it's
27:23
like oh that's going to be great so it was like end of the season jim who was extremely nice about it and said andy i
27:29
totally understand you were with them before we wish you all the best and see you on track very nice so it worked really well and i
27:36
ended up going back to the cadillac operation there and johnny and i just had so much fun with johnny as a teammate for five years it was great
27:42
that's fantastic well andy let's take our final break and when we come back in segment number three we're going to talk
27:48
about all your other jobs that you've got on corvette today vetfinders.com is
27:53
the internet's original corvette classified ads website with classified ads starting at just 25 and every ad
28:01
runs until your corvette is sold if you're in the market for a corvette vetfinders.com has over 500 corvettes
28:07
for sale from all around the usa and canada and covering all eight generations visit vetfinders.com the
28:14
internet's destination for buying and selling corvettes that's v-e-t-t-e
28:19
finders.com hey honey are you awake um i am now i
28:25
can't sleep since turning 50 i keep dreaming of a red door and a blue door somehow knowing there are only choices
28:31
for retirement okay through the red door we outlive our money we have to rely on
28:36
our kids we're stuck on a fixed income it's terrifying yeah that would suck but through the blue door our money outlives
28:43
us we retire on our terms our kids stay our kids not our caretakers we make work
28:49
optional yes that's much better that's what i want too but what do we do we call true wealth and company at 913 653
28:57
a they specialize in helping successful people make work optional they're our fiduciary blue door personal wealth
29:04
managers hey where are you going it's 3 a.m i can't sleep i'm going to check out
29:09
true wealth and company online at retirewithtrue.com that blue door is going to be our retirement 913-653-8783
29:16
visit us online at retire with true.com investment advice offer through true wealth and company llc a registered investment advisor in the state of
29:22
kansas and now back to corvette today with your
29:27
host and my husband steve garrett [Music] hey thank you very much for listening to
29:33
corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve garrett with me is fame corvette
29:39
race driver andy pilgrim in this third and final segment we're going to talk about some of the other things andy is
29:44
doing outside the racing world andy first of all you are also an accomplished writer you've written for
29:50
automobile magazine how did you get started doing that thanks to a guy called mac morrison mack was with auto
29:58
week he and i got together gosh over 20 years ago now doing some cadillac stuff
30:04
he was at a place in michigan called gingerman raceway which you may or may not know of and we were just doing some
30:10
testing there and mack was there as a journalist i was there as a test driver
30:16
and mac and i got chatting and we sort of became buddies and became a bit friendly with that stuff lo and behold a
30:22
year or two down the road it was like hey andy we're going to test a z06 corvette at the racetrack are you
30:28
interested in coming to doing some stuff for us and you can do the testing and then also we did some testing with a
30:33
camaro and a gt3 and other things so it became one of those things that
30:38
relationship with mac on a work basis and having fun with mac at some of these trips when he moved to automobile
30:45
magazine then he said hey we might need someone to do some writing and also we can do some other stuff and that's where
30:52
essentially that came from so it's for six years since 2015 i think was my first writing assignment for automobile
30:59
and the last one was last year in 2020 when autumn beale basically shut down the prince magazine right but i'd also
31:07
done some vehicle review videos for them which i set up called this thing called
31:12
pro racers take series which is automobile related and of course audible now really is motor trend it's kind of
31:18
the same thing now right there's like 38 vehicle reviews and other things there so that was all again related to
31:24
automobile as well i'm not a journalist trained but mack morrison said write something let's see what's what she
31:30
basically said look your stuff is good keep doing what you're doing and again honestly that was a bucket list thing
31:36
for me to possibly get into a print magazine that was respected nationally circulate internationally circulated and
31:43
write a real article about it that was what i wanted to do i didn't just want to be a guy pressing pedals and setting
31:48
a lap time and nothing you know i like the idea of writing mac has given me those opportunities and now actually
31:55
i've moved over to cnet part of the cnet roadshow team which is fairly recent but
32:00
i've done a couple of videos already at one prince magazine article so very nice now i know you had mentioned that you
32:06
had done some video reviews of some cars what kind of cars did you get to review well you can start with really expensive
32:14
like the mclaren center and you can end up at the other end of the spectrum with one of the most
32:20
beautifully designed small cars in my humble opinion the master iii and so we've gotten from the sublime to the
32:27
ridiculous pretty much in that series so super fast to super fun now you also
32:32
have your own company andy it's called the traffic safety education foundation yes talk about the foundation the
32:38
foundation came about with my interest in trying to give back i had been very
32:44
fortunate coming over to this country to be able to start up a little business in 1989 with very little money and it took
32:52
off like a single engine cessna dragon an elephant over the first two years but it finally took off and that business
32:58
kept going for quite a while when that business was going quite well and racing was going well it was time to give back
33:05
so in the mid 90s i started to think about traffic safety as a potential way to go i was aware that the american
33:11
driving test was not anything close to european standards as far as a driving test which of course isn't helpful when
33:18
it comes to survival and just being a good driver and generally being able to merge not merge understand to use your
33:24
mirrors and every all those other wonderful things and it sort of sprung from that understanding first of all
33:29
talking to students all around the country at various schools i'm only one person and this was something that i
33:35
needed to get to more people then i started making educational videos and essentially i've done five full-length
33:41
educational videos with hundreds of small chapters so the driver education teachers and parents with kids of all
33:48
ages by the way once you turn your child's safety seat around to face front that 18 months or two-year-olds is
33:53
actually learning driving habits and behaviors from watching you drive parents just so you know 15 years old or
33:59
16 is about 13 years too late when you start thinking about driver education so understand that when they're in the car
34:04
which is only about 10 to 15 of the time after they start school just put the phone away and hands-free driving is not
34:11
safe very true also you were inducted into the corvette hall of fame in 2012
34:16
that had to be a huge thrill yes corvette hall of fame was fantastic
34:21
unexpected and just a wonderful thing because the corvette program has been such a great program just the idea of
34:27
getting that kind of recognition my mum actually is quite funny when i told her in 2012 she said well
34:34
that's really nice to you i thought normally when you got inducted into those kinds of things you had to be dead
34:40
typical english person so it was quite funny but it's a great honor it is a great honor corvette was one of the
34:46
first sports cars that i was aware of outside british type cars when i was
34:51
young the corvette is just so internationally known and then to be in the corvette hall of fame is a super
34:57
honor it's great it's great fun definitely and you live in bowling green kentucky now talk about the association
35:03
you have with the national corvette museum and the ncm motorsports park essentially three and a half years ago
35:10
now i was in the middle of selling my i.t company which at that point was 29 years old and i was ready and i was
35:15
based always in south florida my foundation was growing i could do the journalistic stuff from anyway i could
35:20
do the race driving stuff from anywhere i had some interest from two locations one in oregon and one in california on
35:26
the west coast to base my foundation there because they could do more community service with it they
35:32
understood that i was nationally doing things for traffic safety so that was sort of going forwards somebody at the
35:38
corvette museum heard about this the president heard about it from a board member said hey andy pilgrim's moving
35:43
blah blah why if he's doing this if he can do this on the west coast maybe we should ask him if he wants to do it in bowling green long story short four
35:50
months of negotiation later i end up being a consultant here to help wherever
35:55
they want me to help essentially i do traffic safety education stuff from the motor source park which my foundation
36:01
has to pay for but the point is it gives me a facility it gives me classrooms that i can rent gives me a paddock area
36:07
that i can rent so i do the traffic safety work there and also i can do whatever else i need to do and that's it
36:14
essentially i said yep let's make a deal and i've been here for years i just extended the contract for another three years and that's how essentially i got
36:22
to bowling green very nice i can do everything else from here yeah and it's been great it's been great it's been really nice great people very nice andy
36:28
you also have your own website talk about the url and what people will find on the website and how someone can get
36:34
in touch with you you can always get in touch with me through the website i am on social media i won't say i'm active
36:40
every day on social media because i'm just honestly it's just too busy i'm there to sort of inform certain things
36:45
when things happen if i can but i'm on social media as well if you go to either of the websites there's andypilgrim.com
36:52
which is racing related but the main one that gets used the most certainly because of the foundation work is
37:00
tsef.org and the tses essentially stands for traffic safetyeducationfoundation.org
37:07
you can get there through the whole thing traffic safety education foundation.org or
37:13
tsef.org either one gets to the foundation and you can get to me through the andypilgrim.com or through the
37:19
foundation website it's easy enough to do very nice andy thank you so much for
37:24
being my guest on corvette today the stories were absolutely fantastic we have to have you back on the show and
37:30
we'll talk more about some of the corvette racing stories steve it's been my pleasure thank you so much for having
37:36
me it's great to be part of your very long list of legend people there i'm very honored thank you thanks for
37:42
listening to corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the
37:47
corvette today podcast and also thanks to our flagship sponsors american hydrocarbon at
37:53
americanhydrocarbon.com true wealth and company at retirewithtrue.com also aerolary wheels
37:59
get 100 off your purchase with the promo code ct100 at arrowlaurie.com also nova
38:05
stretch bras use the code corvette today 15 and get 15 off your total purchase at
38:11
novastretch.com you've been listening to corvette today
38:16
with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette
38:22
today you can email him at stevegarrettdj gmail.com
38:28
that's stevegarrettdj gmail.com garrett has two r's and two t's or
38:34
connect with steve on social media on facebook twitter or instagram using at steve garrett dj
38:41
thanks again for listening to corvette today
39:07
you
#Auto Racing
#Autos & Vehicles
#Chevrolet
#Classic Vehicles
#Driving & Racing Games
#Ferrari
#Motorcycle Racing
#Vehicle Shows