Jul 24, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 12 segments
**Fine Line and Whiskey Podcast** **iRacing Spotlight** This week’s *iRacing Spotlight* goes beyond the track. We sit down with one of the drivers from iRacing and get real—not just about racing…
Michael ContiGuestBrianHostNickHost
It goes back... really to the beginning of when I started sim racing and I started at a really young age, I was like five years old.
I think it's been a long time now, so it's getting a bit fuzzier, but I think I was five and I always hope to translate what I did on the sim, which back then was NASCAR 2002, 2003, which we now know are like classic, some of the best of all time.
wanted to use that as a training ground to, to prepare myself so that if an opportunity came up in real life, I could capitalize on it and be prepared seeing that my family didn't have the money to put me in a car, a legend car, anything like that.
And also being in Northeast New Jersey, there, there weren't really a lot of opportunities for oval racing up there.
So fast forward to my time in the Coke series, that was just, uh, me furthering, uh, The hope that I could translate that into some real life opportunities, which I eventually got to do, which were super cool.
And then in retiring from that at the end of 23, I knew that I still wanted to be involved in the community, be involved in iRacing on the oval side.
And after working for a couple different performance providers over the few years leading up to that, I knew that there was an opportunity for myself and a few others on my team to start our own thing and do it our own way.
As we knew, being in that pro space for over a decade, we knew what it took to go fast, and we knew what it would take to get other people to go fast.
And now three years later, we've got a very successful business where, yes, we sell setups, but we don't really call ourselves a setup shop because we just feel like that really diminishes the value of the product we provide, if you will, because there's so much more to it.
It's like the coaching, it's the mentoring, it's everything after that initial sale that helps that driver not only maximize the setup, but maximize their potential and exceed what what they believe their potential is.
It's just a little bit of a different intensity and different stress, but, um, expectations are high, you know, people are spending money for your stuff.
What does, well, I guess, so you obviously had your brand and you wanted to branch out with you and your team.
I guess from a business perspective, what problem, well, I don't know if you would call it a problem, but what are you trying to solve for your customers? So I
think they're, are a lot of providers out there that do give off a good service.
It goes back... really to the beginning of when I started sim racing and I started at a really young age, I was like five years old.
I think it's been a long time now, so it's getting a bit fuzzier, but I think I was five and I always hope to translate what I did on the sim, which back then was NASCAR 2002, 2003, which we now know are like classic, some of the best of all time.
wanted to use that as a training ground to, to prepare myself so that if an opportunity came up in real life, I could capitalize on it and be prepared seeing that my family didn't have the money to put me in a car, a legend car, anything like that.
And also being in Northeast New Jersey, there, there weren't really a lot of opportunities for oval racing up there.
So fast forward to my time in the Coke series, that was just, uh, me furthering, uh, The hope that I could translate that into some real life opportunities, which I eventually got to do, which were super cool.
And then in retiring from that at the end of 23, I knew that I still wanted to be involved in the community, be involved in iRacing on the oval side.
And after working for a couple different performance providers over the few years leading up to that, I knew that there was an opportunity for myself and a few others on my team to start our own thing and do it our own way.
As we knew, being in that pro space for over a decade, we knew what it took to go fast, and we knew what it would take to get other people to go fast.
And now three years later, we've got a very successful business where, yes, we sell setups, but we don't really call ourselves a setup shop because we just feel like that really diminishes the value of the product we provide, if you will, because there's so much more to it.
It's like the coaching, it's the mentoring, it's everything after that initial sale that helps that driver not only maximize the setup, but maximize their potential and exceed what what they believe their potential is.
It's just a little bit of a different intensity and different stress, but, um, expectations are high, you know, people are spending money for your stuff.
What does, well, I guess, so you obviously had your brand and you wanted to branch out with you and your team.
I guess from a business perspective, what problem, well, I don't know if you would call it a problem, but what are you trying to solve for your customers? So I
think they're, are a lot of providers out there that do give off a good service.
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