My name is Tony (though you may know me better as Derhase on the GolfMK7 forum). If you’ve followed my “build thread” you’ll know that I’ve got my hands in a dozen different cookie jars. Lots of little projects like CAN bus sniffing, research into what many of the brake adaptations really do, tuning the car myself via Simos Tools, and logging cooling data on track. I’ve found myself down a few other rabbit holes that haven’t really been documented anywhere as well.
I got my start as a gearhead with a 94 Z28 as my first car (no, it’s not as cool as it sounds - it had 190k miles on it), got into some trouble with it as one does at 18 years old. Shortly after I got big into off-roading with an 03 Jeep Wrangler (TJ). That spiraled out of control quickly when I learned how to weld, cutting the suspension brackets off and built a “1 Ton TJ” with D60/D70HD axles with 5.86 gears, Detroit Lockers, stretched wheelbase to 110in, etc etc. When my son was born, the Jeep wasn’t driven as much and a friend got me itching to get into autocross.
I bought an 09 Mazda3i 5spd which I autocrossed on all seasons with basically no modifications (a window-weld filled motor mount, hah) for a year and a half, then got the itch to be more competitive. This led to replacing it with an 11 Mazda2 that got built for STF autocross in 2014-15. I self-learned a LOT with that car during the initial build and the following years of development. I learned how to model the suspension and ran all kinds of calculations to make changes within the ruleset. I fabricated my own strut housings using Koni “RACE” 8610 cartridges up front, fabricated my own spherical top hats, etc. I got into doing track days in about 2016 and focused more heavily on those ever since.
My time in the Mazda2 community led to a lot of great friendships, experiences, and memories over the years. Lots of chassis development was done on that car between myself and a few others - and even though nearly all of us drive vastly different stuff now, we still chat on a regular basis. I’m fortunate to have a large network of really good friends with all kinds of different specialized skill sets and knowledge that I can bounce ideas off of, and probe for questions - almost all met through automotive related shenanigans in one form or another.
The Mazda2 saw LOTS of different suspension changes over the years. The best it ever felt was on Redshift coilovers. I did a few time trial/track sprint type events over the years, and it ultimately met a wall at Mid Ohio in 2021 when a car ahead of me made a huge dust cloud on the outside of T1. I misjudged the track limits and dipped two wheels off. It led to a spin where the car darted across the track, towards the inside tire wall. I had a serious concussion and wasn’t entirely sure I’d be “able” to drive on track again. My balance was messed up badly for a month, and really wasn’t “right” for a solid couple months. The 2019 GTI that this site primarily features was it’s replacement: the idea was to get a “do everything” kind of car. In the event I got back on track and found I couldn’t do it anymore… I’d at least still have a really fun daily driver that I could tinker with.
My one regret with the Mazda2 was not doing any real data collection short of looking at lap times and min/max corner speeds on track. I made a LOT of changes to the car based off of “feel” while I was still developing as a driver early on, which led to a lot of experimentation in spring rates and chassis setup changes that ended up needing to be repeated at a later time. Results I was initially seeing were due to myself getting better and driving faster in spite of the setup changes… not because of them. The car got sorted pretty well over the 2017+ autocross season when I started getting help from (faster) codrivers any time I could bribe someone to hop in my 97hp clown car.
In 2017-2019 I was autocrossing a different car at every event… everything from a Geo Metro to a C6 Z06 on Hoosiers. That was a huge part in my own development as a driver and learning to drive around different handling characteristics to extract the most from the car.
This GTI has been an absolute blast - there might be a better “jack of all trades” car out there… but I sure as hell don’t know what it is. I’ve been doing as many track events in my GTI as my schedule and budget will allow since the beginning of 2022, plus a few other fun things like my first ChampCar race back in March of 2023 and gotten back into doing local autocross events as well.
As far as my professional background goes: I was a master tech for 17 years working on all makes and models. I worked for a nationwide used car dealer so got to see a little bit of everything and over time gained an appreciation for a bit of everything (and also hating everything in some way too). My last 2 years in the automotive field I worked for a small independent company and was doing nothing but mobile ADAS calibrations, programming, module initializations, advanced diagnostics, etc. I was essentially working on all the “high tech BS” on new cars - primarily aligning radars and camera systems after collision repairs (such as the VW ACC module and Lane Assist cameras). This was easily still the “coolest” job I’ve ever had, but I had other aspirations to get out of automotive entirely.
In early 2023 I made a career change as a software engineer/consultant, now building applications processing and presenting data that get used to help solve expensive problems. I am constantly learning new things that I’m hoping to utilize to further the MQB platform on track.
The “Improving the Driver” and “Improving the Car” pieces will tend to be heavier on the analytical and/or informative side of things, and the “Trip Reports” will be more personal with highlights of track and/or auto-x events, with a likely dose of nerding out on whatever I fiddled with. “DIY Data Analysis” will be about logging interfaces, or how to analyze your logs in a way that is useful.