...

Go Back   Lateral-g Forums > Lateral-G Open Discussions > Open Discussion
User Name
Password



Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-23-2018, 07:11 PM
Ron Sutton's Avatar
Ron Sutton Ron Sutton is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Folsom, CA
Posts: 2,422
Thanks: 45
Thanked 35 Times in 26 Posts
Default Sometimes things don’t go as planned

Smart business people typically don’t respond to online attacks. But as this issue has spiraled out of reality, it’s clear I need respond to own the mistakes I made & clear the air about other things. This is more or less my version of the good, bad & ugly.

None of us can be 100% objective about things we’re emotionally involved in. What I say is the facts as I see them, and I know I have a bias like everyone else does. I believe some of what has been stated on Greg’s Mustang thread by people is true … some not … and of course there is always more to the story that puts events into context & perspective.

The big three issues … the dry sump vent, cooling system & body fitment … talked about on the Mustang thread are true.

I am not a race car builder anymore, and I do not want to be. I am a designer & setup guy these days. That is what I’m good at & what I love to do. I didn’t build this race car personally. I had it built. I have 3 good car builders in the U.S. we’ve set up as authorized Track-Warrior builders. Randy Chastain of One-Off customs is the guy in California. They are all super talented, but I am responsible for the end product, no one else.

As most of you know my business has sold a lot of “Build-Your-Own” Track-Warrior chassis packages & clips for shops & talented Do-It-Yourself car guys with fab skills to build. Randy had built “Rollers”, but not a turn-key Track-Warrior until Greg’s Mustang, which we labeled TW001.

The LS, EFI & no-lift shift T56 Sequential powertrain was a new combination for us. I don’t build engines. I configure what I want & the SDPC Race shop in Lubbock, TX builds my Warrior line of engines. Kurt Urban works there now & builds most of my customer engines. Kurt does a great job. The engine ran great & built good power (707HP of the dyno). Joe Dederichs of Texas built the sequential T56 trans with all PPG internals. Worked great. Max Darrah of X-ineering providing the brain & programming for the no-lift shift. Had an issue in June but worked great at this NASA event.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. We had issues with the cooling & dry sump vent all weekend. It was frustrating & embarrassing. As I stated in post #532 on Greg’s Mustang thread here: https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthr...=56209&page=54

I didn’t design the cooling system. I bought the best from C&R, as I have for years, and Randy plumbed it as C&R told us too. That’s not Randy’s fault. But it is my responsibility, because I bought it, and I am responsible for the whole car. Same with the Dry Sump system. I am not trying to shift blame. I am responsible.

Some people asked why we weren’t fixing the problems after the event. I thought we were going to. Greg & I made plans to. So I was as shocked as anyone on Wednesday when the feces hit the rotary oscillator online.

Back in the 80’s I built a lot of fiberglass bodied drag cars. All fiberglass race car bodies suck, but they are a light & affordable way to body a tube chassis race car. Just don’t look real close. Anyone who has built light weight fiberglass race cars knows this as well. Steel bodies are way better, but heavier & exponentially more expensive to build. Working with thin fiberglass race bodies is an art. This was the first time for Randy. Just before the car came apart the final time for powder coat & paint, I inspected the car & Randy had the alignment & gaps good. Not great, but good for a race car.

When the body went back together a few days before the event, the body fitment at the doors & front end was horrible. It’s not supposed to be a show car or even a street car. It’s a race car. But when it went back together for the vinyl wrap people to get started, things moved & the fit was not even good enough for a race car.

Greg told me he didn’t care about the body fitment … “it’s a race car” … and that the goal was to go run this NASA race & see if we could podium in TTU with the new car. Randy & I discussed how much time was needed to re-adjust the fit, and unfortunately we were out of time to make this event.

The misconception is that we put the car out like this as a finished product. Not true. We planned to fix these things when we had more time. I wasn’t happy or “OK” with the body fitment, but knowing Greg & I were friends and we were going to run the car together for the foreseeable future, I knew we would get the car back at Randy’s shop & take the time to fix it & several other appearance things that got rushed, like the wiring & the wrap.

The wiring wasn’t made neat when they ran out of time, so it needs to be cleaned up. The wrap installers started in the rear of the car with the stripes & they weren’t centered on the hood when they got to the front. The wrap surprised us that the yellow vinyl is not solid. The yellow vinyl has a degree of translucency to it, and each dark colored fiberglass filler spot on the body showed through the wrap as a dark spot. Not trying to shift blame. It’s all on me. I planned to have the wrap people re-move the whole wrap, primer the body white & re-wrap the whole car when we had more time, on my dime.

These issues were mistakes, not intentional. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have agreed to keep the original time line for this build when the custom widened body came 3 months late. I made a bad decision. Building a new car of this level for the first time, in only 4 months was unrealistic. It put Randy in a tough spot & there were errors. But Greg Weld has been very good to me. Anyone that knows Greg, knows he is a great person with a heart of gold. We had these dates set & I couldn’t tell him no.

The bottom line is I let Greg down & I’m sick over it. The loss of his friendship is a gut punch. You can always get more business. But a friend like Greg only comes along once in a lifetime. That is what I regret about this most.

Two other important issues were brought up on the thread that I need to address. One of me taking an extremely long time to get some people’s designs & custom parts to them, or their suspension setup with springs & bars. The second is comparisons to Frank at Prodigy who ripped people off for money.

The first is true for some of my clients from 2015 to 2017. I received LOTS of requests for custom car build chassis designs & suspension calcs with setup work ups. Way too many … and my dumb ass didn’t say “no” to anyone, so they piled up. I overloaded myself. I got so far behind that some client projects that should have taken a month took 3 or 4. A few client projects that should have taken 3-4 months took a year or more. Things don’t always work out exactly the way you plan. My fault. No one else’s. I apologize to the folks that projects got delayed so long.

The comparison of me to Frank at Prodigy is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination. I have never scammed anyone out of money. It has been implied I’ve “robbed Peter to pay Paul” and that’s why people didn’t get their parts in a timely manner. Also not true. With the delays in finishing people’s custom designs, their custom made parts were delayed too. But everyone got their parts. With delays in finishing people calcs & suspension set ups … there were delays in getting people their springs or sway bars, until I knew the rates. They got the majority of their parts right away. But the springs & bars didn’t get shipped until I figured out what rates they needed. No one has made a purchase with me & not received their parts. Not ever. I just needed to clear that up.

Today my business is different. In 2018 we moved into a great facility with offices, R&D shop and warehouse with an efficient shipping & receiving area, as well as having a staff of four now. Wendi handles bookkeeping & errands. Susan is a veteran office manager that handles all the business & financial stuff. She also handles all the Workshop registrations. Dave Hanson handles orders & shipping parts out every day. Susan & Dave have freed me up quite a bit. I still handle purchasing, but we plan to add a person soon to handle that, as well as shipping to free Dave up for more customer service time.

We’re doing more business than ever & the business runs smoothly today. I now have more time freed up to do “tailored” designs for clients, of the stuff we already sell & have worked out, as well as do suspension calcs & setups. We have zero projects behind schedule. All the new design work & calcs coming in gets handled in a normal timeline of 1 to 3 months. That can’t get any quicker. That is just what takes.

With the launch of our big catalog in August 2017, I stopped taking on complete “new from scratch” car design work. These can be an ass kicker time wise, because you need to figure out compatibility of a thousand things in the new design. So no more complete “new from scratch” car designs. Not sure I’ll ever do those again.

Now we focus on only two areas. One is doing suspension geometry calcs & setups with folks with the muscle cars we are familiar with. The second being folks that want to build a tube chassis car, of any car/truck body style, using the 4 levels of Track-Warrior front & rear suspensions we already have developed & simply tailor the dimensions to fit their unique car or truck.

If anyone has further questions feel free to call or email me.
__________________
Ron Sutton Race Technology
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Ron Sutton For This Useful Post:
frojoe (08-27-2018), RdHuggr68 (08-24-2018), rustomatic (08-24-2018)
  #2  
Old 08-23-2018, 07:58 PM
SSLance's Avatar
SSLance SSLance is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Peoria, AZ
Posts: 2,668
Thanks: 72
Thanked 337 Times in 211 Posts
Default

I am happy to see you finally respond to all of this Ron. What happened between you and my friend Greg makes me sad. I can understand both sides and do not pretend to have an answer as to how to fix it or even if it ever can be fixed. In my opinion it is a case of over promise\under deliver with a side helping of unrealistic expectations. Hopefully everyone learns from this and makes better choices going forward.

I am pretty sure I was one of the first people in the Pro-touring game to actively work with Ron after he reached out to help me with my car’s suspension back in 2013. Over the past 5 years or so Ron has not only helped me pick out 5 different stages of suspension development, but has also taught me how to diagnose suspension tuning issues and how to correct them using the parts, pieces and data at my disposal.

I am by no means a big budget guy, most of what we did together was on a shoestring budget working with what I could scrounge up. I can not tell you how many times I’ve talked or texted with Ron on weekends, nights, holidays, in between runs during a race, etc… If Ron had the time, he always took my call and is always willing to help out no matter how big or small my questions may have been at the time.

Now granted, as he has gotten busier…sometimes it take longer for him to respond. What I’ve personally seen though is as soon as he can respond, he does and when he does he is ready with an answer to help me out.

How many of us have benefited over the years with advice or consultation that Ron has freely given out on these forums? How many of us have cars that are faster and better driving than they were before directly because of Ron? Is he right or perfect 100% of the time, not a chance. It is like anything else, there is no one right answer for everyone when dealing with cars and specifically suspensions. What works for one driver\owner\builder may not work at all for another. Ron does a pretty good job in my opinion of figuring out what you need and doing his best to steer you in a direction that will work best for you.

Fiscally speaking, Ron has always been straight up and honest with me. Not only has he always sold me parts at a fair price, but if there was ever an issue with anything I bought from him…he took care of it immediately. For example…last fall I was on a tight time frame to get my Big Brake kit installed. I had 5 days to get it done and the car HAD to roll back out of the shop under it’s own power so I could complete my move to Arizona. On day 2 I discovered that I had (2) Right Rear backing plates and no Left Rear backing plate. I made one quick call to Ron and he overnighted for early morning delivery the left backing plate I needed…at his expense. I had also ordered a bunch of steering parts at the same time that he gladly took back when we discovered that they would not work with my current setup.

I have referred a lot of people to Ron over the years for parts and setup services. I have never heard from any of them that Ron has treated them unfairly fiscally wise. Ron has always taken care of any issues that have come up. The comparison to a flat out thief like Prodigy was not fair.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
  #3  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:13 PM
mfain mfain is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 450
Thanks: 68
Thanked 104 Times in 49 Posts
Default

I think Ron’s post is a very stand-up approach to a difficult situation. I have great empathy for Greg’s compressed timeline (and I sincerely hope it is not really that compressed – he is too ornery for that to happen), but it put both him and Ron in a box. Greg has already stated that others turned down the build because of the time constraints, but Ron gave it the old college try. Building a fully functioning, trouble-free track car in 4 months is an almost impossible task, especially if the car is a prototype of sorts. Ron probably over-extended. Ron has discussed the errors, and I wish he had the opportunity to make the corrections to problems that he accepted as his responsibility and knew were necessary – but that did not work out.

With that said, I will say that I have been doing business with Ron for a number of years and I have had absolutely no problems with the quality or pricing of his service or parts. I order “one-off” stuff and he works with me to get the right product. There are sometimes slight delays, but usually caused by me not having my act together and having to rely on Ron pointing me in the right direction. His Lateral-g stickys on suspension design and car handling have probably greatly increased the technical knowledge of most of us, and all for free.

I know Greg will get his car working the way he thinks it should, with the support of a bunch of great friends. And Ron will continue to be the suspension “magician” that we have relied on to make our cars faster. I wish both the best of luck.
Pappy
  #4  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:22 PM
tcgrmt tcgrmt is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 7
Thanks: 0
Thanked 9 Times in 4 Posts
Default Race cars never go as planned

Ron I want to thank you for your workshops and sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I don’t see anyone else offering this up. Since my first workshop I knew I had a lot to learn and why my car was handling so poorly. Since then I have attended every workshop. After measuring my car up and getting it optimized by you along with your shock and spring package this thing is mean and only held back by the driver at this point.
Your continued support after the sale is also greatly appreciated including answering text on weekends when I am racing.
Looking forward to working with you on the future changes to make this thing even meaner and hopefully my own track warrior chassis car someday.
__________________
93 Mustang Cobra - CAM-T
  #5  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:46 PM
Bryant Bryant is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: San Diego
Posts: 1
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

I’m saddened to see a situation like this. I have had the pleasure to work with Ron on several of the projects at my shop. He has always given me the time to make sure what I’m doing is right. His attention to detail is always above what I find from others at similar companies.
I don’t understand how a fast paced car build can be expected to be perfect first time out of the box. That is an unrealistic expectation and I suspect some miscommunication had occurred and then grew out of control.
Ron has fixed and next day aired shocks for one of my customers so we could make a race. He has spent hours on the phone with me a getting my car set up sorted out. I know the he has the best intentions, the ability, and desire to make right to Greg and all the rest of his clients.
I strongly encourage people to take advantage of have a great source of race car building and tuning knowledge and parts that Ron provides.
__________________
i own and operate Current Auto Performance www.currentautoperformance.com. i also build the differentials for San Diego Gear and Axle.
i have a 71 Ford Maverick that is built to do every thing better than stock.
  #6  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:49 PM
Mizzouri Mizzouri is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 16
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

My history goes back to seeing how Ron worked with Lance and the results he was having locally in our KC events. After reading his suspension posts over and over I decided to have a call with him to finalize the direction I was going to take with my 68 Camaro. In the fall of 2015 I spoke with Ron and he was very thorough in explaining what ALL of my options were and the pros and cons of each path. I never got the impression I was being herded down a path that a lot resellers will take with customers. It was not much later that I laid down a fair bit of coin on parts to take the car to a different level of performance that what I had been seeing on the market at that time. All of the parts came in a very reasonable amount of time as they were ordered. After the car was on the road Ron was invaluable in helping us solve problems with installation issues from the shop that I chose(over tightened suspension bolts was the root). With his guidance the car progressed very nicely. In the end I have learned a LOT from Ron via the web, phone calls, texts, emails, workshops. I'm not trying to sound like an orchestrated fanboy here, the only issue we did have was with some incorrect springs, but once we determined the correct length the right springs were there in 2 days! It's not in a man's errors that I judge him...it's how he RESOLVES them that I do.
  #7  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:52 PM
mach1 mach1 is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 1
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

I read some of what was in the other thread and it seemed like a lot of childish **** talking which I'm not really interested in but I was very surprised as all of my dealings with Ron over the past 5 years have been on the up and up. He would always go above and beyond as recently as a couple of months ago when something was missed in a shipment and without question it was overnighted to the race track for our race that weekend.

As was said, sometimes things go wrong, we all fail, it's how we learn, how you handle that and move forward is key, I will continue to do business with Ron especially since he is owning up to this as any upstanding person or business owner should. Lesson learned, make it right, move on and keep kicking ass.
  #8  
Old 08-23-2018, 09:13 PM
Rmt's Avatar
Rmt Rmt is offline
Member
 
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 20
Thanks: 27
Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts
Default My experience with Ron Sutton Race Technology

I tried posting earlier, in the vendor/member feedback section, but it was as never approved, so I’ll repeat it here.

Basically, I concur with the earlier post, and my experience had been that Ron Sutton is a GREAT guy to do business with.

After learning so much from reading his posts on this forum,
I purchased a complete design from RSRT, wanting to avail myself to the experience being offered.
He told me up front, that he was a one-man business, and sometimes there would be delays as he got backed up.
As construction progressed, “new car bugs” came up, and Ron was always there.
Improperly made parts replaced, and solutions and alternative ways of going about whatever was difficult.

Being the “problem customer” that I am, I changed my mind in the middle of the project,
going from a wide 5 hub/15” wheel design (I liked the look)
to a 5x5 hub/18” wheel, for better geometry, and brakes.
Ron was busier, and it took longer to get parts this go round, but as always, not only were business dealings straight up, documentation was provided, and suggestions on how to best implement changes.

I consider dealing with RSRT-- buying a design, parts, and workshops,
to be the best investment I’m made.
The continued support is worth more than just the parts ordered.

Robert Taylor
__________________
REO Speedwarrior thread https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=50854
  #9  
Old 08-23-2018, 09:41 PM
pro68chevelle pro68chevelle is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 9
Thanks: 0
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Default

I started working with Ron in the fall of 2015 after reading threads about how he had helped Lance with his Monte Carlo.

I spoke with Ron on the phone many times so we could decide what direction I wanted to take my build. (Ron always took the time to explain my options and to understand what I wanted from the car).

During my build there have been some delays with parts or wrong parts but Ron has always corrected them or got me the parts as soon as possible.
(Ron has flown to a manufacture to get an issue fixed)

I have learned a lot from Ron's seminars and speaking with him on the phone or by text/emails with questions. He was always willing to help on the phone or return my calls/ texts in a reasonable amount of time. Are there parts of my build the could have gone better YES,but overall I am happy to be working with Ron.
The Following User Says Thank You to pro68chevelle For This Useful Post:
Rmt (08-23-2018)
  #10  
Old 08-23-2018, 10:22 PM
Kulig Kulig is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 5
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default :) :) :)

I'm just a club level racer from over the pond in Oz and I was fortunate enough to come across these forums and the information that Ron gave in the suspension threads which helped me better understand and setup my race car.(This was a great help and it was free)
After attending the course in 2016 and learning a whole bunch I decided to contact Ron to look at improving the setup and handling of my car. I will admit at this point that the initial time frames proposed were pushed back a few times, as it seems that my job fell into that year range he put up in his post. For me that was no real issue, I was still racing my car and wasn't waiting desperately. However, once it was all done and sorted, I came to the following years workshop and got my parts at the same time and took as much back with me to Oz as I could pack in my bags. To be honest, to date, I haven't done all the modifications outlined, mostly due to a lack of time to implement them(It is hard to stop racing to do upgrades). The modifications that I have done so far have all netted big improvements with no issues. I got all the parts that I paid for and all the services too. I can say that there were no negatives to the overall experience other then the time it took to start it all.

It is great to see a response to this situation. Who knows whether it will clear the air or just stir more ****, but something is better then nothing and it is an open forum for all to speak/converse from all sides. Best of luck to everyone and I hope Greg does get the car finished how he wants it and actually gives it a fang around the track! We are all here because of racing, its what turns the world around....atleast for us motorsport orientated people anyway
__________________
Michael Kulig.

There is no such thing as impossible, it only needs more development time.
Closed Thread

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:03 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright Lateral-g.net