Today marks 10 years of The Shop Houston. On September 24, 2016, The Shop Houston opened its doors to the public with one goal in mind: “Houston’s best performance automotive shop. Period.” Ten years later, I can humbly say that I believe we accomplished that goal, and then pushed far beyond anything we could have imagined when those doors first opened. Today, I believe we are not only one of the best choices for import performance in Houston, but part of a very small group of shops nationwide, and even worldwide, capable of producing the level of work and results that our team has achieved. As I write this, The Shop Houston built and holds the record for the quickest GTR in the world, with our shop car, Kimbo, running a 6.33 at 229 MPH in the quarter mile. We have built more than 100 projects that have run a 7 second quarter mile pass or better, and we have had the privilege of working on more than 1,500 GTRs right here at our Houston performance shop. Those are numbers I am incredibly proud of, but enough about what we have done. I want to talk about how we got here.
There have been a tremendous number of people involved in The Shop Houston throughout these 10 years. It would be almost impossible to tell every story or recognize every person who played a role somewhere along the way. For the sake of keeping this from turning into an actual book, I am going to focus primarily on the people who remain important to the company today, along with some of the people whose contributions had a lasting impact on what TSH eventually became. If you were part of this journey and I do not get the opportunity to name you here, please understand that does not mean your involvement was forgotten or unappreciated. Thank you for being part of our little slice of heaven. More than anything else, there is one thing I hope people take away from this story: the greatest asset The Shop Houston has ever had is our team. It always has been.
In 2016, The Shop Houston was founded by David Oden. During those first few months, the business started gaining a small but noticeable presence within the Skyline and GTR community. A handful of R35s and Skylines began showing up for maintenance, repairs, and general performance work. A few months after the doors opened, I joined the team. At the time, I was so convinced that there was something special here that I offered to work for the company for free until David could see the value and passion I believed I could bring to it. A couple of months later, we were already at capacity and had no choice but to move into a larger facility. We relocated into the Brittmoore complex and moved into a roughly 5,000 square foot unit, and thankfully, that was also when I officially made it onto the payroll. That move gave us exactly what we needed to really begin building the company we wanted The Shop Houston to become. We set out to build GTRs and Skylines to the absolute best of our ability, and during that first year we estimate that around 100 different cars came through our doors looking for us to put our hands on them.
By 2017, between the sales volume, marketing, and growing workload, we knew it was time to start adding people. One of those people was Kaina West. Kaina was referred to us by a friend as someone who was interested in leaving his job at a restaurant and had a huge passion for racing. At the time, Kaina had an Acura RSX that he had pieced together with basically every dollar he could scrape together so he could enjoy road racing at MSR Houston. He even volunteered his time there simply so he could have opportunities to drive his car on track during off days. We hired Kaina to report to me, become the first point of contact for customers, create content, and execute marketing campaigns. It did not take very long to realize that Kaina was much more than that. Kaina jokingly describes himself as a guy who is “just mediocre at everything.” I could not disagree with that description more. Being around Kaina every day has honestly been an opportunity I am not sure I will ever get the privilege of having with another person in my lifetime. His ability to learn mechanical and technical skills is something I have only seen in very special people.
Here is one example. I once took Kaina with me on an introductory flight lesson. At some point during the flight, the instructor asked him to take over the controls. After watching him for a moment, the instructor asked, “You’ve done this before, huh?” Kaina responded, “No, never.” After Kaina successfully completed several different maneuvers, the instructor casually asked, “You want to try landing it?” Meanwhile, I am in the back seat about ready to shit myself wondering what the heck this instructor is about to let this guy do. Kaina landed the airplane. No problem. Here is another example. Kaina once watched a YouTube video with a title similar to “TIG Welding Basics In Under 15 MIN!” After watching the video, he picked up the welding torch and started practicing. That same month, he completed his first exhaust project. Nothing crazy, just a center exit exhaust system for a 1,500 horsepower Audi R8. He nailed it on his first try. Not long after that, Kaina fabricated and welded the complete titanium twin turbo system for my Lamborghini Huracan after another seasoned fabricator had already attempted to get it exactly how I wanted it and could not quite get there. Kaina got it there. He is remarkable.
Around that same time, we also brought Hajime Maki onto the team. Hajime is an absolute master of his craft. We joke around the shop that Hajime invented the RB26. If there is something you want to know about the Skyline or GTR platforms, Hajime can probably explain it to you in more technical detail than you ever wanted to hear. He knows the obscure things, the strange things, the tiny details buried deep within the platform that most people would never have a reason to know. He is basically a walking service manual. Hajime was born in Japan, and what we do here almost seems engraved into his DNA. Years ago, Hajime was even featured by Speedhunters for being the first person to successfully swap an RB26 into an S14 240SX in the United States. The coolest part is that Hajime bought that S14 brand new from the dealership, and he still owns it today, almost entirely preserved in the same form. Hajime’s abilities do not stop with Japanese imports either. He has become our go to guy for our V10 projects as well, and he is just as comfortable working on an Audi R8 or Lamborghini Huracan as he is an R35 GTR or Skyline. One of the things that has always impressed me most about Hajime is his ability to perform incredibly detailed work, with incredible consistency, for long periods of time. Almost 10 years later, Hajime is now 51 years old and is still producing some of the best work I have seen anywhere in the import performance automotive industry. I love him dearly, and I am incredibly privileged that he is still here with us.
Antonie Nguyen was another huge part of the story. Antonie joined The Shop Houston as a performance technician and eventually transitioned into fabrication and welding. Through 2024, Antonie worked at TSH for almost the entire period, outside of a few small breaks along the way. Watching his skills develop was incredible. Antonie sharpened his abilities to an unbelievable level, and he is still someone we utilize today when racing projects require additional hands and a very high level of fabrication skill. Then there is Antonie’s personality. You genuinely never know what this guy is going to do next. He is definitely the person you bring somewhere when you want to have enough fun that getting trespassed from the property becomes a legitimate possibility. He is predictably unpredictable. Getting the opportunity to watch Antonie grow alongside us, then use his knowledge and brilliance to help build some of the coolest projects imaginable, has been incredible.
Then came another chapter that would completely change our racing program. In 2018, I met Mac Brosnan. Mac owned Command Performance, a performance shop in Connecticut. They had a small operation, but they were building absolute killers. You would constantly see posts on the different racing and smack talk pages showing these guys absolutely destroying people on the street. Then they would show up to events like TX2K, annihilate the competition, and proceed to talk an unbelievable amount of trash to guys who had spent a fortune just to stare at the hazard lights of cars coming out of Command Performance. Rob Harper was already tuning for Mac. There is one story Rob told me about that first GTR World Cup that I will probably never forget. Mac wanted Rob there to tune and support the car, but Mac did not actually have the money to afford Rob’s services. Mac was so confident that they were going to win that his plan for paying Rob was simple: win the race. Rob told me, “I’ll never forget him handing over the prize money and being dead serious about not being able to pay if he didn’t win that.” That pretty much sums up Mac. Mac was absolutely wild, but he always got the job done.
Another thing that immediately stood out about Command Performance was that Mac was not sending his engines somewhere else. He had developed his own engine program. To this day, we still advertise our engine line as Command Performance engines because I believe credit should always be given where it is due. Mac put in the time figuring out how to keep these engines together while pushing them to levels most people would never even attempt.
Around this same period, we received a call from someone named Willard Kinzer and another gentleman named James who managed Kinzer’s race cars. Kinzer wanted to run a 7 second pass with his R35 GTR. They spoke with Kaina about whether we wanted to become involved with the project. They had contacted several shops, but ultimately they were sold by Kaina’s professionalism and confidence. The reality was that we had never built something at that level before. Kaina did not pretend otherwise. What he did tell them was that we would figure it out, use the best people and parts available, create whatever relationships were necessary, and get the job done. So we built the car. We used some of the best components available, and that project became the first time we worked directly with Rob Harper.
At the time, Rob was living in Dubai for much of the year while managing Alpha Logic. By then, Rob had already proven exactly what he was capable of. While other teams with seemingly unlimited budgets were struggling to enter the 7s and dreaming about touching the high 6s, Rob was pushing GTRs into territory the entire world had never seen. Around that time, Rob’s team at Alpha Logic achieved the fastest and quickest GTR record in the world, running a quarter mile in 6.58 seconds at 232 MPH. We had a lot to learn from Rob, and eventually he got us pointed in the right direction. After a couple of tuning sessions, we scheduled a private track rental. Rob drove the car, and off the trailer it ran a 7 second pass. That was a huge moment for us. From there, the racing side of our business began accelerating very quickly.
While Rob was in town, I remember asking him if he knew anyone we could hire to help us continue growing. Our volume was already extremely impressive. At any given time, we could have 20 or 30 GTRs sitting on the property waiting for street car work. What we did not yet have was the skillset necessary to push a large number of those cars into the drag racing categories that many of our customers wanted to compete in. Rob asked me if I had ever talked to Mac about coming here. I told him I had hinted at the idea, but I could not understand why Mac would want to leave. Command Performance was doing so well competitively. Rob explained something that made a lot of sense. What Mac needed to grow his business was exactly the kind of volume we already had. What we needed was someone like Mac and his team because, for lack of better words, compared to those guys on the racing side of things, we knew we sucked. Rob walked into the parking lot that night, called Mac, and planted the idea in his head. He told him how many cars we had sitting there and explained that the two businesses could probably benefit tremendously from each other.
Around that time, we were trying to put together my GTR along with several customer cars that were going to be tuned on MoTeC by Rob. We were getting overwhelmed, but we were going to figure it out by any means necessary. I called Mac and told him we needed his help. I asked if he would be willing to fly to Houston for a week and simply bill us a weekly rate for his time so he could help us put the next car together. He agreed. Mac arrived on Monday, and by Thursday the car was running. New engine, turbo kit installed, MoTeC completely installed, everything ready for Rob the next time he could fly in and tune the car. That was exactly the kind of leadership and knowledge we needed to bring these larger builds into fruition. On top of that, Mac was a blast to be around. Mac tells some of the best stories you will ever hear, and the way he tells them makes you feel like you were actually standing there when they happened. Very quickly, I realized I was becoming great friends with this guy. I also realized we needed Mac and his team at The Shop Houston.
At GTR World Cup in 2019, we brought my GTR to the event and pitted alongside Command Performance. I believe every single class except Unlimited had a Command Performance car in the winner’s circle. Rob drove my car, and the Command guys treated us like family. They supported our race car like it was one of their own. After the awards ceremony, I asked Mac if we could talk. I told him I wanted to figure out what it would take to move him to Houston, and I told him I wanted his guys too. After that conversation and several more negotiations, we eventually created terms that worked for everybody. Mac, Chris Rice, Trap, Lefty, and Sam Latham eventually moved to Houston. Command Performance and The Shop Houston came together. Looking back at the history of this company, positioning TSH for racing by bringing Mac and his team here was probably the most important strategic move I have ever successfully executed. We suddenly had the best of both worlds. We had the massive customer base, we had the street car business, and now we had a team capable of delivering results at the race track too.
Chris Rice was an absolute machine as a technician. To this day, I do not think we have ever had another technician at The Shop Houston who could complete as many jobs in a single week as Chris could while still consistently delivering work without issues. His output was honestly incredible. Eventually, Chris decided to try his hand at day trading and later landed a high ranking position with a commercial roofing company backed by private equity. He does not turn wrenches full time anymore, although he still occasionally knocks out side jobs for clients in the Northeast. Of course, now that he is a little rusty, he has to call me or one of the guys at the shop every once in a while for a pointer. I make sure to remind him that the student has apparently become the teacher. All jokes aside, Chris was an extremely important part of our team and was one of the people who helped establish the work ethic and efficiency that came with the Command Performance merger.
Lefty was another person who became absolutely invaluable here. He originally started with us as a Shop Assistant and eventually earned a managerial role as Mac’s assistant manager. Lefty’s shoes can never really be filled. The guy somehow had the energy of two Shop Assistants stuffed into one body. He was never not busy. And he was not just sweeping floors, moving cars, or handling general Shop Assistant duties. Lefty helped make sure the schedule was being worked accordingly, could jump in with a technician and help get just about any job in the shop completed, and assisted Mac and Hajime through countless engine builds. When they were building an engine, Lefty always seemed to know what they were going to need next and would already have the part in his hand before they asked for it. Eventually, Lefty followed Mac to New Mexico, where somehow he managed to become just as invaluable and irreplaceable at Mac’s drilling company as he was here.
Sam Latham was another person who made the move to Houston as part of that merger and spent years with us in the Shop Assistant role. Sam had a very unique sense of humor and an almost nonstop ability to work. He was one of those people who could keep moving all day and somehow still find a way to make everyone around him laugh while doing it. His work ethic and personality made him an incredibly valuable part of the team during his time here. To this day, we still jokingly credit Sam with the honorary title of Human Resources. To be clear, Sam is absolutely not the HR person I would ever want representing me in any kind of formal dispute.
Trap has also remained an incredibly important part of our racing program. To this day, he never misses an event and is always there when we need him at the track. His experience, willingness to jump in wherever necessary, and dedication to supporting the team when we are racing have made him an extremely valuable part of what we do. Outside of racing with us, Trap has continued sharpening one of his greatest skills, automotive wiring. He now operates his own wiring business, Wired by Trap, and has continued perfecting his craft to the point that he has secured work building harnesses for customers all around the world. Watching people who were part of this team go on to build successful businesses and careers around the skills they developed has been one of the most rewarding parts of this entire journey.
The opportunities started coming quickly. Marcelo Duran trusted us with several of his GTRs. Marcelo is a huge fan of the platform and, at the time, owned quite a few R35s. We had projects for him competing in essentially every GTR drag racing class across his collection of cars. The opportunities the Duran family gave us were incredibly unique. Marcelo always wanted his cars built specifically around the rules of each class so that every possible advantage available within those rules could be utilized. One of those projects became Stormbreaker. Marcelo gave us one goal: run a 6 second pass. We built Stormbreaker closely alongside Rob, taking his advice throughout the entire process. We worked nonstop. The car was built almost entirely in house. We converted essentially the entire GTR to carbon fiber, fabricated and welded a certified 6 second cage in house, installed almost every MoTeC product imaginable, equipped the car with a front mount turbo system, and that barely scratches the surface of what went into it. We had several outings running low 7 second passes while working through bugs. Eventually, we took the car to Maryland and we got that 6.
Not long afterward, Mac became determined to push our shop car, Kimbo, even further. We tried and tried and tried. The car continued developing, and the setup continued improving. Eventually, Kimbo ran a 6 too. 1320video followed that journey closely with the late Kyle Loftis while we were at the Hail Mary Derby in Maryland in 2021. The video is called “They tried EVERYTHING to run a 6-Second Pass!” The best part of that video, in my opinion, is not even the 6 second pass. It is the interview with Mac afterward. He is standing there on the verge of tears. In that moment, you can see exactly how hard it was. You can see how badly he wanted it, and you can see how thankful he was for his team and for the opportunity. One of the first things he did was call David just to tell him thank you. That is Mac. He is not afraid to tell you when something is hard, and when everything finally works, Mac is always one of the first people putting his team in the winner’s circle and making sure everyone understands how the result actually became possible.
Around that period, Blake Pettus joined our team as a performance technician. Blake was genuinely excited to become part of what we were building. He quickly gravitated toward the R35 platform and constantly wanted to learn more. Blake learned an incredible amount under Mac’s leadership, while also benefiting from all of the knowledge that had already been built within the shop through people like Hajime, Chris, and Trap. We were also racing constantly, and that meant Blake was getting something that is extremely difficult to teach inside a shop which is track experience. Getting that real world experience at the race track was invaluable. Blake quickly became experienced, capable, trusted, and cemented himself as part of the dream team.
Guillermo Ruiz was another person who spent a good amount of time here in a performance technician role. During his time at TSH, Guillermo continued strengthening his automotive skills and building the kind of real world experience that only comes from working through a wide variety of cars and problems every day. He eventually took that experience with him into the dealership world and is now a tremendous service advisor at a Honda dealer. One of the coolest parts of Guillermo’s story is that he went from being an employee to becoming a customer. When it came time to build his R32 GTR, he brought the car back to us and trusted TSH to build it from start to finish. He had already seen firsthand the type of quality and attention that goes into the cars here, and rather than trying to find the time to build it himself around an already busy work schedule, he knew exactly where he wanted it done. Guillermo’s R32 has now been running strong for years without a hiccup, which is a pretty cool full circle story for someone who once worked on these cars alongside us.
As businesses grow, they sometimes reach points where the structure that got them started is not necessarily the structure that will take them through the next stage. Eventually, David’s day to day involvement with TSH changed, and we restructured the company’s management and ownership in order to continue moving forward. Rather than focusing on what had changed, we focused on what The Shop Houston needed for its next chapter. Around that time, we had a very charismatic and eager customer who wanted to become more involved with the business. His name was Chris Sassi. Chris had already purchased my previous GTR and was competitively racing it deep into the 7s. The restructuring brought key management into ownership of The Shop Houston, with Chris, Mac, Kaina, and me becoming partners in the business. From there, we kept pushing and growing. Almost immediately, we needed more space again. We moved into another suite inside the Brittmoore complex, and about a year later we had already outgrown that one too. Eventually, we moved again. Today, we occupy approximately 13,000 square feet and have an incredible, state of the art performance automotive facility.
Our facility now features a beautiful office space with a full kitchen and break room, a dedicated engine room, a climate controlled fabrication room, eight lifts, a dyno cell where we can run vehicles inside a sound deadened room with proper ventilation, and plenty of indoor storage for customer vehicles, parts, and projects. It is a long way from where this started in 2016.
I actually called Chris last night and asked him why he really loves being part of The Shop Houston. His answer summed up a lot of what makes this place special: “The Shop Houston’s team is the hardest working team and the best team I have ever seen work while under pressure. Everyone is just so good at what they do. The reason I bought into this place was because racing is what I love and the team here is able to operate a business that can handle day to day business that enables TSH to uphold a culture of racing and performance in street car communities with its customer base from all over the world along with staying competitive in drag racing at every track we visit.”
We also continue to have a working relationship with Rob Harper, and he tunes all of our MoTeC equipped cars. Watching Rob work is almost like peering into the Matrix. It is honestly a surreal experience. The crazy part about what Rob does is how easy he makes it look. He is unbelievably fluent with the MoTeC suite. He understands what every table does, what every value affects, how those changes interact, and what the vehicle is going to do in response. Watching his workflow is genuinely entertaining. It is mesmerizing. One thing I believe separates Rob from a lot of other tuners is his educational background in mechanical engineering. There are tuners who know that changing a particular number creates a particular result. Rob understands why. He understands what those changes are physically doing inside the engine or transmission and how all of the systems interact mechanically. That is the difference between a tuner and a “tooner.” Rob has always been one of our secret weapons. We can put together the best car possible, but until Rob tunes it, the build does not have its final edge. Time and time again, he has proven his ability to get our cars through rounds and into finals.
A couple of years ago, Mac received an incredible opportunity outside the automotive industry. He was offered the chance to help lead a company specializing in horizontal drilling, managing large crews responsible for drilling and pulling fiber optic runs. Mac worked out a way to move to New Mexico and pursue the opportunity while remaining involved with The Shop Houston as our Race Program Manager. When it comes time to race and we are at the track, Mac can still step back into that leadership role. Transitioning Mac out of a full time position at the shop also meant dividing two of his largest day to day responsibilities.
The first was engine building. Hajime already had significant engine building experience. Before Mac ever transitioned to part time, Hajime had been assisting Mac with the engines being built inside the shop and had become extremely well trained in the processes Mac developed for putting these engines together. Hajime did not simply inherit that program. He continued perfecting it. If you asked Mac, he would tell you that Hajime does it better than himself. His knowledge of the VR38 has become extraordinary. He has continued refining processes, improving consistency, studying the details, and finding ways for us to safely push these engines harder and harder. And it is certainly not limited to VR38s. Hajime has built V10 engines here that have produced well over 2,000 horsepower. He has built countless RB engines, BMW engines, Toyota engines, and Subaru engines, all right here in house. One fact I am particularly proud of is that Hajime built the engine in the world’s quickest GTR. The engine program continues evolving, and Hajime continues doing everything he can to make sure the next one is better than the last.
Mac’s other major responsibility was leading the performance team. Mac eventually selected Blake Pettus to take over his previous title of Shop Foreman. Today, Blake creates the daily schedule for our performance team, communicates with sales to make sure projects are prioritized correctly, and leads the technicians to make sure everything moves through the shop efficiently. He is responsible for accountability, quality, and helping maintain something that is extremely important to me personally, the atmosphere. I have always wanted this company to have a family type culture. We work extremely hard, but I also want people to enjoy coming here. I want us laughing. I want us having fun. I want people helping each other and learning from each other. I want people to actually enjoy the people they spend most of their waking hours around.
A couple of other people who have become very important parts of our day to day operation are Kip Wilson and Tyler Simpson. Kip has been with us for almost two years and serves as our Shop Assistant. We are incredibly blessed to have him. Kip brings a great deal of import automotive experience with him from his own background working as a technician. Having someone in that role who actually understands the cars, the parts, and what our technicians are trying to accomplish makes him much more valuable than simply having another set of hands around the shop. He is always willing to jump in and help wherever he is needed, and he has become an important part of keeping everything moving.
Tyler Simpson has been with us for almost a year and is now our full time fabricator. Tyler works directly with and reports to Kaina, which has created a really strong combination for our fabrication department. Tyler handles an incredible amount of our day to day fabrication and welding work, and we are extremely blessed to have him on the team. One of the things I appreciate most about Tyler is how methodical he is. He is the type of person who executes every single step in extreme detail. He does not rush through the process just to arrive at the finished product. He pays attention to everything that happens in between, and that mentality shows in the quality of his work. I really like Tyler as a person and as a member of this team, and I am excited to continue watching his skillset develop here.
We have also added a couple of new faces very recently. Devin Hinkle moved all the way from Pennsylvania to Houston to join us as a performance technician. He has only been here for about a month, but he has already proven himself to be a valuable asset to the team. Moving halfway across the country to become part of what we are doing is a big commitment, and I really appreciate the fact that Devin believed enough in this team and this company to do exactly that. Two weeks ago, we also brought on a second Shop Assistant to work alongside Kip, Corbin McDougle. Corbin stepped into the role previously held by Jack Bloor, who spent about a year with us and was incredible at his job. Jack was a huge asset to the team, and quite frankly, he has a spot at The Shop Houston whenever he would like one. Corbin is brand new, but we are excited to have him here and look forward to watching him become part of the TSH family too.
Another person who has become an important part of our environment is Moncef Faik. Moncef has been involved in the Nissan/Infiniti tuning community for a long time and has continued growing his EcuTek tuning business, AdminTuning. We had known each other for years. For a long time, Moncef was simply a customer of ours. He would bring us his personal cars, we would build them, and he would tune them. Before coming here, he was using another shop where he had previously been operating, but he was constantly being put on the back burner. When his own cars were finally worked on, the quality was not always where he wanted it. Eventually, Kaina and I sat down with Moncef and developed a plan. Moncef began renting an office from us and took over much of our day to day EcuTek tuning and dyno operation.
While working here, Moncef has gained access to our resources, team, experience, and facilities, which have helped him continue developing his own tuning program. I have also worked directly with him on quality control processes and ways to consistently deliver the highest quality work he is capable of producing. Moncef has described his time at The Shop Houston as a game changer for AdminTuning. I asked him why being here had been better for his business, and his response was: “At this shop, there is so much opportunity to work on more GTRs and access industry-leading resources to take customer builds to the next level.” Working with Moncef is also just fun. We treat each other like siblings. We constantly pick on each other. There is always some kind of prank, trolling, or long running joke happening. I genuinely look forward to coming to work knowing I am probably going to get an opportunity to mess with Moncef at some point during the day. But behind all of that joking around, I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for the support Moncef gives this company and this team. There have been plenty of moments where Moncef has almost acted in an owner capacity, constantly looking out for the team and trying to make sure everyone at TSH is treated with the utmost respect and has the best experience possible.
Almost two years ago, Andrew Orlando joined the team. We needed someone who could help Kaina with the growing sales workload while Kaina continued being pulled in 100 different directions because of how many different things he is capable of doing. Andrew quickly became an important part of the company. He does an incredible job handling sales and communicating with our customers. The dynamic has worked extremely well. For the most part, Andrew handles the majority of our day to day street car business. Kaina and I spend more of our time putting together the competitive builds and larger race projects. I also still remain heavily involved with sales and project planning for our V10 platform.
I also want to recognize Collin Bernard, who spent three years with The Shop Houston before leaving this past July. Collin worked in a marketing and e-commerce role and was a really great asset to our team during his time here. He contributed a lot to the way our company presented itself online, but his value went much further than sitting behind a computer. Collin was also a huge asset at the race track and was there to help support Mac, Kimbo, and our racing efforts in a very meaningful capacity. Anybody who has spent time racing at this level knows how many people it takes behind the scenes to keep everything moving, and Collin was always willing to be part of that effort.
Collin was also instrumental in helping us get our parts brand, Total Racing Products, off the ground. He helped create great content for the webstore and handled fulfillment of customer orders on a daily basis during an important period of TRP’s growth. Building a parts company inside of an already extremely busy performance shop is no small undertaking, and I really appreciate the work Collin put into helping us establish that side of the business. I am grateful for his three years with us and wish him nothing but the best as he continues sharpening his skills in JDM parts logistics and pursues his interests in the RC car drifting and RC track business.
Last night, I called the person who started all of this. I called David Oden. I told him that the next day would officially mark 10 years since he opened The Shop Houston to the public. I thanked him again for founding this brand and creating the little slice of heaven that all of us get to indulge in every day. Not just our team, our customers too, and honestly, the automotive community as a whole. There are so many incredible cars driving around today, racing around today, and creating memories for people because somewhere along the way they came through The Shop Houston. I asked David what he thought about seeing TSH reach 10 years.
This was his response:
“10 years! There were plenty of times in the beginning when not many people believed we could make this thing work. Getting the shop off the ground and giving it a real shot will always be something I’m incredibly proud of.
What makes me even prouder is seeing what you guys have done with it since. You’ve taken it further than we ever could have imagined back then, and it means a lot to see the shop thriving and in such great hands.
Congratulations to everyone who has been part of the journey. I’m proud of you all, and I hope this is just the first 10 of many more years to come. You guys earned this one.”
Somehow, our 10th year has become even more special outside of the business. This year has not only been a milestone for The Shop Houston, it has been a huge year for the families behind The Shop Houston too. Our TSH family is literally growing. This past July, Mac and Hannah welcomed their first child, a beautiful daughter named Blake Brosnan. This coming November, Courtney and I are expecting our daughter, Julia Simon. And this coming March, Kaina and Sydney are expecting a son. It is really incredible to think about. Ten years ago, we were just trying to figure out how to make this little performance shop work. Now we are watching the next generation of our families being born while the company we built together celebrates a decade in business.
When I look back at these 10 years, the cars are incredible. The records are incredible. The races are incredible. The trophies, videos, dyno numbers, quarter mile times, customers, opportunities, and experiences have all been more than I ever could have imagined. But none of those things are what I value most. The people are. My team is the most valuable thing this company has. Period. Buildings can be replaced. Equipment can be replaced. Cars can be replaced. Parts can be replaced. What cannot easily be replaced is a group of people who genuinely care about what they are doing, care about each other, take pride in their work, and are willing to keep pushing when things get difficult. That is what built The Shop Houston.
To every person who has worked here, supported us, taught us something, raced with us, competed against us, trusted us with a car, recommended us to a friend, purchased something from us, watched one of our videos, followed one of our builds, or simply cheered us on from the outside, thank you. You are part of this story too. I also want to thank the wives and families behind all of us. This industry requires an enormous amount of time. There are late nights, race weekends, emergency phone calls, cars that need to be finished, problems that refuse to cooperate, trips across the country, testing that runs longer than expected, and plenty of nights where “I’ll be home soon” turns into something completely different. None of us could do what we do without the people at home who support us while we chase this ridiculous thing we love so much.
Personally, I especially want to thank my wife, Courtney. She supports my nonstop, compulsive work schedule better than I could ever ask anyone to. As I am literally writing this, it is well after midnight. That probably explains our relationship better than anything I could write. She understands what this place means to me. She understands what this team means to me. And somehow, she continues supporting me through all of it. I could not ask for a more understanding or supportive wife.
Ten years ago, The Shop Houston opened with a goal of becoming Houston’s best performance automotive shop. Today, I think about that sentence very differently than I did in 2016. Being the best was never going to come from having the biggest building. It was never going to come from buying the most expensive equipment. It was never going to come from a logo, a marketing campaign, or a social media following. It came from people. People like Kaina believing in what it could become. People like Hajime perfecting his craft. People like Mac refusing to accept that something cannot be done. People like Blake stepping into leadership and taking responsibility for the people around him. People like Andrew taking care of the customers who make this entire thing possible. And every technician, employee, customer, friend, vendor, tuner, racer, and family member who has played a role along the way.
That is The Shop Houston. It has never been one person. It has never been one car. It has never been one record. It is the result of hundreds of people, thousands of cars, millions of decisions, plenty of mistakes, countless lessons, some really long nights, a ridiculous amount of determination, and a team that simply refuses to stop trying to become better. I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished, but I am even more excited about what we have not accomplished yet. If these first 10 years have taught me anything, it is that every time we think we have reached the limit of what this team can do, somebody here figures out how to move that limit a little farther away.
So thank you for these first 10 years. Thank you for trusting us, believing in us, supporting us, and allowing us to do what we love every day. Thank you to every member of this team, past and present, who helped turn an idea into what The Shop Houston is today. Thank you to our customers who continue giving us the opportunity to build incredible cars, and thank you to the families at home who make the sacrifices that allow all of us to keep chasing this passion.
September 24, 2016 to September 24, 2026.
Ten years of The Shop Houston.
Here is to the next 10, and knowing this team, I have a feeling we are nowhere close to finished.
-Vaughn Simon
