Hello, Kansas City. Welcome back to the Bespoke Automotive Refinement Podcast, the best in Kansas City Auto Detailing. We are so glad that you are here, that you are listening or reading this right now.
If there are topics you would like us to talk about, please reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook, anywhere you can reach out to us there, or you can also call us at 620-282- 0402, and we would love to talk about cars with you any day or time of the week. Today, we are incredibly blessed because we have Thomas Thill, the founder of Bespoke Automotive Refinement. He is truly changing the game for Kansas City Auto Detailing Services here in this area.
Thomas, thank you so much for joining us here today. Oh, it’s a pleasure being here, Averee. Thank you so much for having me.
Now, what people may not know about you is that before you became this upstanding business owner, you were once a fast driver of the streets. Can you tell us a little bit about your initial experiences from the moment you first got behind the wheel? How old were you when you first got behind a wheel? You were like eight on a four-wheel truck, something like that? Okay. Yep, eight years old, driving.
My grandpa had a Subaru WRX, and I would sit in his lap, and he would shift the gears, and I would steer. So, Thomas not only loves talking about cars and working with cars, but he is also an incredible driver. Can you tell us about what you used to do back in the old days, in the middle of nowhere Kansas? Yeah, so I found myself in a racing group after I got my first fast car.
I joined this group thinking that it was just going to be like a car group for like regular car meets outside of the small town that I grew up in. And I actually found myself in an underground street racing club, not knowing it. And the first event that I ever went to, I actually thought was a car meet.
I did not know that it was an underground illegal street race, but I showed up to it. I drove about 50 minutes to this event, and it was a $100 buy-in. And once I showed up, I didn’t want to look like the guy that didn’t know what was going on.
So I did the $100 buy-in, and I made it to the semi-finals. That was like my first legit street race that I had ever done, and made it to the semi-finals, not really knowing what I was doing. So I fell in love with it then, and I ended up participating in, you know, small tire cash days, big tire cash days.
I did no prep events. I did a half mile time attack, or excuse me, half mile airstrip attack. I’ve pretty much done every type of street racing imaginable.
So I ended up running at TX2K for four years in a row with several different Corvettes
that I owned. And, you know, I went out, if you’re into any sort of street racing, and you know anything about Calvo, or underground racing, or Nth Moto, a real street, I ran around with all those guys back in the day. So I definitely got to be a part of it for quite some time.
So you did street racing, but you also did a few other things. Have you ever done track racing, or any other version of fast car driving? Absolutely. So I’ve done a lot of track racing, not necessarily road course racing.
I’ve always wanted to, but I just always found myself owning vehicles that were fast and straight lines, and never really taking the time to learn how to race on a road course. So I did some eighth mile drag racing, quarter mile drag racing, both prepped and on non- prepped surfaces. I’ve done half mile airstrip attacks, standing half mile, standing mile.
I actually ran at the Texas mile back in 2019. I’ve done one street car takeover, Thunder Valley 2018. So I made it all the way to the semifinals at Pikes Peak Air Attack in Colorado Springs.
So I’ve done a lot of track racing, but street racing’s a lot more fun because it’s not as regulated. You know, you don’t have to sit in a line and wait for 45 minutes for your one time to go. You know, you can do one hit, and then if you aren’t happy with it, you don’t have to wait in line for an hour.
You can just go do it again, and do it again, and do it again. So I’m definitely, when it comes to cars, my background and my forte is street racing. If somebody wanted to get into learning how to drive a car like that, let’s say they want to do track racing or something like that, number one, what would you recommend? What are some skills that they need to learn? Like, they probably need to know what a clutch is.
Yeah. And things like that. And then what kind of car would you recommend, or engine, do they need in order to do track or street racing? I actually learned how to drag race on my dad’s work truck.
So my dad had a 5.9 Cummins with a six-speed manual transmission. It was not a fast truck at all. It was doggy, slow, but it had a big turbo, and it had a six-speed manual transmission.
And I used to drive that truck for him all over the Midwest, picking up parts when I was a young kid. And I knew I wanted to be a street racer then, and I knew I was saving up for, you know, to be able to have the money to have a high horsepower car racing on the street. So I actually taught myself how to feather the clutch, feather the throttle, and deal with a car that’s skating down the road in an oil field work truck.
Because, you know, I would launch it on a dirt road, and I would have the back end fishtailing, and I would figure out how to continue to give it throttle, to accelerate out of a slide. And doing that on a dirt road emulated real-world street racing in a high horsepower car on the street. So I, you know, once I hopped in a street car and started racing on the street, I was able to figure it out, and I didn’t have to crash cars like the other guys did trying to learn.
I basically knew how to do it from driving on those dirt roads for all those years. So, yeah. Tell us a little bit about what Bespoke Automotive Refinement offers, and how somebody can get in touch with you if they want to get their vehicle looking just absolutely fantastic with a Kansas City Auto Detailing service.
Well, Street Car Takeover is this coming May. So if you are looking to have a Kansas City auto detailing service performed on your car for Street Car Takeover, whether you are going to be street racing or track racing, or if you’re going to the big car meetup at Arrowhead Stadium, we can provide anything from just a basic wash, full detail, all the way up to a two, three-stage paint correction, full ceramic coating. We have so many different Kansas City auto detailing services that we offer that you guys can utilize for the events coming up this summer for car-related events.
So if somebody wants to get a hold of you for a Kansas City Auto Detailing package, what number do they call? You can get a hold of me at 620-282-0402.