On the Track with Vince Granieri

Vince Granieri, FSA, MAAA, EA is president of Integrated Advantage Consultants in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he’s not serving his clients, he and his son can be found under the hood of one of his three Porsches or on the racetrack.

How and when did you become interested in racing and restoring cars?
My son Andrew was looking for a senior project at his high school, and he wanted to do something related to cars.

At first, he wanted to restore a DeLorean, but they were too expensive. We couldn’t find one in the appropriate price range, so we ended up buying an old Porsche 914.  That got us started with Porsches. We realized soon after we bought it that there’s a whole network of Porsche people on the Internet, and as it turns out, there are quite a few of them in Cincinnati!

Once we finished the 914, and started meeting some Porsche enthusiasts, we realized that a many of them were driving 944s because they are relatively inexpensive cars with very strong performance characteristics. They were older cars with parts still available, and there was a cadre of 944 enthusiasts who were very active on the Porsche boards. These were people willing to provide insight and help us out with mechanical issues, so we decided that the next step was to get into the 944s.

How many cars do you have right now?
Right now we have three—a 1975 Porsche 914, a 1986 Porsche 944 and a 1989 Porsche 944 S2 between my son and me, but only two run.

They’re works in progress?
One of the cylinder heads cracked on the 914, so we have to replace that; we just found the part for it last week. I’ve had a lot of problems with my 944 S2 engine. We ended up having to rebuild the engine on the S2. After we rebuilt it, we found out that the main part we had purchased used for $1000 was actually defective as well, so we were back to square one. The money, the time and all the other ancillary things you need like gaskets and seals involved in an engine rebuild add up to big money, so a failed rebuild is a nightmare.

This time around, I decided to get an engine that we know was running well and rebuild it.  A turbocharged engine became available, so we decided to attempt a turbo swap - putting a turbocharged engine into a car that came with a different engine originally.  Knock on wood, it all went well and she is pulling strong.  We are finishing up a new exhaust system and then the swap will be complete. 

Were you into fixing and rebuilding cars before your son was into it?
Not at all. I changed my oil, and that was pretty much the extent of it.

How did you learn to rebuild cars? Did you just figure it out along the way?
There’s a huge network of people with advice. When we started, we could handle only oil changes and  basic maintenance, but we’ve come a long way since then.  Recently I replaced the fuel pump on Andrew’s car by myself. We’ve also rewired the 20-year-old electrical system for the headlights so we could install modern headlights.

Just this past weekend we serviced the braking system, so that goes to show you we’re feeling more confident. I wouldn’t trust myself with brakes if we didn’t have confidence in what we were doing. We’re learning more and more as time goes on.

How often do you get out on the track?
This year was a good year. We were out on the track three times, but there are events available just about every weekend if you want to drive all over the place.

What kind of track?
We drive road courses.  As opposed to the big oval tracks that the NASCAR drivers run on,  a road course is usually 2-3 miles long with lots of turns and only one long straightaway. One of our favorites is the Mid-Ohio racetrack, which is very famous. Paul Newman, Bobby Rahal and a lot of professional drivers run Mid-Ohio. Another aspect of road courses is that they often have hills and elevation changes and not all the turns are banked the same way.  There is usually at least one hairpin turn, which challenges the driver and makes it interesting.

How often do you get to drive the cars?
Andrew drives his 944, what we call a daily driver, exclusively, and he drives it year round. Last year I drove mine pretty much all year round. We had to get snow tires for it in the winter, but the Porsches actually do pretty well in winter conditions.

The 914 is the basic weekend and sunny-day kind of car. We don’t drive that much because it’s a ’75 and we don’t like to get it out where it can get wet. Part of it is because the rubber seals aren’t that good on the windows, and part of it is because back then they didn’t have galvanized metal, so it’s susceptible to rust. But the 944s are galvanized, and they were built in Germany where the winters are pretty harsh.

Where do you park all your cars? Do you have garage space for all of them?
Two sit in the garage and one sits out.

Now, switching gears, so to speak, why did you decide to become an actuary?
I was always good at math. Working as a caddy at a golf course, I carried an insurance agent’s golf bag. He asked what I was going to do when I grew up, and I was pretty young, so I had no idea, but I said I really liked math, and he said, “Well, if you like math you should be an actuary,” and that’s when I started researching the career.

What do you like most about your job now?
I like the variety that being an independent consultant brings, so I love the flexibility and helping many different clients solve whatever issues they’re facing.

How do you find time to balance car restoration with you work responsibilities?
I don’t have a lot of vices—I don’t drink, I don’t smoke or spend lots of time on the golf course. The good thing is it’s concentrated time. It’s not something you have to do every day. The events are Friday-Saturday events, so you can plan for them.

The other part is it’s something that my son and I both enjoy, so it’s family time as well, because it’s something he and I can do together.

Would you say your experience with racing and restoring cars has helped with your actuarial career, or vice versa?
There are some interesting parallels. It’s important to know what you know and know what you don’t know, both in the actuarial field and in restoring cars. And just like in real life, you can plan and you can study, but still a lot of things are left up to chance.

For example, take the engine problem I mentioned earlier. We thought we covered all the contingencies, but in the end we were taking a chance, because a new part was $3000 and a used one was $1000. There’s a higher reward if you find the right used part, but there’s also a risk. In work, there are situations when you’re launching a product, or when you’re trying to make a change where you do a lot of research, but in the end, even if you’ve done your homework and have done a good job, probability and chance play a huge role.

If anything, car restoration has helped me realize that the planning aspects are important career-wise. You recognize what you can control and what you can’t. From the actuarial side, the lesson is to try to take the emotion out of the decision. In the actuarial world you don’t want to make decisions emotionally. You want to look at the facts and do your analysis. It’s pretty easy to do on the actuarial side, whereas on the car side, sometimes it’s very easy to succumb to the emotions, and not take a step back and think from about the issue from a logical standpoint.

I’ve also learned that things aren’t always the way they appear to be. When I bought my 944, it only had 12,000 miles on it—that was the good news. It was an ’89, and I bought it in 2005, so it was a 16-year-old car. You think, “Great! It’ll be in good shape!”

As it turned out, the interior and the paint and everything were great, but its engine hadn’t been run more than a couple times a year, which actually isn’t good for an engine. It’s better to have a well-maintained engine with 75,000 miles on it. So, things aren’t always the way they appear, or even the way logic might dictate.

Like I said, things aren’t always the way they seem. One of the things that was a revelation to me is that the biggest determinant of how fast you’re going to go on a track is how much speed you take into a turn. If you’re able to carry more speed into a turn, you’re going to be able to carry more speed out of it. A lot of people think that  gunning it down the straightaway determines your success on the track. Not so.  Because of  inertia, if you’re going slow coming out of a turn, you’ll never be able to make your best times, but if you’re able to somehow brake at the right point and carry more speed, even 5 miles an hour of speed, into a turn, that means your top speed could go up 20 miles an hour in the straightaway. It’s a lot easier once your car’s going 60 to get it to go to 110 than if it’s going 45 or 50.

When you’re at the track, are you racing against other cars, or are you just trying to get your best time?
What we do resembles racing very closely in that there are usually 15-20 cars on the track at a time. There are strict rules on where and how you pass. But other than that, you’re doing the same thing that the guys who race for a living are doing.

Racing is also very physically demanding. When I was a kid I played baseball, soccer and swam. When you look at the guys who are racing cars, you think that the car is doing all the work, but it’s very physically demanding and requires a lot of concentration. Actuarial work may not be physically demanding, but a lot of concentration is needed to keep performing well.

In reality, it’s the driver’s skill that determines how competitive they can be. The first time out on the track, Andrew had a great day. His car was very much underpowered relative to the other cars. He was out against six 911s, and a couple Boxsters—cars that had probably double or triple his horsepower. He wasn’t able to pass the ones with all the horsepower, but they weren’t able to pass him either. However, he was able to pass many people had more horsepower than him just because of the things that we said above. He was able to brake at the right time and carry more speed, and even though his top speed was probably 25-30 mph slower that some of the other cars, he did well on the track. When I wasn’t praying for his safety, I was so proud of him!

You also show your car at competitions?
Yes, there are car competitions for cosmetics as well.  My S2, with its pristine interior and nice paint, has a real advantage.  I won best car in my class two out of the last three years at a particular competition that they call the 944fest -  http://www.944fest.com/. I’m pretty proud of that.