Doug worked in several industries before realizing that following his passion for automotive performance is where he belongs. He is a Subaru fanatic, a rally nerd, and an administrator of RVA Subies club. Doug cherishes the opportunity and responsibility to help grow the local performance enthusiast community. When he’s not helping friends with their cars, he’s either driving or gearing up for the next event. His daily driver is also the car he takes to the track and is the same car he bought at 17; a supercharged 2002 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS.
Blog
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Lance Larsen: Project Manager
Lance is new to “the south,” hailing from Long Island, New York. He started his own performance shop in his hometown of Patchogue, New York at the age of 19. Over the following 6 years he built a locally recognized brand of Subaru performance work. Despite buying and selling a small fleet of Subarus over the years, he has managed to hang onto his very first car, a turbo swapped ’97 Legacy GT Wagon. Lance also owns a built ’06 STi running a rotated gen 2 GTX3582, and an ’08 Legacy GT with basic bolt-ons on full Cobb flex fuel. After building his shop and customer base from nothing to a booming community, Lance knew it was time to make a change. He wanted to get back to his roots in the performance automotive industry, which is his passion for helping customers build vehicles they are happy with and providing exceptional customer service throughout the process. While running his own shop, he was involved in all aspects of business and automotive performance for all projects, such as sales, build design, troubleshooting, collections, customer service, and much more, gathering a wide range of knowledge and skills along the way. Lance is excited to put all of that to work and serve the Richmond, VA community at National Speed!
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2015 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 – Supercharged 700 HP
Craig brought his Red Hot 2015 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to get it Flex Fuel enabled, breathing better, and exceeding the 700whp mark!
Up first, John strapped her down for baseline runs to establish our starting point, coming in at a healthy 556.52whp & 570.94lbft with only an air-intake system from Cold Air Inductions, Inc. Up next in the shop, Archer got busy setting the LSA engine up with with a GripTec 2.35″ upper supercharger pulley from ZPE, solid supercharger isolator from Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, reinforced supercharger intercooler brick from Dedicated Motorsports, 42mm core heat exchanger from C&R Racing, 160° thermostat from Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, long-tube headers from Texas Speed & Performance, spark plug wires from MSD Performance wrapped in Protect-a-Boots from Design Engineering, Inc., Flex Fuel conversion from DSX Tuning, auxiliary fuel pump from DSX Tuning, ID1050X fuel injectors from Injector Dynamics, all topped off with a line-lock setup from Hurst Performance Products.
With the mechanical work wrapped in the shop, John strapped for back down for Vlad to perform a custom Flex Fuel calibration via HP Tuners. The results? 647.39whp & 678.23lbft on 93 octane and 725.60whp & 745.74lbft on E85! Solid gains on both fuels, with an achieved goal of 700whp+!
Reach Out Today To See What We Can Do For You!
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John Lipscomb: Calibration Assistant
John joins the National Speed Richmond team as Calibrations Assistant, equipped with a strong combination of passion for high-performance cars and professional racing & dyno experience! While studying at Nashville Auto Diesel College, he accumulated a broad variety of experience including working on Megan Meyer’s Top Alcohol Dragster for Randy Meyer Racing, various automotive technician jobs, and also gained customer-facing experience as a parts consultant for multiple companies. In addition to this experience, he also spent quite a bit of time using chassis dynamometers and familiarizing himself with their operation. In his personal time, John kept himself busy working on a variety of projects ranging from classic carbureted engines to LSx engines. His current personal project is an ’88 Oldsmobile Cutlass which he is currently fitting with a fully built 403cid engine, with the intention of building a solid street/strip performer. With a highly technical background with both classic and late-model performance engines, along with dynamometer experience, John has been a great addition to the National Speed Richmond team operating the dyno!
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Jeremy Hamill: Lead Performance Technician
After serving our country in the United States Marine Corps, Jeremy came onboard with National Speed to pursue his passion for high-performance. Jeremy joins the team with an extremely diverse skill set, derived from a vast experience with both domestic and import models, and an array of specialties including custom fabrication. This diverse knowledge and experience is also present in his choice of personal vehicles, his daily driven modified 2012 Ford F-150 EcoBoost, and his fun car, his heavily modified 2004 Subaru WRX.
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Jordan Robinson: Parts Solution Specialist
Jordan is a Richmond local who has been into quirky old Toyotas ever since his high school days. He hit the ground running buying a supercharged Toyota MR2 as his first car and spent the better part of a decade chasing cones at local autocross events. After a few years of honing his wrenching skills, Jordan took on more projects including an X8 Cressida, an X7 Cressida Wagon, a Matrix XRS, and more recently his current track-toy Corolla FX16 GTS. After experiencing VIR from the passenger seat a few years back, Jordan was bitten by the track bug and now gets as much seat time as he can. With that kind of enthusiasm combined with years of experience in the parts world from dealerships to body shops, Jordan is a great asset to the team and couldn’t be more excited to find a home at National Speed.
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2018 Dodge Charger SRT 392 – Whipple Supercharged
Chris brought us his Destroyer Grey 2018 Dodge Charger SRT 392 to get the 6.4L HEMI boosted! Up first in the shop, John removed the factory ECU so that it could be overnighted to HP Tuners and unlocked for calibration, and then moved on to installing the Stage-II 2.9L W175AX twin-screw unit from Whipple Superchargers, including their upgraded air-intake system, along with the miscellaneous OEM and aftermarket odds-and-ends to bring it all together.
With the mechanical work wrapped, Matt strapped her down to the rollers for Vlad to perform a custom calibration via HP Tuners. With the Whipple 2.9L delivering 7psi, and a 100% factory exhaust system in place, Vlad increased the 392’s output to a repeatable 618.28whp & 575.66lbft! Considering these cars normally baseline around 400whp & 385lbft on our dyno, that’s an increase of over 200whp & 190lbft!
Reach Out Today To See What We Can Do For You!
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Dylan Dupee: Performance Technician
Dylan’s first encounter with National Speed was with the Wilmington shop while he was stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC from 2010-2014, and to quote him, “I was a customer to the Wilmington shop many years ago, and since then, it has been a goal of mine to work for National Speed.” After getting out of the Marine Corps, Dylan moved to Maine where he got several years as an automotive technician under his belt, before joining up with Baxley’s Speed Shop as Shop Foreman/Lead Technician, where he became an IAG Gold installer, and built a reputation for himself in the Maine high-performance community. During this time, Dylan built a multitude of high-performance cars for customers, along his own personal projects including an RB25DET swapped S13, ’05 Subaru WRX, ’06 350Z, leading up to his current weapon of choice, his built STi 6-speed swapped ’05 Subaru Outback XT. Needless to say, after years of hard work and refining his craft, Dylan finally achieved his goal of joining National Speed!
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TJ Payne: Performance Technician
A lifelong gearhead, TJ knew at an early age that he wanted a career working on cars, with an end goal of full-time high-performance work. As a result, he wasted no time and went straight to NTI out of high school, and then went on to pursue his career as an automotive technician. From there, he would go on to work as Team Lead & Technician for Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, an independent European automotive shop, and in addition to experience as a dealership technician, also gained fabrication skills along the way. During this time, TJ did performance work on the side, building a broad variety of cars ranging from an E55 AMG to a Mazda RX-7. In addition, he also built various personal projects including his all-motor ED8 Honda CR-X, ’90 S10 with a 350cid SBC swap, ’89 Camaro that underwent various transformations, leading up to his current project, his ’97 Nissan Hardbody that he’s in the process of LSx swapping. With a strong combination of both professional technician experience and high-performance automotive knowledge, TJ is an incredible addition to the National Speed team!
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Timmy Ford: Performance Technician
Growing up in his father’s restoration shop in Central Florida, Tim has been fascinated in the building and customization of cars since day 1. Being heavily involved with the creation of high level 6-figure classic Resto-mods growing up, It’s safe to say cars, specifically the business of making them look good and perform even better, is his life-long passion. Tim considers himself as hardcore of a car guy as it gets, owning multiple project cars including 3 Nissan 240s, one of which is a 700whp KA-T daily drift car, to his beautiful mostly original 1986 300zx. With a background in high quality restorations, restomods, drag racing and most recently drifting cars, heavily influenced by a love for 90s Japanese classics, Tim prides himself on achieving the highest quality “OEM+” look and feel on his projects. Tim is a big fan of unique and “road less traveled” style’s of builds, I.E. taking a platform/engine that most people don’t usually look twice at and making it perform. Safe to say when Tim discovered National Speed browsing social media, he made it his goal to be a part of the team!