About Us

Artisan Research was established in 2007 with the desire to chase the passion of racing cars.  Our story is one that comes from pursuing passion, inspiring creativity and competing on a team or an as individual to the highest standard possible.  Racing has been something that was always in the family bloodline, and I found myself racing sled dogs in my early youth for a few years following the family passion.  I am grateful to come from several generations of racers, aviators and inventors that have forged their way with their passions and have passed along the same adventurous spirit.  Shown below is a "toy" airplane that my Great-Grandfather built for my Grandfather, shown in the cockpit.  The license plate says "21" on it, which means that this was probably over 100 years ago by now. 

   

After switching to bicycles, roller blades and mini-bikes, it was an obvious decision to pursue motorsports beginning with Autocross and some HPDE.  The desire to go racing was funded far more by enthusiasm than money and so it was very clear that to be able to participate would only occur if I learned how to do as much of the work myself as possible.  In 2005 I spectated the STPR pro rally in Central PA and when I learned that in the midfield there was a guy with a Saab that was local to me, I jumped on the chance to work on the car and go to rallies as a crew member.  It wasn't long before the current Navigator smartened up and retired and gave me the chance to strap in as a Navigator for about a dozen rallies.  I learned an immense amount from the driver, Luke Sorensen, who built a ton of custom parts including his own fiberglass hood which was my introduction to composite materials. We were fortunate to be battling against many skilled Grassroots efforts, but also some big guns such as Travis Pastrana, Dave Mirra and Ken Block.  I can still picture conversations with both Dave and Ken from that era and we all still mourn their loss.  I remember not wanting to be too much of a fan and ask for a photo with them, I was happy to find footage of Ken being interviewed at a rally we were at and we drove by in the background which is now a memory I hold fondly.

 

   

2005 was also the year that I attended the Rolex Vintage races at Lime Rock park, Connecticut.  Walking through the paddock and stumbling on the BMW Motorsport Heritage collection, seeing race versions of the 2002, each 3-series, the Mclaren F1 GTR, it was all I needed to know that there was nothing more I wanted than to be involved in Motorsports.

Around this time I remember buying a half dozen wrecked E36 M3's over the course of the year and parting them out, repairing one of them to be used as a race car.  The Navigator that I replaced in Rally worked at a Vintage European Racecar restoration shop and got my foot into the door of what would be a transformational 7 years of my automotive education.  Leydon Restorations was a full service restoration shop that specialized in MG, Ferrari, Bugatti, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz and more.  Over the course of my time there I was fortunate to work with some very highly skilled engine builders, fabricators, machinists, body guys and mechanics where I was able to learn the basics of many different skillsets.  Shown below are a Maserati 450S (1 of 8, this one raced by Carroll Shelby) and a Ferrari 155 Barchetta.  

  

 

With the skills learned from the restoration shop, I spent several years building a 1995 M3 GTR tribute car, where there was roll cage and sheet metal fabrication.  This was also the time I began making Carbon fiber components, beginning with the horn plate block off and some E36 brake duct inlets.

  

  

In 2012 after pursuing some HDPE days, the opportunity came to join a 24 Hours of Lemons Team called Rally Baby.  Ultimately we would build about 25 roll cages including about 15 that we raced earning us a National Championship in 2013.  Of the 9 cars shown below, we helped cage 7 of those cars expanding from their original 2-car team.  After 25 or so roll cages, it was very clear how dirty, sharp and hot that work was so I shifted my focus entirely onto composites, designing dash panels and creating molds from scratch.

 

In 2014 I started working at Carson Helicopters, which specialized in the Sikorsky S61 and UH-60 Blackhawk aircraft.  Starting in the engineering department, our team designed and built a 100,000 pound Composite Rotor blade test facility.  We would instrument our aircraft and conduct a flight-load survey to establish baseline forces induced on the blades in flight.  We would then replicate and amplify those loads in our test facility to ensure that our future rotor blades would gain FAA certification.  Once we had our test facility up and running, we then outfitted our hangar with some clean rooms and machine-shop facilities and began production of the S61 composite tail rotor blade.  We paired with NASA to use a more efficient air foil that would produce more lift while creating less drag allowing for higher loads, top speeds and fuel ranges.  Ultimately we achieved our FAA certification and produced 20 sets of (5) tail rotor blades that are now all over the world on fire-fighting and heavy lift missions with tens of thousands of flight hours.  Working here was quite the education as well learning about strain-gauging and instrumenting our test aircraft, producing engineering drawings, defining and refining manufacturing processes and ultimately overseeing the production of our blade program.  We also did a lot of interesting repairs to rotor blades including quite a bit of core replacements, skin repairs and Nickel Cap replacements.  After the Tail rotor blade program concluded, it was also a very educational process to help out with the early stages of prototyping the 28' long composite main rotor blades for the Blackhawk helicopter.  With a strong passion for aviation and composites, this was an awesome place to work at with many skilled Technicians, Machinists, Engineers and Mechanics.  The work performed at Carson Helicopters over the past 50+ years is the entire reason why the Presidential Helicopter, Marine One, is still a Sikorsky S61 variant. Carson Helicopters has over 35 upgrades to that aircraft including the Composite Rotors Blades.

  

 

In 2017 I was fortunate enough to be invited to Instruct with a group called Xtreme Xperience, a business that makes Super Cars readily available in a track-setting.  This proved to be an excellent opportunity to fulfill my passion for being at the race track where we get to Instruct and drives Guests around in Supercars helping fulfill their lifelong dreams.  Whether it is a car show, racing or working on cars, I think that people come for the cars and stay for the people.  This has certainly proved true with Xtreme Xperience as I have been fortunate to work with hundreds of skilled Instructors to help hundreds of thousands of people achieve their goals to drive a Supercar on track.  In 2005, I hoped that I would someday get to be in the Motorsports world, I am grateful that my perseverance and passion has now lead me to turning tens of thousands of laps at over 65 race tracks nationwide.  In recent years I have become one of the Chief Instructors and Safety Commanders for Xtreme Xperience where we are constantly training our team to make things Safer and more fun.

  

With all of the experience we have gained since we began our journey in 2005, we put all of our efforts into creating the highest quality Carbon fiber components for your race car. Since our inception we have created over 600 components that are now in every United State and six different countries which means that somewhere in the world someone is racing with an Artisan Research component that is Formed to Function.