September 12, 2016

075: Brian Tooley, the founder of Brian Tooley Racing, tells us how he went from hand porting heads in his apartment kitchen to running 5-axis CNC machines

1 hour 2 minutes

Brain is a self-proclaimed geek who spent most of his early years at Radio Shack. He was very interested in electronics and building model rockets. Never did he imagine that he would be programming machines to port heads for some of the fastest cars out there.

When Brian turned 18, he joined the Navy and bought a Z28 Camaro. This sent him down the path of performance cars. In 1993, he started Total Engine Airflow and started porting heads. He then began working for Holley Performance doing product development. He didn’t last long at this job due to disagreements with the management. So he left the job and restarted Total Engine Airflow in 1996. He really stepped things up in 2001 when he bought a 5-axis CNC machine building heads for some really big name shops. He was approached by Trikflow who ended up buying his business in 2004 to join the Summit team.

All of this leads to him starting Brian Tooley Racing around 2010. His business only sells what it has in stock and even has a real-time quantity tracker right on the website. His business continues to grow and he is nearing completion of a much larger fulfilment center to meet the growing demands. Brian is a self-taught businessman and has spent many hours absorbing as much knowledge as possible to improve his situation.

...more