Ha. My "formative" years saw me devouring subscriptions from Car Craft, Hot Rod, and Road & Track. When I started working on cars myself, I graduated to Cars & Car Conversions and Grassroots Motorsports. For my first major teardown, I had a mechanical engineer buddy who showed me the ropes. Track time crewing and marshalling in rallies and karting events honed my knowledge, as well as teaching me how to patch things up.