Mike Chung: 0:08

Welcome to Auto Care OnAir, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Mike Chung, Senior Director of Market Intelligence at the Auto Care Association, and this is Indicators, where we identify and explore data that will help you monitor and forecast industry performance. This includes global economic data, industry indicators and new data that will help you monitor and forecast industry performance. This includes global economic data, industry indicators and new data sources. Hello and welcome to Indicators, one of the shows of the Auto Care On Air podcast. I'm Mike Chung, I head up market intelligence and I'm really happy to have Ryan Mandell of Mitchell and Light Company join us today. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Mike. I'm thrilled to be here with you Really glad to have you. And, for those of you who don't know Ryan, he is one of the members of our market intelligence committee. He and his team provide data to our AutoCare Factbook, which was released recently. But, Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself, your company, what you do, yeah.

So I've been in the collision industry in some way, shape or form, for over 20 years.

I've worked for insurance companies, managed body shops, as well as work for used parts providers. So really I came to Mitchell in 2017 to kind of put all of this firsthand contextual experience to work more on the technological side. So we provide software solutions to the auto insurance and collision repair industries from in terms of estimating, total loss, evaluation, claims workflow, many different aspects that all are critical to be able to accurately process a collision repair claim. So we've been in the business for I mean gosh since the 1940s when we were printing, you know paper bound manuals out of Glenn Mitchell's garage that were really the first true source of data for professionals in this industry. So I get to work with all of our North American clients, helping them understand what's happening in the industry around the trends that are impacting their businesses, and really we focus very heavily on data analytics and looking at what shows up in their claims data, primarily from the insurance side to help them optimize their organizations and be better businesses in this industry.

Fascinating, and now I know a little bit about the background of your company. That's really helpful. Appreciate the historical context Gosh, the 1940s, and so much has changed over even the past decade, so I feel like we're going to have a lot to talk about today.

You know I feel like there's. You know the pace of change has just increased so dramatically. You know I mean we talk about paper manuals. I mean people were still using our paper manuals up until just a few years ago and so. But we're now seeing not only the pace of change in terms of the vehicles themselves, but in terms of how you actually go about performing a collision repair. It's just changed even since the last time I managed a body shop, which was 10, 15 years ago. It's night and day. They're doing things to cars today and they're having to take steps to bring these vehicles back to pre-loss condition that we never imagined would be required.

Fascinating and we'll jump around on a few topics here and there and, who knows, maybe we'll have a second episode at some point later this year. But maybe we start with a little bit of the trends. And what kind of trends are you seeing for light vehicles when it comes to collision Broad? Open ended question.

I know, but yeah, there's so there's so many, and I think they really all relate back to the changes that have been going on in terms of how these vehicles are being manufactured and the type of capabilities that these vehicles have. So you know, I mentioned, you know, some of these operations that shops now have to do. You know, now it is compulsory that a body shop will actually plug into the computer system on a vehicle and perform a diagnostic. They'll perform a pre-scan, so plugging into the computer system when the vehicle first arrives at the shop, to kind of understand what electronic systems have been disrupted. And then they'll also have to do what's called a post scan, where they actually have to plug in again to the computer system of the vehicle once the repairs have been completed, to ensure that they can essentially guarantee a clean bill of health. So those are things that were never required before because there just wasn't a need for it.

The electronic systems, the technology on the vehicles was relatively simplistic, but now it's night and day.

I mean, you often hear about how there's more lines of code in a modern vehicle than there was in the space shuttle.

So there's just all these safety systems that vehicles are being equipped with today, whether it be lane departure warnings, auto emergency braking, blind spot monitoring all of these require a complex suite of sensors that are gathering data from the outside world, and so that requires an extreme level of connectivity within the vehicle, and so all these systems are talking to each other much more frequently.

So that is what is the genesis of that requirement to scan the systems of these vehicles, and then, as part of the process, you also have to recalibrate many of these systems, so actually go through a recalibration process. Sometimes that's a static process, where the vehicle is stationary and you set up a series of targets around the vehicle and walk the vehicle through that calibration process. Other times it's dynamic, where you actually have to drive the vehicle under certain circumstances to get it to achieve kind of these benchmarks so that these systems will recalibrate. So just managing the technology on these vehicles is probably the biggest change that we've seen, and it's completely changed the type of workflows that exist inside of a collision repair facility, as well as the kind of technicians that they need to employ.

You mentioned technicians I'll go to that second. But thinking about data infrastructure, thinking about new makes, new models, new technologies you mentioned lane departure, blind spot detection, adaptive cruise control. I'm just thinking about all the different types of data that are being collected, how it's being arrayed in, say, a spreadsheet, a database. Talk to me a little bit about data types, standardization.

Sure, and there's several different kinds of data that we are analyzing when we're performing research to work with our clients and help them understand what's happening in the industry and how their businesses are performing. The first is estimatics data. So this is coming from what's written on the estimates. That's all communicated electronically. Whether it be a staff appraiser, a body shop, an independent appraiser writing those estimates, all of that's communicated electronically back to the insurance company. We provide essentially the medium for that communication to take place. So we have access to all of the data, the decisions that are showing up on the estimate.

So, whether it be repairing parts versus replacing them, what kind of parts are being used, whether it's OEM, aftermarket, recycled parts, remanufactured again, the type of operations that are being performed. So when we're seeing this increase in scanning activity, this increase in calibrations, we actually see that showing up on the estimates because the insurance companies are having to pay for it. So that's a big part of you know we track, obviously, cost of repair. You know management of expenses is critical for an insurance company. I mean they're for-profit businesses. So you know, understanding where those cost drivers are coming from is crucial for them to be able to forecast financial results and to be able to underwrite properly. The other type of data that comes to us is a little bit more challenging and that's data that comes from the vehicles and we don't get a lot. To be clear, we don't get the telematics data that's coming from vehicles.

However, when a shop scans a vehicle utilizing some of our equipment, we actually, in partnership with Bosch, manufacture scanning and diagnostics devices as well as calibration devices in the market, so when those are utilized, we do get some data back from those results.

And each manufacturer is different in the way. How do we actually operationalize that data? My thinking and my prediction is that, as time goes on, you will see more standardization in terms of how this is categorized, to be able to not only provide more value in that data to service providers, but I think also to the OEMs themselves.

I appreciate your explaining that and it could be something where there is a feedback loop, so to speak, between, say, your clients.

I think so and I think you're going to see. You know we expect to see greater standardization across the board in the future. You know it feels like, because we live this every single day, that these technologies and these safety systems have been around for a long time, but they're extremely nascent in the broader scope of the automotive industry and they're changing rapidly. The capabilities of what these systems can do, the levels of autonomy that are able to be achieved through the use of these systems, is changing rapidly in a very short course of time. So you know that presents some of the challenges that we're talking about. You know, I think one of the things that both the insurance industry and the collision repair shops themselves are looking for is better understanding of correlatives, trying to get a better grasp of when certain things happen in an accident. How do I better assess what the damage on that vehicle looks like? Because it's not as obvious today as it was 10, 15 years ago. 10, 15 years ago we were looking at, maybe secondary damage caused by energy transfer, really trying to find out where did the energy transfer in the vehicle? Where could there be damage physical damage on that vehicle? Away from the point of impact on that vehicle away from the point of impact. Now, while that is still a necessity, we're also focused on secondary damage from a technological standpoint. You know, are there systems that have been disrupted away from the point of impact? And when you increase this level of interconnectivity?

You know there's always a lot of talk in the automotive industry about semiconductors and people wonder like well gosh, you know, semiconductors are for my phone and my computer. But you know you hear the term computer on wheels thrown out all the time about vehicles and it's a little bit of hyperbole, but it but it is true. You know there's more. You know the requirement of semiconductors relates to that data transfer, and when you have more semiconductors, that just means that more data is being transferred throughout the vehicle, and you're seeing more and more of these with each passing model year.

So I think that trying to understand that's where this data comes into play is better understanding the relationships between system disruption and types of damage and points of impact. That can help shops better understand what are the steps I need to take to bring this vehicle back to pre-loss condition in a timely fashion, with the highest possible quality, ensuring the highest level of safety for the vehicle owner and for the insurance company understanding again if I see this certain pattern of damage, these certain types of accidents with certain points of impact, how do I better forecast what my financial exposure is going to be? How do I manage and adjudicate that claim more accurately? So, all of this, I think we're going to be entering into an era where data becomes even more critical to all of these businesses, even than it is today.

Fascinating, and earlier you mentioned technicians. You talked about appraisers, those individuals in the value chain as their roles evolve, adapting new technology. Tell me a little bit about what that journey has been like. Is it challenging? Is it smoother than you might expect? Some things that perhaps have some ahas that you and your team have discovered as new technologies and new processes, with all the things in mind that you highlighted, whether energy transfer systems disruption. Can you talk to those points from a technician and an appraiser standpoint?

Absolutely. I think it's been a huge challenge, quite honestly, and I think it's something that the industry continues to struggle with today. And I think it's something that the industry continues to struggle with today and there's many out there that are realizing that we can't keep trying to just attract the same kind of skilled talent that we have in the past, to attracting a new generation of talent, primarily from the skilled technician level. You know, I think, appraisers. I think there's a lot of technology that's available to help appraisers in terms of being able to better assess the damage on a vehicle, but when it comes down to actually repairing the vehicle, I mean gosh, you can have a lot of technology that helps you, but at the end of the day, someone still has to put hands on that vehicle. But when it comes down to actually repairing the vehicle, I mean gosh, you can have a lot of technology that helps you, but at the end of the day, someone still has to put hands on that vehicle, someone still has to actually plug into the computer, run through the right steps, actually repair the metal, replace the parts the proper way, read those OEM repair procedures, look at exactly what is the process for repairing a specific vehicle because it's not the same for every year, make and model. I remember having technicians that would say, oh, just bring me any vehicle, it's all metal, it's all the same to me. You can't have that attitude anymore. There's a lot more specificity with each individual vehicle that's on the road and there's different requirements that exist for those different vehicles, even from the same manufacturer many times.

So I think the industry has realized this and I think that it's changed the type of recruiting that's being done to bring new skilled talent into the industry.

There's a huge drive for an increased investment in trade schools, in attracting the younger generation to trade education, and I think the benefit of this change in vehicle technology is it actually has the ability to attract a different type of technician today than maybe 20 years ago. You know it's a different skill set to be able to work on these vehicles. Yes, you still need to be able to weld and to replace parts and repair metal, but now there's a certain technician that needs to be employed in a modern collision repair facility. That's almost more of a systems engineer and that's something that is exciting to me because it really does open up this industry to a whole new type of person that may be interested in working on vehicles that in the past may have shied away from it. So I think the things we talked about, about the changing technology in the cars themselves, it changes the landscape for the technicians that are going to be working on those vehicles as well.

It changes the landscape for the technicians that are going to be working on those vehicles as well, fascinating, and it kind of makes me think about the curiosity aspect that's almost required of a technician, where willingness to learn, take on new systems, take on new technologies is a prerequisite to be considered.

And I mean, you know, you kind of think about people who like solving puzzles, you know and it's and you get a lot of that because it really is trying to in some sense figure out a puzzle. Put a puzzle back together and the result is, instead of having something that looks really nice on your coffee table, it's a vehicle that's been safely repaired and properly repaired and that a vehicle owner can feel confident in and that reduces long term risk and liability from a poor back together by looking at the physical damage but then being able to interpret the technological information from the scans, looking at how I'm recalibrating this vehicle and making sure that everything is working properly. It requires a much greater attention to detail and a higher level of quality assurance process again than I'd say even just 10 years ago.

Thanks for sharing that and some of the things you highlighted from a shop management perspective, a collision repair facility perspective, thinking about their recruiting, their training, but also the equipment and infrastructure necessary to be able to scan, get the data they need, use that data and pass it along. So anything else that you'd like to add on that front?

The capital investment in the collusion repair industry continues to grow and the requirement for investing in capital. It's not just a frame rack and a paint booth. Now you're talking about being able to repair an entirely different suite of materials as well. So investing in being able to repair an entirely different suite of materials as well. So investing in being able to repair aluminum, which requires that you actually have a completely separate area designated for aluminum repair only, that you have a vacuum system dedicated for aluminum dust removal, you have a completely different, separate set of tools that exist only for the repair of aluminum. So that's just one piece, not to mention the calibration equipment and just the room inside of a shop. If you're going to do your own calibrations, you need a bay that is dedicated to just that, and so it does change the investment that's required to operate in today's world, and in many cases you need different equipment depending on which manufacturer's vehicles you work on. So that's a whole, nother consideration. I think what we're moving towards is a greater level of specialization in the collision industry, and the days of kind of a generalist collision repair shop, I think, are waning, and what this does is, you know, really benefits folks in the industry that are able to have multiple sites operating under their purview because they can offer different specializations at different sites and essentially kind of load level some of that work to the appropriate facility. It also allows shops that you know again have that kind of footprint to say well, I'm just going to have a calibration center of excellence at one facility and all of my calibration work can go there, as opposed to each individual site having to be able to do that work. So I really think that specialization is where we're going to be moving more towards.

Oem certification is going to continue to persist and grow as again, there are more specialized requirements to bring these vehicles back to pre-loss condition and OEMs recognize that just as much as anybody else. They understand that the quality of a repair directly impacts the view of their brand, impacts the view of their brand and there's been lots of studies that have shown a negative experience during a collision. Repair negatively impacts the view of the consumer towards that vehicle's brand and they're more likely to switch at the next time they need to purchase a vehicle, switch to a new brand. So I think that really you're going to see more focus on specialization. More investment have to be made for shops to be able to be successful and really it's going to be, I think those that are able to maybe even not have a national footprint or regional footprint, but to be able to operate several different sites to service a variety of vehicular needs and create centers of excellence within their own network.

Some of what I'm hearing from an investment and kind of future of collision repair is the MSOs, investors with sort of deeper pockets. They will be in a better position presumably than, say, an individual shop owner being able to make the investments to the points that you made, such as the aluminum, the specialized areas for different types of materials or even vehicles. So it's interesting to hear that perhaps there's an opportunity for consolidation in the industry for collision repair.

Yes, and we've been seeing consolidation for some time and it's really happened at a larger scale over the past decade or so. And by no means is this disparaging of independent repair facilities. I think there will always be successful independent repair facilities. I think there's always. There needs to be more of a focus on what niche do you serve in this industry and you know where the MSOs are able to compete is at scale and they are able to essentially operate that generalist model just with by load leveling within their own network. When you're an independent repair facility, it takes more focus on what aspect, what segment will you be serving? And they can absolutely be just as successful, if not more so, than an MSO by serving that segment. But to be able to say that you are going to be able to fix every year, make and model a vehicle, I think that's very challenging, I don't want to say impossible, but I would say that that is becoming more and more challenging for an independent facility to do.

But certainly finding your niche, being agile, because things are changing in terms of technologies, makes materials, thinking about lightweighting of vehicles with more premium metals, plastics. There's a lot going on that certainly keeps everybody on their toes. It sounds like Ryan.

Absolutely, even if you just you know. Getting back to technicians, you know we used to be we would send our technicians to the annual ICAR training to keep up their certification, and that's still beneficial, don't get me wrong. But the training investment to be able to keep up with the rate of change in today's vehicles is so much greater than before. When we look at a lot of our data, just the amount of substantive change that takes place from one body style to the next, it is mind-boggling. You see, the vehicles may look somewhat similar, but how they're built and what they're equipped with is night and day.

And you see, just from one model year to the next, when there's been a body style change, those vehicles share very few similarities. But that never used to be the case. You would see some changes, some updates. It was more about a style change. Now it's a complete functionality change in that vehicle. So it really does require that today's technicians to be able to work on these newer vehicles are better trained than they've needed to be in the past, and that requires a huge investment as well.

Excellent, Great to know, and I just think about my own personal car research experience, and it could be that the Model S has certain ADAS features whereas the Model SE has more. So that kind of speaks to what you're talking about within the same model, there could be significant variations from a technological standpoint. So something that you highlighted when we talked earlier was kind of the evolution of the collision repair facility. Right, Because if I own a vehicle, I typically go to provider A for my oil changes, tire changes, preventative maintenance, regularly scheduled maintenance, whereas a collision I don't really plan for, right? So tell me a little bit about how collision repair shops are perhaps becoming getting that recurring revenue, if you will, to make a regular customer out of somebody who may have just been there once.

Yeah, and I think right now there's not a lot of that happening, but I think it's being talked about a lot throughout the industry because we're in an environment right now where claims volumes are reduced. We're seeing lower claims volumes today than we were seeing pre-COVID and I think a lot of people jumped at that when they first saw that data coming out and say, well, it must be. All of these safety systems are now preventing all these accidents. I don't think that's the case. I think we're still seeing the same, or roughly the same, amount of accidents taking place because these safety systems are being offset by greater incidence of distracted driving. There's actually some studies that have shown the more highly optioned your vehicle is from a safety standpoint, the riskier your driving behavior, because you're relying more on some of these safety systems. So you know you couple that with legalization of cannabis in many states.

You're not really seeing declines in accident volume, but what we're seeing is that not as many claims are being filed, primarily, I think, because of the macroeconomic environment that we're in and the cost of insurance. The premium cost of insurance is at an all-time high and so when that happens, that's been inflated, along with so many other things in our lives. So when you're looking at your policy bill and it's gone up by 15%, 20%, well, in order to reduce the cost of that, you need to make some different decisions about your coverages. You can either remove a coverage typically a first-party coverage, collision or comprehensive or you can increase your deductibles. Both of those situations. In the first, you no longer have the ability to file a claim. In the second, it's less likely you'll file a claim because your financial portion of that claim is now higher, so there's fewer claims being filed.

So the collision industry is looking down and say well, if I don't have the same volume of work coming in, how do I start to make up for that? And I think there is an opportunity to service these vehicles in a way that others cannot. And I think, when we talked about calibrations, I think it's unknown right now to what degree these safety systems are disrupted just from daily driving. And is your blind spot monitoring system affected if you hit a pothole? I don't know If you hit a curb. If you know, just from driving 20,000 miles, you know, are there some changes? Does that? Do those sensors get out of alignment by just a little bit? And we've seen studies that show just being off by a degree can have actually catastrophic effects in the way that system functions.

So I think there's certainly an opportunity for the collision repair industry to offer preventative maintenance around calibrating these safety systems and being able to say you know, you've been in an accident, you know. That essentially is the way that a shop is able to reach that customer for the first time but then build a relationship to where they can offer again maybe preventative calibration services or annual diagnostics of a vehicle and these safety systems so that when that customer is involved in another accident maybe seven or eight years from now, which is typically kind of what the length of time is between accidents on average then it's a no-brainer for that customer of who they're going to choose. So I think it may not even be the most profitable in terms of volume of those activities, but it certainly does increase that customer retention and provide some sort of a bridge during this period of time when we see this reduced claims volume in place.

Really fascinating and you highlight a number of different things in there Ryan and the macroeconomic environment, inflation, disposable income and it kind of gets to the proving a negative conundrum, right how do you prove that something didn't happen? What you talked about was really fascinating, because it's not quite as simple as connecting two or three dots. You have to put it in the context of a more holistic picture. So, when it comes to data analysis, when it comes to interpreting the data, the quality of data that you're receiving through all these systems, systems, tell me a little bit about other challenges that you've observed or where things can perhaps be improved, and what the future might bring in terms of data quality and data types.

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we look at in this current environment is you know I mentioned deductibles. You know we track what is the average first party deductible and we've seen that increase fairly significantly over the last couple of years. It used to be a little over $600. Now the average is over $800. So that tells us what that can help us understand is the of smaller claims that are being filed. You know, if I have a $2,000 deductible versus a $1,000, that's going to change whether or not I file a claim. You know I have to be much more. It has to be a lot greater damage for it to make sense for me to actually fork out $2,000 of my own money as opposed to $1,000. So by understanding that, that helps us get a little more context to the type of claims that we're looking at. You know, I think one of the other things that you mentioned is lightweighting of materials. That's something that's very important when we look at both repair versus replace decision making, as well as the type of parts being used, whether it be OEM, aftermarket or recycled.

These different metals, not only do they require a different skill set to work on, but they respond differently. They react differently when they've been impacted. Steel, which is just mild cold-rolled steel, is the traditional metal that's been used by the automotive industry. That's a very repairable material. It wants to go back to the form that it was stamped in. It has a memory. It actually work hardens. So actually it's been in an accident, it's been dented. It's actually slightly stronger after that accident. You know things like you know. Aluminum is probably the best example. Aluminum does not work that way. Aluminum does not have a memory. It actually becomes brittle when it's involved in an accident. That's why you're more prone to see aluminum panels crack as opposed to deform. But that's also what makes it such a great use in automotive applications, because it disperses crash energy so well.

So what I'm getting at here is that we have to understand how the construction of these vehicles impacts decision-making. So when we get data from OEMs, we author data inside of our system for an insurance company, a shop. So when you're looking at writing the estimate, you see the schematic of the vehicle, you see obviously the price, the labor of all the different parts. But we also publish in there the composition. So when we get data coming back from an OEM that tells us hey, this is an aluminum.

Part of this is high strength steel or ultra high strength steel or composite or carbon fiber that we translate that and put that back to the user as well so that they can actually make different understand. You know, maybe they can't tell it's aluminum by just looking at it. So being able to look at you know the composition, that can maybe help them understand what decisions to make and it can help us understand what are the shifts, not only in composition. We're able to track. You know the percentage of replacement parts that are each kind of part type, each kind of material type, materials. This you know. Look at the different relationships between what is the material made of and what are the type of decisions that are being made about how to properly handle that part and what impact that has on the overall repair process.

Fascinating. I've learned so much in our conversation and you've really helped kind of peel back the layers on the nuances and considerations in a very complex part of our ecosystem and just thinking about all the different economic considerations that we're going through, whether policies related to tariffs, consumer environment there's just so much that goes into it. And before we wrap up, is there anything else that you can think of from a data standpoint that our audience should be kind of keeping in mind when they consider collision repair, the automotive aftermarket and the industry at large?

Yeah, I would be thinking about propulsion types and the different types of propulsion on today's vehicles. As many of you are aware, we publish a quarterly report on electric vehicles in the collision industry.

You know and we've expanded that to be covering also hybrid vehicles and you know we see different trends when we look at the different propulsion types. Whether a vehicle is electrified or not has a direct impact on what that repair process is going to look like. There are different workflows that need to exist for an electric vehicle, for instance. There's different safety precautions. There's different levels of training. Not every repair facility can work on electric vehicles. They may not be properly trained or have the right equipment In many cases. You know, in every case you have to de-energize a vehicle to be able to work on it, and in some cases you actually have to completely remove the high voltage battery. So you have to have the people that know how to do that and then be able to actually maintain the health of that battery while that vehicle's in the shop. So, as we see, we're kind of in a period where there may be some near-term depression of EV sales and electrified vehicle sales, but I think that's temporary. I don't think that that is actually a structural change.

I think long term we will continue to see more electrified vehicles on our roads, which means that shops are going to have to adapt to that, and not only collision shops, but I would say the entire automotive aftermarket needs to understand how do they better serve vehicles that are relying more on an electrical infrastructure for actual propulsion of the vehicle, and that's going to.

You know, there's different components on electrified vehicles and it changes depending on how far down the spectrum of electrification you go. You know, a mild hybrid looks very different than a full electric vehicle does. There are some similarities, but there are actually fewer similarities the further you go towards full electrification. So that's just something that we are continuing. We started tracking that gosh, I mean in 2018, and started publishing our report a couple of years ago and really I think that is going to continue to change the landscape for all different stakeholders inside of the automotive service industry as a whole both service and parts, from an OEM standpoint, from an aftermarket standpoint, across the board. So that's just something that again, there's different considerations depending on how a vehicle moves in terms of how you service and repair it.

Ryan, such a pleasure to have you on today's program. Hope you and your family are having a great summer. Just some fun questions to kind of close out today's session. You're going to a restaurant, you're hosting people for dinner. What are some of your favorite appetizers, some of your favorite desserts that you like to enjoy, whether you make them or enjoy them from somebody else's kitchen?

Well, appetizers, it depends on the time of year. Right now is the best, because my wife is a big gardener and we live in South Carolina, so it is tomato and pepper season right now. So the heirloom tomatoes with just a slice of mozzarella and a piece of fresh basil, it doesn't get much better than that. We grow a lot of hot peppers and so you know my kids love kind of the jalapeno poppers. So you know, puts a little bit of cream cheese inside a homegrown jalapeno wrapped in bacon Kind of hard to go wrong.

I'm hungry already. And one last one You're going to watch a sporting event.

What sports do you like to watch and what sports do you like to play? Well, I think my sports playing days are mostly behind me, except for playing with my kids around the yard and helping them get ready for their events. My kids are all very into lacrosse, so that is something that I was not even aware was a sport when I was growing up, but now it's become one of my favorite sports to watch, and we'll watch the Premier Lacros on on ESPN and watch college college lacrosse during the spring and it's, it's just a great sport. It's very active, there's a lot of nuances to it, so that's become one of one of my favorites, in addition to, you know, football. In the fall, I'm a I'm a 49ers fan, so that's always, that's always enjoyable. But lacrosse has become my new favorite and seeing my boys all play is super exciting, very proud of all the hard work that they put in. So it's really, really fun to watch.

Terrific. Thank you for sharing that about yourself and your family and about your gardening Sounds wonderful. So we're going to wrap up today's session of the Indicator Show of the Auto Care On Air podcast. We hope you enjoy it. Be sure to smash that subscribe and like button and we'll have a link in there for any reports that Ryan can share that he alluded to. So signing off here and we hope you have a great rest of your day. Thanks for joining us and thank you very much, ryan. Thank you so much, mike. Appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care On Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. Don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our show. Auto Care On Air is proud to be a production of the Auto Care Association, dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocareorg.