Track Day is Now Speed Labs | 100K Subs Channel Update

Wow, three years. Can you believe it's been almost three years since I started Track Day? It'll be officially that on November 1st, but a few days ago we hit the magical milestone of reaching 100,000 subscribers. It's hard for me to believe, and on some level I'm pretty proud. But first and foremost, I really have to thank my wife, who supported me along this entire thing, who kept pushing me to keep doing this despite the challenges and the hardships we had to endure, who, you know, sits behind the camera filming me in the rain or shine for hours on end. So I really couldn't have done it without her. And of course, I couldn't have done it without you guys either. Sure, we're the ones making the videos, but you're the ones watching them. And without an audience, a video often just dies in the abyss that is YouTube. So I'm really grateful for everyone that's been following me or decided to follow me recently. And for all those who haven't subbed yet but are quietly enjoying my stuff in the DL, that's cool too. They say that things change for you after you hit 100k, that growth is faster and things just get easier, but I don't know if I believe it. I think the grind is still important and you have to continue to innovate to keep things interesting. So we'll touch a bit more about that later. But the biggest change you guys will see over the next few weeks is that we'll be switching over to a new name. A little bit bizarre to do a rebrand, but I think this milestone is the perfect opportunity. So from this point forward we'll be calling the channel Speed Labs. Why? Well, I think that Track Day was a very niche name. It implied that maybe we were all about doing laps around a racetrack and filming those boring in cabin single camera videos. And as much as I personally love to do HPDs, I feel like the normal car enthusiast has a hard time really relating. And even though people love to quote handling capabilities in Nuremberg ring times, it's really just keyboard racing for 99% of those out there. I feel like Track Day would also maybe give the wrong impression to people trying to get on the channel for the first time. First time overall, I just think Speed Labs represents the channel better because we're very objective, we're very performance orientated and very data driven. So to me, Speed Labs is more appropriate and possibly even more catchy. Anyway, it's really just going to be a name change. The logo stays the same, the performance cinematic ethos of the channel is still there and obviously I'm not going anywhere. Well, besides maybe a little vacation this winter for maybe a month or two. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway, it was definitely a lot of work getting here. Some of you probably figured out that I like creating unique content and that vlogging really isn't my thing and I hate wasting people's time with stuff that is childish or clickbaity. However, stepping outside of the box obviously takes a lot more effort. With the exception of this past year, I put out videos on a weekly basis and that was a really hard lifestyle because every video, even though it's only five or ten minutes long for you guys, it takes me days to shoot and sometimes even longer to edit. So it's hard to have a normal life, be a dad, and also keep up with this channel. On top of that, because of my work background as a professional cinematographer, I'm never truly satisfied with anything I put out here, so I'm still trying to perfect that aspect. But at the same time I know I need to output content on a regular basis for the YouTube algorithm to favor me. So on the off weeks, instead of a full blown episode, I might do a little livestream podcast for an hour or two on a topic of the day. You know, relating to cars, obviously where viewers can chime in and I can talk about my opinions as well. I don't know, I guess we'll see how that pans out. But for all you who are recent subs, I just want to reiterate that I always try to use a more cinematic, high quality approach to doing car videos and I really only care about real world performance data and the emotional aspect of driving sports cars. And in a way I want to pay homage to Top Gear because that's what I watched growing up as a car guy. So when people down in the comments say stuff like, hey, why are you trying to copy Top Gear? That's really just a compliment. Well, if you made it this far into a video where I'm just jabbering on and there are no cool shots of cars or any 6130 polls, then you deserve to know a little bit more about me. My name is Dan Wang. I'm formerly a cinematographer or in my line of work, more commonly known as a director of photography. And I worked in both New York City and LA in Hollywood. I recently got out of the movie business in 2018 after I got married because I wanted to spend more time with my family and also I didn't want to grow old and jaded like most of the union folks I used to work with. But after six months of pseudo retirement, I didn't know how to deal with my pent up energy and creativity. So I set out to revive my old YouTube channel that was formerly known as SuperFasThD. Now that channel was just for funsies, something I made when I was in high school and college because I was bored. I didn't intend to be a YouTuber, so I abandoned it when I went off to pursue my real career. But after nine years or whatever it was, I picked it back up again in hopes of having a place where I can express my creativity, but also where I can share my passion for creating cars. I gotta admit though, it's a lot more work than I originally thought it would be. I mean, I had to put on a completely different personality to fit into this YouTube ecosystem, you know, because my first few episodes where I'm super serious and dramatic or stoic is actually closer to my real Persona. But people couldn't understand it. So I had to put on this more peppy facade so I wouldn't get all those comments accusing me of me trying to play James Bond. I still hate being on screen and I'd rather just film someone while, you know, they do what I do. But hey, we'll see. At the end of the day, I don't even care anymore. I just want to drive cars and shoot cool stuff. Anyway, thanks for 100k. And here's to another.