We were lucky to catch up with Zach Melissas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Zach, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Initially fell in love with the car community when I realized the great experience I was having with my car was meant to be shared with other enthusiasts. The safest way to do so was taking out cars to the race tracks to truly explore the car and persona potential of each driver. I joined a local car club hoping to find other like minded drivers, but the participants constantly picked sitting in a parking lot over driving their cars. Eventually I left the group with no intention of starting my own, but as time went on the need for a group that offered driver focused events arose. I later invited close friends and skilled drivers into our car club with rare or unique vehicles. We went to as many car events as we could until the need for our own events become evident. We were tired of driving in bumper to bumper GA traffic for hours on end just to show up to car events show down by police within 30 minutes of arrival.

Our car club mainly stuck to the mountains, and before I knew it we were participating in track days a the safest way to truly enjoy the experience our cars had to offer. We altered our new member qualifications to include more track oriented members and builds since our focus shifted to the race tracks. We participated in karting, sim racing, and HPDEs as much as we could. As the years went on I purchased a Nissan Skyline R32 GTR before developing it into the ultimate track car. I have been participating in motorsports including road circuit racing, time attack racing, and autocross racing. I also have been hosting events with the support of my car club including car shows, rallys, and track events. I noticed a decline in the quality of events within the car community, and wanted to bring the positivity found in true motorsports back to the car community. Cars became very popular and with their increased popularity we saw a large saturation of car events with lack of purpose, motivation, organization, or any real soul into the event. Our goal continue is to bring the best car events possible to the community while striving for gold in the motorsports arena.

Zach, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I initially found my “need for speed” riding down hill mountain bike courses with my friends. I knew from there that I was meant to be on wheels of some sort. I was fortunate enough to have an Infiniti G35 as my second vehicle, and I fell in love with the way the car drove. I later returned to the Infiniti platform with my Q60S (G37S) and began modifying the car to improve the grip, handling, braking power, and transmission response. I switched to the Honda s2000 platform and began participating in high performance driver education track events while obtaining my official Hagerty HPDE Instructor License. I switched to the Skyline platform due to its legendary racing pedigree in the JGTC (Japanese Grand Touring Car) Series, and worked with the Skyline experts at Countersteer in Canton, GA to build a time attack focused R32 GTR.

I began competing in the Skyline while guiding teammates from my car club through a racing program that I developed. I started hosting car events including car shows, charity events, and car rallys to provide the car community with quality organized family friendly environments. This year I’m working directly with JZilla track days to combine our largest annual event; the Nissan Skyline Invitational, to bring an HPDE track day to the participants of our event. Most of our events are free but our annual Invitational is one of the only events we charge for since we rent out venues for the event. We sell event specific apparel to give people something to remember the event by. My car club gives members the opportunity to build their cars with guidance and learn how to compete in show car competitions, road racing, time attack, drifting, drag racing, and many motorsport disciplines.

I’m proud of the team that my cofounder and I have built because the team consists of committed like minded drivers that strive to achieve our teams’ common goals. Our teammates within the club commit their free time and effort to helping the motorsports team thrive. We host public car meets and car shows in an attempt to provide a positive experience for people in the car community that are tired of seeing the car community deteriorate. We want to provide the community with a direct line to the motorsports world.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our biggest objective was to build an genuine audience online with people that we can engage with and with people that will want to attend our events. We hoped to find people that would want to enjoy the story of our progress and growth as we take on new endeavors. We spread our social media by word of mouth to people that attend our events so we can keep active participants informed of our latest events and opportunities. We made sure post media with similar themes across all of our platforms. We currently post on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok on a regular basis. All of our media promotes our events, our members, our sponsors, and the individual media platforms. It’s important to keep content relatable to your audience, and to involve your audience in your media as much as possible. It’s extremely important to post consistently and to keep quality consistent throughout all posts. Lastly; it’s important to remain open to new opportunities as they may lead to newly discovered audiences.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

The key to managing a team is maintain an open line of communication while adhering to the constructive criticism supplied by your teammates. This ensures each teammate knows their voice is heard, their voice matters, and their opinion matters. It’s important to recruit teammates that share a common goal for the team’s vision so everyone is striving towards the same objective. I like to delegate responsibilities to my team and not only make them feel good but also important. This way when they successfully complete a task I can congratulate their success and encourage the ability to tackle problems. Building up your teammates’ confidence is essential in maintaining a high morale, because they will be confident in their abilities, the team’s abilities as a whole, and your abilities to manage them all at once. I like to recognize my teammates in various ways whether it be awards, compensation, or public praise within the team. I want my teammates to know that I appreciate each and every one of them for everything they do to support us.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.speedgatemotorsports.com
• Instagram: @Speedgate_motorsports
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/116582551288233
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@speedgate35?si=k-FvOwI2ckF7FuoY
• Other: The Annual Nissan Skyline Invitational (Facebook Event Group – SpeedGate Hosted Event) – https://www.facebook.com/groups/323866100467561

Image Credits
Girard Amoyo – @Girardamoyo , https://www.instagram.com/girardamoyo/ Matthew Albers – @mat._.albers, https://www.instagram.com/mat_.albers/