From Auto Tech To Corporate Suit To YouTube Guy, Vice Grip Garage’s Derek Bieri Has Regained His Independence
Derek Bieri clearly warns you at the beginning of each YouTube video that what you’re about to see ‘isn’t necessarily educational.’ Many of the 1.39 million subscribers of Vice Grip Garage (VGG) might disagree.
It’s not that his car revivals, racing antics and general tomfoolery aren’t entertaining — it’s that you probably will learn a thing or two along the way, if you’re paying attention.
A few years back, the former hands-on auto technician turned suit-wearing corporate warrior was just a fan of shows like Roadkill on Youtube.
“I thought, ‘Hey, I could do that. I just gotta learn how to film.’ So, one night I taped a broken iPhone to a garage door and put a small block and a four-speed in a Camaro, got it going, and here we are,” he said. Derek’s self-deprecating humor, addictive catch phrases, knowledgable wrenching and family friendly car-centric shenanigans have since made Vice Grip Garage an internet success.
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For a man who likes racing and working on cars, and can do so in any location no matter how inconvenient, drag-and-drive was a perfect sport for Derek to get into. His initial foray into this style of motorsport was at 2021’s Midwest Drags — albeit in a spectating capacity. He drove Tom Bailey’s ice cream truck along the route for the week, getting his first taste for the motorsport niche. The casual drive was in anticipation of one more exciting to come at Rocky Mountain Race Week, where Derek was teamed with with fabricator/mechanic John Matzen in the Motion Raceworks Coyote-powered Mustang known as El Toro. The duo ran eight-second passes all week and successfully completed the event. Derek was left hungry for more.
“I’m a pretty hard guy to get excited, but I can tell you that experience blew me away. The fact that Motion Raceworks was willing to just throw me the keys to El Toro, gave me insight to how amazing the drag-and-drive community is.”
Derek enjoys attending car events and engaging with his subscribers. At Sick Week this year, it was nearly impossible to get a photograph of his rough-and-ready, stars and bars painted 1972 Chevelle known as Independence. It was always being closely inspected by an eager fan.
Introducing the next generation to cool cars.
Independence has been prominently featured on his YouTube channel ever since he rescued and revived it a couple years ago. “It certainly is a fan favorite. Independence is torn, tattered, and scarred — but much like this country, it never gives up. And I think maybe that resonates with folks. We wanted to keep it budget friendly, but still have a lot of fun with it. My goal was just to get it to as many events as possible. To show people that you don’t have to have a huge budget and a giant race program to come do events.
“It was painted by the previous owner, Rhonda, and her dad — who is unfortunately no longer with us — as a memorial to 9/11, right after it happened. After I heard the story, I said, ‘Well, now I can’t paint it.’ That’s very special to me. The body and the paint are going to stay exactly the same forever.”
For Sick Week, Kevin Smith from KSR Performance and Fabrication helped prep Independence. This included dropping in a working big block Kevin had on the floor, because it appeared Derek had already fed too many onions to the Chevelle and she was in need of a temporary transplant.
Derek’s co-driver was his wife Jessica, and Sick Week marked her first drag-and-drive experience. “It was everything I expected, and nothing I expected at the same time,” she said. “It was a lot of work, but an absolute blast.
“I was basically in charge of all the logistics. To start, I did all of the packing and organizing, I made sure we followed the correct route, got to the motel and so on. By the end of the week I was also in charge of doing tire swaps and fuel. And of course snacks, I made sure we had all the best snacks, including the cold ones.”
Not everything went to plan at Sick Week…
Vice Grip Garage is a family affair, and Jessica is not stranger to spinning a spanner or two — on camera and off. She contributes content to the channel and their three boys are often included as well. The youngest son, Bentley, even has his own YouTube channel called Little Grip Garage, which chronicles his revival of go-karts and dirt bikes, with Derek’s assistance if needed.
“It’s great because that’s my whole goal, getting another generation involved,” Derek said. “Because when you and I are toes-up in the daisies, if there’s not another generation to pass the torch to, this whole hot rodding scene is done. It doesn’t even have to be a younger generation, if we can get friends or family or whoever involved, it’s kind of a strength in numbers thing.”
In keeping with this desire to promote hot rod culture, Derek and Jessica loaned their NASCAR tribute 1974 Monte Carlo to friends Chad and Haley Asheim to compete at Sick Week. The couples have been friends since high school. Even then, a teenaged Derek would cruise in town with Chad, scoping out junkers and getting them running to use or sell. They were essentially doing revivals and ‘will it run’ scenarios long before they were content genres.
Derek is also a fan of burnouts - he was the joint winner of Sick Skids in August.
Vice Grip Garage continues to evolve in order to keep up with Derek’s long term vision for the channel.
“My heart will always be budget builds and ‘how can we make this thing run on as little coin as possible’ content. I’m just a blue collar, hard-working guy, I work seven days a week. I don’t have endless budgets, and I like to show people that you can have fun and put cars on the street and enjoy them, and they don’t have to be pretty and shiny, or the fastest.
“But at the same time, if I save one vehicle a week that’s great, but then I’m gonna be the guy that has cars rotting in my yard. Just like the Monte Carlo and the Chevelle, I’m glad we revived them and got them on the road, but we have to do something with them to officially save them. We have to use them and sometimes that means selling them and giving them to somebody else that can do something with them.”
With that in mind, Derek went to Sick Week with the intention of pushing the Chevelle to its limits. He even wrote ‘pray for me’ on the cover of Independence’s rear diff cover and planned prayer sessions for the poor little 10-bolt. “I let the race director know at the track that we might be picking up parts and he said, ‘We’re here to race — send it.’ Despite his best efforts, the 10 bolt survived and Independence ran tens for most of the week, and even posted a 9.73 at 140-plus mph on its last run.
“From day one, I know that without our fans we don’t have anything. Vice Grip Garage ceases to exist. We try to go out of our way anytime it’s possible to not only show our thanks and appreciation, but to also use the platform our community has built together to do better; give back, share, be kind, and hopefully get younger minds involved along the way.
“I am committed to drag-and-drive enough now to where we should probably build a proper car. At some point I have to take my own safety into consideration and get something that’s decent. I’ve got kids and a wife at home that I’m pretty fond of. So, next season you might see me in something that’s not falling apart and rusted.”
Jessica had this final thought for those who might be on the fence about participating in a drag-and-drive event: “I would tell them to absolutely do it. Especially if you love the car scene. It is an amazing opportunity to learn so much about everything that goes into these drag cars. There is a lot more to it than just putting a fast engine in and pushing the gas pedal. You will also learn that there is a camaraderie amongst car people like no other. You will walk away with new, lifelong friends.” ■
Written by Paul Fournier.
