CLEARWATER, Fla. — Every time Joe Raiti does a review of a car, he thinks back to when he was seven years old, running around his dad’s mechanic shop in Clearwater.
“Even now, when I get a certain smell or hear a certain noise, it brings me back,” said Raiti.
Raiti soon discovered he didn’t want to fix engines; he wanted to rev them. He spent four years racing Formula Vee, competing in 67 events, winning 32 of them, and only suffering one crash.
“It was not my fault somebody did not heat up their tires properly and took me out,” laughed Raiti.
Then he completely changed lanes on his entire career, becoming a high school history teacher in Pasco County for 18 years.
“It was great because I even started a car club after school,” said Raiti.
With the students' encouragement and his wife Lori’s TV production experience, he decided to start his own YouTube channel in 2017 called Raiti’s Rides.
“And I would go to cars and coffee events here in the Tampa Bay, St. Pete area and just do simple videos and then I noticed that people were watching,” said Raiti.
In 2019, he retired from teaching history to focus on the show's future.
“And I told them, 'You guys are the last people I’m ever teaching,' and they said, ‘No, Mr. Raiti. Now you just have a wider spectrum of people,’” said Raiti.
In just over five years, he has recorded 3,000 shows gaining one million subscribers from all over the world. He has become a regular at the Dream Giveaway Garage in Pinellas County.
“They give me access to vehicles because these vehicles help raise funds for different charities,” said Raiti.
Whether it’s a classroom of 30 teenagers or one million subscribers, Raiti says his mission always remains the same.
“I’m coming from the heart. I’m just being myself. I’m not trying to win anybody over, it's just about sharing my passion and knowledge with people about cars,” said Raiti.
