TAMPA, Fla. — From the classroom to the car lot, former Tampa Bay teacher Joe Raiti taught history at Ridgewood High School before it closed its doors last year.
"The same month and year, October 2017, that I found out that the school was going to close down was the same month and year that I started Raiti's Rides," Raiti said.
His love of cars goes back to childhood, watching his dad work as a mechanic for more than 30 years.
"I would go to work with him on Saturdays and see all the inner workings of cars and the sounds," Raiti said.
Raiti not only admired cars: For three years after college in 1998, Raiti was seen racing at Daytona International Speedway and Watkins Glen International, to name a few.
And this was before his teaching career.
"I had a friend in college that would race shifter karts, that are like really fast go-karts you could say, and I started racing with him, he let me borrow one of his on the weekends and I wound up doing really well," Raiti said.
Starting his YouTube channel less than two years ago, Raiti reaches more 120,000 people online.
"A lot of people love the cars that I review because they're cars that people can actually go out and afford," Raiti said.
Moving forward, Raiti plans to continue making videos for his audience and hopes to go to auto shows in Switzerland and Tokyo.
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