Seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours, hours to days. All time put toward shedding a few seconds off the clock. Among the absurd heat and humidity of late July or the crushing winters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, resides Atlas Tuning and Performance.
Oil and grime stain the warm grey concrete, a pungent smell of gas thickens the air. The roaring sound of an RX-7 rotary engine producing more power than it should siphons all other sounds out of my ear while a flame rockets out the exhaust, increasing the already hellish heat.
“I had no anxiety, no pressure behind it,” said Brayden Plooster, co-owner of Atlas “I was at a point of where I could free ball it and do whatever the fuck I wanted.”
Plooster was the one in the RX-7, with one hand on a computer in his lap and the other gripping the shifter.
“The first core memory I really have was my friend got his brand new WRX, and that kind of solidified me being into cars and being around people in the car community,” Plooster said
Plooster didn’t always envision cars consuming his life. Originally, he wanted to pursue a career in cardiology, but lost interest during Covid. He then started hopping between jobs without a clear path in sight. One morning while working on his cars outside a storage unit in Harrisburg, he noticed another person leaned over a vehicle.
“Our job is meant for fun, not for necessity.” said Michael Butterfield, co-owner of Atlas and the guy leaned over the vehicle. When the two first met, Butterfield was working at the local Subaru dealership. “I learned a lot there I–learned a lot about work efficiency and being able to get my job done in the quickest way possible.”
Butterfield had worked at Subaru for years and was able to get Plooster a job as a technician. The two of them worked there for another year, becoming acquainted with a like-minded co-worker.
“It was actually in Florida, my dad was a big cigar guy and when I was a kid we went to a cigar shop together.” said Sawyer Ptak, co-owner of Atlas. “I loved the smell of the cigars, while I was sitting there these guys came in, wearing big Cuban links and they were shopping for, you know, 200 dollar cigars, crazy expensive cigars, and they pulled up in a Ferrari F40. That was the first memory of cars that really stuck in my brain.”
After Ptak graduated high school, he didn’t have any plans for his future. While at his uncle’s house in Florida he got a call from the service manager at Subaru and secured a job in the service department.
“In that moment I told them[Aunt and Uncle] that I was going to own my own performance shop someday,” Ptak said. “The next time I visited them, I owned my own performance shop.”
The three worked together at Subaru for a little under two years, learning and honing their skills. More importantly, the three formed a personal and professional relationship together.
One night after a couple beers at a small, musty shop, they rented together while still working at Subaru and after growing tired of the stress and disrespect they felt from management at Subaru, the three decided it was time to pack up the tools and take a chance.
“I technically got fired” Ptak said. “Subaru didn’t have enough work for everyone there, so I just told them. If I’m not going to make any money here, and Greg, who’s got a family to feed is missing out on work because I am here, I’m just going to go full time at Atlas.”
Ptak was told by management he had to stay and work full time at Subaru or he would be fired. He walked out of the pristine 10,000-square-foot shop with a smile on his face, never looking back.
“I did a build on a ZL1 Camaro, completely after-market build with a bunch of extra bullshit, and they paid me off of book pay for that,” Plooster said “It ended up taking two-weeks to do that job and the book pay was only 42 hours, so they screwed me over an entire week’s worth of pay.”
Butterfield and Ptak were in their early 20’s when the decision was made to start their own business and Plooster was only 18. Fear of failure and anxiety of performing wasn’t on the minds of the young entrepreneurs. They have already started working on other clients’ cars while under employment at Subaru reaching a point of profitability while still having projects booked and parked outside waiting for work to be done.
“We had nothing to lose,” Butterfield said. “Let’s be totally honest, we had work to do, we had a small but functioning customer-base and we had nothing to lose.”
Their small customer base returned day after day, broken part after broken part, keeping the men busy unlike the leisurely general maintenance and warranty they performed in their jobs at Subaru.
“I think the biggest deciding factor was that we were all prepared to fail.” Ptak said.
The perk of being young with no major responsibilities nor anyone relying on them for a steady paycheck made the decision easier. The time was right for them to take a risk while they all had time to commit and the drive to succeed. Along with Sioux Falls being recognized year-after-year as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, coupled with the connections made at Subaru and the sheer amount of money circulating through the city, the time and place provided the perfect set of ingredients for a new start up.
“There’s nothing but growth going on in Sioux Falls, so if you were to start a business anywhere, you’d want to start here,” Ptak said. “There’s only guaranteed success and infinite growth.”
South Dakota is one of the only states in the country with virtually no regulation when it comes to emission making it a haven for performance modding and tuning, allowing customers builds to be fully customized without worry of legal trouble.
“I know so many people in Sioux Falls, my network expands throughout,” Plooster said. “When you know so many people it makes different ventures and also aiding your current venture relatively simple.”
The Sioux Falls community enthusiastically invested into the new business without a need for return, putting full trust in the young trio.
Owning a business alone presents challenges, owning a business split between three owners creates a whole different dynamic. When it comes to business decisions, having a 33% split makes bureaucracy easy. Each owner possesses their own strengths, Butterfield builds the engines, Ptak is the troubleshooter, and Plooster is the tuner, all working together in sync, much like the vehicles they create.
“There isn’t really a point where we’re fighting over who should do the work, we all understand who’s going to get the work done,” Ptak said.
Working on cars is blue collar. The grease and grime amalgamate with sweat, the clock ticks away as aggravation rises until finally it’s time to go home and watch the filth pollute the shower water and circle down the drain. Ten-hour days of manual labor underneath a vehicle or bent over a hood isn’t something many people would even consider doing for a job.
“I would say the redeeming aspect was the gratification of the customer along with the money being made,” Plooster said. “Now, I would say it’s in pursuit of an easier future.”
Atlas wasn’t profitable until years later, the men worked all day into the night, making just enough to sustain the business and pay personal bills.
“I think we work our asses off, long term, you know, to make a name for ourselves, to make sure Atlas succeeds,” Ptak said.
The man hours along with the unending dirt and filth mixed with the extreme heat and cold are all obstacles the men tolerate with the hopes of turning Atlas into the flourishing high performance shop the three dream of.
“It’s honestly the satisfaction,” Butterfield said. “Seeing something get put together and it does what you know it should do. We’re doing it for ourselves, it’s not like someone is telling us to do this because it’s our job, we’re doing it because we want too.”
Even with the enjoyment of completing builds that satisfy customers and grow their brand, conflicts still arise when balancing work-life and personal life.
“There is a balance, and it’s extremely hard to find that balance,” Butterfield said. “It’s probably taken me three years to even remotely try to work on that balance.”
The dedication needed to create a successful business from the ground up leaves no time for personal endeavors.
“Atlas Tuning and Performance is our baby, I mean, 90% of our life is consumed by cars and the culture of the community,” Ptak said.
Atlas is the culmination of years consumed by unrelenting stress and dedication by three people barely old enough to drink a beer. Sacrifices have been made and continue to be made to reach the end of that quarter mile, quicker than the day before.
“We’re not robots and we’re not wizards, but we can be quicker than the rest,” Butterfield said.
