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December 16, 2021 42 mins

This week the guys talk with Off Road legend Rob MacCachren. MacCachren talks about his recent win at this years Baja 1000 along with the changes he's seen in his illustrious career.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Skinny with Riego and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. I'm Ron mccachran and this is the
skinny from the Fatheads I Wear Studios in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the skinny brought to you by Toyota, Rhino
classifies General Tire and Dream Giveaway. This segment of the

(00:22):
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(00:45):
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General Tire dot Com today. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to
the Skinny. Here once again, I am joy by Will Robinson.
I'm guessing I'm not real sure who that is, to
be quite honest with you, maybe this is a space dude,

(01:05):
because it looks like I'm in here alone today, But
that's okay. The guests that's gonna join us here this
week is spectacular, a long time friend. He's been racing
for a long time as well. And in fact, I'm
gonna bring this up to him. I think it's near
fifty years. He's coming up on fifty years if if
my homework is correct here, but we'll we'll confirm that

(01:27):
we have a legendary racer. His name is Rob mccachry
new will join me. He's in Las Vegas, Nevada, at home,
so he'll be joining me via the interweb if you
want to call it that. But it's great to have
him with us. He is fresh off of yet another
Baja one thousand when Mr Rob mccachran, thanks for joining us, brother,

(01:48):
thanks for having me yet it's been a lot of years,
can but it hasn't been. We're right at forty now.
So um well, so well, I mean the reason the
reason I said that is the homework that I did
and whether this is this is correct or not, why
I needed to confirm it. But it says in nineteen
seventy three you won the Nevada State Motorcycle Championship at

(02:12):
eight years old. Well, okay, so you got me there. Um, yes,
I've been't started racing motorcycles in uh, you know, when
I was eight years old, and and then I didn't
start racing four old vehicles until I was sixteen. So yeah,
I guess, um, you just you just notified me something.
Actually forty eight years man, you're forty eight years that's

(02:35):
that's what a run. Yeah, that's that's that's a long time. Yeah.
I to be honestly, I haven't thought of it that way,
So you definitely, uh, you know, put something new into
my repertoire of thoughts. So hang tight here, I'm just
going to for the fans that aren't familiar with you,
and honestly, I feel like you're one of the best
kept secrets and motorsports. If you're involved in off road

(02:58):
racing at at any level, you're certainly familiar with the
name of Rob mccachran. But for the people that enjoy
NASCAR or Indy Car, maybe they don't know the name.
So I'm just gonna run down a couple of a
couple of things here that they should be aware of.
First of all, seven time Pro two champ, a two
time Pro four champ. We're talking about short course off

(03:20):
road here, and if I'm correct, five Baja one thousands
as recently as a week ago. Seven major cup wins
when we're talking about the Potawatomy Cup, Borg Warner Cup,
he has seven of those, one of only three, by
the way, to win a cup in either a Pro
four or a Pro two, primarily Pro four. Six of

(03:40):
those seven over two hundred career wins. In fact, that
two in career wins they celebrated in two thousand twelve,
I believe safely even at that time was it was
more than two hundred, probably in excess of two hundred
fifty or sixty now a hundred fifty plus in short
course alone. I mean, I've got a hundred thirty one.
That's just and pro to Pro four doesn't count any

(04:02):
of the buggy stuff that you won over twenty championships.
Two thousand eleven. Was inducted into the off Road Motorsports
Hall of Fame. Has raced in the Mickey Thompson Series,
the Chorus Series, Score Soda, Best in the Desert, and
literally just to name a few. Nevada Sports Writers Association
Top off Road Driver and for their Competitor of the Year,

(04:24):
Driver of the Year awards and score HDR hdr A
and Scores Driver of the Year Award, the American Auto
Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association Award three times, two thousand seven,
B F. Goodrich Hires Motorsports Person of the Year, two
thousand seven, Dirt Sports Magazine Driver of the Year. I mean,

(04:46):
the credentials and accolades just go on and on and on,
and I think it's also worth mentioning that you've done this,
of course over this span of years. We we just
talked about how many years, right, but you've done it
as a driver four teams, and you've also done it
as a team owner, which is a huge undertaking both

(05:08):
desert and short course. Uh. Man, I know you try
to keep up with it, but your goal is to
race all the time, and your your brain in our
conversations it's wrapped around the next race and not necessarily
what's what you've accomplished and and back behind you. But man,
when you look back at this, uh, you're one of

(05:28):
the most highly decorated racers of all time. I don't
care what discipline it is, it's very impressive. Yeah, no,
it's been good. Um. You know, I was fortunate enough
to start racing early. When I started racing motorcycles. My
dad was actually racing off road buggies in the desert. UM.
And then when I turned sixty and I was I
think I was fifteen years old, and he said, hey, uh,

(05:49):
you know, you know you want to try off road racing. Um.
He had owned a buggy shop called him a bad
off road buggy and folks on a parent shop called
the pit Stop, but he was in construction. But when
I was about fourteen years old, I went to work
in the buggy shop. And when I was fifteen, he said,
let's see if you want to go racing. And I
was like, well, what if I don't like it? And
he said, well, um, you know, we'll we'll just we'll

(06:10):
go try it. If you don't like it, we'll sell
the car and move on. While my first race was
out here in the Nevada Desert, and I fell in
love with it. I quit my senior year of basketball. UM.
I was really into basketball through my teens and all that,
so UM, I quit doing that, fell in love with
off road and we did it as a family for
about the first five years. UM. And then I got
picked up by Walker Evans um with Jeep and Goodyear

(06:32):
tires Um and started racing for them, and and from
there it just barrelled into moving on to Ford Motor
Company and the b of Gooder's Rough Riders team, and um,
you know, it's I've had my where I've driven for
other people, like you said, and where I've actually had
to start my own team and run my own team
for a few years. So it's it's went back and
forth all the way, um, you know, through the years,
and more than recently I've been running my own team

(06:54):
racing you know, the Score series, the Lucas series who
were not racing anymore, and um, you know, so it's
really gone back and forth and enabled us to run
in a lot of different places, a lot of different
series and acquire you know, as you said, there's there's
quite a bit of different, uh you know, um types
of racing that I've done in the desert, short horse
and stuff, and we've been able to get quite a
few winds wrapped up. So what I'm hearing from you

(07:17):
is this, this made sense to you very early on.
And and what I mean is as a driver, when
you put the helmet on, you got behind the wheel,
did it all just seemed to make sense. Didn't come
pretty naturally or was it really a craft that you
were a little bit behind the beginning and you really
had to work at it a bit. Well, I think, um,
you know, I loved you know, we lived out in

(07:37):
the desert in Las Vegas and uh ended up you know,
riding BMX bikes and race BMX and you know, again
back to race a little Indian fifty. When I first
started in the desert, um, racing that, and with my
dad racing and and so on and so forth, and
then being with V w Is all the time, I think, um,
you know, I just took to the desert and learned
a lot from my dad and then moved on to

(07:58):
a guy by the name of Jack Nston who was
a motorcycle writer and he just got inducted in val
for a Motorcyport Hall of Fame this year. Um. He
took me on his wing a little bit and taught
me a little bit how more, how to read the desert.
And again in my very first race, when I did
that race, I fell in love with it, and you know,
always trying to do better, to go faster. A lot
of those off road races in the early days, especially

(08:20):
here around the Las Vegas area where multiple laps you race,
you know, maybe ten or twelve laps around a ten
lap course or a ten mile course. So every time
you come around, it's like I wanted to go faster,
I wanted to try to clear that ditch or whatever
it can be. And it was got addicting, honestly. Um,
you know, in every lap in off road, every time
you come around the course is different because there's other
cars are out there, and you know they're moving the

(08:42):
rocks and and the course is getting rougher as it
goes on. So every lap, every lap, it was a
challenge to try to get better and try to get faster.
In the early days, I even put a stop watch
or a clock inside the car so I could monitor
my own times and was I doing better or slower
or what was it? So I really just got addicted
to it at an early age. And uh, you know,

(09:02):
it's fortunate that I'm able to race in different states
across the West in the desert and going to Baja
California and the short course series throughout across the country,
and back in the day when the Mickey Thompson's Short
course Racing was racing in stadiums. You know, I got
to travel all across the country. UM, got to go
to Tokyo, Japan, Montreal, UM in many states in the

(09:24):
U S. Racing. So it's really taking me a lot
of places. And you know, thankfully, you know that old
uh saying. You know, if you do something that you
love doing, you love and work a day in your life.
And for me, UM, I've put a lot of work
in off road racing. But it really doesn't feel, um,
you know, like it's been a hard, you know, unrelentanist job.
It's unrelentanist to try to win and to do good

(09:45):
to be successful. But I've been very fortunate to do
what I've done for so long and have people behind me,
like you have goodrich tire since and got a lot
of great other you know, people that supported me, whether
it's brands or people fam we um, you know, so
on and so forth. A lot of people have helped
me get to where I have, where I am today
and to get a lot of those accomplishments that we've done.

(10:09):
So I want to stay focused here on the desert
side of things. And I'm kind of I'm gonna set
this up a little bit but as you take a
look at running in the desert, and you're talking about
it in your very early career days, and and take
a look at it now, I mean fresh out of
the truck here less than than a week ago, just
a handful of days ago. How how different is it

(10:29):
in terms of pace? When you drove a desert race
back in the eighties and nineties, you know, how hard
could you push in comparison to how hard you're pushing now? Um,
it's definitely, Um, it's definitely. The place has definitely increased
a lot um And a lot of has to do
with the technology that's happening, whether it's be of good
as tires now we have fourty install tires. Um. You

(10:50):
know a Fox shox now is a shock that's four
and a half inches in diameter. Um. You know, the electronics,
the transmissions, just everything is increased a tie. Um. And
I could say, you know, my first uh time getting
into somewhat of an unlimited vehicle was a Class one
buggy in x and at that time it had a
four cylinder VW Type four motor with a Hulan five

(11:14):
speed in it. Um. And today the truck that I
just probably that and let me go back just a step. UM,
but that engine probably had you know, a hundred and
fifty horse power maybe And the vehicle that I just
raced with Luke McMillan, he actually owned the truck UM
and his family, which just came out of you know,
it's eleven hundred horse power, has an extract five speed transmission,

(11:34):
paddle shift. UM trucks probably worth you know, in the
beginning of purchasing the truck, probably about nine hundred thousand dollars,
where the vehicle that I originally started first started racing
with six thousand dollars. So as time has gone on,
the pace is definitely faster. UM. The reliability of the
trucks and the development UM you know, allows us to
push him as hard as you can pretty much, you know,
for the whole UM thousand miles or the bottom of

(11:57):
thousand we just did was seven miles. We paced ourselves somewhat.
You know, you've got to have a good vehicle and
and and at the finish in case there's a battle
to come down to the end. But UM, really the brands,
the companies UM have you know, increased the strength and
reliability of the parts over the years. To where. And
another thing that I'll say is, you know, I've been
doing this a long time and when I started, UM

(12:18):
even through the nineties, we had to really pace ourselves,
take care of the tires, the breaks, the transmissions, UM,
things like that, even the motors. We won the bottle
on thousand UM Peninsula run from instant out of the pause,
and the game plan before the race was on all
the fast roads and everything and everywhere, never go over
five tho rpm, just keep it underneath that, which meant

(12:40):
we very rarely cracked a hundred miles an hour. And
now we're you know, it's like, hey, do what you
gotta do, running as hard as you can or as
hard as you need to UM, and you know we
are top speed. This year was one eight UM a
lot of times. You know, I'm still trying at that,
just trying to take care of the vehicle and make
sure we get to the finish line. No better guy
to get some insights from when it comes to short

(13:00):
course and desert racing. We have Rob mccachorn on the
show with us. We're gonna take a quick break and
we'll be right back on the other side. This segment
of the Skinny is brought to you by Toyota. This
segment of the Skinny is brought to you by Rhino Classifies.
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(13:21):
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(13:43):
Once again, Welcome back to the Skinny. We have legendary
off road racer Rob mccachorn on the show and always
makes these guys feel a little bit weird when you
say something like that or introduced them like that, because
he's just a scrapper man. He's in the middle of
the fight all the time, and that's really all he
really wants to do. I just behind the wheel of
a truck and let him go by the way. His
significant other, Amber was really set up the studio for

(14:05):
us today, so I want to thank her and and Rob,
she said that you are good at one thing, and
then she followed that up by saying you're a pretty
decent driver as well, So hats off to your brother.
She's always been along by your side there, at least
as long as I can remember. We talked about you
you working at your craft, and last thing we were

(14:27):
talking about before the break was the pace of desert
racing from the time he started until the time that
you just finished here a few days ago. What I
want to find out from you is how that transitioned
into short course racing. Where did the racecraft come from? Because,
as you know it is it's off road, but it's
two totally different styles. So you're in a discipline where

(14:49):
you started off where you have to take care of
the car and uh and pace yourself to a large
degree to make it to the finish line. And then
you go into short course off road racing. It is
foot on the floorboard, everything you can get out of it.
For fifteen sixteen laps side by side with a number
of other trucks flying through the air. It's just absolute
controlled chaos, if you will. But how long did it

(15:12):
take for you to develop a love for that side
of the sport and to develop your racecraft there? Yeah, Well,
starting out in um, you know, the early eighties and
off road and I when I started to drive for
Walker Rebans was the first time I raced the Mickey
Thompson Stadium Series. And you know, it's definitely two different,
uh mindsets going into the race. Off road was more

(15:32):
like an endurance race and you need to get to
the finish line. The races were anywhere from you know,
two d fifty miles to a thousand miles, where like
you said, short course can be fifteen sixteen laps. You're
only out there, you know, about fifteen minutes or so,
and you gotta get it done once they throw the
green flag. So um, it's definitely different mindset and what
you need to do short course when they throw the
green you gotta get it done. Now you need to

(15:52):
take chances and you try to get to the front.
And when the race were desert, you know, you have
a lot of time. You gotta be patient. It's they're
both from cults, and I guess in a way, i'd
say the desert um. You know, it's more difficult to
control yourself. You gotta uh, you know, you want to win,
you want to go fast. And that's one of my
analogies that I have for off road because a lot
of the people that do that. Um, they get in

(16:14):
the truck, put their helmet on and then they throw
their brains out the window. And that's what you need
to do for short course really. Um. But it took me,
uh not too long. Um. You know, prior to racing
short course, UM, my first year being about UM, I
got to sit in the grandstands a lot and watch
you know, the likes of Walker Evans, Um, you know,
Rod mill and Steve Millen, Roger Meyers, Ivan Stewart. You know,

(16:37):
I sat back and watched those guys and studied, you know.
And I again, like I said earlier, when I started this,
I fell in love with the sports. So I became
a student. You know. I wanted to learn as much
as I possibly could. You know, I wanted to watch, um,
watch what they're doing in the pits, listen, do everything
I possibly couldn't get better. Um. But yeah, getting involved
with Walker Revans and racingly Mickey Thompson series is definitely

(16:59):
a high to my career. And um, you know, going
to basically go balls to the walls right from when
they throw the green, um, was what you had to do.
And also you know, through my racing car. I also learned,
you know, championships in the early day was very important.
It wasn't as important as winning races, although winning was important.
But um, you know, so you needed to in both disciplines.

(17:22):
Really you needed to, you know, go when you can,
but be careful not to make a mistake, take yourself out, um,
to try to get that championship. If time has gone
on and the years have gone on, and it also
has a little bit to do with why the paces
increased in the desert, Um, it's all about winning the race. Um,
it's not so much. Uh, you know, championships means some
but nowhere near what they used to in the early days.

(17:43):
So now all the younger guys that are coming in
they want to win the race. They don't they don't
care about the championship for most of them. Some of
the brands you know obviously be if good, rich and
for me cares about winning that championship. It shows you know, reliability, longevity,
things like that. But yeah, I really loved racing short
course racing and two different mindsets. And when I explained
it to somebody, I'd pretty much used the word desert

(18:04):
as endurance racing and short courses of sprint. Yeah, Cameron Steele,
we had him on the show here a couple of
weeks ago and he said something. I thought it was
the best fit that I had ever heard for trying
to win a desert race. And he said, you have
to go just slow enough to win. And I was like, wow,
that that actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's, um,

(18:25):
that's funny he said that because that's one of the
coins the phrases that I feel that I say is
that's that's Uh. You know, when I first started, I
wanted to win them all. I want to win by
an hour, and I did end up blown it. Sometimes
I'd end up you know, clipping rock, get a flat
tire or crashing or whatever it may be. And and um,
he's one of the one of the phrases that coin

(18:45):
in my racing career is that you know, go as
slow as you possibly can to win. Yeah, great stuff. Well,
I wouldn't surprise me if Cam didn't didn't maybe rob
that one and throw it out there. It's a pit's
a pretty good one. Uh. As we talk about short course,
it we talked about and back in the pace off,
and I felt like short course was the same way.
Even even when I came into short course around two

(19:05):
thousand two. I would watch you guys, uh, you and
the Baldwins and Renaisetta and you know, all the gang
would go in there, especially in the Pro four category.
I guess I would refer to a little bit more
where they had to take care of the equipment. I mean,
at any given time, it seemed like there was something
left in the truck. I mean, the first one that
comes to mine would be car Rentoisett. At the last

(19:26):
two laps of the race, it would be like a
completely different truck than he had raised the entire time,
and it was because he felt like he needed to go.
If he was in a situation, he needed to go,
and there was something left in that truck. And as
we progressed forward in short course off road racing towards
the end of the Lucas Oil Series, I will aim
towards there were people like um like Brian Deagan who

(19:48):
nearly closed out the season with a perfect podium schedule,
which you just didn't see that in the past. Uh.
And again I guess because technology has come along to
try and help keep those trucks to other But how
hard you guys push them or can push them in
comparison to what they can take. Has that window has
become much closer and it's a it's an incredible thing

(20:11):
to watch. Yeah, absolutely, and and you pretty much hit
the nail on the head. The technology, um, you know
that's happened over the years and making the stuff better
and and whether it's transmissions or or or drive train gears, motors,
just everything has increased a ton um since the beginning
of short course racing until the end. And you know,

(20:32):
again back to my my statement about the kids, when
when the younger guys got in, they would, you know,
crazy right from the green flag. And it's like I was,
the older guys are like going, hang on a man,
It's kind of like the the the old bull in
the field out in the pasture. Just wait until the end.
And it pretty much came down to, um, you know
you can't do that. You gotta you gotta go. So um.

(20:52):
You know the brands again, you know, whether it's B. F.
Good Rich, Fox shocks, you know, Kevin Coryer building my motors, um,
try transmissions, gears, all that stuff had to be reliable
and over time, Um, you know, you're smart guys that
the engineers um for each brand, we're making stuff better,
and whether it will be beat lock wheels, and just

(21:13):
all the little things that you learn. From the beginning
of this type of racing until the end um, everything
got better and better and more reliable and more reliable,
which meant we were there was more people battling at
the end um because of because of that, Yeah, I'm
also blown away as well. I mean in short course
off road racing typically, I think the Pro twos and
Pro Force back when they had the unlimited motors wouldn't

(21:35):
make a little more power than than the trophy trucks
would are the class one cars, I guess really trophy trucks.
Now you'd hear the trophy trucks at about seven hundred
horse powers, so because they wanted them to live during
that entire run. And now listening to you, I mean,
you guys are showing up with a bullet that makes
eleven hundred horsepower short course, the highest I had heard
was nine hundred and nine fifty summer in that that area.

(21:58):
So really, what you're telling this is, I mean absolute
cutting edge technology inside of these vehicles. And then of
course you put a price tag on it upwards a
nine hundred thousand dollars that that has got to be
the latest and greatest of everything. Yeah, the big blockings.
I was actually UM this morning. I was at Coreer
Racing Engines, my trophy truck that we're racing in the

(22:19):
Mint in about two weeks here in December. UM is
on the chassis Dino later to able to go out
and chake it down, but just sitting there speaking with
some of the guys that that build the motors there
and you know, congratulating them. We ran Croyer Power at
the ball when thousand and Luke truck and end up
winning with it. UM has an extract transmission in it,
but that motors the big block motors about seventy five thousand.

(22:40):
The extract transmission from what I understands, about seventy five thousand.
And that's where you get into these numbers that I'm quoting.
You know, nine hundred thousand for an all will drive
trophy truck. But you know that truck, uh, you know,
the Forno truck has. We have UM speed linar on
the highway, so we have speed limits on the highways
where we can only go sixty miles an hour. UM.

(23:03):
So in the speed limits in this truck is just
like the one in the car. Basically you know in
our v because we drive on the street, push a
button speed limit sixty, let off the throttle pedal and
it'll just take you and keep you right there at
sixty UM Luke's truck Luke mc millan's truck. Also UM
has cameras on it where there's a camera in both
side mirrors and a camera at the back. So UM

(23:23):
for instance, how we use that is if you happen
to have to back up, you can look at your cameras. UM.
If you get a flat tire, you the co writer
jumps out UM, I as the driver, operate the jacking system.
There's two onboard jack's UM. There's keypads that I pushed
to make the jack go down lift the truck up.
In the meantime, the co writer goes around the back
of the truck to there's two spares of mounted in

(23:44):
the back of the truck at the very back. So
I'll watch him in the rear view camera and watch
him unratch at the strap get the tire out. When
he does that, I switched to whichever side the flat
tires on and I can have a screen. I have
a screen on the dash where I can actually, um,
you know, watch him doing that. So it helps me
know when the jackieeds to go up, when it needs
to go down. But there's just the technology again with

(24:05):
the trophy trucks that they have happened today are just incredible. Um,
you know, there's so many sensors and everything is being monitored, um,
you know, and through the co writer with all the
different dash pads and and screens. Um, it's really the
technology is incredible today and it's amazing, you know for
me racing as many years I've had my first race cars,

(24:25):
we didn't have a tow a radio to be able
top the pits, we didn't have a spare tire, we
had no power steering, and today there's all of that
and much much more. Once again, just a great insight,
a wealth of information. You're coming from one of the
absolute best and Rob mccachran. We're gonna take a quick
break and then we're gonna focus on this last race
that he was just in a handful of days ago

(24:46):
as he won yet another Baja one thousand. Stay with
us this segment of the Skinny. It's brought to you
by Dream Giveaway. Dream Giveaway has been giving away high
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(25:07):
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the coolest cars on the planet. Check it out at
dream giveaway dot com. Welcome back once again to the Skinny.
We have great friend out there in Las Vegas, Rob mccachran.
I've had the pleasure of calling to his races for

(25:28):
a number of years and watching him do what he does.
One of the smoothest of all time behind the wheel,
and when you put him out on the desert, he
definitely knows what it takes to get it to the
finish line and win. He proved it just a handful
of days ago as he won his fifth Baja one thousand.
It's one of the big ones, and these guys really
want to to win the one thousands that are in

(25:50):
excessive a thousand miles and Rob this was one of
those special years where you guys got to go the distance. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
We're fortunate enough to get our first ball with thousand,
winning two thousand seven with Mark post Um driving for him,
and then two thousand, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen we did
three in a row with my own team, driving my
own truck, with two guys different each year, but Annie

(26:14):
McMillan and Jason Boston drove with me in those years,
and and then this year. Earlier in the year, Luke
McMillan reached out from the McMillan racing family and asked, uh,
you know, if I was interested in racing with him. Um.
Pretty much took twenty four hours to think about that,
and he said, absolutely, I'm in. Um. Luke McMillan is uh.
I feel like he's a young me. Um. He's very

(26:35):
uh you know, interested and and doing everything he possibly
can to do better. Um. So I was obliged to
be offered to drive with Luke this year and the
whole McMillan team, and we basically started about four months
ago putting the game plan together on how to win
the race. I ended up starting the race driving the
first six hundred and thirty three miles. UM. We pretty

(26:55):
much had a flawless run. My task at hand was
basically try to keep the truck in condition, handed off
to him UM in the lead or close to lead,
which we were second on the road and second on
time at that time to Bryce Menzies. UM. Luke got
in the truck and pretty much right away UM took
over the lead in the race in the first physical

(27:16):
position and on time UM, Bryce and Boston engine about
miles six thirty eight or so somewhere around there. So
from that point on, Luke was the first truck on
the road all the way to the finish, and he
gave he had about after Bryce went out. He had
about eleven minute lead and it's slowly just increased all
the way to the finish, and I think we ended
up beating the second place trophy tried by about thirty

(27:36):
two minutes. UM. But the plan, you know, we used
bowl teams, the McMillan team, the mccapan team UM to
to culminate to put this race in and some of
the numbers. It's interesting a lot of people don't know,
but the race course was seven miles long. UM. We
had seven fuel stops, where we pretty much stopped. UM
add anywhere from at this race. In hindsight, we added anywhere.

(27:58):
One of the fuel stops was as little as four
five gallons added in rear tires. UM. Other fuel stops
added eighty five gallons of gas. We do that in
about thirty seconds to a minute, depending on if anything
else needs to be done or driver's change. UM. But
the race went flawless. UM. Luke increased lead all the
way to the finish line, winning by over thirty two minutes. UM.
You know, in zero problems with the truck. UM. And

(28:20):
it's testament to McMillan team that put the truck together
for this race. And you know, for me, I raced
against Luke's dad, Mark McMillan since the eighties, and UM,
you know, they've done a great job with you know,
basically dotting their eyes, crossing their tees, things like that
to put a winning program together. And you know, again,
you know, I was honored to be asked to race

(28:42):
with them this year, and uh, you know, definitely what
a great feeling, you know, to be able to win
it UM with the McMillan legacy. Yeah, and you know
you talk about the truck was perfect. I think um
fans out there that are not part of the sport
need to understand as well that everybody really thought that
a four wheel drive truck would not be able to

(29:02):
make it the full distance. I mean, and whatever I
say that, I'm talking about colleagues like Cameron Steel, not
that they wouldn't be able to make it, just didn't
know if they would make it under full power, full
steam without something going wrong to the truck. So they
felt like the reliability of the two wheel drive truck
might be an advantage in that area. But you guys
managed to get it done in an all wheel drive truck.
And it's a ton of technology that has to be

(29:25):
put to the test for sure, But there's a lot
of extra moving parts and pieces in an all wheel
drive machine. You know, absolutely right. And to explain a
little bit about the design of the truck, it's a
Mason Motorsports truck. It's a big block mid engine truck.
So the engine is basically right behind the driver and
the co writer uh. In between us is an extract transmission.

(29:46):
Then there's drive shafts that go to the front differential
and transfer case, and then to drive the front um
the outside has portal hubs so that you can get
more wheel travel. So the axles UM go into the
hub on the out side, and then there's gears in
there that dropped down UM to drive a little bit lower,
So you're gaining right height and wheel travel out of

(30:09):
the front from the front transfer case which is also
the front differential. Now there's drive shafts that go all
the way to the back of the truck to the
rear in UM you know again eleven d horse power,
five speed transmission b IF goodish forty inch tall tires
UM you know, and on and on and on. There's
just so much in the fuel cells all the way
in the back holds about about a hundred and five gallons.

(30:31):
Two spare tires in the back. UM. I explained the
jack system earlier. There's two onboard jacks, one on each
side of the truck that will lift up completely that
either side, whether it's the driver passes side of the
truck and all lift up the whole truck. The radiators
for the engine water cooling or in the back window.
There's coolers in front of us up by the front bumper. UM,

(30:51):
the lights there's uh, I don't even know, I I
wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't over thirty different uh
separate light that were on the truck across the front
bumper and then above above our you know, in the
front of the hood or excuse me, the roof more lights.
But um with that being said, um or in the
daylight hours, we had a helicopter chasing us for safety

(31:13):
and also relay. When the sun went down, we had
an airplane up in the air being able to do relays.
So a lot of times on the peninsula you could
be fifty miles for many of your pit crew or
pit people, and that's if you're lucky. UM. We had
the McMillan and team and with help from some of
the mccachran um task with people. We had probably over
a hundred bodies at this race spread up and down

(31:36):
the peninsula. There were seven fuel stops, and within each
of those fuel stops there was anywhere from ten to
fifteen people. We had about chip ten chase trucks that
had you know, anywhere from two to four people in
each of those and chasing us the whole peninsula, which
on the highway it's about eight hundred and fifty miles
UM on the race course seven but we weave from
the Pacific side of the Sea of Cortez back and

(31:57):
forth all the way down the peninsula. So it's definitely
a major logistical planning. UM. Back to you know, Luke
made most of the plans. He bounced stuff off of me,
UM and try to figure out who's going, where, when
are they going, how are they going? And also as
we pre run, and both Luke and I spend anywhere
from ten to fifteen days down their pre running. But
we have to make sure that the chase trucks can

(32:19):
get down the highway UM as fast or faster in
a safe way UM to beat us from spot to
spot to spot. And as the years have gone on,
I think we almost average sixty miles an hour at
this balling thousand, which quite possibly could be the highest
mile per hour average that there's ever been. But UM, yeah,
definitely a lot of planning, need a lot of people,
You need a lot of volunteers, uh to make it

(32:41):
all come together. And then I can tell you the feeling,
you know, winning the ball when thousand overall, UM, you
know that came over me first time in two thousand seven, UM,
it's something like I've never had before winning any race.
So um, Luke's had got that taste one year ago.
He's now gone back to back um for two overall
wins for his UM record books, and then we've got

(33:02):
five overall wins for ours, so you know, hopefully we
continue on UM. You know, I think the the match
between Luke and I worked very well, and I think
it can work well into the future and we'll just
see how to see what plays into two for both
of our schedules. So for the fans at home and
and for myself as well, I would love to hear,

(33:22):
uh two different things. I would love to know if
there's any what the strategy. Maybe when you say there's
seven fuel stops, are they strategically located in terms of performance?
Are they more strategically located in what is just flat
out the best area to set your equipment up in.
Because at the end of the day, I mean, people
hear a pit stops like okay, they picture a pit stop.

(33:45):
What they don't realize that you guys have to bring
equipment to seven different locations in the absolute middle of nowhere.
How does that go down? Yeah? So, um, you know,
obviously with it being Luke Struck and mainly his team
and the for the most part. Um, you know, the
strategy starts, you know, we we like to say, you know,

(34:05):
planning for the bottle on thousand starts three sixty four
days before the race, So you raise the bottle in
thousand pretty much before you're over, you're already thinking about
the next one in the strategy. But um, when you
get the map and the lay of the land and
figuring out where the course goes, and you start figuring
out how far can we go on fuel? And typically
the big block that we're running or Luke's running in

(34:25):
his truck gets they've they've been getting anywhere between one
point seven miles to the gallon all the way up
to three miles to gallon. So depending on the terrain,
if it's you know, soft a lot of sandwashes things
like that, or it's hard packed. Um, we also have
speed zones where we go through either ranches or we
have to use part of the highway to get down
the peninsula where the speed limit could be thirty seven

(34:46):
miles an hour or sixty. We have to calculate all
that in with the fuel miles that we think we're
gonna get to figure out where we're gonna put the pits.
We also need to think about strategy of other people. Um,
you know, you think it's crazy, but in seven mile race,
we're still thinking about track position, you know, how to
get ahead of the other people, possibly by your pit strategy.
So we're we're adding that in there too. And you know, Luke,

(35:08):
we we could have went all the way down to
just five pit stops, or we could have went up
to seven, and we thought, um, you know we're gonna
do seven. We're gonna you know, make sure that the
trucks in better shape. You know, we have eyes on
it more times than not. Um. So I had three
fuel stops. We basically went to about mile one sixty
five Field, we went to about three oh five fueld,
We went to about five in field. Then Luke got

(35:31):
in at mile six thirty three. At that pit we
did drivers change. We changed the rear tires and the
front tires. We only changed the front tires one time
during the whole race. Um. And then Luke had three
more fuel stops before the end. Um. But yeah, it's
definitely a strategy to figure out when and where to
pit how to pit and make sure you don't lose
positions in the pit, try to gain and then also

(35:53):
you know, you want to make sure the truck's operating
at optimum levels all the time. UM. So yeah, it's
it's definitely a a thought process. Takes a lot of
you know, um, strategy thought thinking into it and hoping
you're doing the right thing. And Luke and I have
talked quite a bit beforehand, going you know, this is
what the plan can be. You know, it's also funny

(36:13):
because our pick guys that you know, they want to
know where am I going, where am I pitting? When
am I getting there? And you know that they'll start
asking two months out and it's like, okay, well there's
a scenario, but it's probably gonna change. So basically, up
until the green flag drops, this is what we think
we're gonna do, but the plan can change. And some
of that has to do with, um, you know, not
losing positions in the fuel pit and possibly gaining them.

(36:35):
When we're pre running, we're seeing where people are marking
their pits and um, you know, we try to play
that into getting a lead position or getting ahead of
them on the track. Such great insight. Man. Uh, I
just can't thank you enough. It's so cool to hear
this stuff so real quickly. I just want to touch
on I. I just want to say congratulations to you

(36:55):
on your extensive and very lengthy run with BF. That
relationship has been second to don So maybe give them
a little bit of love here before we wrap things up. Yeah,
I've been with prior to racing with them, I was
on other brands of tires, but I was always watching
and paying attention, and they were always the brand, you know,

(37:17):
the tire brand that was looked like the top dogs.
They look like the most involved, the most dedication, and um,
you know, my parents taught me a little age, you know,
if you want to be successful, surrounding yourself with people
that also want to be successful. So throughout my career
I've done that and b F g Um and I
pretty much made a relationship in together and I've been

(37:38):
with them ever since. You know, we won over two
and the races together and again I'm not counting. I'm
gonna wait time, Donne and over and sitting in a
rocking chair and I would say, you know, am or,
what did we accomplish? And and show me and I'll
look at the record books then, but um b if
Goods has definitely done a lot from my career, helped
us win a lot of races, and they were continually
um trying to better and make better tie Arson and

(38:01):
make us more reliable and win more races and more champions,
so on and so forth. So I can't thank them
enough for you know, it's been uh since a lot
of years. Yeah, that's it's it's very very cool. And
you've earned it. I mean, quite frankly, you've earned it
because they they do the same as you. They associate
themselves with winners, and you've certainly proven that that you

(38:22):
can deliver the goods. So uh, hats off to you
as well. Uh. In closing, I know you're an extremely
respectful individual just in general, but certainly to your peers,
your colleagues inside of the sport. You're also a historian
of the sport. You're very switched on, needless to say,
when you look back at some of the biggest names

(38:42):
of all time. I'm gonna ask you this and just
gonna put you on the spot, and you're not gonna
like it, but I don't care. I'm gonna do it. Anyways, Uh,
what do you think? Man? Can we call you the goat? Oh?
I don't even know about that. And when people say that,
it's you know, I related to Well, I've been doing
this for, as you said, almost fifty years, but in

(39:02):
four we'll off road forty years. So, um, you know,
there's just a lot of wins and a lot of
championships that you know, I guess when other people say that, um,
you know, then that's the only thing I can relate
it to is because I've been doing it so long.
But uh again, you know, later in life, when I'm
sitting in a rocking chair, you know, I'll reflect back.
But you know, as it goes, it is an honor, uh,
to to have as many wins that we've done, to

(39:25):
have as many short course wins, and that that's what
drives me to And you know, everybody says, when are
you going to retire? And it's like, I don't. I
don't see any time soon. You know, I love doing
and I feel I'm so capable of winning and I
don't see that stopping anytime soon. So I want to
keep winning races, winning championships. And we're worried about what
they call me later. You know, I'm right with you,
by the way, And I don't necessarily I don't have

(39:47):
any real affection towards the term the goat. I think
there's always so many variables given in whatever scenario it
maybe the times were different, the vehicles were different, the
courses were different. There's so many variables. But I certainly
feel very comfortable with saying you are and will remain
as one of the greatest of all time. And you've

(40:09):
certainly proven that. You've brought home, you know, the hardware
to prove that as well. I think what makes you
more and important, uh to the sport as an ambassador's sport,
is your personality. Very non confrontational. Uh. Your your passion
is unsurpassed. People don't get a chance to really see that.

(40:30):
I've I've had the pleasure of seeing that a couple
of times. I've walked up and we've had conversations, and
I know you're not listening to a single word I'm
saying because you're thinking about how to get the truck
to rotate the next day and the next race. But
that's who you are and and that's why we love you. Man. Uh,
You're an incredible talent. We thank you for all the
memories you've given us and we look forward to you
given us some more awesome. Yeah, thank you for the

(40:52):
kind words. And hey, I love doing what I'm doing
and I appreciate everybody that's got me to where I
am today. Um couldn't have done it without all of
m and and thankful also to you and everything you've
done over the past and short course racing and so
on and so forth. Thanks a lot, ladies and gentlemen.
Rob mccacharine one of the greatest of all time, and
hopefully he'll be coming to a TV screen near you.

(41:12):
Maybe we've seen back in short course racing, but for
now he is tearing up in the desert as he
continues to do. Thanks a lot, Rob, and I hope
you guys had a great time watching one of the best.
We'll see you next time. Thanks for being with us
here on the Skinny. This episode has been brought to
you by Tayyota. Rhino Classifies, Dream give Away and general

(41:36):
tire for the latest and sunglasses, optical frames, accessories and apparel.
Be sure to check out bad Hits dot com. That's
bad Heads with a z H. Production facilities provided by

(42:05):
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