Tim Eull's RX-7 Legacy: Rotary Passion

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We've been calling you your wrong name.
No, no, the whole time I've known you.
This is hard. Barking brought you by Right
Hunt and Right Toyota out of Scottsdale, AZ.

(00:21):
I'm your host, Jay Finning. What is it these days about?
I mean, we're in 2025 and peopleare still driving around with
your blinkers on. I was behind the late model
Mercedes GL1 of the big really cool ones for about a mile and
1/2 on a regular road and the blinker was just on.
Does the thing not remind you when your blinker's on or when

(00:44):
you turn the wheel to the opposite side?
Doesn't the blinker turn off? Apparently not.
Coming up on today's show, Tim Yule, you guys in the Arizona
area know his car. He has a 93 yellow RX7, wins all
sorts of awards, but we've been saying his name wrong this
entire time. Find out how to really pronounce
his last name. All that more coming up after

(01:05):
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(01:48):
Jump into a 30 day trial today by using code HARDPARK at Get
Sparkforge dot AI and stop letting yesterday's tech eat
tomorrow's profits. Tim Mule, it is my pleasure to
welcome you back on the podcast.First time in studio.
Thanks Jay, good friend of mine welcome.
Appreciate you having me. Of course.

(02:08):
Absolutely love it. So, yeah, so I figured we we
should get together and you kindof let people know you're a cool
story because you're the guy whohas the really cool yellow RX7
that wins all the awards around here in Arizona.
We used to. Well, you still win all the
awards. Wins a fair amount, but yeah.
You you told the judges to stop because you were running out of

(02:29):
room. No, my wife says I'm running out
of room. And she said if you win any more
trophies, just, you know, find somebody to hand them to.
So. There you go.
But I mean, for me that's not what really the hobby's about.
It's about people and connections and if you win
trophies, you know, that's fine,but it's not the end all be all

(02:52):
for me, for, you know, doing thecar hobby.
So tell us who you are and what you have and why you're sitting
here today. So you know, I my name's Tim
Ewell. I go by Isle, but some go by
Ewell and I never usually correct people because spelling
in my last name is so wonky. EULL.

(03:14):
Phonetically it always comes outEwell.
So we've been calling you your wrong name?
No, no, the whole time I've known you.
No, no, Jay, it's like I. Said IO.
IO in German. In German it was E with an
umlaut over EU LL, which makes an OI sound.
Oh, so oil or L oil or L is likethe German pronunciation Tim

(03:41):
oil. Tim Oil, Yeah.
Oh, wow, heard it here first. Yeah.
All right. What else besides everyone?
Well, I, I mean, your name. Yeah.
So I mean, you know, I moved to Arizona in 87, got a job working
in Honeywell, and I was into American muscle when I was
younger. I had a 1993 or, excuse me, 1973

(04:05):
Mazda or a 1973 Camaro Z28. That was my first enthusiast car
and I bought it. It was a little rough.
And within about two or three years I obsessed over it like
every good enthusiast does, trying to make it perfect.

(04:27):
When I bought it, it was a really dark green, like a Forest
Green or almost like a British racing green and hated that
color. Didn't have any spoilers on it.
It was just a bare and non spoiler dark green car that
somebody had painted and so. So that wasn't even the color of
the car should have been or they.

(04:48):
No, it wasn't a factory color. And a friend of mine owned a
Corvette with that pearlescent white paint, you know, with a
heavy metallic in it. And so I decided early on I was
going to put the all the Z28 spoilers on it and painted that
Corvette white and go with Plaidinterior.

(05:12):
I don't know why, but for some reason I have always been drawn
to Plaid interior and so. Kind of interrupt her for a
second. So I've heard not just you, but
I've had other guests on, especially with the older cars
of painting and repainting and repainting.
So we'll get back to your plat interior.
I think it's, is it a generational thing?

(05:34):
Because a lot of times I see stuff and it'll be for sale And
like I have a, a guy who's selling an NSX right now and
it's a beautiful NSX wants like 150,000 for it and it's a
repaint. It's not even the original
color. And when I look at that, I'm
thinking, wow, you repainted this car and you're asking
premium for it, whereas back in the day you can repaint.

(05:55):
Like did it always affect the value as much or you think it's
just kind of a current thing or maybe it's just one of those
things out there that doesn't really mean?
Anything. No, it's hard to say.
I, I, I mean, I think that people over the last 20 years or
so have really got hung up on valuations and, and you know,
whether a car is all original ornot all original, whether it's

(06:17):
low mileage and what defines lowmileage.
And so I always say, you know, if you get if you buy a car and
it's low mileage and you're hungup on valuation, then you
probably shouldn't own the car, right, Especially if you're an
enthusiast that likes to go out and drive.
Same thing. And then for for repaints.

(06:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you should do what you
want with the car. It's yours, right?
There you go. But I'm a fine one to talk
because, you know, I have a A79RX7 now that is supposedly
original paint. The paint's almost too good in
my opinion, to be original. But I don't have any paperwork
over the lifetime of the car that would, you know, denote

(07:01):
otherwise. And so I'm assuming it's
original paint still. But again, I, I, I got got when
I bought it, I had some Plaid interior from Japan, some Plaid
material to put in the inserts. And so I changed the seats to
Plaid inserts and. On the 79, yeah.
On the 79. OK, got it.
Yeah, those are my two cars right now. 79, all original

(07:23):
first year Mazda RX7, and then the yellow 1 is a third
generation. So I thought, if I'm going to
own two cars, why not have a first end and a last, you know,
first generation, the last generation RX7?
Which I would love to do with the NSX.
But so back to your Camaro in the Plaid.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. So back to my Camaro in the

(07:45):
Plaid. So sorry for.
Pulling you off course there. So back then, I mean, that was
in the late 70s, early 80s and back then, you know, center line
wheels were all the rage, right?And with a lot of the people
that I hung out with in Minnesota, because I grew up

(08:08):
just outside of Minneapolis. And at that time there was a
club called MSMA, Minnesota St. Machine Association.
And MSMA consisted of really allthe cool guys with cars in the
in the Twin Cities metro area. And at that time, center line
wheels were the big thing. Everybody was running center

(08:31):
line wheels and a lot of guys were running slicks on the
street and 'cause there was a lot of street racing that took
place on, right, Yeah, probably around I think in Brooklyn Blvd.
between, you know, midnight and 3:00 AM, you'd see guys used.
To be the same times and let me get a shift change probably.

(08:52):
Probably. I don't know.
I don't know. All I know is that, you know,
anybody who is a serious St. racer would hang out at the
restaurants and drive ins along Brooklyn Blvd. at that time, at
that at that time in my life. So, so not that I was a serious
St. racer, I've always been moreof a car show guy, right?

(09:15):
I learned early on that, you know, no matter how fast you are
on the street, somebody out there is always going to be
faster and and more power usually leads to more breakage,
which leads to more expense. And you reach that part where
it's like what's usable? You have the bragging, bragging

(09:37):
rights power, then you have power that you can actually put
down on the street and use. And then if you have all this
usable power, what you're, you're still on the street.
Right, right. You're still you're still
illegal, right? Yeah, yeah.
We've all been there, done that at to a certain extent.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah.

(09:57):
So anyway, that car kind of lit my lit the flame in me for the
car hobby. My dad was a was a he always
loved cars and he always wanted a fast car.
But he was raising 5 kids on a limited budget.
And so for my dad, my dad got a 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 390

(10:26):
black with red interior. And I remember going out with
that that 390 screamed in that car.
That's a close, as close as my dad ever got to having a quote
UN quote fun car for himself, right?
But, you know, just hanging out with my dad on Saturdays,
washing cars with him. And, and my uncles were always

(10:50):
into cars, Cadillacs, nicer cars.
I was always kind of interested in cars, cars.
And then downhill skiing in the winter and golf in the summer.
Those were kind of the three things I was interested in as a
teenager. So when you were washing your
cars with your dad, was he so into it that he pulled out the

(11:13):
chamois and all that kind of stuff?
Or did you use detergent? What did you use?
Yeah, I just, I just remember him having a big old soapy
bucket and throwing it under theMaple tree and hosing it down
and hitting it with a bucket. And I don't remember him
detailing the wheels or, you know, the tire, you know, the

(11:35):
tires or wheels or the interior.It was just basically it kind
of. He always had a beer in his
hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Always had a beer in his. Hand remember the the brand.
Yeah, Green belt, Green belt beer.
Yeah, so whatever was on special.
Sure. He could find Pfeiffer.

(11:58):
'S that was that three the threetwo beer up there in Minnesota.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was something I had to get
used to when I came down here too.
And to Arizona was in Minnesota,everything's, I mean you have
liquor stores up there, right? They don't sell, at least I
think they maybe sell 32 now in the grocery stores.

(12:19):
But back then, I mean, you had to go to the state owned liquor
store to buy anything, right? You know, And so, you know, when
I came to Arizona and saw that you can get anything you want in
the grocery store, it was kind of like the Wild West, right?
So. Yeah, I mean, you can go into
Circle K and they probably have little pints of whatever too.

(12:39):
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So, so, yeah, I mean, I had that
that Z28, I had that car all theway through college, believe it
or not. I'd put it, you know, into
winter storage. That was a big thing in
Minnesota in the winter time was, you know, when we got into

(13:00):
late October, you'd find a placeto store your car for the winter
and then you would go out and try to not spend more than a
couple $100 on a rusted out winter beater.
And you hoped it had a good battery and snow tires.
Those were the 2 priorities and and that's what you drive for

(13:21):
the winter. And you hoped that your winter
beater would last for two or three seasons, because if it
did, you got your money out of it, right?
What? What was your winter beater?
Do you remember? My winter beater one year was a
68 or 9 Ford Galaxy 4 door. And I mean the floorboards were

(13:42):
rusted out of it it but it had, you know, studded snow tires on
it. Our favorite thing to do as as
teenage kids was to chase each other around our hometown just
after a heavy snow. You know, if, if we got like 8
inches of snow, all the guys with winter beaters were chasing

(14:02):
each other around the streets, sliding sideways, going down
through people's yards. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
But yeah, that was kind of our mischief as kids.
But good, clean fun. But.
Was that the crappiest car you had?
Was that 4 door Galaxy? That yeah, yeah.

(14:23):
And I had a a 66 or 67 Ford Fairlane.
That was my car for college. OK, right.
And again, that's had a 289 in it.
Floorboards were all rusted out of it and it was a piece of
junk, but it was highly reliable, good snow tires, tank

(14:45):
heater, so you could plug it in.That's a Minnesota thing.
You. Know plugging it in.
Yeah, I remember that as a kid. I mean, anybody who would never
grew up in the Midwest always wonders what's the plug hanging
out the front for? Right.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Did you see the movie The Ventures of Ford Fairlane just
because of the name of the car? Now that's a that was.
Remember Andrew Dice Clay was ontop of the world for a little

(15:07):
bit. I think that's the only movie
he's been in. But yeah, yeah, he was the star
of. That movie, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, so then Fast
forward to Arizona and my love of Mazdas and Rotary engines.
I think it was. I mean, I knew of Rotary engines

(15:27):
when I was in college because I was in college from 79 through
84 and obviously 79 and 80 was when the first Mazda RX7 came
out. And you know, all the guys that
were into American muscle kind of just, you know, Pooh poohed

(15:49):
the Rotary engine. They said it was just another.
Well, it's kind of wild though, right?
Because at that point the the 1st RX7 is so small and at that
time 70s and 80s American cars are huge.
They were huge and not that fast.
No. Under power.
Nasty. Yeah, they were really bad.
Were terrible, Yeah. Exactly, Exactly.

(16:13):
But I mean, I remember the hype around the RX7 when it first
came out because in 79, Mazda didn't anticipate that that car
would be as possible as popular as it was.
And, and so they didn't make enough cars for the US market.
And so they were pulling cars off of the production line in
Japan and doing as much as they could to convert them to US

(16:37):
spec. So that's why some of the more
highly sought after and desirable 79 RX Sevens are the
ones where the hood prop rod is on the passenger side and
there's no passenger side mirror.
And there's a couple of other unique, unique items that were

(17:00):
part of some of the Japanese production that made it to the
United States basically from let's see, they started like
February or March of 78 were theearly production numbers and,

(17:20):
and some of those early quirks lasted until August or September
of 78. And then 79 when they started
the eighty production is when you you saw a lot of those
things disappear. So the early cars are fun
because of those weird weird items, but.

(17:41):
That's stuff to look for. So what are the odds that how
many do they make in 79 ish do you know and then how many are
still out there? That's a good question.
I'm not sure the exact production numbers.
Come on, Rotor Daddy. I know.
I mean, that is your name. You're the rotor daddy.
I want to say like like, you know, like 4050 thousand that's

(18:03):
a lot 79. I could be way off on that, but
but yeah, I mean, dealerships couldn't get them.
You really couldn't order any options you wanted if you you
pretty much had to put your money down and just say whatever
you get. The first thing you get is what

(18:24):
I'll. I'll take the next one.
I'll. Take the next one.
You don't know if it's. Going to be blue or yellow or
what not. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. Things are different.
Very different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very
different. So my friend so a guy that I
became really good friends with in fact he's coming out next
week for to ride with me A7 stock or I should say later this

(18:46):
week. He is, I had a 79, a silver 79
listed on Bring a Trailer and hewas the winning bidder.
And, and when he won that car, he told me the story of his
youth and him having that same silver 79RX7 and how he met his

(19:11):
wife at a gas station and she knew it in RX7 was, and she was
a cute young gal and he just wasimmediately drawn to her.
They fell in love through their passion for cars and yeah, yeah.
And so and he and I became instant friends.
So it's, it's a testament to therelationships you build in the

(19:37):
car hobby. And the reason why I love the
car hobby actually is because ofall the new friends you meet,
you know, all the stories you hear, the people who you know,
people come and go. But most times I stay pretty
well connected with my car friends.

(19:57):
You know, I've lost a few car friends in the last few years
and that's that's pretty tough. It's pretty tough to lose those
people, so. Now is that the car or was it
red? Is that the car that you sold
after you were on last time? The Copper State, 1000.
Yeah, yeah. So that car was sold this

(20:17):
September, the Red 7 or 1980, and that belonged to a buddy of
mine. His name was Stuart UL.
I mean, what are the chances of meeting somebody whose last name
is a ULL and your name is EULL, right, Right.
Probably next to nothing except for sitting in front of

(20:38):
somebody. Exactly.
Exactly. And so he and I met on online
forums for RX sevens called RX7 club.com.
They have, you know, communitiesfor every generation of RX7.
And Stu was kind of viewed as the guru for 7980 RX Sevens, but

(20:59):
he lived in Fairbanks, AK. And so, you know, probably about
9 or 10 years ago, I get a text message from him saying, hey, he
said, I'm my wife and I own a rental home in Sedona, and we're
thinking about selling our houseup here in Fairbanks and

(21:21):
retiring to Sedona. He said, are you fairly close
by? And I said, yeah, I'm not too
far at all. I'm a couple hours.
Yeah, definitely closer to the Fairbanks.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so he wanted to know what
the car hobby was like in the Phoenix area.
And I told him, you know, like all major metropolitan areas in
the United States, people are car crazy, you know.

(21:44):
And so he moved down to Sedona and I met him about a month
after he moved here. He came with us to 7 stock.
He happened, he happened to movehere in late September, early
October. And seven stock is traditionally
the the first weekend, the SEMA weekend or the the weekend after

(22:06):
SEMA, I should say in November. And I mean, he and I were
instant friends from the moment we met.
I always told people he was my Rotary brother from a different
mother because I mean, we had kind of similar tastes in mods.
We were just, you know, sometimes you meet up a new

(22:28):
friend and you're just compatible on so many different.
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
We just clicked together as friends.
So. So yeah.
And then, you know, he was here for four or five years and found
out one day he had a sore throatand went to the doctor.
And doctor said, I don't like what I'm seeing in the back of

(22:50):
your throat. He said, I'm going to take a
biopsy. And fair enough, it was throat
cancer, but they thought they caught it early enough that he
could had a high or a likelihoodof surviving it.
And unfortunately, you know, within three or four years he
was gone. And so, yeah, so I helped his
wife sell his car. I helped his wife sell his

(23:13):
Ducati. Actually, his Ducati is still
here in town. But the, the hope is that we'll
sell the Ducati locally. It was a 1981 Ducati Ducati
Panta. Yeah, yeah.
I'll have to look that up. It sounds like it looked kind of
cool. I I like the old bikes.

(23:34):
That was like, cool. Yeah, and his bike was red, his
R7 was red, and his Panta had gold wheels and his R7 had gold
wheels. So.
So we sold the car on Bring a Trailer, like I said in
September. And the guy who won it lived in

(23:56):
California. Super excited guy, his name's
Michael. And asked me after after the
auction if we could put air conditioning in it.
And so talked to my buddy here in town, Eric Green Bank.
Eric's a skilled Mazda mechanic and owns a little.

(24:16):
I call it out like a hobby mechanic business.
He takes cars kind of by appointment.
Yeah, I think, I, I think I'm going to get him.
I'm going to throw the Z at him and drive around in that and
then tell me everything I need to fix.
Yeah. No, it's a good idea.
No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he's very meticulous. You know, he looks at every car

(24:39):
and every repair as if it were his vehicle.
And so he'll tell you, well, youknow, you could cut corners and
do this or you could do that, but he always tells you what he
would do if it were his car, right?
So. Good friends to have.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good guy, good guy.
So, so anyway, getting back to Michael, we found enough parts

(25:04):
to put together an air conditioning system, actually
really nice air conditioning system.
And it was a good exercise for myself and Eric because I've
been, I've got a, a new old stock air conditioning system
for my 79 arc seven that I've wanted to put in and I haven't
gotten around to it. So now that I've done Michael's

(25:26):
car, so. You tested it on Michael's.
Car. Yeah, yeah.
Good job. And it works really well.
It blows really cold. Yeah, good job.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah. So anyway, that'll be my next
project. I just had a project with the 93
Arc 7. Oh boy, where I pulled the car.

(25:46):
Yeah, the yellow car. Yeah, I was going to say it's a,
it's a good transition to the yellow car.
Yeah, I pulled off the brake calipers and had them powder
coated a different color. Would you go with?
So the strap bar in my car, I, Idid a custom color.
It's a powder coated lollipop red, but it's, it looks kind of

(26:11):
like candy apple red, right? It's a Ruby red with a lot of
metallic in it and so I went with that color on my calipers
and. The McDonald's car.
People were going to start calling the McDonald's car
mustard and ketchup car. Well exactly, but I mean in my
opinion it looked more like the McDonald's car with with the

(26:33):
with the stock red calipers. Right.
Yeah, that's true. I wanted to kind of subdue the
calipers a little bit and put something on them that was a
little more durable that wasn't subject to chips and flaking as
much, right. But you know, taking the
calipers apart and getting them powder coated and making sure

(26:57):
you don't get powder coat on surfaces that are tolerance
specific. I learned a lot from it.
I learned what I, if I ever do this set of calipers again, I
know what not to powder coat, right?
Because I went through the, I went through the process of

(27:18):
reassembly and putting them on the car and they weren't working
properly. And so I had to pull them apart
again. And so it was learning,
learning, exercise, but everything worked.
Out what, what level of difficulty would you assign the
task of removing calipers and kind of cleaning them up and
getting them ready to for powdercoating?
Because it seems it is. If you haven't done it before,

(27:40):
it's almost a little intimidating, right?
Yeah. But once you do it, you're kind
of like, oh, that was easy. I, I think there, I mean, for
me, there's always online tutorials.
Everybody's done YouTube videos on just about every repair out
there. And I agree, actually, the time
that I got into the car hobby with my with my 1993, the yellow

(28:03):
car was a really good time because it was the, IT was kind
of the advent of online forums. And then late after that,
Facebook and YouTube where everybody who had done a repair
out there was making a video of that repair showing you how to
do it right. And so, so to answer your

(28:26):
question, what's the hardest thing or what's the level of
difficulty? I would say it's probably about
a 4 1/2 or A5 on a scale of 1 to10.
There's some things you have to watch for and you have to really
make sure when you take the calipers apart that you, that
you keep the parts bagged in their own individual bags and,

(28:51):
and everything marked specifically which side it goes
with. Part of the problem I had was
there was a emergency brake pin that was unique to the left side
that I got mixed up with the right side.
And so I had the, I had those pins crossed over in my
calipers. And so that's what necessitated

(29:11):
me having to take him to part and put it back together again.
But you know, it was a one day deal.
It wasn't like it was something where I had to tear it down,
start over, get everything re powder coated.
So. Yeah, sounds like kind of a
mess. Yeah, a couple weeks ago we we
were talking about this before we got started.

(29:31):
You guys did a rally out here. Yes.
And you were one of the organizers?
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.
So, so going back to OK, so thisstory starts out in 2016, 2017,
some friends of mine locally here in Phoenix went to
California for an event. At that time it was called Togay

(29:53):
California. Tollgate.
Togay. Togay, oh togay.
TOUG togay. California touché togay.
Yeah. And then like they're going
right zigzagging down there. Right, right.
And so I think there were three Togei events, one in 2014 could
be they were consecutive 2014 fifteen and 16.

(30:15):
But anyway, it was a one day rally for Japanese cars.
Usually it was sponsored by Ben Sue HSUI think Ben and another
guy who owns Andrew, who owns Model citizen and out in
California. And it was a one day event for,

(30:38):
I'll call it premium Japanese classic cars because you had to
submit an application and you had to be picked and they're
only like 28 to 25 cars in the rally.
And so I was lucky enough to be picked for their last event in
2016 went out. It was a great day sponsored by

(30:59):
Mazda. So Mazda brought out a lot of
old vintage Japanese cars for the rally.
It started out kind of in the Temecula area and went through
those hills and Temecula kind ofdown towards the beach just
South of LA and then up through Irvine to Mazda's R&D facility.

(31:25):
And but it the thing that I really liked about it is it
really felt almost like the Copper State 1000.
It felt like a really nice premium event for Japanese cars
and it was something at a much higher level than just a bunch
of guys getting together on a Saturday and deciding to go for
a drive. And so I waited for the next

(31:49):
Tailgate California event to happen and Japanese nostalgic
car and Model Citizen kind of decided, I don't know if they
decided that they weren't going to do it anymore.
I think they just, it was a lot of work to put that event
together. So I had the idea to put
together a rally event here in Phoenix similar to that.

(32:13):
So I approached, I was talking to Brad DeSantis about the idea.
And Brad is, he has a, a podcastcalled Hard Parking and Brad's a
really big car enthusiast who moved.
Here he has a podcast called Hard Parking No.
No, no, no. What did I say?

(32:33):
He has a podcast called Auto OffTopic.
Auto off topic. Auto off topic.
You have to edit that. I'll get it.
I was like, oh shit, I thought Iwas the first one.
No auto off topic is Brad's podcast and and anyway, Brad,
you know, Brad is AJ10 nerd justlike us and he loves old

(32:54):
Japanese cars. And so I, I came, I got together
with him, proposed the idea and he said he was, he really wanted
to be on board with it. And so we got a group of three
guys together and started planning about we're going to
hold the event in October of 23.And we realized pretty early on

(33:21):
that it was a bigger task than we are prepared to pull off.
And so we postponed it until October of 24.
And so last year was when we hadour first Arizona Rising Sun
rally and the inaugural event came off fantastic.
We got coverage from Jalopnik and, and just a lot of really

(33:47):
great feedback from the participants.
So this year we had our year twoevent.
It was launched. It was 2 weeks ago on Saturday,
the 25th of October. We launched it.
Rebecca hosted us over at the warehouse in Mesa.
We launched it from there, went up towards kind of Jacob's

(34:08):
Corner up just South of Payson and headed down past Roosevelt
Lake in the Globe and then from there down to Whitman and from
Whitman back up and then finished it in Apache Junction.
It's intended to be a about a 200 to 250 mile one day scenic

(34:30):
drive. Yeah, that's a lot.
For Japanese classic cars. So what's the requirement?
It just has to be Japanese between this date and this date,
or just anytime before this date.
Any anytime before pre 2005 right.
So if you had a car, that's. So the Z could go and kind of

(34:51):
bring up the rear. Were there any like super slow
cars? Yeah, so the oldest car there
was a 1970 Mazda 1800 that was owned by Sonny Griffith.
Sonny Griffith has a has a nice collection of Mazdas here in the
valley. And and that old 1800 doesn't

(35:12):
have a Rotary engine. It's it's it's Mazda's piston
engine version of a Rotary car they made in the late 60s, early
70s called the Luche coupe and Luche.
It's the only front wheel drive car that that Mazda ever
produced. And so, so Sunny Will had the

(35:35):
oldest car, probably this, I don't know if his was the
slowest, but there's some interesting cars, probably 6 or
7 right hand drive cars. And yeah, there's lots of
pictures out online. I encourage anybody to so.
If I still have the Z next year,maybe I should look into
joining? It I I would love it, I would

(35:56):
love it or you know, like I said, find a friend with a, you
know, pre 2000 S or anything, S2000 or NSX and join us, right,
anything, because I know you have the passion and I think
you'd like the event. It looked like it was.
It was fun. I I forgot.
I think there was another event I was doing.

(36:18):
Yeah, we had. We had the the Saint Mary's Food
Bank thing. It was a one less event the same
day. Well, it wasn't one less.
That's that's an official thing.One less is going to be in
February, but it was a we were because you are on the 1 honor
as well. We linked up with ELG accident
attorneys and and a bunch of thereally cool bikes around here,

(36:38):
motorcycles, Ducati Club and that was for like Saint Mary.
'S yeah. Nice, nice, nice.
Yeah, yeah. That's what it was, yeah.
So. So anyway, that's kind of the
latest thing that I've gotten into.
But then you have 7 stocks coming up. 7 stock is coming up.
Why is 7 stock in? Because you you do it all the

(37:00):
time. I know it's it's probably the
event you circle every year. I I have been this year will be
my 23rd consecutive 7 stock and I've driven the yellow car, the
FD to 7 stock every year except to one year I was getting the
engine rebuilt in it and the other year I was a vendor

(37:23):
selling things and so I had to do I have a minivan over there.
What did you vend? I vended Rotary calendars, OK,
for the for the following year, and it was all images that a
photographer had captured that were really very well done.

(37:44):
And he and I collaborated together and made a calendar and
oh, it's such a funny story. We collaborated and made 2000
calendars. And you know, we thought we were
just going to go out there and make hay.
And we got to the event. And the day of the event, a cut

(38:08):
off low hit Southern California and absolutely drenched the
event. And so not only did half the car
show up, but only about 1/3 of the people that normally come to
7 stock. Which is normally how many.
You'll normally get back in those days probably 450 cars and

(38:35):
probably about 1000 to 1500 people.
And so, yeah. It's a good showing.
It is a good showing when the weather's good.
So yeah, it was a tough lesson for me.
Tough lesson. And what are the 2000 calendars?
We ended up so yeah, so we endedup selling probably, you know, a

(38:59):
few 100 calendars the day of theevent.
And so my friend Bernie Herrera,Bernie is the leader of the
seven stock team and I'll be seeing him next this coming
weekend. Bernie, Bernie helped me
coordinate with a gentleman overin in England who was head of

(39:21):
the Rotary community for the London area and he ordered 500
calendars from us. And so he helped us a lot kind
of minimize the pain. But it was still, you know, a
situation where after the fact, we, myself and Steve Steven both

(39:44):
lost money on that, right, on the transaction.
But live and learn, right? Sure, no more 2000 calendar
orders now there's now it's a limited number edition.
Yeah, which is what I should have done to begin with, right?
Yeah. Live and learn.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So yeah, next week, next week, start over.

(40:05):
Next, This week, coming up on Friday is 7 stock.
They'll probably be. Usually there's around 15 to 20
cars. That head over from Phoenix and
usually we have a nice crew thatjoins us from Albuquerque, NM
and I did talk to their leader just this afternoon before

(40:26):
coming here and he said they're they're on, they're going to be
coming over. They'll meet us Friday morning
and we'll head over to Irvine together.
That's fun, yeah. There's going to be probably
about 30 cars total. There's something like magical
and cool, right when you're on the highway and you're all like

(40:46):
one of three generation cars andyou're just cruising past.
And I always wonder, like, what's that?
Some people love it, some peopleare annoyed by it.
But it's the it's the guy that'sstuck driving the Chrysler
Pacifica rental and his family is knocked out.
His wife is nose deep in social media.
And he's just like watching the cars go by.
And he's just like, oh, wow, what a dream that would be, you

(41:09):
know? Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, that's really true. I mean, it never gets old.
It never gets old. I mean, you know, like I, I
mentioned, I've been going, you know, 23 consecutive years.
And I mean, the first year I went 7 stock 4 back in 2003 was

(41:31):
literally a week after the, the first Fast and Furious movie
came out. So that tells you how long I've
been into Mazda rotaries, right?And that event for me was pure
magic because you rolled into the event and there was press
everywhere. Not because really not because
it was 7 stock, but because The Fast and the Furious was such a

(41:55):
pop. It was a craze.
It was a craze. And any event related to
Japanese classic cars was covered by the media during that
month long period, right. So, so yeah, it was it was a
blast to be a part of and it really, it kind of took me back

(42:16):
as to well, what have I gotten into here?
Right. So, but yeah, I mean, it's
funny, I, I, I always wonder if for me, almost every car in my
life has, has aged and has gotten old, right.
But for some reason that body style is is is is timeless.

(42:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially the FDI mean second
generation arc seven man, not somuch.
Gets lost in the shuffle, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't really see them
either. Or maybe they're there.
I just don't notice. But you always notice when you
see the first Gen. You of course you notice when
you see the the FD. Yeah, yeah.
I wonder why that is? Well, I think, you know, it was

(43:01):
of the three generations, it wasprobably the least loved of.
Does it look? Is it kind of, is it because
it's too similar to other cars visually?
Like, it doesn't really look like a Supra, but if you didn't
really know, like your second generation Supra, they're kind
of similar, yeah. I think it's because it was a

(43:22):
car kind of searching for a purpose, right?
Because it was, it really wasn'ta pure driver's car.
It was more of a touring car, right?
So it kind of appealed to a different audience.
It appealed kind of to the older, the older driver who was

(43:43):
interested in maybe a 911 Porsche, but not in not a 9/11 a
torn yeah, 944 or something thatexactly.
And that was kind of how the styling, the styling was
compared to 944 when it first came out, right.
It had some cues that were kind of 944 ish, right, right, or 924

(44:06):
ish especially. That's what I meant.
Like it kind of looks very similar to other cars at the
time. Yeah, other cars that are fit in
that Touring. Right, right.
Yeah. Did you always want your FD,
your your 83 in their story? You kind of fell in love with
it. It's kind of Hawaii isn't?
It and my wife and I were datingin 1993 when the car first came

(44:28):
out and we were on our way up tothe Grand Canyon for a weekend.
And I'll never forget there was a we're on that long drive from
Williams up to the Canyon and a Montego Blue FD comes screaming
past us. And I told my wife, I said, what

(44:50):
on earth is that? Because it was unlike anything
I'd ever seen before, right? It kind of looked like a small
Corvette, but. A little.
Rounder and the tail lights. Exactly, exactly.
And so, So that kind of piqued my interest.
And then when I got back to Honeywell, I worked at Honeywell

(45:11):
from 1987 until 2022. The only job you ever had?
Down here, yes. Probably switching different
positions within the company. No, actually I worked in the
same department, just different roles.
Kind of rare. It is very rare.
Yeah, yeah, 34 years I worked atHoneywell.

(45:34):
Yeah, yeah. So, But anyway, in late 93, a
gentleman by the name of Dolph Strom, Dolph had he.
Dolph was kind of the cool guy because he auto crossed all of
his cars and he always had the latest and greatest cool car.
And so he comes rolling into theparking lot at Honeywell, which

(45:57):
was Garrett Air research at the time.
He comes rolling into the parking lot 1 day with this
yellow FD and I had seen the carbefore and other colors but
never that color. And I was like Oh my God, what
is that? What what color is that?
And then I learned that it was alimited edition color, only made

(46:19):
in 93 and only 350 were made forthe US market.
And so the rarity of the color combined with the fact that it
was a yellow that had a lot of metallic, it's got a Pearl
undercoat with a yellow coat over the top of it.
So it the uniqueness of the color, the fact that it was only

(46:42):
offered in the highest trim, which was an called an R1R1 is
the was the kind of lightweight better braking, better strap
bars, sure, same power plant, right?
It was kind of the stiffer. It's like, in a way, it's kind
of like the NSXR versus the regular NSX.

(47:03):
People think the NSXR is some amped up version.
I go, no, it's the same, yeah, just tweaked a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, that was in 2000 or
93. And so I lusted after that car
for six or seven years. I had kids that were teenagers
at the time and I drove a a 1987Honda Civic wagon for 10 years.

(47:35):
Hondas were always my go to vehicle for daily drivers
because they were bulletproof, right?
So but anyway, in the late late 1990s, early 2000s, my wife said
it's time for you to have your fun car and so.
What a wife. She was absolutely, absolutely,

(47:57):
absolutely. And so at the time, the choice
was between a 2000 Civic Type R in yellow or AA93 Mazda Arc 7 in
yellow. And my criteria was to find one
under 40,000 miles. That was a nice condition,

(48:18):
right? And at that time.
Wasn't blown. That wasn't blown up.
And at that time the ones stateside were going for, you
know, probably with that, that type of mileage they were going
for between 22 and 25,000 bucks.You couldn't find anything under
20. So I happened upon this guy

(48:42):
selling the car that eventually became mine.
He was selling it on eBay in 2000 and he had no bids.
Like I said, it was, it was located in Honolulu, HI, So it
was geographically challenged. And, and so someone told me,

(49:03):
they said, you know, eBay, if noone's made a bid on eBay, you
can contact the owner and they can shut down the auction and he
doesn't have to pay a listing fee.
And so I found out a way to get a hold of this guy and contacted
him and he said, I said, why isn't the car selling?

(49:25):
He said nobody on the island hasmoney, right?
It was at a time economically where it was pretty tough and.
And you have a limited customer or potential buyer base too
because geographically challenged.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
And so, yeah, he, he he threw mea price that was significantly

(49:46):
below what they were going for in the US stateside at the time,
I should say, and sent me detailed pictures.
He had references at his local bank.
The bank VP was good friends with his mom.
And so I called the bank and theVP vouched for him and he was a

(50:08):
firefighter in Mililani, HI. And yeah, super nice guy, easy
to deal with, sent me all the pictures I wanted, all the
information I wanted. So I bought the car from him
sight unseen. And yeah, 30 days later it

(50:29):
showed up. Not too bad.
Yeah, across the street, yeah. So it went from Mililani, HI
into a shipping container to Long Beach and then from Long
Beach on to a truck and and overto Tempe So.
Even though it was in a shippingcontainer, did it escape any of
the nasty air and dirt that I guess cars collect?

(50:51):
Or do they only collect those when they're out?
Or don't you remember? Yeah, I I remember.
Horror stories I. Just I mean, I remember the, you
know, the pump like the rear pumpkin, any exposed aluminum
had a little bit of corrosion from the salt air in Hawaii, but
it wasn't it wasn't bad. Not like some of the you get
some of the right hand drive Japanese cars in and some of

(51:13):
them are really terribly corroded, right?
So it just depends where they were parked, how well they were
cared for. If they were outside a lot in
Japan, you're going to get a lotof corrosion when that vehicle
shows up, even if it is low mileage, right.
So, so anyway, that's how I kindof got started with the car.

(51:37):
And so I had the car for a couple months and I was in love
with the vehicle and I wanted toget together with other like
minded enthusiasts in town. Of course that's.
What you do? Yeah, yeah.
That's what I do. Who else has one?
Let's hang out. Yeah, yeah.
And at the time, there were no, there were no clubs in town for

(51:59):
Mazda Rotary engine vehicles. And so I decided to go.
You know, this wasn't old schoolback in the day.
This was the way you did it. I ran an ad in the Arizona
Republic Sunday paper saying I'minterested in starting a car
club for Rotary enthusiasts, enthusiasts, a Rotary vehicle.

(52:22):
And if you're interested, come next Saturday up to the Five and
Diner at the Scottsdale Pavilions.
And so that following Saturday, we got probably about 15 or 16
people show. Up.
Oh wow, that was early social media, right?
There it really was. Yeah, yeah.
And believe it or not, so I had my car.

(52:46):
Dolph came with his yellow car and another guy came with his
yellow Canadian market car. So 3 yellows. 3 yellows at the
first meeting, right? Yeah, yeah.
So that started my passion and then that kind of started what
became to be known as RCCAZ, Rotary Car Club of Arizona.

(53:09):
And that following summer, the following, we had a couple of
drives in the fall, couple of get togethers at the pavilions
and then someone mentioned this 7 stock event.
And so that was the fall that was in 2000, 2002 that we had

(53:29):
went to the 1st 7 stock event. And yeah.
Is it so? Is everybody still going?
Are you the last from that trio?Because people churn, right?
Car clubs churn, events churn. People get married, they
unfortunately pass away, sell their car.
There's one guy. There's one guy that still comes

(53:51):
with me periodically. He hasn't been in the last
couple years, but he. Aaron goes, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, for me, the other
interesting thing about the car hobby and you, I'm sure you've
experienced this, even though I'm much older than you, is, you
know, about every 10 years you get a new generation that

(54:11):
discovers what you, what you love, right?
And so they have all of the questions you had when you first
started out, right? About the car and what to look
out for and you know are they reliable and you know XYZ right?
You got to hold it. Yeah, you got to, you got to
hold the banner up because we've, we've seen people that

(54:32):
have been around a long time andthey, they kind of forget where
they came from. So the person that says, hey,
where do I get this? Like you just search online
where you're a very patient person.
So you kind of counterbalance because there's got to be like
jerks that just kind of look back at the the noobs, I guess.
There are. Right.
And then we all have them in every car group.

(54:53):
But again, I'm a people person, right?
And so if you're a nurturing type person who likes to take
people under their wing and, and, and, and lead them through,
I think the thing that really bugs me is when you try to help
people and they just go off and do what they want to do anyway.
And then and then they and then they blow the car up and say
it's a piece of junk, right? And you just go, well, I told

(55:15):
you so, right, If you'd listen to me.
But you know, you can lead a horse to water, I guess, right?
But I, I, I try to be a good brand ambassador because, you
know, Rotary engines aren't for everybody.
You can certainly make a lot more power with a lot less pain

(55:36):
by just slapping AV8 engine in aRotary powered vehicle.
But for me, it's kind of blasphemy because, you know,
Mazda went through a great deal of pain to make the Rotary
engine work and to make it viable and marketable.
And, and so to me, I think that needs to be rewarded and it

(55:58):
needs to be respected. That's one thing I've really
learned and about the Japanese culture and learn to admire
about, about Rotary engines and Mazda in particular, is just
that the passion, the reverence,just the respect for their
history and, and what they went through to, to develop that

(56:21):
platform and, and I, you know, try to honor it with everything
I do so. What is your thoughts?
What was your thoughts of the RX8 when it debuted, when it was
hyped and then it debuted? I mean, when it first came out,
I thought it was really cool because it was an X-Men.
It's a cool looking car. It it's a cool.

(56:42):
I think they were supposed to deliver it with all this power
and something happened. I don't remember what it was.
This was late 90s rate early 2. Thousands.
It was 2004, yeah, it was 2004. And they Mazda hyped it to be
two 220, normally aspirated horsepower like 210 or 220 or in
that range. And when it came out, people

(57:04):
were putting it on the dyno and only making like 170. 15150.
5/1/60 yeah, yeah. And so people were upset about
that. But the other thing that was
interesting about the RX8 is theway it was geared and the way it

(57:25):
was made. It was a very rigid car and it
was only a couple £100 heavier than the 3rd Gen.
RX7. You know, it was a larger car,
it had 4 doors, and so everybodyautomatically assumed it was
heavy. Right.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It has those little rear suicidedoors, right?

(57:47):
So everybody assumed it was a heavy car, but it wasn't a heavy
car. It was more of a momentum
machine. It was more like the first Gen.
RX7. It had great braking, great
balance. It was a great late braking car.
So you could take it out on the track.
And where others in heavier carshad to slam on the brakes, you

(58:10):
know, at the breaking point, youcould go a little deeper into
the cones before you had to hit the brakes.
And aftermarket came out with a few turbo kits.
Some were successful, some weren't so much Petit racing in
in Florida had a supercharger kit that was popular and that

(58:33):
was they I think Camworth sold quite a few of those kits.
But yeah, it's, it's, it's just they had a lot of recalls on
early ones, 2007, 2008 for engine, for carbon seal issues,

(58:56):
coil issues that they fixed in the second generation RX8, which
was the 2008 model and up. And so, but again, it just goes
to show if you push a product, market it too early before it's
ready. I, I think that that's my only

(59:18):
criticism of Mazda is that over the years, they haven't done as
good a job as they could in developing the product to
maturity before fielding it and then also training their
technicians. I mean, there's a lot of people

(59:40):
out there that learned pretty early on to, to, to learn how to
work on your own car. Because what used to happen with
the FD and with the, with the RX8 is if they couldn't figure
out the problem, they just put in a new engine, right?

(01:00:01):
Because it took longer to diagnose it from a dollar
perspective than it did to just put a new factory rebuilt motor
in it. So.
So it sounds like really the RX8was a little underappreciated,
even though it did have its issues.
What went wrong with the FD? Because the 90 threes I

(01:00:23):
remember, because I've always wanted one of those cars.
I still kind of do. I think they're a beautiful car.
Everyone was blowing their motorwhat, by 50 or 60,000?
I became pretty good friends with a gentleman named RE Allen,
r7.com RE. And it's right down the street.
His shop was right down the street from my house.
And when I worked at Taco Bueno,he'd come in there every day and

(01:00:45):
we became friends. But I was always a big fan of
him and the car. And sometimes you're a fan of
the car because of the people you know as well.
But what what will what was the the major flaw in those 93 or 94
cars? Again, it it was, you know, a
lot of it had to do with a mechanic base, right?

(01:01:10):
The the dealer network that wasn't quite prepared to to
handle repairs on the car. But I think the other thing is
the way that the third Gen. was designed, it was designed with a
cast iron manifold bolted to theside of the engine and then a
cast iron twin turbos as well. And that set up generated a

(01:01:35):
boatload of heat that was pumpedinto the engine and it was fed
by us an extremely small intercooler.
In my opinion it was inadequately cooled and too much
heat generation which aged the seals inside the engine rather

(01:01:56):
rapidly. Sounds like a recipe for
disaster. Yeah.
I mean, if if you looked at, if you looked at the, if you looked
and a majority of the 93 to 95 RX Sevens, which was the 3rd
generation production in the USA, majority of the 93 to 90
fives failed between 60 and 80,000 miles.

(01:02:19):
Right. Right, because the seals the the
the O rings inside them just gotcooked right?
The book value on those things, I've never seen a car depreciate
so quickly. Yeah, but it's wild.
I, I think they've kind of, they've made a turn around right
in the public perception and noweverybody wants 1 and I don't, I

(01:02:41):
haven't looked for one in a longtime, but, but I would assume if
I look for one, I wouldn't get one for a very good deal
anymore. Yeah.
I mean from from a market perspective, I think you know
you can still probably get righthand drive ones that are in
fairly decent. Is it weird I'm not interested
in any right hand drive sports cars?
I'm really not, you know, I meanI have the little the Z in the

(01:03:01):
garage, but and I try to be whenpeople are like, Hey, it's right
hand driving NSX. I'm like, cool, It's a great
market car. There's some really cool ones
out there, but I just if I ever get back into an NSX, it's got
to be US spec for me, unless it's obviously I have a few
money and I bought a type R1 day.
Yeah, they can make exceptions. Yeah, I mean, for a while, this

(01:03:26):
is probably about three years ago was probably when they were
at their peak and they came downa little bit and now they're
starting to work their way up again slowly.
But I think you can find a pretty nice FD for somewhere in
the 40 to $50,000 range. When I say, when I say nice,
what I mean is, you know, it's probably has, you know, under

(01:03:50):
60,000 miles. It's been well sorted, it's been
well maintained. It doesn't really have a lot of
issues, mechanical issues of thecar, you know, those types of
cars you're looking at, you know, 24 to 30,000 and you're
going to be doing quite a bit ofwork.

(01:04:12):
I always tell people to buy as especially if you're buying
something you're not familiar with, to buy the nicest example
you possibly can because as witha lot of these older Japanese
cars now, it's getting harder and harder to find parts and
it's next to impossible. There's in Phoenix, there's a
handful of guys that I would trust to even touch my car and

(01:04:35):
work on it. And so when you've got as many
Rotary engine cars and as many enthusiasts as you have in the
Phoenix area all eventually needing some type of service on
their vehicle, that's not a lot of people to help you out,
right? So, but that's, you know, you

(01:04:57):
see a lot of guys doing engine swaps, right?
A lot of LS is. Yeah, nice.
Kind of referenced that earlier and it's like I I've never
really know how I feel about motor swaps in cars because I
think it's cool, but it's it's one of those weird things.
It's like, yeah, that's cool. But I don't think I would do it,
not to a passion car. But I do know, like if I ever
get an old alpha that I want andthey want to make it faster and

(01:05:20):
cooler for the build, I'm probably going to have to swap
it out with something. So I don't know, it's just one
of those weird things. I just hope I never have to pick
a side of that. Like, I, I see people with swap
motor NS XS and I just kind of look at them a little
differently, you know? But I see other cars that are
swabbed and I'm like, OK, that'scool.
And I don't know why. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:05:40):
Or we always go to shows and we see that one guy, right?
We would see that one guy who didn't know how to stop
modifying it. Right.
You know. When's the car no longer itself
really at the end of the day, and if the soul of the car is
the motor, the the engineering and everything that people rave
about and that's no longer in there.
Now I can see if you're a race car driver, if you're time trial

(01:06:02):
and you pull the motor for you need more power and because the
motor is very expensive, like you're, you're crazy.
If you're racing around on a first Gene NSX or on the track,
you need to pull that. Put something else in there for
motor preservation. But to be cool on the street, be
cool on social media. It's your car.
Like you said, the very beginning of this conversation.
You can do what you want with it, but for me personally, I

(01:06:24):
don't think I'll ever be doing that.
What are you excited about for Mazda?
Are they, there's always been like rumors and talks about A
next generation, you know, RX and I think we've been talking
about that for probably a decade.
They they are they close? Yeah, like they were.
So last month they rolled out a new concept that's supposed to

(01:06:45):
be Rotary powered. It's it's, it's supposed to have
a twin rotor. I don't want to say electrical
generator because that would be disingenuous to Mazda, but it's
it has a twin rotor motor and electric combined.
Some sort of a hybrid? Some.
Kind of a hybrid ish making they're quoting 500 horsepower.

(01:07:09):
So, so we'll see. I mean, it's funny because ever
since the the RX8 left the shores in here in the US,
Mazda's been talking about what's next, right?
And I get the fact that they have to make the numbers because

(01:07:30):
you know, you don't get to, you don't get to, you know, car
company doesn't stay on its feetby making things that you have
to warranty engines on every twoor three years, right?
So I think they've the RX8 really kind of made them super

(01:07:51):
cautious about their next design.
And I think they want to have something that's fairly robust,
but I know it's still part of their DNA.
They Mazda said that that the Rotary engines part of who we
are and that they'll always be something in the design
pipeline, whether it makes sensefrom a business perspective or

(01:08:12):
not. Yeah, money.
Has to work out. Right, the money has to.
Work. It's been a long time since
we've had the RX8. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you have 7 stock coming up, you're going to be leaving for
that? Yep, you've alluded that's a
huge deal. 20X years in a row. 23 years in a row. 23 years in a
row and we've got like I said. Why do you keep going back?

(01:08:35):
Well. It's the relationships.
It is absolutely right. It really is, yeah.
I mean you, you worked at our, Ithink you again at our NS Expo
out here as a volunteer. That was a blast.
That was a blast. I mean, those are the types of
events that I really, really like to show up at and help
with, right? Because you really get that

(01:08:58):
feeling, that feeling that, you know, because it's not just 2
1/2 hours of hanging out with friends and then everybody goes
their separate ways, right? It's four or five days of
community and sharing and, you know, breaking bread at night
and just, you know, you get to spend time and get to really

(01:09:21):
know, get to know people very, very well.
And so for me, that's what it's all about is, is the
relationships for sure. It's weird to me to have friends
or people in my life that don't have something like that.
And I think it's I don't feel bad for them as much, but it's
when it comes to understanding how those moments with those

(01:09:44):
people move up, people like us, I think it's harder for them to
understand. I just really wish that, you
know, whether that's friends or family or, you know, some sort
of shared interest. I think everybody deserves to
have something like that in their.
Life, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,
exactly. I was thinking about that
question before coming over heretoday, and I thought, you know,

(01:10:07):
we've always, you know, there's two types of people you meet at
car shows, right? There are people who are into
friends and community. And then you have people who are
into awards, right. And the people who are into
awards, they aren't happy comingaway from the event unless they
take first place, right. And if they don't take first

(01:10:29):
place, they get all upset and ticked off because their car
wasn't chosen right. But for me, that's like missing
the whole meaning of why you're there, right?
The whole reason why you're there is to celebrate
everybody's passion and everybody's ideas and everybody
what inspires everybody else. And if you end up coming away

(01:10:52):
from that car show or that eventwith a new idea or a new friend,
then it's been a great day, right?
So yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I was going to jokingly say you sound like somebody who's won
first place just one too many times.
But you're right though. And it's like, if you don't win,
it's OK, why didn't you win and then use that next time?

(01:11:15):
But don't you know, because you're right.
Some people show up and they andthey put their chair down and
that's just, you know, you want to be there for the judges.
And most of these shows, most ofthese shows that we've ever
competed in, we've been at some of the same shows.
It's community based. The judges are volunteers.
Most of them, unless you're at alegit Concord event, they're not

(01:11:37):
professional judges. And so, you know, it's it's
whatever they decide. And they don't know that you
have these special breaks versusthis other guy's breaks.
They don't know the difference. Yeah.
You know, it's like, are you kidding me?
These breaks are $30,000. They got little AutoZone breaks
over there. They won.
They got more points to me. Are you kidding?
Like, they don't. They don't know.
So, you know, go to those competitions if you need to go

(01:11:58):
to SEMA, Battle of the Builders and win a competition.
But anything local, chances are it's up to the judge and the
rest of it just have a good time.
Yeah, exactly. I do.
But I do enjoy shows though, where the judges show up and ask
you questions and give you an opportunity to tell your story,
right. That's how I went from 5th place

(01:12:21):
to 2nd place for Best Modified Future collected car show with
Fielding Shredder over there. My official judge, you know,
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've you won first place
at one of those. Shows.
Yeah. Was that the year?
I don't know who won. I think the Subaru won that
year, or maybe it was you did. Was it 2020?
Yeah, 20. 20/20/2020. 20 out thelook over there, I can't tell

(01:12:43):
what years on that. 2020 was thewhat year that I won.
Was that the last? Yeah.
So the last time it was at. That was the last where.
Highline Auto is, yeah, that's the last time.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sitting in front of my
competition. I got some poison here to.
Give you hey, hey, exactly, exactly.

(01:13:05):
I'll share the trophy with you for a while, buddy.
I love what you do for the community.
You do a lot of great things, you know, through your
initiatives out there too. And you know, your shirt says
driven by passion today. That's like my theme driven by
passion, right? I started something.
I started an event at Honeywell called Bring Your Ride to Work

(01:13:28):
Day. I thought, you know, we can have
events where people can bring their kids to work.
Why not bring your car to work? And so like 2004, I started
this. I contacted our CEO at the time,
which at the time the CEO of aerospace was like an
unapproachable person, but he had this mechanism called

(01:13:51):
upward, upwards, upwards. And you'd put together like a
detailed e-mail of something youthought that we could do to
improve the company and you'd send it to him and he'd always
respond to every one of your ideas.
So one year I sent him an idea and I said, you know, we've got
a lot of people in the company who spend their weekends working

(01:14:13):
on cars and they're super passionate about their cars or
their off road vehicles or theirclassic motorcycles.
I said, why don't we have a Bring Your Ride to Work day
where people can bring their cars.
We'll put them in a special areain the parking lot.
We'll have kettle corn. We'll have at that time there

(01:14:35):
were some guys that had a Honeywell band.
I said we'll have the Honeywell band out playing and he loved
it. He said absolutely, I'll fund it
100%. Just tell me what you need.
And so that started the first ofwhat ended up being 7 Honeywell
Bring Your Ride to Work days. And the whole theme or the

(01:14:58):
mission of the event was share your passion, right?
Because passion is what drives us at home and passion is what
drives us at work. So.
Well said. Yeah, yeah.
So, so yeah. And, and I used to get VPS would
come to me after every quarter and would say, when are we

(01:15:22):
having our next car show? Because that's the only question
I get from people over and over and over again is when are we
going to do the next car show. So it resonated really well with
people. It tied us together as a company
and it gave people a chance to, you know, to kind of show us

(01:15:43):
something that we didn't know about them.
Right? Absolutely.
Yeah. So yeah.
Tim oil oil oil, oil oil oil aisle.
Aisle. Aisle.
Aisle walking down the aisle, baby.
Oh, that's it. Yeah.
You just find that. It's like Eric.
Eric of last era. He goes.
You never see my last name, right.
I'm like, oh, it's Pasha. Uh huh.

(01:16:04):
Like Sasha. Yeah, Pasha.
Like Sasha instead of Pasia. I mean, you never corrected me.
Yeah. You know.
Yeah. Aisle, Tim.
Aisle. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it.
Well, another month, another closing.
If you like what you heard todayor like what you watched today,
if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure
you go ahead and hit that subscribe button.

(01:16:26):
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(01:16:48):
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(01:17:10):
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Time. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Shut up.

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