Behind Part Company Scams & Truth about Leaving Fitment Industries | Circle of Drift #160 - The Circle of Drift

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And then in 2017, I was headhunted by a guy named Shawn
Chartier. He told me he's like, you have
90 days to make this successful or you're fired.
And so push like hell started Fitment going on.
Guys, My name is Alex from Fitment Inc.
Hey guys. And welcome to the second
episode of our new series. So You Want.
But we are here to talk about conse.
I started Martini Works back in 2022.

(00:20):
Really all we do is we try to help people mod their car the
right way. When I started this, I kind of
signed up for trying to do things differently and trying to
do things in a way that felt authentic.
And some of us, I think we nailed you helped create some
really incredible moments. If it weren't for you, I
wouldn't be able to say that we created a community and it's
been awesome. You know, I've, I, the, the way
that I've been able to experience this stuff is just

(00:42):
nuts. I almost take it for granted
because I, we're doing things sofast and, and that community's
been awesome. This car community in the past,
like I'd say five years, six years has seen so much merger
and acquisition because one day people realized that selling
things to 18 year olds can make them a lot of money.
And I think people have abused that.
And so I do think that a car like a Corvette that's got an

(01:05):
angle kit and a ton of horsepower, it has the
opportunity for you to correct mistakes easier.
Something where I can kind of just put myself in a space and
say, I want to get better. I want to learn, I want to be in
a space where it's completely upto me to become a better driver.
You're a driver, you need to listen.
And I promise you this will help.
This will help you so, so much. Drivers are fantastic drivers.

(01:27):
They are terrible marketers. Could you tell someone that is a
driver how to break that fear ofa wind staring at you?
There are 10s of thousands of people watching you drive.
They think that what you're doing is the coolest thing in
the world. Match that energy.
I have to ask this because there's always the rumor of like
women help content and views andstuff.

(01:49):
It's yeah. I mean, like, I'll be honest
with you 100%. It's it's, yeah.
I've been wanting this forever. I've been in the field with
whatever they call. Welcome back to the Circle of
Drift podcast. I want to say thank you again
for stopping in every single week for a brand new episode.

(02:11):
And today we have on Alex Martini, who is the founder of
Martini Works and also helped build fitment industries when
they first started out. But most recently he's been
getting into drifting. And today on the show, he's
going to be sharing a lot of hisexperience and a lot of the
things that he's learned this far.
But of course, before we get into the show, there's a lot of

(02:33):
different ways that you can get into drifting now.
And SIM drifting is one of thosemajor ones, obviously.
So maybe you're looking at getting your first SIM or maybe
just making some upgrades to your current 1.
Lucky for you, this show is presented by SIM HQ, so you can
always save 5% off on your next upgrade.
So I'll leave that link below. But without further ado, let's

(02:55):
go ahead and get into the show. Here we are, good life at Rd.
America. This is arguably one of the most
beautiful facilities I've ever been to, but we got a new face
to the podcast. How's it going, man?
Owns one of your own podcasts I guess, but Alex Martini, how's
it going? If anyone doesn't know, you want
to kind of give them a rundown on what you do.

(03:15):
Absolutely, yes. So my name is Alex Martini.
I started Martini Works back in 2022.
Really all we do is we try to help people mod their car the
right way. And so we do that by like making
videos, educating people about products, talking about the
history of them, and we do a lotof testing on our stuff.
So a lot of the things that you see on the drift car that we
have here at summer Apex or evenon the track paddle car that

(03:37):
we're running this weekend, those are all parts that we're
testing so that we can make videos in the future on to help
people decide if it's a good thing or not.
So we make some content, we try to have some fun and in between
all of that, you know, just enjoy the car culture that is
Wisconsin, which is only from like April till October.
Ohh, I'm sure. And this is your first time

(03:57):
coming to Rd. America, right?
Ohh absolutely. Oh my God, it's incredible.
Has it? Ever been here?
It's honestly breathtaking. Yeah, I I finally walked down
the trail. Yes, Last night.
Yeah, last night. It's insane, just like the it's
almost like you're in a park andthen you just happen to be next
to a racetrack. It's like you're walking through
here, man. They got a a beach down here
with volleyball and stuff like. So this golf course, Yeah.

(04:18):
Mission Mission bought that areaand then they did like a a
little volleyball thing. And you think it's silly until
you come here and there's 130,000 people for like, like an
IndyCar weekend and all of a sudden you see people out there
just drinking, having a good time.
I'm. I mean, this place is so fun.
And I still don't always believethat it's like in our backyard
because usually everywhere we go, we have to go like, West

(04:39):
Coast to hang out. But yeah, this is like 45
minutes away from us. And we love.
No way. Yeah, yeah.
That is super close. Then then again, like that's
what everyone says to me becauseof pole cat, I'm 30 minutes from
pole cat. So it's like, it's like.
US Airs an hour away, Road America's an hour away.
Wisconsin International Raceway is like 25 minutes away from us.
So we are blessed. And there's like some really

(05:00):
cool like vintage Porsche shops around here.
We've got zero to 60. Kelly Moss is like 2 1/2 ish
hours away. But there's a lot of great
racing up here in Wisconsin. Just not a lot of people talk
about it because we're in the middle of like nothing.
There's nothing around us, you know.
A lot of farmland. Yeah, farmland, cows, cheese,
beer. Sometimes you get fat just being
up here, man. There's not much to do.

(05:22):
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned building
cars the right way. I've got to ask about that.
What? What is the right way?
I know you make videos and stuffbut like.
I would say the right way for usis to like unapologetically
build it for you, you know, so like our goal is to make sure
that when you're buying something, you know what you're
buying. We don't want to over hype

(05:43):
something and we don't want to like under hype something.
So our goal is to try and like shed a little bit of the
marketing noise that might be around a brand and try to get
more towards the nuts and bolts of what does the company do,
what do they make, how do they make it and then how do they
support it. A lot of people do get really
like heavy set on how it's made,which is important, like the

(06:04):
technology of a wheel, for instance, right?
But how a wheel is supported is equally important to us.
So I think I take into account like, I know like you guys are
sponsored by Conse, right? So like, I know Chris very, very
well and we know where his wheels are made, we know what
kind of wheels he makes, we knowthe weights of his wheels, all
that sort of stuff. And we've ran them and we've
tested them. But what I also really
appreciate of like a con, say, for instance, is Chris and his

(06:25):
team and even the team behind him at Race Line, they support
the brand very well. They're super involved in
grassroots, they're super involved in motorsport, they're
super involved with helping customers if they have issues.
And to me, that means a lot. But not everybody can see that
if they're just buying wheels off of like a stock image,
right? And then like some templated
description, you don't know thatChris is out, you know, like
busting his ass, sweating off inTexas at some event.

(06:48):
So we try to like tell those stories the same way that we
would say, hey, listen, this other brand has a ton of
marketing hype behind it, but we've gotten, you know, high
defect rates. We've noticed that they don't
help their customers after the wheels are purchased.
And for us, that puts us in a really sensitive spot because
not all of our suppliers like when we do that.
And we've had, you know, we've lost people on our website.

(07:09):
People don't want to sell stuff on our website because we've
said that to our customers. Like hey, just so you know, this
situation hasn't resulted in thebest result, just you do what
you want with that information. Here are three recommendations
for like wheels, tires, suspension, performance, parts
or whatever it is. That's wow.
I've never had any issues out oflike customer service even
before like I knew Chris and allthat.

(07:30):
That's crazy. Yeah.
But like a lot of people, and it's not specific to Chris
necessarily, but there are thereare brands out there that, you
know, they come out and they start releasing stuff and you
know, like we had a we're, we'reputting Vitur tires on on the
website, right? And it's a a track oriented like
auto cross track tire. And we don't know much about it.
But what we do know is a lot of people hype it up.

(07:51):
But then when it initially came to the United States, not
everybody had the greatest experience with the actual brand
getting the tire. The sport was inconsistent.
It was hard to get a hold of thebrand.
So then over time they fixed it.They put more people in place,
right? They, they got more support.
Actually, one of the guys that runs Vitur tires here, he's
running a an E ray like a hybridCorvette, which is super cool,

(08:14):
right? But people only remember either
that old story where they never responded and they had a
terrible experience, or they only know this story where it's
like this really incredible 200 Trevor tire.
So we just try to say like, Hey,here's the whole story so that
you don't get caught only thinking the past is the present
and that you that you don't onlythink that the the current is

(08:36):
the past, right? Brands change, they evolve, they
get better, there's some get worse, and we try our best to
stay up with you know, who's pushing it in the right way so
that we can help advocate for those brands.
Does obviously like the customerservice side of it and
everything, Does that change thedifference in how you rank it on
like your website and stuff too?Not necessarily it, it does

(08:58):
impact, you know, when people reach out to us on our customer
service, you know, those, those folks are like they, they work
with us. They're here in Wisconsin.
They're not overseas or anythinglike that.
So it's like Carissa and Hamby and those guys and Kyle, like
they're, they're keeping track of who's calling us back and
saying, hey, I bought this thingand it came absolutely thrashed

(09:18):
inside the box. Like we haven't opened it.
There was no damage outside the box and we're really quick to
see like, OK, that's a factory defect.
Like that was a factory defect. It came from the factory with
that pain issue. Nobody ever spotted it.
It was never unboxed. And so we'll, we'll talk to the
the supplier about it. And if the supplier says no
problem, give us the wheel back.We'll send you a new one.

(09:39):
Everything's right as rain because it happens, right?
But if we get a supplier that says, you know, oh, that's not
our fault or no, we're not goingto take that back, that's where
we start to say, OK, wait a minute.
Like, we can't. You can't do that to somebody,
right? You can't do that to an
enthusiast. They didn't paint the wheel.
They just bought the product. They're expecting something to
be right and good and proper. And so we're trying to create a

(10:01):
place where we can kind of defend the customer a little bit
and help shed some light on where where they should get
their parts from. That's really the big thing.
Now there is a lot of noise on what's a good brand, what's a
bad brand. So there's always going to be
some some subjectiveness to it, but we try our best to kind of
thread that needle, you know what I mean?
Well. It's nice from a consumer

(10:22):
standpoint to see that you you try and just feed the
information and allow them to pick.
But on your perspective, what isyour proper build like?
What it like? What are the brains that you're
choosing and like? Honestly, you should not listen.
To me, because I break all my cars all the time like I am, I
am the worst person. Mostly because I I think my

(10:42):
appetite's bigger than than thanmy actual stomach, right?
But I would say my perfect build, it really comes down to a
car that you can drive all the time.
You know, I always try to say like building a car is cool on
it, but driving a car is what builds memories, you know, and,
and like, that's why I'm out here with a buddy Z Like I
wrapped it. I put some wheels and tires on

(11:03):
it, did a fluid flush and I'm like, Hey, can I bar?
He's like, sure, you know, because driving is what makes it
fun. Building to me is, is is fun.
It's also equally a massive painin the ass.
Like I don't, I don't want to bein a garage at 3:00 in the
morning wrenching on something for like a 7:00 AM.
You know, like drivers meeting, right?
Like the guys next to me have been working on that S chassis

(11:24):
for three days straight. They had the engine hoisted up
the first day I got here and so like.
I'm giving them water, I'm giving them snacks, I'm giving
them because I don't know, I can't, I don't know what I'm
looking at, but I'm just like supporting and I hope that they
get out because the reason that they're here is to drive, you
know what I mean? So I would always tell people
like they start their build and they want to do all this crazy
stuff. It's like just build it to where

(11:45):
it doesn't take away from you having the ability to drive it.
And if you can start there and then you kind of incrementally
get bigger and bigger mods. Maybe you want to go force
induction, maybe you want to go static and get a really nice
like flush fitment setup that has higher spring rates.
You know, do all of that stuff after you dialed in that you can
still drive it. That to me is like the ultimate

(12:06):
car because like I have friends that have driven, you know,
30-40 thousand miles on a build while one of my cars has only
had 300 miles on a build becauseI decided to go buku crazy with
it and I'm in way too deep. And then this guy's like E46M3,
Super clean mods, very simple, modest build.
He's tracking it four days in a row and then he's going to daily

(12:27):
drive at home, you know, an hourand a half away.
And to me, I get jealous of that.
Like, I want to be able to do that.
So that would be my my tip. We got to stop the podcast for a
second because I know we're going through a lot of tires out
there and given you're here supporting the podcast, they
want to help you guys out and give you 20% off on your tires
moving forward with Coach CircleAdrift too.

(12:47):
So if you're going to need tiressoon, or maybe you just never
tried the SEG Novus or you just kind of want to stack up, I
suggest you do that now while you can get them at a better
price. But other than tires, let's get
on back into the podcast. Well, why?
Why did you choose to bring all of that stuff into drifting?
And why are you putting a lot offocus into this motorsport

(13:07):
rather than say Rd. racing or anything like that?
Because you've been more in likeI guess the show scene, is that
more what you? Consider I still spend a lot of
time in the car show scene, likeI'm sure we go to Gatlinburg, we
do tunery book shows and like that's our bread and butter and
we we love that vibe. I think a lot of people start in
the car show scene and I think as you get older, you start to

(13:28):
get into the Motorsports scene. And as you get into that, I
think there kind of becomes thisthing where people start like
disowning that scene and they start coming apart of like
another space, the Motorsports space.
And they look back and they're like, I don't go to shows
anymore because they're land or boring or whatever it might be.
But I think everyone typically outside of people that have like
a family background and mechanical work or racing start

(13:52):
in that space. And so for me, we wanted to get
into drifting because I was like, man, I want to do
something a little not competitive for other people,
but competitive for me. Like something where I can kind
of just put myself in a space and say, I want to get better.
I want to learn. I want to be in a space where
it's completely up to me to become a better driver.
And so we do a lot of track stuff here at Rd.

(14:13):
America, but drifting has been alittle bit easier, mostly just
because there's a few more events that are going on and it
ultimately ends up being a little bit more affordable for
what we're trying to do. Explain that.
Yeah, yeah, right. 'Cause tires.
Well, obviously you're in AZ right now, yeah.
That's cheaper. You got to remember that there's
there's levels to drifting right?

(14:33):
Like there are people out here with 800 horsepower LSS and
stuff like that and those guys different monster.
Don't listen to me wrong conversation.
But like for people, you know, with like a 350Z, it's got an
angle kit on it. Maybe they're turning like 245
forties on the rear, right And they put Kendacare 20A's on it
and they have some wheels and coil overs.
If you heat treat the the tires and you get you, you take care

(14:55):
of them right? You monitor them like they'll
last you a long time and outsideof like maintaining your fluids
and things like that, you go through brake pads every once in
a while and you're set. In my opinion, I think casual
drifting is more of an affordable motorsport than
casual track racing, especially at a track like Rd.
America, because it has such high speed.

(15:16):
You got almost 3 straights that are three quarter mile long.
When you're pushing on those brakes, you're abusing the
brakes, you're abusing the expansion components.
There's much more wear on that vehicle when you're going from
140 to 60 then when you're goingsideways with loose tires at 45
or at 35 miles an hour. So I think there's a lot of burn
money in drifting, especially asyou go up in it.

(15:37):
But if you wanted to keep it casual, I think casual for
casual, I do think drifting is still a little bit more
affordable, even in terms of ticket costs.
Like a day ticket at US Air if you were to do AD day is 170
bucks. If you wanted to do the same
thing here, it's about 350. So it's twice the price just to
get on. Yeah, and you're?
Getting 5 stints, 30 minutes of stints, you're getting 2 1/2
hours of track time at US Air. You're probably getting maybe

(16:01):
like an hour 15. So you're getting less, but you
don't want to have more because then you're just burning through
your tires. That's the very true, yeah.
I'm always thinking about money,especially when it comes to
builds. Like, I don't want to waste any
money. I want to have as much fun as I
can for the smallest amount of spend I possibly can.
Yeah, yeah. Well, you obviously have quite

(16:22):
extravagant builds too, so how have you managed to I guess
curate the funds for all of thisstuff?
Is it all through content and like how do you pick?
A car dude, I suck at making it dude, I suck at making I'm I
always tell you I'm like a terrible YouTube.
I suck at I don't know what I'm doing.
I enjoy telling stories and I enjoy educating people and I

(16:45):
hope sometimes it comes off, I think a very brash and I don't
mean for it to be, I'm just likethis Midwest kid that when I
started in the car scene, everybody was pretty mean.
Like they were like bullies. They didn't want to tell me
anything. Everything was very gate kept.
And so I kind of had this chip on my shoulder ever since to
like do the opposite of that. I want to make everything
accessible. And so I do think that upsets

(17:06):
some people because I'm always trying to like figure out things
and they don't always want to tell me those things, which is
fair. I get it, but when it comes down
to like, how do how does this whole thing work?
I mean, we have Alex Martini, wemake some content, we have some
fun, we have some great partnersthrough that and then we have
Martini work. So we help people mod their car.
And then I also have a marketingagency called Meta Martini.

(17:27):
So we help automotive brands like with go to market products.
We help them with understanding this demographic, which is a
very interesting demographic to talk to you right.
And so we have a whole team dedicated to that side of the
the space. And so no matter if a new person
is trying to build a car or likea company like Continental is
coming to us and saying, hey, wehave a product release, we need

(17:49):
help getting this into like that2534 year old space.
Can you help? That's what we do.
And so a lot of people think I only do content.
I would say content is probably 10% of what I do on a daily
basis, yeah. So what are you handling?
Majority of the day. Majority every single day.
Majority of the day is me sighing at emails of either

(18:09):
people being upset about something or asking questions to
do something. So you're.
Handling a lot of the customer service yourself.
So I keep an eye on a lot of thecustomer service.
My team's way more patient than I am.
They're way better at that job than me.
But I keep an eye on a lot of that stuff, like when we see a
spike in complaints on things orwhen I see, you know, if people
message me, like even when I'm walking around, there will be

(18:30):
times where people are telling me about a tire or a wheel or
anything like that. And I'll hop on my phone and
I'll shoot at the like the ownera text and be like, hey, just so
you know, like I'm hearing this,you might want to keep an eye
out for it. I don't know if this is a bigger
issue or not. We actually, I just did that
earlier this morning, but I would say most of my day is
spent making sure those guys have everything they need for

(18:50):
martini works like Dakota and Gels and Brent and Carissa and
making sure they're set up to succeed.
And then with the meta stuff, I'm helping some of the, the the
companies and clients that we have employed with us.
So Dustin and Carrie and all those guys, I help them as well.
So I'm kind of a. That's.
Crazy. I'd be like the first person to

(19:11):
fire if like you just needed to get back to the tactical.
But I'm I'm the one that kind ofkeeps everything together to
keep things moving smoothly. Well, you obviously have the the
branding of it is very good. And I'll I'll obviously see the
content all the time. Thank you, man.
So you've learned the ropes evenbefore starting this.

(19:31):
Yeah, right. Because it was at fitment and
all that stuff. I know you've got your own video
and everything explaining all that.
If you want to give a brief description, you can, but.
I started so when I in 2012, I started the Wisconsin Car
Enthusiasts Club because of whatI just talked about, people were
kind of mean. They didn't really want to tell
me anything. I felt like an idiot asking any
questions. So I'm like, screw you guys, I'm

(19:52):
making a Facebook page very 2012coded, you know what I mean?
Screw you guys, I'm afternoon tomyself.
So I made it. It's called the 715 car club.
I felt like an absolute badass dude and it was intended to only
be for the Eau Claire like car scene and I was only going to
let in people that I felt like would be willing to help like
open, patient, calm and that grew pretty quick.

(20:13):
I think as of now we have 62,000members that are a part of this
like club and it back then it was the biggest online like car
club ever. And so we were doing that for a
long time. And then in 2017, I was
headhunted by a guy named Sean Chartier.
And he said, hey, I have this idea to help people with wheel
fitment on the car side. Are you interested in trying it
out? So I went, I interviewed, I took

(20:35):
a pay cut and then got married in July.
And then in September, we moved.And it was a, it was really hard
on my family. And then I remember he told me,
he's like, you have 90 days to make this successful, You're
fired. That was like the real thing.
And so Push Like Hell started Fitment Inc with a guy named
Mario Perez, who is an awesome creative, and a guy named Andrew

(20:56):
Mann and Corey Liggin and so. We were one of the cofounders.
Though, no. So I initially came in to to
make it work and kind of the, the conversation that we had
back at the beginning was that that was eventually going to be
what I would go into, right? And so obviously that did not
happen. We grew from, you know, I think

(21:17):
we had 10 employees when I started.
We had a little over 800 when I had left.
And it was just a change in, youknow, for me, it's a big change
in like the heart, you know, youget big, you just, you got less
heart. That's just how it goes.
And that's absolutely no dog to them.
You know, I wish them the best of luck.
A lot of my friends still work there.

(21:37):
A lot of people that I love still work that I still talk to
the guys that are, you know, Map's up here, you know, so I
still talk to Patrick and I I wish them the best.
But you know, this car communityin the past, like I'd say five
years, six years has seen so much merger and acquisition, so
much private equity money because one day people realized
that selling things to 18 year olds can make them a lot of

(21:59):
money. And I think people have abused
that. And I think these there's a lot
of big companies in this space that aren't doing it right.
And they're just trying to take and take and take and take and
take and take and take. And I think we need to remind
ourselves that we need to give back to this community just as
much as we take from it. Otherwise you're going to leave
it with nothing. You know what I mean?
Everything's getting more expensive, but nobody wants to

(22:21):
work with each other. Everybody's getting more
difficult. Things are getting more
expensive. Like it's not easy to be a car
enthusiast right now. And so we're just trying to like
remind people it's OK to have a little bit of heart.
It's OK to have fun. It's OK to just build the shit
however you want to build it, but enjoy it, like enjoy the
process. And for us and our brand, our
goal is that we can be proud of what people are buying from

(22:43):
Martini works. You know, we want to try and
make it a better place the best we can.
We may not always get it right, you know, transparently, but we,
we try our best to always make sure that like people have what
they need to have a good time. Even if it's crappy wheels and
great tires or great tires and great wheels or, you know, entry
level suspension or, you know, three-way $4000 suspension.

(23:05):
You know, it's not up to us to determine what your budget is.
It's us to help you figure out what's best for your car.
Did you learn all this from fitness like while doing all
this or did you have like a marketing kind of?
No, I mean, man, that's tough. I think this is.
Smart stuff like it's. Thank you just.
Not to like, no no, no bloat or anything, but.
It's it's, I'm a big nerd that IA lot of times.

(23:27):
I don't know if that ever reallycomes across, but like I'm more,
I've always been a kind of like I've always enjoyed building,
you know, business and brands. You know, I, I, I really enjoy
bringing people together And I think what's hard is we get in
front of the limelight a lot. So I'm always really careful
with what I say, but I just lovelike when people come up to the
booth and they say, hey, I just want you to know, like, really
love the podcast. And I bought a set of, you know,

(23:50):
concerts from you. And it's like that to me, that
means the world. I love hearing that.
I don't care if one person said it or 50 people say it because
it means that they trust us, youknow?
And I never want to abuse that trust.
But when it comes to the business stuff, yeah, I love it.
You know, I, I learned some of it from fit men.
I had great mentors when I was there.
I've got great mentors now, but I do live kind of under this

(24:11):
belief that like if you want something enough you're and
you're willing to fight for it, you can get it.
But you got to be willing to kind of beat your head up and
you have to keep kind of gettingknocked down to know that you're
growing. Because if you get really
comfortable in a space, how do you know that you're growing,
right? If you're uncomfortable and you
figure it out, you probably learned something along the way.
So like I constantly try to findthat space of am I uncomfortable

(24:35):
right now? Yes, good.
Like learn something while you're here.
And that's kind of what I do with drifting.
Like I'm always hanging out withpeople that are way faster than
me, way better than me. And I'll go up to people and
I'll just ask like, how are you taking this line?
How are you figuring this? Because I have like no clue. 0
nilch none. I'm not spending 8 hours a day
on the SIM. I'm not.

(24:55):
A. Professional, you know, drifter
or anything like that. I'm just trying to have a good
time, and if I can learn from these people, you know, I can
become better. And then hopefully I can share
that with more people that are trying to learn just like me.
Yeah. So you say you don't drive the
SIM at all? I do a little bit but not not
anything crazy. I do just enough like do you
have friends that like take it super serious?
Do you have friends that like soI do just enough to talk just

(25:17):
enough shit to like get like APRon like a track and then I'll
dip like that's all I do. So like if we're running on like
Rd. America and they're running GT3
cars or something, like I got A212212212, I'll go on it just
to run like a 210 or a 211. And then I'll send a screenshot
and then I'll never touch the SIM until they beat the 210.

(25:37):
Like that's really all I do. A lot of my time is taken up
with work. I'm very blessed to have an
incredible wife who who supportsthat.
But like I wake up at probably 5:00.
I get home at like 7 ish 7:30. Oh yeah, have dinner and then
usually I'll crack out for, you know, 3045 minutes, catch up on
some stuff and then go to bed. So, easy night.

(25:58):
Yeah, Not much of A night I guess, Really.
You know, we try to, that's why we try to enjoy this stuff as
much as we can, man. Like we love making content.
I don't find myself digesting content that much.
That's why I love like the podcast and what you guys do
because like I can throw it on, I can listen to it and I can
take these like little tidbits away from it.
You know, what people are sayingor how people are feeling or,

(26:18):
you know, opinions, right? Of of how should cars be built?
Because it helps me then like make my own stance on things or
go out and test the things that some of the people that you've
had on your podcast say, you know, is a higher horsepower car
better to start with? Or should you start, you know,
with a little horsepower car? Should you clutch kick or should
you E brake? You know?
Should you manji straight? Should you not like these are

(26:39):
all things. That.
Everybody has a super opinionated thought on and then
I just try both and figure out which one I like.
Are there any of those that you have tested and figured out your
own opinion on? Yeah.
So I think like the most controversial, I think the most
controversial take I've ever heard, especially local, is that
you always have to start with a low horsepower car to learn how

(27:02):
to drift. And I agree with that to a
point. I agree that, you know, just
like with photography, you should learn how to shoot on an
entry level camera before you goby an A7R5 or A5D mark 4 or
whatever it is. Then again, you don't need to
beat the crap out of yourself for five years running a stock
KA with stock angle at US Air because you think that that's

(27:24):
just how you should drift. Like that's super fun if you
enjoy it. That's not the only way to enjoy
it. You know, I hopped into Craig's
600 horsepower C6 Corvette at USAir and in two laps we were
connecting the the whole track and it was incredible.
The car felt perfect. Everything about it was like
this has made drifting insurmountably easier than if I

(27:45):
were to go into a car like Akas 13 and try to do the same thing.
It'd be incredibly difficult. And so I think sometimes people
get a little hung up on like always having low horsepower
cars to try and like prove themselves.
But I do think it teaches good car technique.
But once you have it, go buy whatever you want, you know, go
buy a vet, go buy a, you know, have fun with it.
But yeah, I don't think you needto stay low horsepower forever.

(28:08):
Five years on, AKA is a little absurd, dude.
Yeah, whenever I say you. Say that to Jelena.
You say that to gels. Gels, if you're watching this,
it's time to get rid of the KA. Just get a 350Z please.
Like everybody's begging. Well, like you've mentioned, if
that's like your thing, then I'dget it.
Yeah, 'cause like Team Hayes, it's all KA cars.
Yeah, yeah. And.
Like people have that passion and I love the art of drifting.

(28:29):
Like there is an art to it, there is a culture to it.
And so I think sometimes the objectiveness of the support
versus the artistic elements of the support, they clash, right?
Like they don't always align. And that's where I think you
find a lot of people disagreeingon things.
But from a grassroots perspective, get in whatever
will give you the most seat time, that will make you feel
the most comfortable. And screw everything else, have

(28:50):
fun in your car. Enjoy it.
Well, since you did a couple laps I guess in the Corvette and
now you're back in a 350Z, are there any of those little
details of a low horsepower car when you are learning to drift
that you've noticed? You can, I guess, teach yourself
better in that car than you can the C5.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think theC5, you know, I almost call it

(29:14):
like insurance if you go and youbuy, you know, Michelin Pilot
Sport Cup twos and you you haven't ever been out on a
track, right. And if you get them up to
temperature and let's say you'reyou're offline, let's say you're
diving into corners. Let's say you're, you're doing a
lot of late breaking. You're really messing up your
entries. You're just not driving well
because you just don't have the experience yet.
A Sport Cup 2 is going to catch you, right?

(29:35):
It's it's got a lot of technology in it.
It's got a lot of compound technology in the sidewall to
kind of like hold you. It's not going to let you get
too far out unless you're, you know, you're really throwing it
in. If you were to do that same
exact kind of behavior on an Iron Man, for instance, you're
going to go right into Canada and you're going to smoke
yourself up because they're justnot meant for that, right?

(29:56):
And so I do think that a car like a Corvette that's got an
angle kit and a ton of horsepower, it has the
opportunity for you to correct mistakes easier.
You know, you can blip the throttle if you got to get
further and you can let off the throttle if you want that front
end to bite. With a good angle kit, you can
really put that nose anywhere you want.
You've got a torque curve that can light up the rear tires if

(30:17):
you're holding on to the E braketoo long.
Like everything that would be take a little bit longer in a
low horsepower car is much shorter in a Corvette.
Do you not feel that all of those parts in the high
horsepower almost hides a lot ofthe feeling that you're doing,
say, trying to take the same exact line in that car?
Absolutely. I think, I think a Corvette and

(30:38):
I think any time you jump into like a better car, right, you
jump into an M2 versus a Miata, you know it can hide mistakes,
right? I think that's like the big
thing people say is like a high horsepower car can hide
mistakes. A newer teched car can hide a
lot of track mistakes too. I.
Don't think it's technically mistakes though, I think it's
just it's hiding what you can learn.

(31:00):
True because you would feel a lot more and you would you feel
how to correct the steering whenyou are going into too much
angle and stuff like that. But with a big angle kit, more
horsepower, all of that just feels like dead steering.
Yeah, at that point. So I will say one of the things
that I learned was when I was over in a bisu, I got to drive
for a few days with the team in a 350Z and you know, I had a lot

(31:24):
of these initial expectations onwhat it was going to be and what
they were going to expect of me.But like one of the things that
they they said is like they don't like you to use the clutch
kick. They want you to use the E
brake. They don't want you to put extra
strain on the on the car. And I custom I'm like, you know,
in America they do kind of have this tendency to say like when
you start, you should clutch kick like you should do it that
way so that you can really startto feel your feet and having the

(31:47):
movement and really initiating and kind of getting this whole
thing. And they said, well, sure,
that's true, you know, and like an 886.
Yeah. But we're past that.
Like we're all past that. A lot of people are past that.
And so I think a lot of times when you see people that are
making the drifting sport maybe more analog, a little bit more

(32:07):
difficult to meet, I treat it more like film photography
versus digital photography. Could you do it in an easier
format? Could you buy the tool that's
going to skip a lot of the steps?
Yes, you could. Does it make film photography
any less of an art? No.
But is that the only way to takea picture?
No, Right. There's a thousand ways to do
it. And so for me, I would say I, I

(32:29):
think a lot of people would say,yeah, you're not going to learn
the same thing in the two cars. But that could go for anything.
And does it really matter? Like, do you need to know the
skill and the Z if you own a vet, right?
Do you need to know the torque curve in an SR20 in an S chassis
and how you have to keep bangingit off the Rev limiter to get
anywhere to do just about anything if you're never going

(32:50):
to buy one, if you're only goingto have AV 8 in your life,
right? So for me, I think it's like, do
do what you think is best and ifstyle is important to you, go
down that path. If you just want to drive
something that's just going to live forever and you just want
to have a good time and you don't want to think too hard
about it, there's another path. And I think sometimes people
only think there's one way to goabout it.
There's not. There's 20 different ways to go

(33:12):
about it, and all of them are wrong in some places and right
in other places, you know? Which path are you?
I'm the kind of guy that just wants to drive, man.
Like I just want to be able to go out there and know that when
I have an input in something, ifI mess it up, I'm going to
learn. You know, that's why we had the
the S2000, the S 2000 is very oversteery, kind of snappy car.
And when we put the turbo K24IN it and when we had it at like

(33:35):
400 horsepower, the whole goal of having it here was to humble
me. It was meant to be the car to
say you can go out there with anM4 and you can do all your fancy
stuff, but if you mess with me, I'm 100% going to throw you off
track. And like, I enjoy that.
But I don't think it's the only way, the only way to do it.
I think getting out there, getting C times, the most

(33:56):
important thing. It will always be the most
important thing. And if you care about the art of
the, the culture, there's a way to enjoy that too without it
taking away. And I think that's why you buy 2
cars. I really do.
What are those two cars then? Man, are you?
Are you what? Are you meaning like seat time
and comp or? Just like I'm saying like seat
time, seat time and and like, I don't know what else to call it,

(34:18):
but like a like a culture car, you know, like a car, a car.
That's a good way to put it like.
A style car, you know, like something that you could drift,
but you're not always having to drift, you know what I mean?
And I think, you know, one of myfavorite cars is always going to
be like, you know, the S15, the JZX 100, the IS3 hundreds, the
Altezas, you know, those cars are all cool.

(34:40):
And I think people can have a lot of fun styling them up,
sliding them around on occasion.But if they want to treat that
nice so that they're not constantly thrashing it and
throwing it into a billion pieces, you know, get a
different car that you also liketo slide.
Get yourself a 350Z, get yourself AC-5 Corvette, get
yourself. I mean, I've seen people even
sliding around Miatas in the last couple years.

(35:01):
It's like that. That's awesome.
I just don't always. That's not a new thing, by the
way. Dude, I know.
Miatas are great fucking cars, Iknow.
But for me, I just, it's crazy to me because like my first
Miata, I've owned like 7 or 8 ofthem.
My first Miata was like 600 bucks and then Miata 2 through 6
were like $1500 ship boxes. Like I had one that was an NB

(35:21):
with a shot of nitrous in the back.
I learned how to like street slide in that car.
I mean, I've had NCS, we did spec Miata.
I just did my got my provisionalracing license with level up
racing school here. So we're doing spec me auto
racing with Mazda Motorsports, which is really rad.
But like I went from that and then I saw a couple of them
drifting at US air and I'm like,I'm going to go see how much

(35:41):
these cars are. They're like 6 grand, 8 grand,
10 grand. I'm like, that is absolutely
insane to me. I do think ZS are the best
budget car still like power for budget.
They're just not the They don't sound the prettiest, and
sometimes they don't always lookthe prettiest.
You won't. Damn, that thing's loud.

(36:02):
Well, from someone that is kind of just venturing into drifting,
is there any chassis that you have noticed being outside of
drifting that you think would be, you know, probably
underrated right now for this motorsport?
Yeah. That's a great question.
I've always said the crown vig you you could.
I'm not joking. The Mustang transmission bolts

(36:24):
right up to it. Easy manual swab.
You have a drift car? Yeah.
I honest, like I would almost, Idon't know, man.
Like I feel like when I go out there and I try to see like, are
there any underrated cars? I felt like like the drift
community almost found some of these cars first in terms of
like you go out there, you look at a grid life race right now, I

(36:47):
would argue it's like a Corvetterace featuring grid life.
Like there are so many Corvettesout there right now because
they've gotten really competitive, but there were
there were more Corvettes in thedrifting space in like the semi
pro amp space before I saw the onslaught of track Corvettes
that were at grid life. So did the track guys pick it up

(37:09):
from the drift guys? Did the track guys pick it up
from one track guy that. Had a Corvette.
Or is it the other way around? I have no idea.
Right. Same thing with the Miata.
When I think Miata I always think track first.
Now it's all over in the the drift space.
So I would say track first picked a Miata for sure.
Corvette, though? That's a tough.
One, you know, I'm just, I don't, I don't know, I don't

(37:29):
know enough. But I think like anytime people
are looking to find a budget wayto enjoy racing, I think that
the drift community is a little bit more creative and finding
those chassis. I think the track community kind
of has their picks. They have the Miatas.
I think the newest one really would be like a Honda Fit.
Honda fits have gotten super popular.

(37:50):
They're super affordable, they're tons of fun.
You can go wheel to wheel with those things.
They're super cheap to fix. They're kind of ugly, but
they're just a bad out of hell. If you're having fun with them,
you know, they're like cheap mini Coopers almost.
But I think the drift community does a great job of being like,
hey, there's this new chassis. It's really cheap.
I found a way to make it work. And then somebody on the
Internet, you know, shares that story.

(38:12):
And then it just builds like wildfire.
And then next thing you know, there's twenty of them at A at
AUS Air Day. Yeah, yeah, more than that,
yeah. You don't have a single car that
you can think of. For what for?
Like the the what? Which one could be underrated as
of right now? OK.

(38:33):
You've got to have something in mind coming from other.
Yeah. I mean a part of me wants to say
like the the generation before the F80 BM WS, I still think
haven't found their spot in the drift space yet.
I think the what is it like the N50 fives and that like heritage
of cars. I think there are some people
that slide them around, but it'sdefinitely not taken over quite

(38:55):
like the the E46 E 36 chassis. I think a lot of people are
still buying those to drift. I think eventually some of them
are going to start to make that jump to the next chassis.
I don't think people are really happy about the N 54 just
because of like the reliability gremlins, but the N 55 stuff I
don't really see a lot. And I think you can find them
for a really good deal. And I always know that because

(39:15):
when they get really popular, they end up showing up at car
shows first because when we justtalked about.
You can. Always tell where the culture is
going by looking at the car showscene first.
Because a lot of times. It's the youngest group, it's
the newest people to the car scene.
And if they're getting into the car show, a lot of times they
like found the right chassis. And so you can actually tell a

(39:36):
lot where a lot of the audience is going by going to like a
Gatlinburg or a tuner Evo. Because a couple years later,
you're going to see the cars here, you're going to see the
cars on track. That's so crazy.
I've never really thought about it like that.
But yeah, I mean, that's, that'sexactly what ventured me into
the motorsport. Yeah.
It was going to Gatlinburg, you know, slammed enough, you go to

(39:57):
import alliance. Yeah.
All that stuff like, yeah. That's so crazy.
It's a, it's a fun thing to see.I think what's tough is like
trying to enjoy it all, you know?
Because like as you get older, you start to realize like
there's some things you like about this and some things you
don't like about this and you'retrying to figure out like, how
do you navigate it? I've really enjoyed the the

(40:18):
drifting community, especially here in Wisconsin, because a lot
of them have, have really kind of like opened their doors when
I first started to meet Chris Hartle, you know, Craig and
Jake, we're all incredible people.
That helped me when I was just like getting started.
And that was like, the scariest part for me is you go to a a
drift day and they like, they throw you into a skid pad and
they're like, do a doughnut, do a Figure 8, show me that you

(40:39):
know what you're doing. And it's like, if you don't have
a SIM, how the fuck are you supposed to learn that, you
know? And so Tyler TA, his name is,
yeah, Tyler TA actually taught me on the SIM.
He's like, hey, here's how you practice before you go to your
first drift day. And I think there's a lot of
fear that comes down to it. So I think the community coming
and being open to helping other people has been really fun.

(41:03):
That's awesome and really fun, yeah.
Do you see the the helpfulness more out of drifting than any
other community you've been in as far as cars?
Yeah, I mean, I would say I OK, so everybody's got their own
opinion, right? They like buttholes.

(41:23):
They all stink. Terrible analogy.
You get my point. But like when my S2000 started
on fire up in the upper paddock,I rode America and my fire
suppression system didn't go offafter I yanked it like 3 or 4
times. Granted I should have had a fire
extinguisher in the car. I get that.
I thought the fire suppression system was enough of a fire
suppression system. I didn't think I needed another
one. And I yelled fire right?

(41:44):
And I remember there's a guy 30 feet away from me that in the
most casual sense of like the word was like, hey, this guys
car is on fire. Does anybody have a fire
extinguish? It was the most casual thing
I've ever experienced. My I'm like, my shit is on fire.
Like help me Lars is like 150 feet away.
He's booking it like a silly little idiot with like a red

(42:06):
flame, you know, like doing thisand it we extinguished.
I was about to piss out. Like I was literally about to
pee on. I don't know what else to do.
Like it's just a typical guy thing.
I thought I was like a jellyfish, you know what I mean?
And so does that even help? I don't think so.
I don't even want to talk about childhood things right now, but
like a part of me wants to ask ChatGPT at some point, but I'm
afraid to you know, and like that experience to me was like,

(42:27):
what the hell is wrong with you?You know, like help me.
My car is on fire whereas on theother side of the fence like
when I'm at USA or even like here like the we're we're
paddock buddies with a couple guys and it's like, hey, can I
borrow your target? Yeah dude, you can have anything
on this table. Just take it.
You know I've always found it a little bit more approachable for
me to walk into this space than for me to walk into the track

(42:49):
space. Not necessarily because they're
demeanor or anything, there's just there's a little bit of
clickiness that is different in the track scene than there is in
the drift scene. I think mostly everybody here
has their groups, but if you're comfortable enough just to go up
and ask, they do seem pretty open to it up there.
You might not get as much not upthere, but at a track event,
sometimes they're a little bit more secretive about what

(43:12):
they're willing to help with, what they want to share, what
they're willing to share, because a lot of that stuff they
don't want other people to know.OK?
Also, my car started on fire andnobody seemed to really care.
So I do have that in the back ofmy head.
That a similar thing actually happened at Polecat the first
year Chase Space did it. Yeah, Jake Wise.
He was pitted right next to me and his turbo is, I think it was

(43:35):
a drain line or something calling fire or whatever the
fuck it was. And he comes over like the
actual driver comes over to me and it's like, hey, any chance
you got a fire extinguisher? I'm like, yeah, why?
It's like my car's on fire. I'm like, dude, yeah, grab it.
What are you doing? It's just so calm.
Just. Grab.
If you see it and your car's like, just grab it.

(43:56):
Don't even. Ask.
Just take it and use. It we'll talk about it later.
Crazy. Yeah, it's, it's it's fun, man.
I think that's like, I've been in this space for 16 years now
and I don't feel any more confident about what I know than
what I did when I started this whole thing.
My whole goal is just like has always been talk about things,

(44:16):
try to get people to communicateit, like create this space for
people to talk and engage. And hopefully when you get done
with that conversation, you either feel like, you know, a
little bit more, you feel a little bit more confident to try
something, or you feel a little bit more comfortable to modify
something, you know, and we don't really care what form that
takes. We want it to be the right
stuff. We want to point people in the

(44:38):
right direction, but that's their choice to make at the end
of the day, you know, so. Well, as far as drifting goes, I
know it's one of the smaller Motorsports and stuff like that.
So I think a lot of the problem may be with, you know, in their
competition side drivers not marketing themselves
appropriately, you know, their full program from someone that

(45:01):
hasn't done that but is fairly good at marketing, what would
your approach to marketing an entire entire competition
program be? OK, if you're a driver, if you,
if you're a driver, you need to listen.
And I promise you this will help.
This will help you so, so much. Drivers are fantastic drivers.
They are terrible marketers. They are so bad at their like

(45:23):
thing and I, I love them to death.
But like, you know, the FT commercials too, where it's
like, here's this dude, he's gota ton of energy, he's a great
driver. He's got tons of attitude out
there on track. And then you see him in a
commercial and and it's like ChatGPT took over his body for
45 seconds and it's like the grossest thing you've ever
listened to. It's like, dude, if you want to
go out. There as far as like the script
or just the way they speak but. The way they talk is bad.

(45:45):
It's not how they talk. Like everything about it is
wrong. Everything, everything is wrong.
And you know, like these partners, they come in for a
year or two, then they dip because they don't see the value
in it. They're like, yeah, we sponsored
this driver. We spent, you know, $50,000 and
we got a couple posts, you know,a couple of this couple of.
So my, my 3 big tips. If you're a driver and you want

(46:05):
to get sponsors and you want those sponsors to not just give
you parts, you want them to giveyou money.
What I would say is #1 consistent behavior on social
media. Stop just doing stuff at the
track. Start showing you building the
car, working on the car, talkingabout tips of you building the
car. Get in front of the camera, talk
to the camera. Spend 100 bucks on the little

(46:26):
microphone. It doesn't matter if you sound
silly or not silly, nobody cares.
The point is, is get out there, take a lot of pictures and post
a ton. What happens is, is people can
tell when you're posting for a partner and when you're posting
to post. And there are certain people
that are really good at posting and putting their partners into
do it very naturally. Adam, LZI would argue, is one of
the best ones for that. He's also the biggest.

(46:48):
But there's a lot that people can learn from that.
And by just being consistent with it, you're really good.
We've helped drivers in the pastand the biggest issue has always
been the season starts, they need the money, they get the
money and then they don't talk to the partner until the season
is over because they don't know that they need to reach out.
And so I would always recommend,you know, monthly touch points
with your your partners. Always ask them what's going on.

(47:10):
Always be constant on social media.
And I think a big underutilized thing is like, go write some
blogs, like go, go have a website, go talk about your
experience, go put it up on the website.
Because you'll notice a lot of companies really value like
articles like published. Of course.
Do you think that's still relevant now or is it more
moral? Yeah, because.
Your social proof on on the website, if you go to buy some

(47:32):
anything, people are always going to type in is blank good
or like reviews on blank. And a lot of times if drivers
can get out there and be like, if you were to say, you know,
Corey Tolaska, right, Corey Tolaska's website has an honest
review on stage nights. And it's his take on his
experience with stage nights because he's partnered with

(47:53):
stage wheels and he does that. When people go out and they look
at stage wheels, they're going to see that article probably
ranked above some other stuff and to a brand that is huge,
that is everything. And so a lot of people miss out
on those opportunities because they don't think they should or
they can. And because there's so many
tools out there these days, likego out there, write some shit,
post some shit, have some fun with it and communicate with

(48:16):
your partner like all the time. Like be annoying and you'll get
it. I'm very blessed to have some
awesome partners for like my ownpersonal channel, but I'm not a
driver dude. Like I'm not a pro anything.
Like I go out, I barely know howto build a car sometimes.
Like I just enjoy driving and I enjoy teaching.
And because of that, I've got some awesome people that are
willing to support my silly little hobby on the side, which

(48:37):
is, you know, sliding around like an idiot.
So I think there's a lot of different ways you can do it.
But people, especially drivers, have to remember that the
partners don't only care about you driving.
They also care about all the other stuff you're doing around
it that lead up to the day that you're driving.
It's. Very important.
Yeah. I love the way you put that.

(48:58):
Yeah, yeah. The people like you can have fun
with it too. Don't lose the soul.
Like they're sponsoring you because of who you are.
Like, I'm a nerdy kid. I talk really fast.
Not everybody likes that, but there are certain people that do
like a couple, and that's good. There are people that have a ton
of attitude. You know, Chelsea to Nofa is
like, he's got this, you know, Fyou attitude.
When he's out there, he's havingfun and he's confident in what

(49:20):
he says. Colin.
But if Chelsea wasn't Chelsea and he had a partner and that
partner said, Hey, we want you to do this really structured
script and we that's all we needfrom you.
And that's all that he did on his social media.
You spotted a mile away, right? And, and it wouldn't do any of

(49:40):
what it's intended to do. So you got to make sure that
when you're partnered up with these companies, don't pretend
to be somebody you're not. If you're partnered with Royal
Purple through FD like Dylan Hughes is, I always believe, at
least I think he still is. It's like, I always believe that
like Royal Purple should lean into that like way more.
Dylan Hughes has a insane story.He's a crazy good driver.
He's a ton of fun. He has so much that he could

(50:03):
talk about and so much he could do that has like personality and
excitement and like good shit, like good memories because he's
an awesome dude. And it that doesn't happen
because I don't know. I don't know if we're all purple
only means the deliverable for the commercial and like they're
happy. But man, there's so much that
you can do with these partners to take it from one to 100.
And I think drivers think it's the partner's responsibility and

(50:26):
it's not, it's the driver's person.
It's their responsibility to go out there and make it happen
because then next year you can ask for more money.
Well, obviously one of the, you mentioned one of the easiest
ways to do that is through content.
So most drivers, as you've seen,whenever what's her name with
the mic goes out and just talks to them in the pits or whatever,
they're robots. Yeah.
So how, what would you tell someone that is a driver not

(50:49):
good at being on camera? How to break that fear of a lens
staring at you? Yeah, I would say do your best
to like be funny and be light. Just be light with it.
Like I'm, I'm really terrible atit as I say it, but like when
I'm talking to people, I can be very casual.
I can be animated and have fun with it because it is fun.

(51:11):
It's supposed to be fun. There are 10s of thousands of
people watching you drive. They think that what you're
doing is the coolest thing in the world.
Match that energy, match that fun, right?
You're not just in a Yeah, you're not just in a racing
sport. You're in an entertainment
sport. You know, you are.
You are speaking to a crowd of 10s of thousands of people.

(51:32):
Have fun with it, dude. Like that was always the my you
know, anytime you see that's like my favorite thing, you
know, it's like anytime you've seen an FT live stream clip like
pop off, it's because the driversets them off the cuff.
Shit, that was just funny, right?
It was enjoyable. It made people laugh.
It went up on formula Derp. Like it did it was good.

(51:53):
Like it felt grassroots. It felt like something one of
your homies would say. And like I always try to remind
and I know that partners you canor can't say, like you have to
hold the noscam like this and you have to have the hat like
this. And I get that, but be light
with it, you know, have fun withit.
If something sucks, sometimes your audience wants to hear that
it sucked. Like, hey, how is that run out
there? Looks like you're having a

(52:13):
little struggle with the car. And it's like, yeah, we're
having a tough time, but the team is going to work on.
We're going to give it another shot.
Sometimes you might be better off just saying, yeah, the car
kind of sucks and we're trying to figure it out.
We don't really know what we're chasing down yet, but we got the
best in the business behind me. We're going to figure it out.
We'll be back out there in 30 minutes and we're going to give
it our best shot. Like you say the same thing, but

(52:33):
one sounds like you, you know, and I just think you got to, you
got to try it. You got to be uncomfortable.
It's so crazy because the exact thing they need to say is the
same thing they would say to someone that is just coming up
and ask them, hey, what happened?
Yeah, like what? What was that?
And they have a whole spill. They're ready to say it.
Yeah. It's just for some reason the
camera. Yeah, the camera just blinks.

(52:56):
The camera's always scary. I mean, the camera's scary with
me. Like when I vlog, like I've got
Greg, that helps me now because it's like, I don't like doing,
you know, that stuff because it's, it's hard for me to be
myself. It really is hard.
So, but it's like anything else,you just got to, it's a muscle,
you got to stretch it, you got to try it, you got to keep
trying it. And if it makes you
uncomfortable, you're in a good spot.
It means you're doing the right thing.

(53:17):
It like goes back to what we talked about.
These drivers are so, so cool. They have the coolest stories,
they do the coolest stuff. They live some really cool
lifestyles and they're there's so much there that people would
probably feel inspired by if they heard it.
You know, I think sometimes people are afraid to tell their

(53:37):
story because they don't want tocome off brutish or, or
arrogant. But that's the name of the game,
man. Like you're, you're out there.
You need people to know who you are so that you can get more
attention. How do you do that?
Tell your story. That's awesome.
Yeah, that's a good way to put that.
Well you obviously have a littlebit of an interesting story.

(53:58):
Your girls into cars and stuff too.
How do y'all balance that? And like, how do you keep cars
running? That is a great question, man.
I'm blessed to have an incredible wife.
She's incredible human. She supports me very much.
She's supported everything. You know, since we started,
there has been sometimes where I've really screwed the pooch on
that one. And there have been sometimes
that, that she's learned, you know, some things the hard way.

(54:21):
But at the end of the day, we'reA-Team and we always figure it
out together. You know, I have this unyielding
passion to try and make Martini works the, the biggest in the
space because I truly believe it's better than everything
else. It's better than everything
else. And it you have to think that
way, otherwise it doesn't work. And so when it comes down to
keeping cars running or, or making a video or posting

(54:43):
something up, I just do it and we just do it with, we take it
as long as it takes. We try to figure it out.
We have an incredible group of friends that help us that are
way smarter than me, mechanics that are way smarter than me.
And I lean on them. You know, your friends will
always be like, if you need anything, just ask.
I ask. I really do.
Like I asked. And then I hope that I can give

(55:04):
back to them in some way. Like the whole team here, we
have probably 1820 people. Martini works brought them here.
So like, we took care of them for their food, for their
campsite, for their tickets, forall that sort of stuff.
So they can go, they can have lunch.
We have all that stuff taken care of because we want them to
know that we appreciate everything that they're giving
us. Because I do ask for a lot, you
know, and transparently, I don'tever want that to be seen as too

(55:25):
much. So we try to make it a like a
work hard, play hard kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Where's the truck at? That, my friend, is almost done.
Really. Actually, yes.
So we ran into. A.
That's an interesting story because my wife has terrible
taste in vehicles because every single one she blows up or gets
blown up or had her SC. Her 911 had head stud issues.

(55:46):
That was 15 grand before we soldit.
But no, dude, we wanted a 2020 Illuma duty, I wanted a 2020
Illuma duty, and my wife wanted a Panamera.
But I won the argument, right? And so I'm like, great, we'll
get a 2020 F-250. It'll have the panorama and have
the Bluetooth and have all the creature comforts you could
possibly want to be sick as hell.
It'd be expensive, but it'll last us a long time.

(56:09):
She's like, done, I'm in, let's find one.
I'm sending links. Life is good.
We're in bed. It's Sunday night.
I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. I'm watching Michael Bay,
Revenge of the fallen, right? And the opening scene is you
have iron high driving in low frame.
Michael Bay shot transforms intothis cool ass truck.

(56:32):
My wife and I, we may have been,you know, we inebriated a little
bit and and she looks at me and she goes, she literally gets up
out of bed and goes, I want that.
And I'm like. Honey.
No. And she's like, no, if we are
getting a truck, I want that truck.
And I'm like Becca, that's a terrible truck.

(56:53):
They're unreliable. Nobody likes these things.
They're terrible dogs to have. She's like, I don't care.
Either we're getting that or we're getting this.
So about a 2008 Chevy C40500 dually Monroe conversion with
the bed. Essentially the truck, just the
Chevy version in white. We drove it 1000 miles.
We're heading up over to Drift Mansion and 200 miles away from

(57:16):
it. It blew up on the 4th of July
and it's been a $20,000 fix on the $25,000 fix on the engine to
get it back to running. Oh my God, I was excited to see
it at the Drift Mansion event. Nobody, nobody buys one of those
to to use. It's cool to.
See like it's cool to look at and then you're like, that is

(57:37):
that is a that is a walking brand new like F-350, except
this one has shit seats and terrible Chevy buttons on the
inside and the AC doesn't reallywork.
But my wife is happy. So if that's worth.
Something you know it's worth something.
I got some content out of it too, so that helped.

(57:58):
Yeah, we have, we have some really good friends.
Beauty performances hooked us upwith like a turbo and some
injectors and stuff too. Just like, dude, I was out there
and and I don't know the diesel world and I don't ever want to
know the diesel world because like I paid for a couple things
in the diesel space. It makes the drift world look
like you're paying for like pennies and nickels.
It's not even like a close comparison.
Injectors being 4800 dollars $5000.

(58:22):
Two massive batteries. Yeah, the smallest.
CP3 pump blew out. When we put it back together,
that was another 2 grand. So like BT Performance has been
helping me out a ton. I swear to God, I give that man
like the most wholesome hug. Anything that dude wanted right
now because like 7 grand worth of parts, he's been helping us
out. But every time we get into it,
there's something else. There's always something else,

(58:44):
so, but yeah, my wife's happy, so I'm happy.
Awesome. That's all that matters.
Right, well, as far as the content goes, I know y'all make
content and stuff together. I have to ask this because
there's always the rumor of likewomen help content and views and
stuff. Yeah.
Does it help at all or have you noticed?
OK. It's yeah.
I mean, like, I'll be honest with you, 100% it does.

(59:07):
I don't mean that it doesn't change the fact that there are
tons of people that put in a tonof love into their work, men and
women, 100% right. The craft is still the craft.
But there is naturally like we've done the AB test.
Like remember, we run a media company too, like we run an
agency. So I know what will do better on
the front end and the back end than probably anyone else.

(59:28):
And so, yeah, I mean, like what I try to do is I try to not use
it as a crutch. And a lot of people will use
that as a crutch, right? So like I've done it before
where I've been like, I'm going to have a I'm going to make a
funny video and I'll go and I'llbe like, wife reviews my cars
and I know that that's going to do numbers.
Why? Because one, it's my wife, she's
a redhead. And I know sure as crap she's
going to say something and all the men are going to get angry

(59:50):
that how dare she have an opinion on my Honda S2000.
And So what does she do? She rates my S2000A2 out of 10
because she hates it and the theInternet blows up 10 million
views on the shore, right? So yes, I, I think you can, you
know, I know a lot of female content creators and, and
influencers though that are absolutely fantastic, like

(01:00:12):
Nutran, it's Life of Annie. Those are all great people, I
think. Natasha or Natalie Roush, she's
doing content on like BMW, like they're all doing their own
thing and I think they all do a great job.
I think the audience will know if the content is authentic for
the car scene or if it's authentic to the to the female.

(01:00:33):
But I think that the same could be go for guys, right?
Like there's not a it's not subjective to one or the other.
This is just more of a male dominated sport.
And I'm really happy to see thatmore females are getting into
this space in the drift space, in the motorsport space, in the
F1 space. I think that's awesome.
I think it's needed. I just had two women on the
podcast. Last event.
Huh. Just had two women on the

(01:00:53):
podcast. Yeah.
I mean, that's that's awesome. Like that level of
approachability I think is huge for any sport, any hobby.
Do I think there's more guys in it?
Yeah, of course there is. But it makes me happy.
Oh, oh, oh, sorry. It's fine, really.

(01:01:15):
Do you want your drink here bro?Yes, yes.
Sorry, no. No, no, you're good, dude.
She just mentioned it. I was like, I don't.
Know very good. No, I would say it does, you
know, like, and I don't mean that in a negative way at all.
But like, is there a dark side to it at all?
Yeah, I mean, there's always a dark side to it, right?

(01:01:37):
Like anytime you're showing guyshave this like thing with girls
in this space where it's like ifa girl does something or talks
about something or or shares something, they like have an
issue with it. Like it's not fair that this
girl is doing this thing that this guy might not want to do.
Like there's a girl I follow. She's incredible, incredible

(01:01:58):
creator driver. She's actually very, very.
Her name is Samantha Tan. And she.
Yeah. So she posted a carousel or
video, I think it was. And I think it was her placing
like third or second, right? And the opening shot is the
helmet on and she's looking at the camera and she's smiling,
right? And then the video goes into her
racing her BMW. Sick, sick video.

(01:02:19):
Top comment. Why do you wear makeup when
you're on the racetrack, Bro? Who cares?
Who The, Who cares? Nobody cares, right?
Like they, they do everything they can to like knock people
down. And, and I think girls have it a
little unfairly because they're more of a minority in this
space. And so it's easier to pick on

(01:02:41):
them. It's easier to pick on people
that don't have as much money, that may not be that they don't
fit the status quo. It's always easier to pick on
them. And I think that's bullshit.
You know, I think the goal is toenjoy it, right?
Like that's a perfect example. Yeah, that's Sonny BAE Hobson's
girlfriend. You know, but I bet if you were

(01:03:04):
to go out there, right, and you were to go look at some of her
posts, would you see people talking smack that the only
reason she's able to do that is because of Ben Hobson?
The answer is is yes, right. You're going to see people hate
on that because it's convenient,because how dare they have a
good life. How dare they have this cool
opportunity to to to be in a relationship with each other and

(01:03:24):
enjoy something together. And I get it all the time with
Becca when she shows up in my content, which is, you know, she
I've heard it everywhere from she's only there for the money
to you only like her because she's pretty to everything in
between. And it's like, man, just shut
up, you know? And so a lot of people have
gotten used to just saying, ah, you help the engagement, you

(01:03:45):
know, leave it alone. But I do think, you know, my
goal is, especially as we've gotten bigger, too, is like to
help the next generation also feel comfortable doing this
because drifting used to be a hard sport to get into.
It's getting easier to get into it.
It's getting easier to get into motorsport.
It's getting easier to jump ontoa SIM rig, and I think some

(01:04:06):
people don't like that. It's gotten easier.
I love that it's gotten easier, right?
The more people that love to drive and modify their car, the
better it is for me, right? And the better it is for our
hobby and the thing that we loveto do.
If people get all gatekeepy about this, this whole thing
goes away because because not enough people are going to be a
part of it. So yeah, support just needs to.
Grow always dude, go buy your dumb shit box and have a ton of

(01:04:28):
fun with it. Slide it into a wall.
She ever. Going to drive too, huh?
She ever going to drift too? Yeah, so I actually taught her
how to how to slide around on the SIM.
She doesn't feel quite comfortable yet doing it here,
but she will get out there one day.
Yeah, I don't know about all that.
It's a scary place to drive for your first time.
Yeah, yeah. But she'll she'll get out there.
She's done some track stuff withthe car.

(01:04:48):
I mean, she's got she's got a BMW M4 Competition.
It's a 6 speed manual Austin Yellow.
It's got Fortunato five 10s in it, a bunch of really good
parts, exhaust, intake. I mean, it's got all the good
stuff. So she she likes to RIP in it.
It definitely, it's seen some, it's seen some battle scars from
her driving it, but you know which car has it.

(01:05:08):
Right, it's a good car. It's a good car.
Well are you going to build any like designated drift car soon?
Yeah. So I'm going to give it a shot
because everybody and their mother tells me it's a a good,
good hard drift car to learn in.So I bought an S15 and I'm going
to learn how to drift that and we're going to see how that
goes. It's kind of stuck in Japan
right now because, you know, theworld is a really interesting

(01:05:31):
place and sometimes import costsare a grand and sometimes
they're four. And I would really like to not
pay the four. So we're going to wait until I
get some form of all clear. But if it stays over there into
the fall, we'll actually just take it over to Ebisu.
And I want to learn how to driveit over there.
And then in the winter time we'll bring it bring it over
into the States. But that will probably be the

(01:05:51):
next drift car I really want to get like in the future, I'd
really like to get AC6 Corvette and see what that's like because
then I can kind of put my own opinion on it all.
I drove Craig's that was sick. It's also like a $70,000 drift
car. It's not necessarily a fair
comparison, right? So I try to get my hands on the
thing to, to try it so that I can have my own opinion on it.

(01:06:12):
You know, Awesome. Well, that.
'D be cool to see. It's definitely going to be a
unique drift car. What about you?
I'm not, I'm just throwing together AG35 right now so I can
have a seat time car. There you go.
But RB will come back the RBZ. You have an RB.
Yeah, it's RB, swap RB25. Godspeed.
What do you think about people talking smack about RB over
Jay-Z for drift car engines? It's part of it.

(01:06:34):
I mean, I don't, I think the stigma of RB here in the US is
only earned its badge because ofthe lack of RBS.
OK. We don't have the knowledge or
the parts or the research on them here in the States
physically for people to be comfortable enough with them.
But I have interviewed countlessAustralians and like, they swear

(01:06:57):
by them. So they're obviously not a
fragile motor. And I beat the dog shit out of
it myself. And the dude before me, I saw
him. We need the shit out of it too.
So like. Is it is it is it Ryan literal
that has the RB and FDI love that he's like the offense for
like all RB shit talking on the Internet because he just gives

(01:07:19):
it right back the best that he possibly can.
I haven't heard anything like good or bad about it.
I just know that sometimes they can be finicky.
Like we have a, an R34 lightningyellow 5 speed super funnel tea
kit and the very first thing when we posted it, somebody was
like, oh, you're going to hate that engine.
Like, I don't know, we've drifted it.
We've tracked it on road America.
I've done everything. I've ever fucking worked on.

(01:07:41):
It's slow. Probably 10 minutes.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's fun, man.It's super fun.
I enjoy it. Is that Greg?
Yeah, he was just stopping by. What a gangster.
Good guy. Oh yeah but no argue like
especially after jumping to the G35 now and doing a manual swap
on it. Fuck the VQ dude.
Yeah, Oh my God. It does not fit in the in the Z

(01:08:02):
or the G. It's not meant for it.
The RV has so much room. It's so much simpler.
It's like one straight line, wayless bolt.
It's probably the Z. The VQ probably has three times
as many bolts on the motor. It's a very.
Convoluted system hiding it's. Fucking annoying.
Yeah, a rear main seal is a three day job like you see.

(01:08:27):
That's the thing though, right? It's like, that's so, you know,
when people get into this whole sport, like it's always so fun
until you have to deal with all of that.
Like I am convinced that if you were to ask anybody in this
space like, hey, do you enjoy wrenching or driving more?
And they're like all going to say driving.
And so like, I'm constantly justtrying to find whatever car
gives me the most driving time, the most seat time.

(01:08:48):
I don't care what it is, you know?
And sometimes I think that upsets people, but it's like,
dude, if the Corvette is the thecar of the hour, I'll go buy one
tomorrow. I will go drive the absolute
crap out of that car. I will tell everybody that I
will grab the shorts and the shoes and I will be a Corvette
fanatic if that is what gets me the most C time.
I'm not partial to really any brand.
We have Ferraris and Hondas and Nissans and Toyotas and Fords

(01:09:10):
and Chevy's. We have everything.
So for me, it's all just about what gets the job done the best.
And then I just go full send into that.
And so a lot of people say S15 with the SR20 Det high revving,
no power in the low band. So if you want a car that's
going to teach you how to drive like like a little old school,
but you still want a little bit of power, go get AKA and turbo
it or get an SR20 and have it, you know, the turbo from from

(01:09:34):
Japan and, and that'll teach youhow to drive that car.
And so it's, I kind of did it aslike an all right, bet I'll give
it a shot and, and see if I can do it because I like to learn
the hard stuff too, so that I can appreciate it versus just
talking poorly about the stuff that's hard that people really
enjoy. Right?
Like I don't want to shit on anybody for saying, oh, well,

(01:09:54):
stick with your KA forever. Unless I've driven the KA and
I've tried it and I've enjoyed it and I've said to myself, OK,
now that I've done it, my opinion has maybe a little bit
more of a root to kind of build upon versus just having an
opinion on it. Because otherwise, what's the
difference between me saying something and random Joe Schmo
saying the same thing? Exactly.

(01:10:14):
At least you got proof behind it.
Well, cool man, is there anyone that you want to shout out or
shout? I guess you kind of shouted your
stuff out already, but. Yeah, I mean, one, I appreciate
what you're doing. I think that this this podcast
is is awesome. I think there's a lot of people
that are buying microphones and starting podcasts that
shouldn't, but I really enjoy yours.

(01:10:35):
I think you you have a bunch of really great people on this
place and I love that it it's kind of become this hub of this
this space and the opinions of this space and kind of like
what's happening. So shout out to to your whole
team that's involved. I think that that's absolutely
incredible. And you know.
Me and the girl back there, yeah.
That's about it. Yeah, it's right.
It's always A tag team Like it's, it's good to have, you

(01:10:56):
know, your partner involved in this.
I think it's really, really important, but I would say.
Appreciate you. I, I really, I really appreciate
the opportunity and if anybody is listening, really enjoy you
guys listening in and I'm sure there'll be some, some opinions,
but if anybody needs car parts, magic car martini works.
And if you disagree with anything that I said, I'm sure
you let me know. And I love anybody anyway, so.

(01:11:19):
Absolutely. I love it, dude.
Well, you very wise words and I really want to say thank you for
taking the time. I know these are busy weekends
and stuff so really appreciate it and I guess I'll let you get
back to having fun brother. Hell yeah man.
Thanks for coming to Grid Life. Absolutely trust no bitch can't
catch no finish. I've been taking long flights
from the baby. I just want 444 then I leave.

(01:11:43):
I'm a young pop star called a boy.
Justin Bieber got a little money.
If you want a teacher whole lifea movie, you can watch it in
theater.

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Behind Part Company Scams & Truth about Leaving Fitment Industries | Circle of Drift #160

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Behind Part Company Scams & Truth about Leaving Fitment Industries | Circle of Drift #160