The premiere episode

April Fool's Day has been replaced by "The Skinny" Day! Our season premiere kicks off with two powerhouse guests: the founder and CEO of Lucas Oil Products, Forrest Lucas, and the President of Lucas Oil Products, Morgan Lucas join Rico Elmore and Ken Stout in the studio. Discover the humble beginnings of this industry giant as told by the founder himself, and learn insider stories about their incredible empire from his son, Morgan. You don't want to miss this fascinating episode!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Forest Lucas. I'm Morgan Lucas and this is
the skinny from the bath Heads I Wear Studios in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the skinny brought to you by Toyota. Rhino
classifies General Tire and Dream Giveaway. This segment of the
skinny is brought to you by Toyota. Happy April Fools Day.

(00:28):
Don't be confused if you're actually watching the show. Yes,
I know it looks like St. Patrick's Day, and that's
because this is a previously recorded show and it actually
is St. Patrick's Day. But we couldn't be prouder to
have our first show drop on April fools Day. And Rico,
I don't think there's a more appropriate day for our
show to drop than on April Fool's Day. Is this

(00:48):
supposed to be called April to Fools Day? Absolutely, so
we're pretty excited. It took us a little while to
get here, working on it for the better part of
a year in conjunction with I Heart Radio, and finally
got everything put together, and uh, we're certainly very proud
to have them promote this show and this is our
first official drop here on April fools Day. Welcome to
the skinny can stout Rico Elmore sitting alongside, and we'll

(01:10):
have two wonderful guests guests with us here today that
I've certainly influenced our lives all along the way. I
know personally that my my life would look much different
without their involvement along the way, and it is certainly
much better because of them. So I'm pretty sure I
can echo the same thoughts for you very much, very much.
So without a further ado, we do want to welcome

(01:33):
both of them here. One is the founder and CEO
of Lucas Oil Products and the other is the current
president of Lucas Oil Products. Mr. Forest Lucas and his
son Morgan Lucas. Welcome guys, and thanks for taking the time. Well,
thanks for asking to come down here. It's it's pretty cool.
Let's see you guys. You don't see in your next
I told Rico earlier, I said, we're sitting in the

(01:54):
office before you guys got here. I said, I'm actually
a little nervous. Now. Keep in mind, we've had Scott
Dixon on here and tell you Stewart, and we've had
some pretty big guys. I'm like, I'm actually a little
nervous here today, he said, why is it? I don't know,
I just am so. I was in Florida, I think
at the night at the Gator Nationals and Ken and
I were talking and he says, I'm going to reach
out to Morgan and Forest and see if they'll do

(02:16):
the first show with us, and I said, all right, man,
let's go. So when he called me back, it said
I got it, which thank god you finally did something,
by the way, but anyhow, you know, once we finally
got it, you know, it was it was it was,
it was great and and it is a very personal
thing for us, I know for me and uh, being

(02:37):
around your family and with your family as long as
we have it's uh, it's uh. It's awesome to get
back together. And yes, we don't see all of each
other nearly enough anymore so and corrupt each other, now
that's me. We have had some some wonderful times and uh,
just off the top of the show, I just want
to say a heartfelt thank you to both of you

(03:00):
or what your company has done, not just for myself
and my family, but for literally thousands and thousands of people,
not to mention the industry which we'll get into and
we'll talk about here a little bit. But um, what
you guys have managed to do, and and I think
for the fans that are out there listening, they should
understand that this company is still, relatively speaking, extremely young

(03:22):
at just over thirty years old. So what you've been
able to accomplish in such a short amount of time
is absolutely astounding. I've had a lot of people tell
me that back when we were five years old, ten
years old, twenty years old. Now we're thirty years old,
and I still look back now and say, we did
accomplish a lot of stuff along the way. And when

(03:44):
we started, we had we had no room for mistakes.
We had to do everything right and it all worked.
Were worked might at work. Yeah. I obviously I've grown
up around the business since I was a very little kid,
probably a bigger um pinning the butt from m and
Dad than anything at that point, you know, having to
maintain management of me as well as the company. But uh,

(04:05):
you know, you get to grow up to see a
lot of changes. But then, uh, you know, after I
stopped racing got involved in this um, you know, what
became apparent to me was all the new avenues new
markets were going into with the company, and all the
groundwork that my father and my mother laid over the
years for all of us in the company. But what

(04:26):
I really noticed the most is that we have a brand. Uh.
And that's really a big deal for us. Is we
have a brand now that's recognizable to the majority of Americans. UM.
You know, we're related to the quality that we try
to put forward to our customers or for customers. And UM,
I think seeing that, I think is as big of
an accomplishment is almost anything. And this short amount of time,

(04:50):
as you said, can um, I just really uh, it
kind of just goes to speak of of, like I said,
just the legacy and the groundwork that was laid out
for the thingy in the still continued engagement from data
on a daily basis. And I look at, boy, what
what a difference a year can make, right, I mean
a year ago about this time it was when everything

(05:12):
was shutting down for the pandemic. Of course, in the
midst of that enormously crazy year, you become the president
of this company and uh, and you have to deal
not only with that huge obligation stepping into that position,
but all of the incredible changes that had to take

(05:33):
place quite literally on the fly. What has this last
year been like for you? Well, to be honest, it's
been really interesting because when everything shut down last year,
I mean all of our customers, everybody kind of went
into panic mode. Um. Everybody was looking for you know,
the federal loans. Everybody was trying to fare was going
to be the next six months of their life. Um.

(05:56):
But again or a debt free company. So the fact
is that we have, UM, we've done a good job
being responsible planning for maybe not situations like COVID, but
you know, for opportunities, and it gives you that scenario
to be able to uh pivot and move forward. We
we got into the hand sanitizer game for a short
run of time, just trying to obviously help our customers

(06:20):
fulfill what they need at their request. UM. But what's
really interesting is is all the things that changed in
that amount of time, as far as what people are
doing at home, the shopping that they're doing, the the
way the car markets have changed. UM. We actually saw
growth and in the end, we went from basically being

(06:42):
down twelve percent at one point throughout the year after April. UM.
And I don't want to say what we ended up at,
but it was definitely up very um, very much on
the plus side. Um you know, probably by I think
June or July we recovered that twelve percent and then
some after that. And it was a testament to our
sales team, um our general manager down in our our

(07:05):
according facility who oversees both our chrona operations in there,
and what they did is they stayed on top of
We found ways to to split up our production shifts
to avoid any kind of major setbacks if somebody to
come in with COVID. Especially in the beginning, you didn't
know how contagious it was or wasn't, and we had
to to look at things from very much a overly

(07:26):
cautious standpoint. But we found a way to do it.
We found a way to make it work like so
many other businesses and people had to do in the world.
And um uh again, we have a family business that
has grown into basically a small to midsized enterprise. Really
if you think about the volume of people that we
have and uh, based on the model that we have,

(07:46):
we were capable of putting out a lot of product
and fulfilling a lot of orders for customers. Now. I
think something that is common ground for Rico and fat
Heads Eyewear and you guys is that the management is
uh is relatively tightened it at the top. So it
allows you guys to be very nimble. You can make
some quick changes, you can make some quick decisions and

(08:08):
and really navigate the ship pretty quickly. Oh that's it.
I mean, that's the way my dad and I don't
want to talk for you here. That will let chances
as well. But that's something I grew up watching him do.
He wanted to be able to react to the opportunities
as they came. Uh, you know, didn't want to have
to go talk to a bank about it if he
needed to do something. Um and UM. I think that
that's actually fundamentally been one of the reasons Lucas Oil

(08:31):
has grown the way it has is because the marketing
opportunities or the equipment uh, whether it's you know, truck's trailers, uh,
anything to do with the blending and bottling portion of
of equipment, buildings, whatever it is, he's been able to
jump on it. And uh, I think that is again
positioned us for you know a lot of growth. What

(08:52):
what this uh pandemic did for us really whether put
a lot of people out of jobs and a lot
of people shout your garages shops, and it became I
do it yourself and said we'll do it for me situation.
So with those people go in the auto park store
or something looking at trumping and looking at how do

(09:13):
I fix this? People were telling take this, look at
so well, to fix it. So consequently it did so
more and more people. Now it's got the word out
because every day, I know, we say the world billions
of dollars in repairs taking this automatic transmissions. We put
a bottle of our stuff in there and fix it
almost every time. So that basically what amounted too was

(09:38):
a big raising and uh and sales which we were
able to uh handled based by putting on a second shift. Yeah.
I remember, you know, many conversation you and you and
I have had of most of them were you giggling
or chuckling at me because it is usually something I

(10:01):
was upset about or complaining about that you had already
lived fifteen or twenty years prior to me talking about it. Uh,
But you know you're talking about the you know, your
business that you had, like in Mexico for instance, and
in in Europe about how you know, more people were
interested in in actually uh saving their cars. You know,

(10:24):
they didn't just go out and buy a new car.
They would use a fix it product that you guys
had or something that would give longevity to you know,
the vehicle or keep it going longer. And I could
see in the pandemic, you know where you know, you
had the factories closed down, so they weren't building cars
per se. They were building uh, you know, the the

(10:45):
breathing apparatus or whatever it was that everybody needed the
ventilators and uh, you know, and some of their stuff.
But at the end of the day, folks still had
to get around, they still had to have cars. So
maybe a lot more people, as you said, we're fixing
a lot of stuff and using fixed products. But it's
like I told you before we went on air. I

(11:06):
can't remember where it was, but somewhere I was at
I walked by and saw an end cap with Lucas
oil products on it and and just just kind of
chuckled and thought, I remember, you know those and it
was you know, it was one of the sales guys
probably talking about how they were having a time getting
at going or something. So but i'm i'm, i'm, i'm,

(11:27):
I'm proud to be your friends and and uh and
I just i'm I'm happy for you guys. And we
went through a lot of the same, you know, with
the pandemic we uh I I you know, as I
was telling you guys, you know, Caitlin was just going
into the hospital for treatment for leukemia and and the
state shuts down. The world is shutting down for the

(11:50):
most part. Well, there's no optical shops that are open,
so nobody's gonna be going in and getting their eyes checked,
buying frames. Uh, sunglasses are a lost cause at that
only because you know, as as uh as as it
felt at the time, the world was coming to a
to an end, if you will. And uh, you know,
one one thing was for certain. You know, I have

(12:12):
a good core group of folks that have been here
with me for a long time. And uh, I made
some calls and I said, I can't, I can't let
this company go somewhere and these people be without a job,
including me, So I needed needed to figure out how
we were going to do that. And and we pivoted
as well. And yeah, you guys hand sanitizer thing. I

(12:33):
thought that was I thought that was really cool and
helped a lot of people too at the same time.
So well, and you know, we were talking before the show,
but it's really amazing how both of our companies have
actually grown over the years. And UM, kind of to
see where we're all at as adults, really right, yourself
included that because we we've all had enough good time

(12:56):
together to be able to make that joke. Um, you know,
Reco and I have enough stories about each other to
get each other in serious trouble on this show, so
I can bring Um. It is really cool to see
where it's going. The facility is fantastic, um. And to
to to some of the things you're doing with the
mobile unit, to go inside to do some of these things.

(13:18):
I just it's really awesome to me to see, uh,
you know, American business is growing. Um, and uh, I
don't know. I'm just excited about the future for that
side of it. Hopefully we can just you know, shut
down the electric car movement and then we'll be all right.
I watched I watched a pretty good innovator with a
lot of my ideas. So yeah, he's sitting over there

(13:41):
next to you. The wheels are already spinning in that.
That's for sure. Hey, I printed something out here and
and I want to read it all for our fans
that might not be as familiar with Lucas Oil Products
as we all are. I know Forrest will immediately shoot
this thing full of holes because it's probably not up
to date. And he's he's pretty sharp with the stuff.
So but I'm gonna say it anyways and just it.

(14:01):
It'll certainly get the just of it out. But Lucas
Oil Products Incorporated, as an American manufacturing distributor of automotive oil,
additives and lubricants U founded as that we talked about
before by your father Force, produces and markets approximately two
hundred seventy formulations and forty countries and the US. Lucas
Oil is sold in more than thirty thousand auto parts stores,

(14:23):
displaying the most variety of shelf products of any oil company,
and at truck stops nationwide. Uh. It's that's that's a
big that's and that's a big deal right there. And
the reason I want to touch on that is because
I remember the story when a fifty five gallon drum
of oil was spilt in the very beginning and they

(14:44):
were scooping it up with shovels to put it back
in the in the barrel because they needed every drop.
And we filtered it. So don't worry. But uh, I don't,
I don't, I don't remember that last part. We might
we I have filler did is because there was uh
we had to do something with it. But you know

(15:05):
you can filter it absolutely right. You can take the
oil out of your motor and completely filter it. You'll
probably have about six while back and the other fourth
be going to jump, but that is the six's still
good oil. If it hadn't been really burnt, real bad,
so we could have we could have taken it oil
and filtered out the dirt out of it and uh

(15:28):
put it in and somewhere burned and fuel tanks somehow
another truck take it back in the truck shop. We
have around fleet of trucks by the way, so there's
good test units as well as the fact advertisers and uh,
you know, we're doing things that other people can do.

(15:48):
You know, most our adage truck probably got over two
million miles on which most people I would never think
you could do that. But we've got somewhere three million
miles and still going. Are you still the fleet buyer? Uh? Yeah,
I'm okay, or at least I'm okay. I said they
should do that. Yeah for sure, Yes, yes I am, Yes,

(16:08):
I am. I knew the answer to that. I just
loved to ask. Well, the reason I bring up the
you know, the size of their footprint is because there
was a time when you were selling it out of
the trunk. I mean it literally started from nothing, absolutely
absolutely exactly right. And this was and and we should
also note for people that are in their mid to

(16:30):
late forties, I think maybe fifties, think, uh, you know,
my my, my life is done, you know in terms
of me creating and and having my own company. But
you didn't start it until your mid forties. No, uh,
we started. We actually started this before we took the market,
you know, for our own use, our own fleet tracks.
We had a truck at that time or so. That's

(16:52):
how it started, this saying was we had something that
I man, there's gotta be a better way to get
through these deserts and staff where we were in the
end out of California all the time, because it's mountains
and stuff. Out there. Overheating was always the problem. So
I started looking around other addities and trying this and that,
and so, well, we need to make it better and
better and better. And I blundered onto something that still

(17:16):
nobody else uses, and uh it fixed everything. You know.
I put it in the Uh I first saw it,
just saw it, and so this has got the exact
what I've been looking for. And uh I took it
home and made some formulas for the engine, for gearboxes,

(17:36):
for the fuel, and everything worked. I went from four
and a half after five miles ag Island, all the
missions went away. Back then, all the trucks smoked, took
old of smoke away, and uh, you know at that time,
going down to four and half after five miles ago,
and that's a lot of fuel. Still, there's a lot
of fuel. But and uh we'll put in the engines

(17:57):
and stop smoking or burning. All the trucks earned all
back then. But I was able to stop to oil
burning and then cool down transmissions and uh race the
oil pressure. And uh after a while I knew it
was working. I said, well, all the truck stops, I know,

(18:20):
all the trucks, most of there indefendants back then so,
and I know the truck drivers wed CDs back then.
They were they were every big thing everybody was talking about.
So I got some of the truck stopt to put
it in. And then the drivers, when say tried it
the new they knew I was a truck driver, So

(18:41):
I did it. It probably worked, I did. And then
they'd go down the road talking about how somebody stopped
to a race oil pressure stop to all burning and
put the field treatment. They didn't get another half mouth
of gall and as as I just talked about, and
we got that going to the truck stop. Then we
I had We had started out with just a fuel

(19:02):
treatment EPIST live we call it, and the oil stabilizer.
And then uh, our hearted guy and his wife, our
son in New Orleans, and uh, they knew about the
auto parts industry, auto parts source. Uh, we added the
transmission fixed. There's a there's a big problem. We're going

(19:25):
from three speeds to four speeds, and it was really
expensive to fixture the four speeds. Although they weren't at
that time. We're not a lot of trouble. We're still
the fixing the three speeds is a big deal. We
can do it for ten bucks or fifteen bucks and
UH at the time Geral Motors. Every card came out
in the early eighties had a bad rack compinion. They

(19:46):
all had a problem. So we were able to put
it in a bottle of trans power string stop Leak,
which we hadn't made yet, but we made power string
stop League and the transfix for to get so we
had four products. We got four products fiction all your
basic problems and to go to the auto part stores,
we made gear Demonstrator. It will spend things where your

(20:06):
best sales tool, sales tool ever well still make those,
still sell them the st But yeah, we had we
did it all right there and it all worked. That's
the best part. It worked. When you tried to do
go and stuff and it worked. You're gonna go tell
somebody that the recall from GM with the rack they
specified your product, they actually did. I saw it. I

(20:27):
saw it written and they said if the guy comes
in with it with a problem, and if it's under warranty,
you know, go out and buy a buy that put
it in there. If it's not a warranty, didn't change it.
I want to go a half step back, even a

(20:47):
little further, because I'm certainly familiar with that part of
the story that you've told. But I think what some
of the people at home would probably say is, oh,
he found a chemical company to work with that helped
him to develop all that stuff. But that is not
the case. You were the You're a self read chemist
and you were literally developing this stuff yourself, right. Yeah,

(21:11):
And the trucks going across the country. I remember you
talking about it and Charlotte talking about the calls at
midnight of you know, truck's blown up or this has
gone bad or it's overheated or whatever. And and the
wheels again started turning, and and you got you jumped
into action and started to create. It's kind of like
you know, when you have a fat head and you

(21:33):
need glasses you can't find the ones that fit. Yes,
I kind of and and Morgan was dead on. I
mean while all this is going on, because the company
started seventy nine. So uh so Morgan is uh pride
prior to Lucas Oil Products actually being an official company,
he is born. So in the midst of all this development,
you were born and approximately six years old or so

(21:56):
whenever it becomes official. So yeah, you're right in the
middle of all this stuff going on. We we have
Morgan growing up running around I'm sure being a typical terror. Yeah.
And I remember Charlotte telling the story where she would
be doing the books and Morgan would be asleep, you know,
on the on the floor or whatever, you know, while

(22:17):
she's sitting there doing the books. And I mean, I
just it's uh, I mean, And and I text Morgan
as well when when the announcement was made. But I
was so happy for you and and it was just
just knowing where all of it came from, you know,
And it's not it's not some some overprivileged kid getting
a position. It's somebody that's been there and and and

(22:39):
and worked through a lot of the lot of the
craziness that's happened over all the years. And how to
play in the toy aisle when your dad was trying
to sell oil in the back room, and and that's
how that went. The truck stop said, even I remember that.
I remember seeing multiple lunch meetings in the iron Skillets
or whatever they were called, that the Petrics they have

(23:01):
the best food. Driving across the country in a in
a Burgundy red Butle Cariviera, and we had a lot
of fun, made a lot of memories, but it definitely
has come full circle. We're gonna take a quick break here,
pause for the cause, bring you a few of our
sponsors along the way, and we'll be right back on
the other side. This segment of The Skinny is brought

(23:22):
to you by Rhino Classifies. Tired of all those ads
and random stuff that shows up when you're looking to
buy or sell your car parts, Rhino Classifies was created
just for you. Welcome to a streamlined buying and selling
that created by racers for racers and race vans, modified cars,
classic cars, race cars, that special pig block you need

(23:45):
the trailer to move your baby around the country in
we got you at Rhino dot Co. And once again,
welcome back to the Skinny. Morgan Lucas Forest Lucas that
both joined us here on set. Of course, Rico elm
our Kins stout, thanks for listening. Then. This is our
first official show in conjunction with I Heart Radio. Certainly
very proud to be part of this dropping on April's

(24:08):
Fools on April Fools Day, and perfectly appropriate for the
two chubby guys on the show called the Skinny. He's
talking about Carl, which, by the way, Morgan decided to
make fun of right away. It didn't hurt me at all,
by the way, him and Ron caps Yeah, why do
you guys call that the skinny? Great great company there.

(24:29):
Wonderful stuff, all right. Great to have both of them
with us. Of course, they've been massively involved in in
our family, our personal families lives all along the way,
and couldn't be happier to have them on our first show.
We were just talking about the development of the company
and how things got going to the story is fabulous,
and we we could sit here all day long and

(24:50):
really talk about that alone alone, but we want to
touch on a couple of different things as as we
progress along the way. So but I got one, I
got one more question. Absolutely the van. Did the van
get stolen and you found it in a field? Yeah? Yes,
that was a U haul then yes, I was trying
to heard this. I was trying to remember the van
story that you used to deliver product and oh no,

(25:13):
this is uh yeah, actually one of my favorite stories
of dad. Am I allowed to tell this one. So
there was the Fells Far office. There was a I
mean we were talking maybe a fifteen th square foot
warehouse that we're in at this point. I mean I
was really young. But there was a U haul that
we had to store sometimes and sometimes make deliveration. There's

(25:35):
a box basically used as a box truck and old
U haul that we brought. I say we, but you
hal at the time it was actually it was it
was like one of those rolling over hauls, you know
what I mean. It was long, it was now it
was a WE haul and uh some uh some some
local riff raff broke in stole some things from the

(25:57):
office and they found this truck and took it. And
when all joy ride, well, police came and they did
their normal thing, and you know, wrote the reports and
all that, and told that I will well, uh, well,
let's know if we find anything on the U haul
and we'll get in touch with you. Alright, alright, right,
So that day we were in the car heading to
lunch right down the street and there's this big field

(26:18):
which is now covered in house has been developed a
number of years ago now, so it's funny to think
back that it was just a big dusty field. But
you know, I'm a little kids in the back seat
of the car and I look over this field. Out
in the middle of this field is this new haul
truck high centered on some dirt and mounds and stuff
like that. I understanding, and so I remember what happened between.

(26:41):
But we get back to the office and and Dad's pissed.
No offense, but you were pissed back at this point
because the cops weren't doing anything and you were pist
so you're giving this guy the right act. I remember,
I'm still sitting in the minivan at this point, and
that this tissue his hand. He goes to throw this
thing down on the ground and this tissue catches their
and just goes fooo like a like a like. I

(27:03):
remember that, And who was the most anti climactic big
man move I've ever seen? And I was I was
a little kid. But uh, it's funny though, because now
I do things like that, and I realized it comes
I come by naturally. So I remember I was on
Indian reservation. No, that was a different trucks. But yeah,
we've we've had some stuff stolen over the years, so

(27:24):
including a helicopter. If I'm not mistaken. The helicopter, well
one was the one was wrecked, not stole one, right,
and then uh, I thought one had been stolen, like
the whole trailer that that that might have been at
the Trail of eight. We actually one of the reservation
was interesting because I had I had to fly to
Phoenix because they didn't find until the dafter I got
home from a race and I had to start the

(27:46):
thing with a screwdriver just to get home with the
ignition of it. That's good. Is this yours? Yeah? Why
have you got a screwdriver? It's mine? Really, it's interesting story. Yeah,
we were. We were Forest of course, as many funny,
funny stories and U and he was telling, you know,
you guys had just got the place in Corona and

(28:07):
he was out planting flowers and you know, sprucing a
place up on a Sunday and Charlotte comes over with
Morgan after church and force out there all grubby, you know,
been working, uh putting you know, shrubs in everything. And
and there's a homeless shelter down the road from the
facility and the guy comes. The guy walks up to

(28:31):
Forest and looks at the building and he says, boy
wanted to be And I may say this wrong, so
you correct me. He says, boy wanted to be something
to have enough mind on that. He said, way more
than me or you, Bud, and turned around walked off.
He thought Forest was homeless. Forest was getting ready to
peel a pill of dollar out of his pocket dressing better.

(28:55):
That's the beautea of this is a lot of people
to understand is how absolutely hands on both my parents
have been throughout this whole process. I mean yeah, when
they came to that building getting done, I mean Dad
was there every day, Uh, you know, hands on as
far as this our first big purchase and uh you
know it's a major retrofit to to turn what this

(29:15):
was into you know, bottling facility for blending about it,
like facility for for oil products was a fruit fruit yeah,
or orange packing that's for the fans, for the fans
at home, the home office or in Coronic headquarters in Corona, California.
And now you do have another one in southern Indiana

(29:35):
and Cordon, but you're talking about and we still have that,
We still have that facility. But at the time he thought,
there's no way we're ever going to outgrow this, and
within two years he's already broken ground on the other
facility in court in Indiana, which then he had to
go be their hands on with that for a long
period of time. I mean this stretches, um routinely throughout
everything that Dad's involved in. You know, he invests himself

(29:59):
into it. And when I say that, like the stadium,
oh yeah, you know for all the Indianapolis people watching
and listen, and that's a that's a big that's a
big deal because we lost him for a better part
of Yeah, and just laying it out making exactly how
he felt like it needed to be to to to
send the right message and uh, you know, catch down

(30:21):
balls the right way and do everything you needed to
have happened. And but that goes back to the beginning. Mom,
Dad both work, reinvested everything into a company, and I
think that is probably some of the best information for
young entrepreneurs in the world. Reinvest They fed me nine
cent cheeseburgers on you know, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from McDonald's.
That that's what they had to do. But as a family,
you know, they made sacrifices so I could have accommodations

(30:44):
in life. Um, but they went without quite a bit.
But you look at where we're at now and um,
it's a pretty interesting tale, but you really, you know,
you get out of it what you put into it.
And I think is the right way to to look
at that. And and your dad, Uh, I've been more
than one place with him that of course, nobody recognizes

(31:06):
who he is because he is low profile. I mean,
he's not putting it out there. We were at Brainerd
headed to the zoo, shockingly, and I think we were
coming to find you, Morgan. We were being responsible, had
to be that way. But yeah, surely don't make me
tell the drive through story. Yes, yeah, okay, but yeah,

(31:30):
but now we were going out there and the kid
the kids says, kid the security kids says, uh, you
guys can't go back there. He doesn't have a hard card.
I said, uh, we're going back there. He does, No,
you can't. You don't he doesn't have a hard card.
I said, you see the name on this race, I said,
this is Lucas, So we are going back there. Okay.

(31:50):
So it was you know, I mean, he didn't say anything.
I was like, come on, man, you know, but there
was a lot to be said about that. And when
I you know, when I started, you know, when I
started fat heads, I knew everything and and did everything
the wrong way, and it was it was instill as

(32:12):
to this day, there's a lot of things that I
remember that he's that, you know that he said to me,
and and uh, you know, to this to this day,
i'm I'm I'm blessed to have somebody like him that
actually gave enough of it to yell at me about
things when they were completely wrong. Which he didn't do
it enough, but he did plenty. He did. He did

(32:33):
get to it. So but you know, the the lettering
on the trucks, it was hilarious. You know. We would
wrap your guys as trucks, which you guys kept my
family alife, bottom line, and we'd wrap these trucks. He said,
I need my old eyes to be able to read
that when it's going down the road. And I thought, okay, whatever,
change that, and so we changed it. Well, now I'm

(32:55):
looking at stuff that designers do. I'm going I need
to be able to read need that when Carl, did
I ever say that to you? Okay, I just want
it's a lot of I can clarify that. Yeah, I
get that because early in my racing career, I always
wanted to have these fun wazoo, you know, paint jobs,
and they got shot down repeatedly. Uh and now on

(33:18):
the same page as you un totally get it, and
don't worry about I'm not yelling at you enough. You're
an adopted son. If you're a real son, it changes
the game, I kid, surely, But no, you know, we
appreciate all the wrap of you guys. Did you know, Um,
that's actually probably one of the best things that are

(33:39):
marketing things that in our litany of marketing things that
we do, you know, outside of motorsports, but all the
trucks and all of our trailers in our own fleet,
they're all wrapped. Um, they're all unique. They all have
a difful different product or a different theme of some sort.
Some of them actually advertise to protect the harvest my
you know, our families are come and these interest and

(34:02):
agricultural rights. And then there's the movie things that that
that was in. I mean, you've got trailers that are
promoting our brands because you think about it, they're huge,
they're on the move, and when they're they're working delivering products,
they're working selling products. So it's it's a win win
situation across the board. But they have to be legible. Uh,
if you don't make them legible, and there's no point

(34:23):
and he would he could tell me exactly, this is
this side and it needs to read like this, and
that other side can be like this. And if it's
on the left side, it has to be a quick
read because they're passing it. It's on the right side,
you're either passing them and they can see it a lot.
You know, I just stopped putting my name on my
truck because it generally became a problem. So my personal truck.

(34:47):
We we actually had to stop putting our logos on
our our sales teams, trucks and equipment just for that
same reason. They were hurrying to get to the next cell.
I'm sure that the truck drivers are good. They have
to be bon spaill, I can't. I can't speak to
the salesman. I'm sorry, right right. You know, it's very
very important that I look back on it and realize

(35:09):
that at a talent there that most people don't have.
That's for labeling. Because I went to actually went to
a grocery store and went by ill looking at stuff, okay,
which was one of these that buyers three products here
I've heard of this one. I've not heard of this one,
but this one is the cheapest which one might buy.

(35:32):
And I can test myself like that where the pricing
and labeling. But what I did the labels, I put
everything you need to know is on that label. It's
all in no more than fifth grade English. You can
know no big words. Anybody can read it. And it's
all in the tides types. So if you wear reading glasses,

(35:52):
you don't have to have your reading glasses. You can
read those things. And as he huge, because they ever
be label is that that so you don't have to
ask somebody what it does. If you read the bottle,
everything you need to know is there and you can
believe it. I make sure everything I say is true

(36:14):
and and a lot of it. It comes back to
that seeing see a need, fill a need kind of
mentality in our customers have requests. There's problems that need
to be solved, and we got and tackle that. But
there's not a label that we have in the set
list that that dad hasn't uh went over with a
fine tooth comb and studied on and and had had

(36:35):
his touch on. So it's um again, it's part of
you know what's really been tried and true in the company.
That's that's what's made it happen. My question is, did
Kyle ever make the back door on any of the trucks?
Cry Kyle, No, no, he yeah, I don't think he
has has he We were, we were, we were, we

(36:56):
were going somewhere. Kyle's like, Kyle asked him, what am
I going to bake it on there? We're gonna have
to work on That's is my nephew and a little bit.
I'll tell you what. There's a difference in Kyle and
knows that I I was borderline embarrassed to have my
face on the back to dover the trailer, not because
of being not because of being a represent of the company,

(37:16):
but I just don't like looking at myself. And uh. Kyle,
on the other hand, wanted himself to be on there.
So he has a lot more confidence when it comes
to the self image and I do. Apparently, you guys
are also involved in a number of other companies. I
don't know how many are actually under under the umbrella
at this point any longer, but certainly some of the
bigger ones Lucas Cattle Company. I know something very dear

(37:39):
to your heart. You talked about Protect the Harvest. You
also talked about how your parents pour themselves into whatever
the project maybe that they're involved with. Certainly, Protect the
Harvest has to be one of the biggest efforts in
your career along the way it is. It's one of
the most important things in their in their country right now.
It's very, very, very important. It didn't their name, Protect

(38:02):
the Harvest sounded like were might be a cropper insurance
company or not. It's organized against the animal rights guys,
which h s US is the main one humane society
United States. Well, they anti really come right down to it.
If you had their way, they had their way, they
would not have an animal. So we're trying to take

(38:25):
care of animals and take care of the property and
keep those guys away. Unfortunately, right now politics on her side.
But there's a lot of people, more people all the time,
uh far on side of Protective Harvest, you know, realizing
what we are doing. Somebody is trying to help, and

(38:45):
we got a lot of other people. Now I want
to come on board and help, which we need. But
just I'll say to everybody, just looking up on the
h s U S all right, yeah, on the internet. Yeah,
and it's uh, it's hard to fathom that these groups
are out here, especially when you hear the sad song
music and commercials and all the stuff and we're talking

(39:06):
about that. Yeah, but it's the problem is it's all
you really used for you know, uh, mega money. It's
a it's a profit center for them. But you know,
they want us to be vegan, and I feel like
that's fine if that's your choice, but if you want
to eat a nice hamburger, then you should be able
to do that. But on top of that, the pets.

(39:26):
But I think one of the things that is probably
the most broad stroke of the pen for people to
find UM hopefully you know, make them curious about the
situation is think about your zoos. Think about the circus
of the world, the places where you know, schools, going
field trips, kids, stuff that we've done our whole lives,
places that we take our kids to. UM. They're all

(39:49):
at risk in these situations, and it's hard to believe
for people that a lot of times there's legislation written
that these groups are are pushing through that UM have
a lot of come us called fine print or you know,
they're just tagged onto a lot of others. It's it's
kind of like pork, you know, you just don't know
what's really going to be in there. And it's it

(40:10):
caused a lot of detriment to people, our hardships and
UM that grew up around cattle, uh, you know show
cattle farming, you know the agriculture aspects of it. Um
grew up on a farm as well, so he knows
the ins and outs of it as good as anybody. UM.
And I think when you look at it from somebody

(40:30):
that it's totally outside of that that industry at this point.
You know, when you got involved in this, I mean
the cattle operations around but this that wasn't the deciding factor.
He wanted to go out and help uh, others that
were timate or afraid to help themselves. In Missouri, right,
I mean that's when they wrote their constitution in Missouri.

(40:50):
They use the word pets and the pet the ways
written into the constitution is anything that can live within
fift of your house, which is everything. So they tried
to get a bill passed out there in a way
it sounded on the front, you know that a little
common thing, you know, a certain amount of space for
your pets. You know. Okay, wait there, that's all right,

(41:13):
that's about where the dog would live in. I thought
you need cat. So they had. They'd spent millions and
millions of dollars out there before I even got involved,
and I found out about it, and I realized about
the pet thing. Yeah, so I um, I got involved.
I got some other good people. In matter of fact,

(41:34):
your current government at there with your side. Uh. But
when you read down below, off that instant little top,
they started using the word pets, and the first thing
you know, they're talking about pets, pets, pet, pet pets,
words which to give them control over every animal in
the stage of Missouri. F had passed now where they

(41:56):
would enact it right then, probably not, But they've also
passed a lot of bills like that all over the
country they have not yet been enacted right through there.
I got that, And then where they get donner one state,
it's easy to go over to another state. It's happen
in Vermont. I got involved over there. I couldn't undo it,
but not to mention the authority that that they give

(42:16):
themselves within a lot of the legislation that they can
act as a policing department in the scenario to an extent.
And you know, really, when you get down to it, um,
if you want to fund lobbyists and and make yourself
feel better for trying to donate five dollars to spc
A or whoever it is, that's your prerogative. But if
you really want to truly help animals and go to

(42:37):
protect the harvest dot com, learn and understand and find
out how it really works. We're gonna take a quick
break there. We come back on the other side. We're
gonna talk about a battle that Forrest and his company
went through and came out on the other end on
top of the pile, and boy, it was a vicious one.
We'll be right back this segment of the Skinny. It's

(42:59):
brought to you by Dream Giveaway, and once again, welcome
back to the Skinny. By the way, a quick nod
to our great friends at Dream Giveaway. If you're not
familiar with it, go to dream Giveaway dot com. Rico
and I have both had the pleasure of talking with
Laurie Spaulding and Ryan Mturski and they have some incredible
cars that they give away. The beauty of it is.

(43:22):
It's a twenty five dollar donation. Part of that goes
to charity. And the cars that they give away are phenomenal.
By the way, you just missed a hell Cat they
gave away literally one day ago March. But don't worry.
There's a couple of more big cats that that they
will have to give away, including a sixty six Big
Block and Pola I mean all numbers matching. It's a

(43:42):
beautiful car, sixty Classic Roadster, a big Diesel Thnali, some
of the coolest cars you would ever want to find.
Bucks to get into the game and you could win it.
And by the way, if you win the cars, it's
the only company that I know that does this. They
also give you enough cash to pay for the taxes
for those cars, so when you win it, you quite

(44:04):
frankly win it for free or investment, I should say,
and you walk away with a couple of pretty wicked cars.
Yeah yeah, so pretty awesome stuff. And speaking of race
car stuff, if you have some stuff that you need
to sell, or if you're looking for some stuff, the
creators of Racing Junk have branched out and started another

(44:27):
classified it's called Rhino Classifieds. You can find that at
Rhino dot Co. That's Rhino dot c O. And again
Ryan Baturski behind that effort, super switched on. Uh, they
make things really really easy to find. You were in
the racing industry for so long and still the company
of course heavily involved in the racing industry. But you
know what it's like to have those used car parts

(44:49):
that you would like to sell and get rid of
so you can buy the new stuff. Yeah. I mean
we shut our team down four or five years ago
and I'm still sitting on a short block and a
bunch of other stuff. So if anybody's like, got a
big hole in it, Rhino, don't I that's a psych
class by the way. Yeah, we actually it's just a
poxys in a little piece of like sands that we

(45:09):
can see through it next time. See what the oils?
I'm shocked his hell, have we got anything left? Yeah?
Many that, but he had left. It wasn't Joan, wasn't
the oil's fault. It was you know, thank you for that, dude,
whether it's crew chief, driver um related. Uh, spoken like

(45:31):
a true tire company. By the way, the suck of
a car crashes, it was not the tires fault, you know.
So so here's a real testament to the product and
speaking of the racist things. So this is how you
know it's not the oil's fault. We were in Gainesville,
Florida when I first started racing. The part time schedule
was at fourteen or fifteen. Uh, and we'll go down there,

(45:52):
we qualify. I think we call four or thirteenth or
something poor when first round? Cool, All right, this is neat.
You know, we're going around. We've got this part time crew.
We're just thrashing a thing together, getting ready to go
for the next run. Warm it up. Everything's fine. On
the jackstands, take up the starting line. No oil pressure. Okay,
that's weird. Must be something computer. No big deal. I

(46:13):
knew had on the jacksons and the pits. It's just fine.
So hit the gas on the track, get to the scales. Hey,
you guys are about fifteen pounds, Like didn't make any
sense because we're about pounds over all weekends. So I'm
not exactly the light of striving the world. So I argue,
I mean, I'm going to the toe with the tech department.
There's no way. Blah blah blah. It's been around they
finally they're like, just go, So they send us to

(46:33):
go back to the pit and the guys go pull
the drain plug on the thing and about two quarts
oil come out and our bottom and guy only put
two quarts stabilizer in there and forgot to put the
actual seventy weight in there with it. And it went
three three seconds at and think fourteen or fifteen miles
an hour, and a new idea was born. The car

(46:54):
was fifteen pounds lighter for the next round on two
quarts of oil. I'm just saying it's a test stable
oil stabilizer exactly. And that's interesting about stabilizer, same formulation
it was as it was in the very beginning, and
now we're putting the top fuel cars. We're putting anything
and everything you can it needs it. It's a it's
a really interesting thing when you think about that. There's

(47:15):
not too many products in the world that are that
that's pretty hard. But there's also not too many oil
companies that own their own team that would forget to
put the oil in the motor and then go race
the things. So here we are. It wasn't survived to
the other end. There's the reason I'm just telling about
it now because if they're told him about it, then
we're probably letting a race against I've seen you know,

(47:38):
I've been at the races only couple of times. I
was at the races with you, and I will tell
you that I've seen two things with Forest. I've seen
Forests the happiest he could be, and I've seen Forest
the most piste off he could be. I mean, talk
about a roller coaster of emotions, and that's exactly where
racing will take it. It would depend on the plane
ride home. It was definitely maybe Morgan was going to

(48:00):
catch a commercial flight and uh, I'm staying out first
it was the first round deal. It's like, yeah, just
fly home commercially. I'm good with that. I really wasn't
a problem with Morgan driving. It was how do we
come up with these crew chiefs who are great over
here to the other guy after we fired? Didn't they'd
be great for the next guy, but they couldn't. For

(48:23):
That's what I'm trying to tell you. Exactly right, exactly right,
You're exactly right. If one of the worst of them
are right there for Stewie, for us will be at
his ass a mile yell day. But he would say,
that's what I'm trying to tell you. For it. Hello,
did you know he's he's a new grandpa again. Yeah, right,

(48:46):
grandpa again. Yeah, I say, Josh and his youngest son
had a baby. Yeah, And uh, it's I talked to
him a few times. He was actually talked about moving
back here in Andy. He was over California. He says, ye, yeah, yeah, Forest,
when he started in uh started imitating Sto doing that.
It was that was the endemic right there. The clock

(49:09):
was taken by the way. Unfortunately off camera, Charlotte is
sitting off to the side. Uh, the lovely miss Charlotte
of course, Forest wife and Morgan's mother, and uh and
she she has her hand gestures and her eye, her
facial expressions, and it's going on because he's been there
every step of the way. The live studio audience, the

(49:30):
exactly exactly you know, talking about your racing career a
little bit for the fans that don't know. I believe
it's twelve top fuel wins, eleven top alcohol dragster wins. Um.
But I loved what I read how the whole process started. Uh,
And I'd love for you to tell the story if
you were call at all. But from what I was
able to determine, you were ten years old and you

(49:52):
went for a trip to Pomona with your father and
met Darryl Russell, the late Daryl Russell. Yeah. Actually, uh,
I still remember going to the track. I was, yeah,
ten eleven years old, and uh back then that the
pits were laid out differently. The parking was right up
against the fence, right behind the bleachers, um, you know,
parallel to the tracks. And you pull in. I think

(50:14):
we pulled in during a you know, procession, and you know,
here nitro cars going on the track for the first time.
You just as a little kid, you're thinking what that
was that, you know, so you want to get in
there and check it out. And um, you know, prior
to that, watch my dad race. Um, you know, he
did a lot of dirt track racing at the time
and venture at California and was really good at it.

(50:38):
And but at the time I was a little kid,
and I was pissed because I couldn't go back in
the pits and hang out with the team, be one
of the guys. Not that that's where he wanted me
to be anyhow, but uh, sorry, I'm joking at your expense,
but no, you're right. So they go with the drag
race and these these guys start showing you around it

(50:58):
and they'll they'll ring in the it. I'm sure half
of them thought, oh this is lucas well, we're gonna
get a deal here, so they're you know, probably being
a little extra nice, but it doesn't matter. Everybody was
just first class. Um. Uh, give me all these broken
parts stuff I still have at my your parents house
out on Riverside. Um. But yes, Smith Darryl Russell, who
um actually had this bent rim and I don't know

(51:21):
why you still have because english Town at that point
was months before that. But let me have this rim
and he signed it. I took around. I got this
is backmujuration top outcol Draxtra. Still he hadn't made the
step to driving for Joe at that point in Um,
you know, I got all these really cool old autographs,
you know with bays Moore back when he's driving the
little mobile one car and uh, sorry to bring up

(51:42):
another loyal company here, but uh but you know, I
mean it's cool because that didn't last very long, you know.
But it point is is that there was just a
lot of history for me at that point, but that
was I think what triggered me. Uh, you know, at
that point in my life. I could be involved, they
could be part of a team him, I could be
I loved cars, I love mechanics, and I wanted to learn.

(52:04):
So it is this opportunity. And at the time, my
parents were sponsoring a top alcohol funny car team owned
by Jason Rupert and a guy named Ed vander Wood.
Great guys, and Ed had a son about my age.
So one summer, uh, they invited me to come out
and go to the races with them, and my parents

(52:24):
left me. They sent me out there with some cash
and uh and some and some hopes and no cell phone.
At the time, those didn't exist, so I was pay
phone call my parents every day and checking in and uh.
But that's how I learned, I they you know. I
started off scraping rubber out the bottom of the body
and cleaning the paint. And how could any kids survive today?
You can, right, you know, Yeah, it's but it was

(52:48):
one of the best um learning experiences I could have.
I had. I got to be running with the adults
who build social skills UM, I learned a lot. Um
two or three years, probably four or five actually yeah,
but yeah, but I I learned a lot about the
mechanical side of it, determined whether I wanted to drive
or just work on them, and whatever happened, I started driving.

(53:09):
Within a week of getting my driver's license, I was
getting my racing license in a super comp car. Within
two years of that, I was in a top altcohol
draxture for driver Jerry Darren, which you know, a lot
of great drivers before me came out of that. Melanie Trucks,
Brandon Bernstein, uh Gary Selzy drove for them. Um. You
know the long list of people that, uh but had

(53:31):
made a good career out of it. And um we
had some good success with Jerry and and Ken and
then had chance for after Darryl passed to to hop
in there to modit with Dupe and and that's the
year later we started own team. That's kind of my
the process of the career. Um. But I had a
lot of great, good and bad experiences throughout that process

(53:52):
of the time. But uh, I lived a lot of
the life that I could be living in my mid thirties.
Then some allowed the chance to be I think a
little more focused dad, and a little more focused within
the business and top two. But I'm probably more than anybody,
you know. Yeah, I found it kind of ironic that

(54:14):
that about ten years later you actually filled Darryl's seat
for Joe Motto after him being the first guy that
influenced you. Yeah. No, it's a trip. Yeah, it was
that that happened. I mean, obviously I would have I
would never wish anything bad to happen to anybody ever. Um.
And it was a tragic loss for for drag racing,
um as well as his his family to lose him,

(54:37):
especially in the way that they did. And uh, I
I I'm sure darry will always be remembered as one
of the greats. I mean, you know up until Gainesville
this year. Uh, he was the last person to come
out on the rookie season and win their first race.
It's pretty cool. Um, it's a tough deal to do.
I mean it's you know a lot of people think,
oh it's rag racing going on a straight line. I'm

(54:58):
telling you why. There's a lot goes into it and
steering those things. Yeah, it could be tough at times,
and um, it was some big shoes to fill. But
I did get a chance to know one of Darryl's
best friends who was a pr guy for us for
a while, Rob Geiger, and then got to know his
wife a little bit. Um and great people, actually funny stories.

(55:21):
They raised these uh what do they call him, miniature donkeys?
I came what they call him, but you know, little asses. Uh,
they raised him down in Houston. They had a lot
of fun with it, and um, that was kind of
a hobby for them. And I think she actually turned
it into a business some sort of. But uh, just again,
that's just part of the story that makes sense. For Geiger,
that makes a lot more sense. Now, Oh no, that

(55:44):
was Darryl's wife. But but a Gigarya would make sense,
it would It would be like a hamster like cat
mutation of some sort. I don't know. But how far
back do you go? You're back a long ways. You've
been saying Morgan's name for I can't remember where you
worked there. Well, I started my career started off in

(56:04):
at English Town and it started off in the late
in the late nineties. Why don't why don't you tell
how he got that job? That's probably I was. I
was working with Lewis Bloom actually so yeah, the hand
model himself, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he hated motorcycles
at the time, and I loved motorcycles. I had drag
race motorcycles, and I knew about motorcycle was the only

(56:25):
thing I knew about that was at the track. And
and I came in and applied for a job with
Jimmy Napp and uh uh, Nap said, Lewis is gonna
get up in a minute and take a break because
the motorcycles were coming around. And he said, and you
can sit in and call him. I'm like, oh, that's
I'm in. That's that's right my wheelhouse. So I could
look at them, know what they were, and and call
him going down the track. I never looked at a

(56:45):
time and scoring monitor in my life, so I had
no idea what really what all the incrementals were. And
Chinese to me must less whatever the difference was down
at the bottom. So I'm trying to put this all together.
And I had told this story on here before. Robert
is just like barely able to walk. He's maybe three
years old or something. My daughter is a little bit older. Obviously,
he's probably seven, and uh and she was super cool.

(57:08):
But I looked over at one point while I'm auditioning,
and Robert's cut this. You know, those copy machine was
about this big. He couldn't see anything. He's just doing
this with the buttons, and this thing is spitting paper
out like a banshee. While I'm trying to audition for
the job. I looked back. I'm like, don't even look, man,
just let it go. Focus on your job. It's it's focus, right,

(57:29):
That's that's that's how Iron Man. That situation. He's got
a power through but he just gotta power through it.
And and what he's what Rico's referring to, if we
tell the whole story, is I probably had a couple
of beers at the racetrack before I had gone up
to apply for the job. I'm listening to these guys
and I'm like, I was a mobile DJ and I
had worked at a local radio station at the time,
UH five, The Rat on the Jersey Shore, The Rat

(57:52):
rocks the Jersey Shore. So and I was like, I
can do that up there, like racing. I can go
do that gig, you know. So I go up there
and and as the story turns out, Jimmy Jimmy had
been to rehabilitation. Jimmy was was the wild child of
the Naps and uh and he had been to rehabilitation before.
And he said, I smelled the alcohol in your breath,
he said, And I thought, hey man, this must be

(58:13):
a great guy. If he's gonna apply for a job
and he's had a couple of beers, we'll get him
a shot. So sure enough I sat in and I
got done with motorcycles. He said, hey man, you're in.
I'll see you nine o'clock on Sunday morning. Then, and
uh so the career began, you know, in the late nineties.
But that's a good one to have to explain to
your HR director. Yeah, yeah, I don't know that that

(58:35):
would work anywhere. As they talk about times, times that
we're gonna we're gonna hiring. He smells like booze. He's
really a good guy. Jimmy and I hit it off
for the right off the bat though. H So, yeah, no,
it just just going back and and reading some of
the stuff that that you did along your way. And
and we always on this show. He loved to talk
to people about how they got started and what they did,

(58:55):
you know, and and like Rico always says, nine times
out of ten, everybody thinks there's a silver spoon fed kid,
and there's a bunch of them, don't get me wrong,
but almost all the time. The work ethic and the
racing industry, which is why I love the industry so much,
I love raising my son in this industry, is that
they're extremely successful people for the most part, that still
get their hands dirty. They work really really hard because

(59:18):
you well know, it doesn't matter how much money you have,
you're not going to go out there and win unless
you put the work in. That's all there is to it.
And and I love the fact that that you traveled
around there for with Rupert there for a few years
and learned from the bottom up, and eventually by the
time you got on the race car, you immediately showed
you had skills. And I've got to think that some
of that is due to you understanding the car and

(59:41):
knowing what was going on with the car. And your
first year a limited year and top alcohol drags here,
if I'm not mistaken, you ran six events, qualified number
one at five of those and one two of those.
I mean, that's amazing. Yeah, you know, honestly, a lot
of it was a car, but Jerry and I had
a good rapport, specially early on, UM, where I was

(01:00:02):
trying to understand how the car works. UM, that's what
you know. Prior to driving anything, that was my main focus.
I wanted to know how it worked. UM. And we
learned a lot, and we communicated a lot, and it
was one of those situations where it I think we've
benefited from each other in that situation. UM. And like

(01:00:22):
you said, I mean having the experience of sitting around
watching Jason race and he was a fun driver to
watch because that guy he didn't know when to lift,
but he somehow kept it off with things and he's
a good driver, you know. UM. But uh, you know,
watching that many runs from behind the car, I think
you know that visual preparation goes a long way. But UM,

(01:00:45):
I love to get my hands there. Even with our
Top People program, if there's a point where I knew
we had a thrash, I would probably slow down and
get in the middle of it, try to help, you know,
pull a motor, do something. And even though I probably
wasn't needed for it, I wanted to be in the
thick of it because that was fun. But um. One
thing I will say that Darian taught me a long
time ago is that proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. Right,

(01:01:08):
So when you think about all this peace stacked up together,
that goes with anything in life, and I think that's uh,
you know, that's work or anything else. If you're not prepared,
if the job has to get done, you just gotta
get in good done. Yeah. Good luck is the definition
of it is when preparation meets opportunity. You know, that's
that's that's good luck in racing. I mean, trust me,
there's plenty of bad luck in racing, but if you
want good luck, you better work hard at it. Or

(01:01:30):
is that one? Is that when they is that when
they say, well, that's racing, and then and then you
want to choke the life out of him right after
they say that. I think the only acceptable format for well,
that's racing is and Dad knows this very well, is
when like some little twenty five c SMC fitting or
something like that fails in the car and costs you,
you know, worth of damage. That's when you could say, well,

(01:01:53):
that's just racing, because that is literally the you know,
bad luck, Chuck, and that happens to Yeah, time for
a quick break. Don't go away. This segment of the
skinny is brought to you by our good friends at
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(01:02:38):
anywhere is possible this summer with General Tire. For more information,
visit General Tire dot com. Let's talk about two thousand six,
because that's a massive year, um and I believe it's
two thousand six when this happened. You guys decided to
go top fuel or seller. You started your own team.
I should say Morgan Lucas Racing and Fuel, but correct

(01:02:58):
me if I'm wrong, But I leave you had to
fuel cars that year? Were you also still running the
alcohol dragster and naming rights to the stadium. By the way,
two thousand six May a year. Yeah, yeah, two thousand
and six was a very crazy year, and it's it
honestly has transitioned a lot of the trajectory, I guess,

(01:03:20):
of all of our lives. I mean, we we all
live here permanently now. I have a wife and kids
here now, um, and you know it's not necessarily because
the stadium, but it's it's a community that we're attached to. Well.
And I didn't um, I didn't mean doing fur that
you were doing all of that, you know, single handedly,
because we talked about four You said you didn't see
him for seventeen months, you know once once that happened

(01:03:42):
the naming rights, of course, but just you going after
we did the deal with tons of pending. He had
me every time we were done the deal. He worked
for the Cold at the time. But they were getting
ready to build it, tear down the old one, you know,
and uh so that was up there and nobody was

(01:04:05):
wanting to video on it, and uh they came to me,
Tom did and uh my first time was, uh, forget it. No,
would never be before something like that. Then I was
driving home later back down southern Indiana, and I got

(01:04:28):
to think about it. Hell, I don't even know what
they're going to charge, you know. So I called and
we got to got to working on and looking at
the future and so once because the cults were really
doing good, then that made That's why I even did
the way the culture right now, I would not do,

(01:04:48):
but I did it, and uh they it took while
we were building it. One part of the contract had
was we get the plaza. We're the only stadium in
the United States that has a plaza. They all want
a plaza, but they can't do it. You have to

(01:05:09):
have a sponsor like us, and you have to do
it ahead of time. The only withever you tried to
was actually NASCAR. They were building their stuff down there
and they, yeah, asked I would come down there and
built but the plaza down there, and I didn't didn't
want to. They take a lot of time. Good move,
Yeah sound judgment that was. That's still there. You know,

(01:05:34):
we still maintain it all the time. But that was
the one thing that says it apart for everybody else.
And we've got all any kind of race car you
can think of down their tractors, airplanes, all this kind
of stuff that we sponsored and we brought there. We
got two of his stractors setting under back wheels pointing
the top, which is the best, the best thing that

(01:05:56):
you see when you walk out, exactly mean, it is
right there in your face. I'm a drag racing fan
and it does look pretty cool to me. So it
is very very it's a great cross promotion to all
of the football fans. It is and it is a
racing community. It is. There's a racing state. It's a
racing state, and uh, you know now now it's become

(01:06:17):
many people are starting to appreciate it that it is there.
That's what sets to the part for everybody else. You're
coming there and sit down. You can go down there
and entertain yourself. You know, if you have to wait
for a long time. Where's what people did because for
a long time there you couldn't get upstairs, you couldn't
go the only one way upper down. So people stay
do there as long as possible to those times stay down.
And how many years has it been the number one?

(01:06:40):
I think two thousand and eight was the first year.
Nine was the first season. Better than this, Okay, they're
just eight first season and then Yeah, I remember that
because I had to call everybody and apologize for blacking
out your suite. It was Morgan's fault. Great game, that's right,
that was in your part in that time. Yeah, the

(01:07:02):
motor home over there, horrible idea. It was a horrible,
horrible idea. The motor home wasn't The motor hale was
a great idea because it kept everything cool in one place,
in a bathroom, so it was really a good idea.
All right, I've got a question for you. I don't
know if you can talk about this or not, but
I've I've heard so many stories I want to see
if I can I can get the true answer out

(01:07:23):
of you. So I heard when that you said you
didn't think you could afford it. You found out what
the number was. But when they heard that it was
Lucas Oil that was interested, they didn't think you could
afford it. And you had told them that, tell them
we'll pay them fifty cash up front. Is that a
true story? I mean, we know what the deal is.

(01:07:46):
That's public was on twenty million dollar deal. Yeah, I
think I think we did give him some cash up front,
not for the whole half of it. But anyhow, it
was enough to get them to start looking and find
out you were real, we're debt free company. We're actually
making quite a little bit of money. And we had it,

(01:08:06):
and uh, they didn't have anybody else but nobody. They
were back then a three year contract with norm the norm.
If they've got five, they'd been tickled to death. So
is that still kind of the way it is? Because
it seems like a lot of those places changed on
like down in Nashville that one's changed three or four times.

(01:08:26):
A lot of a lot of places have followed suit.
So what we did and you're twenty year, right, we
didn't heard of and uh, I just messed with him.
I knew they would do it. I went back to
and said, hey, you want to go twenty five because
you know, if the dollar gets real real, if the
dollars stayed stronger than anybody ever thought it would. So

(01:08:50):
right now there have been normals, we've probably been worth
fifty under dollar, you know, but that hasn't happened yet.
But I don't about the that will happen coming up. Yeah,
it was, it was. It was a good thing. Uh, Indianapolis,
the people here should realize how lucky they got they
got the nicest stadium in in the world with the

(01:09:13):
plaza inside, they got all these other race tracks, all
of the other stuff. They've got more racing stuff here
that anywhere. But they have got something to really be
proud of there. And they big football game or basketball
game coming up here to go to plow a lot
of people in it. And and to to echo that,
I've been had the good fortune to be able to
go to some different stadiums, uh, you know in the

(01:09:35):
past decade and a half, um to you see different games.
And not only does it have some of the coolest amenities,
um obviously our plaza being one of them, but easy
to getting out of, easy to get to your seat.
You know that it was a well thought out design
that I think really caters to the fans in the situation.

(01:09:58):
And and and not to disagree with that point earlier,
but I think the team that we got now is
they're going in a good direction. I mean it's not Peyton,
but I mean we got we hadn't We got the
nicest sweet in the country. Actually, I got a bathroom minute.
We we demanded a lot of stuff and gave them
a lot of stuff, you know, But the horseshoe bar.

(01:10:20):
Is that horseshoe bar? I forget what we paid for it,
but the first the first guy that gave the price
on it, we're a million dollars. Did you work on that?
A little work on that a lot, but we got
it would have been there from Michael bar But the

(01:10:43):
h Another thing we went down there, that that motor,
the engine, it's all taking the exploded one. Yes, that's
the only one there is. Yes, if the thing is incredible,
it's my favorite display on the plasant is going to
look at that and and to describe it for the fans, Well,
I'm sure we'll get some be roll here and put
on the show for you. But it's a complete top
fuel engine, completely disassembled and strung together. Unbelievable, unbelievable. I

(01:11:09):
can't imagine how long it took him to do it.
Took him six months to do that. Then you come
down there. We hadn't come down there and put it
in that build that cage and put it in there.
That took another six months. Yeah, yeah, I remember when
all that was kind of gasoline alley. It's incredible. Who

(01:11:29):
who built it? Tuck? He he used to do some
work with Waterman palms. He's a friend of a friend.
Great guy absolutely, you know, amazing machinist and uh, I
haven't seen him in years, but just very unassuming person,
just a nice person and just just love just work.

(01:11:50):
You know, you could tell he's one of those guys
that probably get bored to death. He wasn't tinkering or something,
and he was hoping. He told me later that a
lot of other people would come up there and see that,
and then they want him to build one for them too.
I think he was a really good deal in building it.
But he's we got his picture down there at the bottom. Yeah,

(01:12:11):
that's wild. His name pictures aren't. So he'll he'll send
there for years and years. I'm sure I can't imagine
it not being there. It's an incredible place. And uh
and and I know all of us at one point
in time, while we're up there, you have the opportunity
to watch the Colts playing football. And fortunately you have
these these TVs that you know, for the seats that

(01:12:33):
sit in front of the suite, they all have their
own TV. And we're all guilty of sitting there watching
the game while we watched the races, you know, and
it's a beautiful thing, you know, like we're keeping up
with racing. We're watching the game. We were watching Racing two,
and that's what that suite is, and that's what that
stadium is, and that's as you mentioned before, the state,
the city, that's what it is. It's it's our sticking

(01:12:55):
ball teams. Of course, the Colts winning the championship, but
also the racing that is on here is I mean,
I get goose bumps, uh talking about it, thinking about
the five hundred and we we constantly talk about a few.
For the recent fans out there listening, it's what a
bucket listed is the U S Nationals of course, I mean,
just two of the biggest races in the world. It's
it's incredible. Well, I think we need to bring the

(01:13:17):
Chili Bowl to Lucas Oil Stadium and then we'll have
we'll have it all. That would be pretty awesome. Some
great discussion here with Morgan and Forest Lucas. Hope you've
enjoyed it so far. We're gonna wrap this show up,
but don't worry, there's gonna be a show number two
where you can get the rest of the skinny on
both Morgan and Forest Thanks for being with us here

(01:13:38):
on the Skinny. This episode has been brought to you
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