EP 41 Brad Lovell

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:02):
Let's drop the green flag on this episode of the
talent tank podcast with yourhost Wyatt Pemberton bringing
you the best fastest mostknowledgeable personalities and
ultra for and off road racingalright alright alright alright
here we go the talent tank backin session took off you know for

(00:23):
let's call it something of thewinner you know king of the
hammers we had the the pre showwith Myles then of course we all
know what happened at Kinghammers 2021 What a great event
ultra for absolutely smoked downthe park without one under
COVID. They still pulled it offis really impressive. But you
guys didn't harrassed you didn'tdial into hear me talk about

(00:44):
what happened at cailleach 2021.
You definitely showed up todayto listen to my good buddy Brad
level level racing levelbrothers. Brad, how are you?
Good wine. I'm really happy tobe part of this. I've learned a
lot of interesting things abouta lot of people and I'm happy to
share some of my story. Well,your story is amazing. And I've

(01:06):
known you since 2008 2007.
Somewhere in there through zareiour good friend JT Taylor
introduced us I think that youknow, I knew who you got you
guys were always these racingthese blue Rangers, you and your
brother Roger, I can tell you tovery easily apart today.
1215 years ago, I would alwaysget Brad and Roger confused and

(01:29):
so I was always leery to call.
Which one the right one? Sosorry about that.
No, no, no worries. I'm likethat with some people to you
know, hey, fella. How you doing?
You know, I get it. We getcalled twins all the time. We're
not Rogers three years older.
But I do have twin boys. So thatonly and further confuses it

(01:50):
further confuses in the amazingwife, Natalie, that lets you
chase your dreams. Indeed,indeed. she's a she's a good
manager. We'll talk we'll talkabout your family here in a
little bit. But so here we are.
You know, by the time everyoneis listening to this now, Moab
will be behind us ultra forMoab. It will have been this
past weekend. Brad, good luck.

(02:10):
You're in the throes of preppingfor that that's almost it's not
your backyard race. But it'spretty. It's one of your closer
events. It is it's definitely aplace we've been going for a lot
of years. But you know,actually, we have something a
little different going on thisyear. I'm not racing in the
ultra for event. We're going outthere and putting on a bronco
ride and drive. So we're gonnahave a bunch of Bronco sports a

(02:34):
bunch of Broncos that people canride around and get a ride with
a pro driver. Brad, you're fromColorado Springs, right? Just
Yep. Yeah, born in ColoradoSprings, and you still live
there today. You've you've beenracing for 15 years greater than
a long time through a lot ofdifferent genres. We're gonna
definitely get into all that.
But here as of late in the lastWhen did you mean? Well, you've

(02:54):
been a Ford guy is back as faras back as I remember. Racing,
these Ford Bronco chassis, youknow, with fiberglass body
panels that you that look like aranger. And today, you're kind
of working the dream, right?
You're working for your for Fordas a consultant. And you're
currently on the bronco program.
Yeah, it's been a focus now forjust under four years. But it's

(03:19):
been really exciting for me inmy career to be involved with
Bronco and Ford, my brother andI've always been four guys we
grew up bouncing around in thebackseat of a bronco. And
you know, we when we got intooff roading, Roger got a bronco
to I got a ranger. And we did itrecreationally. And then, you

(03:43):
know, coming up through motorsports, we always wanted to stay
forward and there, there were alot of years where it really
wasn't easy. And there's stillnot a lot of Ford motors out on
the grid there. But it's reallysomething special to be to be
able to be part of somethinglike like Bronco, I mean, it's a
once in a lifetime deal to to bepart of that program and and

(04:04):
honestly have some influence init and where it goes. So, yeah,
it's been a dream job. How doyou like or deal with having
this vehicle, this new platformthat's out there that the masses
are now buying? We're startingto see him on the streets to
have your DNA on it. It's prettycool. And you know, I won't kid
you. There's quite a while whereI started doing support work.

(04:26):
And then they eventually, youknow, I offered too many
opinions, let's say so, theybrought me on more as a
consultant, but to see thebronco unveil unveiled, you
know, privately to learn aboutit, you know, you kind of hold
on to that and it's your, it'syour baby, nobody else knows
about it. So it's releasing thatto the masses, when people get

(04:49):
to see what it is. And now Iknow everybody's just dying to
actually touch and feel one andget to go drive it and see what
it is. I'm really excited forThat I really am because I, it's
not just a bunch of lip service,it's authentic. And honestly, I
would, again, I'm not gonna kidyou, I would want to be involved
with the program one way oranother, I've never been

(05:11):
involved with the development ofan OEM vehicle and I would have
done it one way or another butto have it come out as authentic
as it is to have the engineersat Ford to see the need and to
finally look to the offercommunity for not only support
but as customers and they wantto make it better for us, rather
than you know, taken away tomake things better on roads. So

(05:33):
it's it's pretty neat to be partof that in my circle, you know,
outside of offered andprofessional world, you know,
real life. That group of peopleno means it has to be this offer
to this vehicle, this vehicleenthusiast this motor hegde
whatever you call it, and get toget the questions like Hey, man,
what do you think of this newBronco? And I'm like, Well, you
see the videos where it's likethe closed course professional

(05:56):
driver. That's my friend Braddriving.
And there's no way like, Yeah,that's it. I see that on TV in
to see the bronco coming to lifeand being videoed. I assume that
is in Johnson Valley. You guysshot it looks like Johnson
Valley. Yeah, that that was abusy time out there. We there

(06:20):
just been a lot of rain. Andwe're doing a lot of activities.
So we being driven dynamic, do alot of support work for Ford,
and then we're, you know, alsoI, I've taken on some driving
duties and consulting duties. Sowe, we had a whole mess of
testing going on. And thenoutcomes the the marketing

(06:41):
effort, and it was, it was a bigdeal. And and there was there's
a lot of pressure because theythey want everything to be
perfect. And understandably so.
But, you know, we're You and Iwere we're flying out towards
Pitt to let's say, and there'ssome books and we're off the
side of the insurance road,that's perfect for us. But it
has to be right so that it canbe filmed so that the production

(07:03):
bus can be there. You know, it'sbig stuff. And so it took quite
a bit of scouting and sorting itout. But we did a really good
job. I'm really proud of the waythat whole deal came out. I did
a fair amount of driving for it.
And a couple of the engineersdid some more driving, there's
more cool stuff that hit thecutting room floor then you'd

(07:27):
imagine and for me, I've doneI've done some stunt driving and
some camera work stuff. But thiswas really cool because they had
the camera on a big arm hangingoff the truck, whatever that
thing's called, in a drone thathad a, I don't know, five foot
wingspan, and they're flyingthat thing, like almost parked
on the hood. Why? And you got toyou can't even react, you just

(07:49):
got to keep driving through it.
So, boy, and there are a coupleshots, I can remember one or
that big arm coming off thepursuit. I think it's called a
pursuit. But swinging acrosslike right in front of me. And
you know, you just nailed theshot and that that's what's
really cool it. It's I enjoydoing all those things. I love
racing, but a lot of these otherthings. It's a there's still

(08:11):
pressure, but it's not thepressure I put on myself for
racing. So I really enjoy it.
It's a new challenge. Yeah,yeah. It was a lot of fun and
rainy and unique conditions outthere in Johnson Valley. So I
think it kind of shows up inwhat we're talking about is that
you know, the reveal video,which I'm sure if you haven't
seen it go back and look at iton YouTube or something. But
it's it's pretty cool. How muchfun is it to work with, or in

(08:33):
call these guys teammates now tosome extent, but Vaughn getan
and Lauren Healy. They're nowit's running for power plants
there.
Are they've converted? Yeah,it's uh, yeah, well,
yeah, I guess.
I'm glad you brought it up.
Because you know, we're, we'vealways been Bronco, folks. It's

(08:56):
great. We're, you know, spent alot of time with Bailey Cole and
Jason shear, Jason's been alongtime friend through BFG. And
both Vaughn and Lauren beeninvolved with them with a couple
different activities. It's, it'sgreat and what is really
developing around it is kind ofthe same team that we have with

(09:16):
the BFG Performance Team, whichyou know, everybody's looking
out for the group and reallytrying to help each other out to
do the best for for ultimatelyBFG on that team and on this
team forward so everybody bringsa little bit something different
to the table and has a littlebit different mission. But it's
it's been great so far, and Ibrought me you know, those guys

(09:39):
are all my friends but to workon some exclusive like this It
gets you a little closer, Iguess. Well yeah, there's
definitely friendship you ontrack where you're trying to
beat each other and you know,you're cheering you're cheering
your competitor on, but at thesame time, like you still want
to now being on that. You guyshave the

(10:00):
The same you're on the same sideof the coin, right? You're,
you're trying to push this, thisamazing, you know, OEM vehicle
out to the, to the masses and,and to do it through your
medium. right you guys broughtforward to the table for used
kicking the hammers this year asjust a launch pad for this new
platform. How cool was that?
Honestly, it is and hats off toDave Cole Honestly, I mean, I, I

(10:24):
was really skeptical if theevent was going to happen at
all. And then it you know, I wasraised in two trucks down out
there. And then it felt likewe're tripling down on the bet
with doing this ride and drivewith Ford and having Ford out
there and wanting to put on thebest impression we can for those
guys. So but you know, everybodyhad perseverance and had courage

(10:48):
to do something a little bitdifferent. And the thing is
about Bronco it's it's not aJeep for didn't want to build a
Jeep, and I'm glad they didn'tbuild a Jeep it's a little bit
different. And it's really goodat going fast. When a Jeep you
know, the fast you drive a Jeep,it just starts hurting, and it
just bangs you around. But in abronco The faster you go, it

(11:11):
starts to show its spirit. Socruzan 6070 miles an hour out in
Johnson Valley and getting upthrough some rocks. That's
pretty much the ride and drivewe put on. And I think like I
said it took a little couragefrom everybody to find a way to
do it safely. And I think we didand we're you know planning to
do the same thing out in Moab.

(11:35):
Now granted, we're you know, tome mo ABS a little different.
We're not going to go fly in6070 miles around Moab over
whoops. But there's a lot ofterrain out there that the
bronco can really shine in aswell. So tell me as we talked
about the train in this vehicle,and I don't want this to be the
bronco show. But here in thebeginning we're gonna because I
have some questions. So I see avideo. It's in like tight, tight

(11:57):
Woods course. And I said Woodscourse I don't think it was a
course I think it was just offroad with woods. And the rocket
goes around a corner andliterally it drags its back tire
and I'm assisting headingbrakes. So it you guys, where
did Where did the cuttingbrakes? Or the the turning
breaker? How does that activate?
And how did that come to thetable? And how did that end up
on the vehicle? And how doesthat end up in production?

(12:18):
Because that's an amazingfeature. Yeah, so what's what's
you're talking about, it'scalled trail turn assist. And
what it's modeled after doing afront burn in a rock crawler, or
screwing around in the sand. So,you know, we do not have the
ability to disengage the reardrive because it's a

(12:38):
conventional transfer case. Butthe next best thing you can do
is cut power to one wheel andgrab the brake there. And you
know, tech technology is onlymarching forward and I say it
time. And again. What's greatabout the bronco is it finally
that technology is for us guysoff road. So it has an
electronic brake booster and ABBand what that can do is through

(13:01):
electronics or functions grabindividual brakes. So you take
the rear locker out, you engagetrail turn assist, and when you
go to full lock on the wheel,it'll lock up the inside tire.
So and and really it works at80% as well as a front burn. I
mean, if you if you have a rockface, you can turn around right

(13:23):
on a dime, you know, and so theidea that they're bringing that
technology in it's a hoot in thesand. There's that and other
technology that's just for offroading just for you and me and
that's what I love about it. Yousaid it's a hoot. I love that
phrase. Yeah.
It is very cool technology andto see that we we get it and

(13:46):
it's gonna hit the production.
Hopefully he's got you know,we're gonna see this massive
influx in overlanders maybe moreso than now. I Well, I think
obviously it's a it's anoverlanding vehicle. There's,
there's great opportunity,there's a whole system figured
out for you know, roof racks andall that business and taking the

(14:07):
top off and it's modular so youdon't have to store it like a
Jeep top. Another another reallycool feature on it that's near
and dear to my heart is called aone pedal and what one pedal
does, you know, for people whoare listening to drive fast in
the rocks or kind of rocks atall, it's a proven technique to
use brake overlap, so your leftfoot braking and I do it a ton.

(14:30):
I mean a modulating the brake tocontrol the chassis to keep it
settled down and climbing upover rocks. Instead of just
letting off with one foot andhitting the brake. You can just
control it right there. Soyou're not plodding around on
the rocks as much. Well, theytook that technology and put it
in a bronco also. So with onepedal. Let's say roughly the

(14:50):
first 10 15% of the throttlepedal is more brake. So you have
to add15% throttle to start moving to
drive it through the brakes. Andthen when you lift off the
throttle, it clamps down on thebrakes again. So it's it's
simulating left foot braking.

(15:10):
In, do they control it throughlike through like a torque
converter like it like is itvery it's, it's all through
braking, huh? So it's fun, likeone of the people, one of the
engineers called the brakepedal, the brake pedal
simulator, which it kills mebecause it's, it's not brake by
wire, but it's almost brake bywire. So now you can unlock all

(15:33):
these features like trail turnassist, like one pedal through
technology. So that brings up mynext question, how much of that
stuff stays involved with whatwe saw unveiled out at Johnson
valley with this 4600 raceprogram? Right. So 4600 race
program. That's it anotherawesome project that I've been

(15:59):
involved with for a number ofmonths now. And why I had, I had
a lot of meetings aboutintegrating this brake
technology into the 4600. Andwhat we finally decided is, you
know what, let's take it out.
And for now, let's go with ajust a traditional balance bar,

(16:21):
it's pretty advanced thing guysare has going on, but it's not
going to require thecalibration, that this
electronic system wood. So a lotof the things we're doing when
we're testing and, and doingdurability stuff is proving out
these systems looking for errorstates. And it's, it's

(16:42):
unbelievable how manyconfigurable things there are in
a modern vehicle, it's in thehundreds of 1000s. So you have
to weed out every case. Andhonestly, for for what we're
trying to do on a timeframe withthe 4600 which is a an early
prototype Bronco, it's kind ofout of the question right now.
But if you're wondering aboutracing applications, so am I

(17:04):
awesome. I'm glad we're ourminds are in the same spot. I
don't want to gloss over thisbecause I I think this is one of
the I think this is probably thecoolest thing to happen to ultra
for racing in the last decade.
And that's not that shouldn't betaken lightly over foreign Dave
and Jeff Knoll and everybodyhave really taken this industry
a place we never you know, in 10years 12 years 13 years could

(17:26):
never imagine and I rememberback in the days and I know you
remember these days because youwere always running the stock
body on your on your vehicles. Iremember RJ brown running the
yellow Toyota body on his truckand and everyone believed at
some point that the way to getbig dollars in the door big
marketing in the door was to getthe OEMs on board with rock

(17:48):
sports and competitive rocksports and it was the the belief
was around you know the factorybodying your vehicle and what do
we have? We have a bunch ofjeeps right we have every you
know everybody makes a Jeep hoodfrom twisted custom to to
Shannon Campbell they makefiberglass Jeep hoods Christer
Um, and so there's a lot of Jeepbuggies out there. Not a lot of

(18:09):
Ford buggies, not a lot ofToyota buggies. And here we are.
Ford an OEM now has a factoryracing program inside of the
ultra for a venue and and thatjust when you think like OEM
racing, I think of like teamHonda and Tim green and those

(18:30):
guys that are racing baja ondirt bikes, we didn't see it in
you know, the big vehicles youknow, now we're starting to see
Honda get involved. Jeep hasn'tbeen involved in racing. We've
just they've written thecoattails of racers turning
their vehicles into racers,right.
canggih stepping up now, whatwas the first year Ford was in

(18:51):
Super involved with King of thehammers two years ago? Oh, yeah,
this this was the second yearfor involvement with King of the
hammers. And years ago, I thinkmaybe 2008 maybe somewhere
around there. 2007 2008. We, weworked with Ford a bit and and

(19:12):
had them as a partner for ourteam. And that's when we went
through and did the newerfiberglass on our truck. And
that it's a hard sport tounderstand. I think it was
harder than because it was, youknow, more eclectic when you're
just doing the the pro rockcrawling versus people

(19:32):
understand speed people getspeed. That's easy. So and that
that lasted a couple years andit didn't certainly didn't end
on on bad terms, but it was youknow, kind of time to go look
elsewhere for our team and wehad a short tenure with Nissan
and short course racing, whichwas awesome as well. But I guess

(19:52):
you know, kind of where we're atnow with Ford. I mean, there's
there is a lot of technicalexpertise
He's that that gets traded backand forth between us race guys
and the engineers, and it'scertainly a lot more than a
marketing exercise.
Yeah, absolutely. But you, whenyou back into it, though, it's

(20:14):
still at this level, it's stillall has to be a marketing
exercise for the OEM to to getinvolved. Obviously, there's a
lot of engineering and trial byfire and there's no better
testbed then in between thegreen flag and the checkered
flag. I mean, that goes backback to all automotive racing
you know, the developed even ina NASCAR developed an f1. And,

(20:35):
and how we see the trickle downon like, just the brake systems
going from there at the top tothe OEM, and you see the boil
down, you see, if this thing cansurvive 24 hours of Oman's, then
it's damn well better be goodfor this Mercedes. Right? Well,
the thing that is reallyimportant to note about the the
4600 it's, it's built by geyserand obviously you know, I've had

(20:57):
some influence in IT consultingon it but to me it's very much a
Ford vehicle there are Fordengineers reviewing all the
designs and and I'm sitting inmeetings talking about different
aspects of racing and off roadracing, specifically and then
rock sports. You know, it's it'shard to understand these guys

(21:18):
have all the right answers theyhave. They're the smartest guys
in the room, but they have tounderstand off road and then
rock sports on top of that sothat's kind of where I've been
involved but the big thing thatI think everybody should realize
this is a Ford Bronco This isdesigned by Ford and signed off
by Ford it's not like for givingme a bronco and hey go you know

(21:43):
build it however you want tobuild it. So that's really kind
of what makes this programspecial I think so for the
people that don't know we'retalking about you know guys or
guys or brothers out of there inPhoenix long pedigree trophy
trucks basically the who's ifthey've raced trophy truck they
raced it in a geyserat one point people referred to
the trophy truck classes likeguys are spectrum class there's

(22:05):
been some you know, somediversion there and and a lot of
other people have stepped up tothe plate light you know Mason
and then you know like Jasonmoss has his own guys building
trucks and then the TSC o trucksherps building their own stuff
but they're for the longest timeit was geyser geyser geyser How
did that relationship come tofruition between Ford and geyser

(22:28):
that's a really cool marriageyeah so for did a lot of
homework a lot of sniffingaround a few years ago and and
settled on geyser is there youknow factory builder let's say
so guys are built the bronco arewhich is really kept under wraps
and then is hammered steel andyeah this one y'all raced in

(22:52):
Baja Yep. So So Bronco are wasmore of a conceptual vehicle
let's say or they had moreliberties versus this stock
class 4600 so it had afiberglass body which later
carbon fiber body this beautifulmold and a lot of work going on
there. But yeah, guys are builtthat vehicle and then Cameron

(23:16):
steel and desert assassins werein charge of running it down in
Baja. So that's an effort whereI first got involved with Ford
Racing. I went down there we hada bunch of drivers Cameron,
myself Jason shear Shelby Hall,Rod Hall's granddaughter,
currently Duke Johnny Campbell,who was pretty, pretty amazing

(23:39):
guy. He's done a lot down there.
Oh and Steve Auguste SteveAugust's is a trophy truck guy
and owns team Ford out of Vegasand I would highly suggest him
if you want to go buy a broncoYeah, all I guess Ford there in
Las Vegas. Yep. You almost namedlike it almost sounds like an
offer to Hall of Fame listthere. It It was totally out of

(24:01):
shape. Why I think we neededsomething like 21 fire seats. By
the time it's all said and done.
Oh, that's amazing. Andhonestly, you know, we didn't
finish the race and it bums meout. And there's a lot of little
things that happened. It was wetdown there that year too. You
get it you get these fluke dealsthat happen I mean, in in my
stage has taken it through themountains and we there's a three

(24:22):
seater. This is the first yearso is a three seater. And what
happened? Well, Steve, all hissaid, gotten into something and
ripped up part of the skidplate.
So they handed it off to me. AndI caught the skid plate on
something else. I got stuck inthis muddy awful Creek and had
to get a little tug back. Sothen this is up above Mike Sky

(24:46):
Ranch. And then I'm coming downout of there and you could hear
the skid plate hidden. And I'mthinking hey, it's no problem
because it's just gonna bend theskid plate back up and off we
go. Well, it ended up beingsomehow the front of the skid
plate.
bent down. And so it was gettingworse and worse. And finally it
folded all the way over itselfup behind the transmission

(25:08):
transfer case, into the driveshaft and transmission lines,
cut the transmission lines. Soso we're out there in the middle
of the night. I mean, his pitchdark, we had to stop in this Oak
Grove. And the transmissionisn't really serviceable. It
doesn't have a dipstick. So youknow, it's a modern vehicle. And

(25:29):
so what it does have is a plugthat you can undo, but we
couldn't find it because thewhole thing was covered in mud.
And finally, anyway, we found itand we found a way to bypass the
lines. But we needed a way tofill the transmission because
it's way down there. You know,it'd be like, imagine where the
dipstick goes in on atransmission. It was like that,
but there was no long extension.

(25:52):
And we didn't have a funnel. Sowe're thinking we're thinking
and finally, you know, superbright for an engineer says,
Hey, Brad, use your catheter. SoI had to peel my catheter off,
and we use my catheter to fillthe transmission, sealed it up
and get on down the road. Butwhat an amazing triage story.

(26:14):
I got to hand it to him becauseI was trying to make a funnel
out of duct tape or gorilla tapeand I couldn't get it. So yeah,
that was awesome. But boy, Isure remember it being dark and
one truck stop, see if we're allright. And then he started going
again and pushed off the road.
And then we had to get himunstuck is is one of those baja
nights, you know, everything'swacko. Wow. Amazing. Yeah, I
picture like the scene from likeApollo 13. where, you know, it's

(26:38):
like, Gary Sinise plays theastronaut that doesn't go up and
they're like, Okay, this is allthey have.
And he goes through all thescenarios. That's the Ford
engineer going, Hey, they got arace catheter. Hey, Brad. peel
that off. You said, exactly. SoBut hey, awesome idea. It worked
great. It took a little time.
But whatever. Well, I love it.

(27:00):
Well, so let's jump back. Let'sjump all the way back to Brad
leveling growing up. And soyou're from Colorado Springs
area, you live there. Now youand your wife and you've got a
you got a bunch of boys, amessage of, you know, something
that I've I always loved aboutyour program was, you know, your
mother was at every race andthen, you know, I don't I don't

(27:23):
know what you call judge. Judgestepfather is what? Yeah.
And they were at everything. Youhad this amazing support. You
know, I love my dad, my dadwon't come braces though.
And then my wife is like, I justdon't do offroad to begin with.
So you know, when for offeredfor me. It's you know, it's a
kind of a solo affair, versusyou. It's always this big family

(27:46):
family event. And this year onyour finish when you came across
the finish line hammer King haddone a, you know, a really,
really nice video about yourmom. And
I'm sorry about you know, thatyou've, you've lost both of them
and in, you know, in less thansix months. Very sorry for your

(28:08):
losses. Oh, thank you. I foundthat the levels and level
brother race, you guys havethis. It's this family affair
for you guys. And that's not foreverybody. I can't say that I've
cried on the podium before butit was really touching to have
rob my brother there and and seeher picture up on the big screen

(28:29):
that that wasthat was pretty emotional. And,
and I was certainly thinkingabout her during the race. We
didn't talk about it. But I knowthat that Roger was too. And it
was it's been tough. She her andmy stepdad Judd have lived with
us for the last couple years andmy mom developed dementia and
dementia is a tough thing todeal with. And finally it It

(28:54):
took her on the 12th of Januaryso and it didn't make it any
easier getting ready for King ofthe hammers or are trying to
figure some of that out but i iknow that she would she would
have wanted us to go and and mystepdad Judd still wanted to go
and it wasn't at all the rightdecision for him. But he was

(29:17):
bound and determined. You know,he's following us around the
whole country with my mom in apickup in a fifth wheel and he
was ready to load up his pickupand fifth wheel and follow us
out and I we just we couldn't doit. We just couldn't make it
work for him. But he he passedaway a couple weeks ago here now
from from cancer. So it's a it'sthe end of an era for our team.

(29:43):
Obviously in it. It sucks andone of my friends at AMS Oh sit
at the best that has the chanceto start a newer. He's right.
But I don't know and you know,you you get through it. It's
okay.
day to day. But I think what Ikeep trying to tell myself is

(30:04):
you have to take it slow enoughto deal with it year over year
and think about how it reallyaffects things because it they
did go to so many other raceswith us so many short course
races and they towed to NorthCarolina, they'd towed a
Michigan and King of the hammersand go to everything. We
couldn't talk them out of it,even if this bad idea, which

(30:26):
does bring me to a maybe alittle lighter story, but I
think maybe they know they, theywent to pick up JT in Charlotte,
North Carolina, one year for atorque race down there. So they
went to the airport to pick upJT and then we had another crew
member flying in a couple hourslater. So what does JT do says,

(30:49):
hey, let's go get a beer. Sothey take off and they find JT
finds a local bar on his on hisphone there and they they walk
into the bar without realizingit was called the tool shed or
something like that, and tookone look in there. And it wasn't
the right kind of bar for them.
So they just turned around andwalked right on out. Oh, yeah.
JT is one of the few peoplewho've been to a gay bar with my

(31:11):
mom. I guess. That's Jake, he'speople that
he sniffed it out to that he'sgonna hear this and he's gonna
give us the knife edge, youknow? Yeah. Yeah. You know, my
involvement with you guys, JT iswho got me, you know, introduced

(31:34):
us and I came up to a coupleshort course races and helped
you guys and really got to knowyou know, your mom and dad
really, really well. And johnalways had his camera, he was
always taking pictures,everything your mom was always
trying to feed everybody, makingsure everyone was comfortable
and fed and nourished and arehydrated. And then Judd was
there right there with thecamera taking a picture. So you

(31:57):
guys have always had this, youknow, in house media for
forever. And I I miss it, youknow, we go out to the races now
and it's like he's doing foodcuz I don't, I don't do food.
I'm sorry, I don't do it. So wegot it. You know, it's always a
struggle to figure out who'sgonna throw themselves on the,
on the coals there and worryabout food for our team. But

(32:19):
it's it's been a lot of fun overthe over the years racing with
JT we used to race against himand then for a lot of years
before he got involved withultra for he was part of the
short course team, you know,spotter and crew chief and
really did a lot for us. Andthose are, those are, those are
all fun times. It's, you know,it's the another era. But we did

(32:42):
eight years a short coursebetween pro lite and pro two and
had a lot of fun doing it. We'regonna get we're still gonna get
there. That's, that's a wholethat gets a couple chapters of
its own. So yeah, so you guys,you grown up in Colorado
Springs, you and your yourbrother, Roger, and then at what
point? Did you guys both Youmean, you had a ranger? He had a

(33:06):
bronco, too. And you guys ofcourse be in Colorado, you guys
got to exploring is that kind ofwhat the insert is and how you
guys end up it? You know,adventure some because I know
you guys have done some tradethat you'll have to describe
this or explain this here in alittle bit. Or now even you guys
drove from like one side of thestate to the west side of the
state without doing pavement andsome stuff a couple times. Yeah.

(33:28):
So the thing growing up, I canremember being a kid and
watching the Baja 1000 andthinking, Oh, that's what I want
to do. That's for me. But my dadwas a stockbroker. And my mom
stayed at home to raise us andit never felt like it was
something that was ever anoption. You know, it just is
like, hey, that's that's not forme. That's not my wife. And we

(33:51):
go camping as a family in themountains, and we had an 88
start in 83 Bronco, and then an88 Bronco. And we go bounce
around in the back of that andthen we always want my dad to go
further and try harder and hehad you know, he was he was
smarter than us so he neverwanted to go too far. But what
he did is he left a drive withinme and Roger to go further and

(34:15):
go see things so he he got hisBronco to and he's 16 he still
has it by the way he's Inarrowed it solid axles
everything in the world he cando to abraca two, it's awesome.
And I got a I got a ranger threeyears later so then we go
camping and my cousin mark andour buddy Dave, and we'd go

(34:35):
wherever we could to go up tomines to try rougher roads to do
stuff like that do Holy Crosshere. That was a big deal on
Mount Blanca and all thesetrails that would be easy for a
more capable vehicle. Now it wasa lot different back then. So
eventually, I don't know we wentto we started going to Moab.

(34:56):
That was a big deal. I guess Iwas close when I was in college.
They're gonna remember I wentwith one of my college buddies
for the very first time. And wecame around to the bottom of
Moab rim and it was just he andI, you know, before you cross
Devil's crack there or whateverit is you you kind of come
around and there's a thin pointand it's steep, it's right at
the bottom. Well, like down inthe parking lot I backed into a

(35:18):
rock and cut my brake line. Andit's a manual so I was up there
and I pushed in the clutch andthe brakes went to the floor,
and I thought I was gonna dieWhy so I you know, is we did
some trail fix and we got theheck out of there. But you know,
that was my first experience forMoab. So I have a lot of respect
for that that we went startedpushing ourselves in Moab and

(35:39):
I was right when I graduatedcollege, so I certainly didn't
do this stuff. When I was young.
I went to my very first rockcrawling competition. I just, I
took it I went to the Universityof Wyoming so I just took a trip
all by myself. I wanted to screwaround before I got a real job.
And I went out through Wyomingand all down through Utah and
all the back roads and saw thenational parks and timed it. So

(36:00):
I showed up at Cedar City at arock crawl. And I remember
thinking this is for me, this iswhat I need to be doing. So I
drug Roger and Dave and markdown to the first I think it was
the first Super crawl down inFarmington Okay, maybe this
first or second i think is thefirst one but but Walker Evans

(36:22):
is down there and all the bigguys were down there. And I
remember telling us like look,we can do this we can beat these
guys come on, and everybody'sdragging their feet. But long
story short, we bought a Dana 60front axle off of Craigslist
leaving town out of Farmington.
And that was the beginning ofthe end for my daily driver

(36:43):
because we turned it intocompetition Rock Crawler, and
and then I scrounge some moneytogether and and bought a 2002 F
250 to tow it. So you know it'sit's important to me not to to
lose my but racing and westarted we invested about five
grand and the Ranger we got Iyou know, PSC was the very first

(37:07):
company that wanted to work withme and wanted to like, hey,
we'll give you a discount. It'slike, Oh, this is awesome. So we
really started with kind of asmall investment and a lot of
sweat equity and went out to thevery first race the very first
rock crawl and i i bet peopleremember this one is down in St.
George, who was right when yourock and ARCA came together, and

(37:29):
they were going to have this bigextravaganza down there in St.
George. And it was a totalcluster. And that was our first
event and everything was messedup. I remember driving down this
course. It wasn't wasn't any bigdeal. Why but I was so messed up
about competing in front ofpeople or standing on the brake
pedal so hard in driving throughin my you know, the gas, my left

(37:54):
foot started shaking andtrembling. I couldn't hold the
brake enough. Well, that waslike one of the courses that we
finished another one we justactually is my very first one. I
noticed into got stuck, didn'teven get the back we'll see the
start date is timed out. Andthen I is later that day or the
next day. We're trying to climbup on this big cliff and Rogers

(38:15):
up there pulling on the toestrap. I ended up going over
backwards and he got flung offthe rock broke his fingers. So
my cousin Mark had to step in hehe came in, in this this course
with cones everywhere. Well, hehe got up there and accidentally
kicked over like three cones.
And then I drove over anotherone. So we're done with that
course. But as it worked out,they you know, they were only

(38:36):
able to score two courses thatday or something. And we ended
up winning the event. I was likehow the hell that happened. So
we won that event. We won. Whenwas the rest of the events that
season and got second atSupercross that year so it was
one of the one was that likeoh 4030404 got it. I know. It

(38:57):
seems like a very I mean, it isa really long time ago that 17
years, just for those keepingmetalia at home. But when we
went from like oh four from thatto you got your in a unit
flashed up with torch matesomewhere along the path and end
up in a 7200 truck racing withBill Coons shortly thereafter, I

(39:20):
mean, how did it Yeah, we'rejust getting once again.
It's all part of the story. AndI just saw that bill just bought
back the twin traction beam carfrom JT which is is kind of
exciting. So is that is that isthat publicly out there? I mean,

(39:43):
it's gonna be probably up thereon this airs But well, I I've
read it on Facebook. So okay, sogood. Okay, saying it.
But, um, so we, you know, Iguess I got to talk about torch
mate, I got to talk about thefact
I quit my job in 2006. You know,it's like holy cow in 2004. We

(40:05):
figured we could make some moneydoing this rock crawl and stuff.
And all we had to do is justRoger and I and my mom and I
enjoyed for that matter goingout to races here. And there,
really, it was cheap, you couldwin some money, and he could get
some sponsors. And so we kind ofpiddle along eventually, we got

(40:26):
a little sponsorship here andthere for some cash. It's like,
wow, we got we got it made. Andthen I really, I feel like I
kind of landed the whale. We gota sponsorship from fabtech that
was kind of a big deal. That wasenough, has enough money to get
us in trouble, I guess. But thatwas around the time of our Ford
Association and things arereally going great. And

(40:48):
you know, I, I got married, andthen it's time to have kids and
holy cow, we're pregnant withtwins, you know. So I was in
this point where I'm going to bea dad. And that takes time. And
and I have a career job. And Iwant to go racing. And it was
not easy for me by any means.
But Natalie supported me to quitmy job and go racing. And I

(41:12):
think that's where I, you know,you ask who inspires me the
most, and it's my wife, and thenshe's given me so much
opportunity. But well, there's alot to unpack there. There's
lots of how did how did you andNatalie meet. That's
actually it, I was doing asubdivision review for the city

(41:35):
like reviewing all thisinfrastructure that goes in and,
and she worked out at theairport. So I had to, you know,
there's all theseintergovernmental agreements,
and it's like, Brad go out thereto the airport, they're doing
something just kind of rubberstamp it? Well, I saw Natalie
out there and kind of get toknow her. And she's managing the
project and everything. It'slike, Yeah, I don't know, let's

(41:57):
see, I'm gonna have to be prettyinvolved in this project.
Right? Like, I want to know her.
So so you graduate fromUniversity of Wyoming, you
you're an engineer by trade. Andso you actually, when you
graduate, you actually are oneof those guys actually got a job
doing what you went to schoolfor? I did, yeah, I
actually, you know, Roger, and Iget the same degree, one, same

(42:19):
school. And for a while we wereworking at the same place
designing precast concretebuildings, like a lot of parking
garages are precast. But it'sall stuff that's developed in a
yard, and then gets shipped towherever it's going. And it gets
welded together. But at thatpoint, where is all two
dimensional CAD, so it wasreally like putting all these
puzzles together, doing thedesign work. And then

(42:42):
engineering it your engineeringwelds and plate thicknesses and
rebar sizes and stuff like that.
So yeah, I did that for a fewyears, and then our dad passed
away. And that was around 2000.
And, you know, I just, I got thebug that life is too short. So
at that point, I actually quitmy job. And I went to quite a

(43:06):
lot of things, apparently, why Iquit my job. And I went to
Australia, and I bought a 1978,Land Rover, and I drove across
the whole country, continent,whatever you want to call it.
And I think that, that, thatkind of get my head a little bit
straight about what I wanted todo. So, you know, there's
there'sMatthew McConaughey just put out

(43:27):
his book called green lights.
And, and I've listened to enoughI'm not a good reader, I
listened to things. And he didlike a year in Australia as like
an exchange student, and whatAustralia did for him and helped
him get his head on right andsettle him down. And goal orient

(43:49):
him basically just reset thecompass back to a true north.
Sounds very similar. What ittaught me is you have to follow
your your passion, you have tofollow what you care about and
your pride. And you can't cheatyourself, you're just not going
to be happy. And sometimesyou're your own path that might
not be the easiest path or themost profitable path. But if you

(44:12):
love doing what you're doing,you're going to be alright, so
you went on walk about going ona walkabout and I I bought that
thing for maybe three grand andsold it for for a couple 1000 I
one point I stopped just out inthe middle of I mean, absolutely
nowhere, and I drove about amile off the road and I just
camped all by myself, which itsounds easy to talk about, but

(44:35):
man it's different when you're akid and you're all by yourself
and I want to challenge myselfand I really wanted me and I
wanted to do so many the longdistance tracks out there, but
you have to like helicopter andfuel and stuff like that. So I
did some of them saw someamazing stuff and and when I got
back I that's when I ended upgetting the job of the city and

(44:57):
there's all right, it's goodmoney at the time.
allowed me to do what I wantedto do which was which is go rock
crawling. And and we go on abunch of fun trips back then
like, you know so manyenthusiasts do now. And then so
you meet Natalie. You guys haveof course now been married for
it seems like forever but it'snot forever. Yeah, well I met

(45:21):
Natalie when I was building ourfirst Ranger, you know, the, the
one that kind of started at allwhich is still running around
out there. Yeah. And and we gotmarried and then I was rock
crawling for a little bit andthinking I was busy. Which boy,
it sure seems simple now. Butyeah, we're doing the Yurok
series did some we rock andwe're, we're winning races and

(45:43):
we're making money doing it. Andif it wasn't for rock crawling,
there's no way that we'd have aMotorsports team today because
it's so hard to get into. And sohard to get out of. But yeah,
started doing that. And thenreached the point where, you
know, we had an all rightsponsorship with fabtech. And
it's like, look, I think I canquit my job and make a go at

(46:06):
this. So the the day the kidswere born, I quit my job. And
off I go to be a professionalracer, and, and it's certainly
been the most rewarding. Andit's also been the hardest time
in my life for sure. I mean, notnot making money worrying about
paying the mortgage. With timewith deadlines, you know, races

(46:28):
don't wait. You can you can pushthe project off, but races don't
wait. So you have to be ready.
You gotta be ready for the greenflag. So your two boys out of
them by him? How old are theynow? 14. Now they're 14. So
they're almost 15. So that's 15years ago, that did I quit and
they're, they'retheir little bandits. We just

(46:50):
built a new shop here. We've gotit functional around the end of
last year. I think they're bothout right now welding on a cage
for a UTV prerunner we're doing.
So they, they very much theylove working in the shop. They
like being around it. But onething that that I've kind of

(47:13):
been pretty staunch about is Idon't want or need to raise
mirror images of myself and I soI you know, early on, everybody
said Oh, they're gonna racethey're gonna race. Well, I sure
I want him to race. But what Ireally want him to do is is fine
what I found, which is somethingthat I'm absolutely passionate
about. And I have pride in thefact that it's been built by

(47:37):
Roger and I'm in our family. SoI don't I don't want to just
hand him or set them up to bepredestined racers. I'd love to
use the the cars we have or thecontacts we have to help them
along. But ultimately they needto find what's what in life is
going to drive them. I thinkthat's the most insightful words

(47:59):
I've heard from anyone in a longtime is that yeah, i i'd love
it. If my son was wanting to beracer, he doesn't. He liked that
he has no interest. It's it's,it's crazy. And I've told this
story numerous times, you know,we we went up to Midlothian to
textbooks race and he's got bothof the the Miller boys you know,

(48:21):
you know, Hunter and his brotherand and Kyle cheney was there
and Dustin Jones and Kyle Hart,Marty Hart son, Uriel these
these are the you know, the the20 somethings, sorry, I'm
throwing the Millers into your20s are in their 30s. But you
know, these are the guys thatare you know, their factory
cannamd drivers are theirnational champions. This is like

(48:42):
the best kind of the best of thebest in UTV racing right now.
And my boy West, he's standingright there with them. And
they're like, Hey, we're gonnaget you in one of these. And
he's like, he's like, no, I playbaseball.
And I equate it to be like, ifhe was you're invited to like a
quarterback camp and it's likeTom Brady and, and company and
mahomes standing around and theylook at they look at my boy was

(49:03):
like, hey, you'd be aquarterback. And I'm like, Nah,
man, I like doing this.
You know, the, like I said, Ithink you got to follow your own
path. And for me, I didn't myfirst Rock Crawler is 26 years
old and I I love racing. But Iyou know, there's more to life
than just racing, I think andit's it's certainly been my

(49:26):
passion and been what I'm about.
But also when I'm done racing,I'm gonna go right back to off
roading recreationally andexploring and you brought up the
non event or whatever you wantto call it that we've done a
couple of times, which is theamsoil expedition Colorado and
that that started out because wehad a stacker trailer going out

(49:49):
to all the short course racesand we had a UTV with the top
chopped off to use a pit vehicleand it just after a while
It struck me it's like Why? Whyare we taking a UTV out? I love
Willys jeeps. So it's like wecould get a Willys roll down or
fold down the windshield, put ontop of the stacker, and you have
the same thing and it's streetlegal. So we can go out to

(50:12):
dinner, we can get away from thetrack, do whatever. So I found
it took a lot of looking but Ifound a 43 Willys MB that came
out of the museum here, there'sin pretty good shape, boys, and
I rebuilt the motor and wentthrough everything on it. So
then we had that and boy, itsure was fun out of CRAN. And we
could go exploring and do allkinds of stuff. And then we

(50:32):
figured, wouldn't it be cool todrive across the Rocky Mountains
or go to Moab or somethingand take that Jeep, and the
safest way to do it is taking iton on all the back passes and,
and remote roads. And that kindof goes back to like a kid when
I was camping. I always wantedto see what's over the next pass
what's over the horizon. So wegot on Google Earth and laid out

(50:56):
a route and look for absolutelyas much dirt as we could find
and the hardest passes and allthis stuff. So Roger, and myself
and Jake, who worked with us,just is just a handful of us and
wewe just set off the idea being
you know, you're trying torewind life you're trying to

(51:19):
find challenge close to home.
This bar has a long ways away,it costs a lot of money. And
there is adventure close tohome. So I didn't purposely I
didn't do a whole bunch ofresearch or anything beforehand.
But I did have a route. Well,it's surprising how many roads
you can see from an airplane oron Google Earth that are closed

(51:39):
or gated or private or I stilldon't know why it but God we hit
so many gates and so manyissues. So we'd have to turn
around find another route goaround the gate. And it came to
total fruition when we got onpro pass pretty much the highest
point and it was just flat outsnowed off. So we had to go all

(52:01):
in. It's like you get daysbehind. It's crazy. But we did
make it to Moab. We got to Moab.
And we finally set up camp andas I call man, we made it we're
camping up on sand flats. And wewere watching this storm roll
roll by and I remember tellingeverybody it was to the east.
Everything goes from west toeast out here. Don't worry about
it. No is coming our way in it.

(52:23):
Just I'm in a torrential raindrowned out our camp, and it got
dark. And we were absolutelysoaked. The only place we can
think of going is grandpa'sgarage. So we go to grandpa's
garage. And you know after thistrip I'll never forget because
there's we were sitting thereshivering and there was one
piece of cardboard in a loft andwe're fighting over the

(52:45):
cardboard who gets sleep on thecardboard kids curled up in the
loft. I slept on concrete thatnight that but what a trip. So
we've we've done that when wecame back from Moab to Colorado
Springs. And on that particulartrip, I lost the starter gear
like 10 miles in and that Jeepvapor locks all the time. So
that one was hard fought. Andthen we did one going from Grand

(53:08):
Junction all the way up aroundthrough Moab down through the
San Juan's to Lake City. So it'sbeen a lot of fun. And I think
we'll probably put somethingtogether this summer. What
reminds me of you know, likethese expedition off roads or
that are going on, I bet you canget people to follow you.
Yeah.

(53:30):
But so the whole the wholethought here is that, get out
and do it yourself. You know,there's, there's adventure.
Like, again, if you look back towhat I was talking about in
Australia, you know, drivingacross Australia is a lot
different when you're alone inan old vehicle camping by
yourself than it is in a group.
So that's kind of something wewanted to push about expedition

(53:52):
Colorado says, Hey, here's theroute, go off and do it. And
then, you know, the last time wedid, it's kind of like a
scavenger hunt. It really gotpeople out. But I think there's
so much adventure to be had andjust getting out and seeing some
of these things in a small groupor by yourself versus a big
trail ride, you know, well,yeah, I think anytime you can

(54:14):
get your your kids involved andget them off, you know, off the
couch off the video games outthe door in the shop, I noticed,
you know, social media iscertainly jaded to being all
positive all the time. And soyou know, it's not always it's
not always roses, even thoughpeople may representative
presented as roses. But yeah,you know, I always see your boys

(54:35):
are in the shop and I think it'sfor me and it's what I see out
of my son and you know, I dohave a daughter who is very,
very, very creative. But whenyou see them create something
out there. You got you get thislittle, I guess window into
their mind of how they think andhow they process issues. And
you're like, Am I doing it rightlike you're hesitant to say that

(55:00):
Knock on wood, you know, you'renot gonna live here, but you
kind of like, wow, um,they thought about that, or
they've taken that intoconsideration. And they're
becoming their own little peopleand they're become their own
humans and they have their owntheir own drive. And, you know,
mean, you try to tilt theplaying field in their favor as
much as possible. But at thesame time, they still have to

(55:22):
walk across that playing field.
Yeah, well, that's, that's asmart way to put it. And I, I
definitely feel fortunate thatwe have a shop, you know, for a
while, we had a smaller shop atour last house and employees
running in and out of there, andthere really wasn't much room
for the kids to do what theywanted to do. And so, during

(55:44):
COVID, we, we bought a house alittle bit before that, and had
to shut down the shop for alittle bit. But right when COVID
hit about a year ago, we startedbuilding a new shop, and we got
an awesome shop now that hasspace for the kids to spread out
and do what they want to do. AndI, I can see their expression
through what they do, but alsohow they drive and that's what

(56:07):
has been really exciting to me,is just watching them drive it's
a window into their soul. Andyou can see where they're
confident where they're notwhere they're questioning. So
that's it's been a lot of fun.
We, over the past couple years,we've raised the bar 500 in a
Polaris in the stock class, we,you know, I don't have a need to

(56:28):
be highfalutin, I guess andthere's nothing wrong with going
out and racing a stock vehicle.
And that's where I think theseguys should start. And both
years we raced with Roger andhis son Parker and my two boys
and rotating them through thecar. And it's it's just been
quite an adventure night. Idon't know, is it gonna be this

(56:50):
year again? I don't know. We'llsee. I it's hard to keep all
these mechanical bits moving,you know, right. Yeah, I mean,
but it's so cool to be able todo that and share to be able to
share baja with your kids, Ithink is amazing how you guys
are doing it. So you mentionedyou brought in your new house
grab a new one in the past yearand is she still this very

(57:12):
project oriented? She picks outsomething and she just wears you
wears you down with landscapingor the repaint or adding a room
or is she still Yeah, sameNatalie apparently you've seen
her Facebook page but she youknow, I spend a lot of time on
the road and racing takes a lotof time. And she is not willing

(57:32):
to let life or project slow downaround the house. So yeah, I've
left and and we got a pond inthe backyard or one time is hot.
Or we got a I don't know adetached patio, new gardens pop
up. So she buys trees like theirTic Tac. Plants need trees and

(57:54):
but all in all, I can't complaintoo much. Because that gets
those projects done. Why? Yeah,the knockout. You're like, hey,
look what Yeah, Merry Christmasto be. Yeah. So I wanted to kind
of you know, jump back in thechronological of racing with
you. So 15 years ago, you know,you quit the nine to five grind
or whatever, but you didn't Imean, you guys were already

(58:15):
working around the clock. If youweren't at work for somebody,
you were home, working on yourcars, building race cars, you
know, competing and thendifferent genres are running
across you guys in zarei. Ibrought up the bill Coons deal
with a 7200 truck I rememberrunning into you guys in that
truck. in Vegas one year I don'tremember if it was maybe a

(58:36):
minute maybe maybe it was meantmaybe it was also Vegas Reno it
was numerous times running intoyou guys that the black truck
and then you guys were you andyour brother had matching twin
Twinkie race cars.
They were the same chassis now.
One of them died. In what year2010. Roger bear rolled it at
Pikes Peak. Yeah, in practice,and it wasn't even, you know,

(59:02):
competition day. This was likeit was practice. He came around.
It was a sweeping right hander.
And then just the rear washedout. Yeah, so I guess to reflect
on all that a little bit, youknow, 2008 2009, the the economy
obviously took a nosedive and itaffected off road as much as

(59:25):
anybody with the housing crisisand all that business and we're
sucking wind. So I I didn't knowwhat the future held and I went
and worked a construction jobfor one of our sponsors and
partners for a few months andand had the good fortune of
getting involved in torch mate.
And while everybody else waskind of hurting with the economy

(59:46):
torch mate had these awesome newplasma tables that were actually
affordable. They weren't$100,000 pieces of equipment.
There's something you could getin your shop and really looking
for some presence in off road.
Soworked with Bill on on the race
team kind of managing the raceteam and riding with him in that
seven truck and we had a lot ofgood times in that truck running

(01:00:08):
the best in the desert series,we actually, I think is oh nine,
we ended up second place onchampionship points. And Bill
was actually my co driver in2010 when we were 28 seconds out
of the win for King of thehammers. A lot of fun there and
then eventually torch mate gotbought up by Lincoln Electric.

(01:00:28):
And that's what took Jeff Knoll,Jeff Knoll was involved with
that program and kicking thehammers, obviously, those who've
been around kicking the hammersfor a long time will remember
torch mate. They brought tablesCNC tables out there, they're
cutting parks for everybody. SoJeff is actually working with
Lincoln Electric now. And Billwalked away to Montana where he

(01:00:50):
always wanted to go. And like Isay, it's kind of interesting. I
just saw he gets some shop spacein a race car. So we'll see.
We'll see what happens. There ispart of all that. And another
awesome guy that was part of thetorch mate team was Nick Sosa.
Right, you're right. Yeah. And,again, those have been around

(01:01:11):
for a while can remember Nick'sgreat spotter, and he had a
vehicle rollover on top of him.
In one of the you rock rockcrawls, I think it was in Salt
Lake City, and he got hurtreally bad. And the whole off
road community came together anddid a raffle to help raise money

(01:01:34):
for him. And so we bought abunch of tickets and lo and
behold, won a chassis. So wewent out, we went out got the
chassis and that chassis iseventually did a lot of changes
to it. A lot of work on it. Butthat's what ended up being
Rogers Ranger. So it was kind ofit ended up really being an
excuse to build another car. Sowe put that together and then

(01:01:56):
you're remembering the yearwhich boy maybe it was 2010
where it miles four guys. Yeah,it came out to run Pikes Peak
hill climb. Well, I remember theroad that David Dave had
everybody or Dave and Jeff hadeveryone run lands and lands in
was a points race orsomething along that and that
was Grand Junction. And thatseemed to be every nobody had a

(01:02:23):
we all had idiot lights. Right?
And how many people blue motorslike I think Jesse Haynes blue
motor Ben Napier blue motor.
There's a lot of motors goteaten, you know, climbing up a
mountain. Yep, indeed. But I,you know, you know how it's been
with ultra for it's been, youknow, we're out to conquer the
world. So and that's why, youknow, that's why I recently

(01:02:43):
Crandon that's why we're doingall these different events,
because we, you know, we're outto conquer the world. And part
of that was doing Pikes Peak.
So, gosh, who all was was therethat year? I know. I think Dave
Cole was running his car and JTand Roger Yoder. Oh, god,
they're Peterson. Yeah, Yoda wasthere. Anyway, they're handful

(01:03:03):
of guys. And I was I was racingthe pro like that that year,
when it was actually during therace. And I was sitting in
staging and I watched Roger go,and then they they sent another
car, and then they held up theorder. An ambulance goes up, and
I'm thinking oh, my God, in it.

(01:03:24):
You don't you know, you'resitting in a car, you can only
do so much and is forever. Andfinally they brought him back
down. And I saw him get out andhug his wife and his kid. And,
and he came back to the car andtold me so it's alright, just go
talk about it later. Well, I ranup. And at that point, I'm

(01:03:44):
thinking I'm not gonna doanything crazy, because I knew
something bad happens. And in alot of times, I think, you know,
one bad thing happens. Anotherone's coming. So and I had a
good run up, I think it was a1215 which seems pretty slow
compared to the standards todaywhen it's all paved, but sure
felt like I was hauling buttonthat prolight. So I get up top

(01:04:06):
and then you sit up top for therest of the day. And the only
place I can get cell phonecoverage is hike way down over
the side. So I called andfigured out kind of what
happened and he had gotten alittle loose in a turn and they
put shotcrete in the ditches toline the ditches for erosion and
stuff. And he caught a tire onthat shotcrete in the ditch and

(01:04:26):
it just launched him in, rip thewhole sidewall out of the tire
and he ended up rolling straightdown the pavement. The way it
swapped up, just destroyed thecar. So we brought that one home
and took it apart. And there youso I wasn't sure that if you
were running that prolight we'regonna go into how you ended up
in pearlite in short course herein a second but so you're

(01:04:48):
running the pro light and what Ididn't remember that it was the
same year at this point. Butwhat I do remember and I'm sure
it's still out there on YouTube,is you ran my career. We call it
the dick cam, you knowThis long, long pipe that sticks
out the back of the car, you ranit in practice off of the
prolight. So you got this videogame view, you know, like, it's

(01:05:09):
like third person video gameview looking down over the hood
over the roof. And you're goingup pikes and pikes when you get
above the treeline, and you havethe will, there's two kinds of
turns, right, there's an outsideturn an inside turn, and which
side of the mountains on so thisis an outside turn. And you
can't I mean, the GoPro iscatching nothing but 3000 feet

(01:05:33):
down on one right side. Andyou're, you know, you can hear
the murders. As you're shiftingup shifting through this, it's
like, wow, you know, one more,two more inches over to the
right. And you're, you're, youknow, you're gonna need wings?
Well, it definitely I put thattogether because you have a
chance to practice the bottomthird, middle third and upper

(01:05:56):
third. And it's like, Hey, I'mgonna, I only had one GoPro, but
it's like, they'd let you run aboom or whatever in practice. So
I kept changing camera views andgetting all this stuff before
race day and you have a day offor something before race day.
It's a brutal week, because youhave to get up so early to go up
there and practice and why Iremember looking at the exact
footage that you're talkingabout. And I thought, oh my god,

(01:06:17):
what am I doing? You know,because it doesn't look that way
when you're in the driver'sseat. But you get that view from
up high and wide angle lens andit's like, Good God. So
yeah, I shouldn't have watchedthat video before race day. But
I did that race twice. And itwas a lot of fun. I was all

(01:06:39):
geared up to do it. The thirdyear, I got, you know, full
blown BFG race slicks andalcohol carb and had all the
fuel purchased. And in really,you know, I had more time. It
was always like the week afterCrandon, so I had to erase
Crandon and deadhead home. Andif you don't make all the

(01:07:00):
practice days, you can't raceand I think practice was
Tuesday. I mean, it was brutal.
But anyway, this year, there wastime. And then we had we had
some big fires around here is,you know, everybody is aware of
I'm sure. And Pikes Peak movethe date of the race. And it's
always been on top of Crandonever since this year, I guess
which they moved it againbecause a COVID. So so that kind

(01:07:22):
of I wasn't able to race thepeak anymore. And now it's it's
getting really crazy, becauseit's it's all tarmac and I worry
at some point when it's going tobe slow or snow or water up top.
And people are running slicksand and launch off that road,
but it's always a spectacle.

(01:07:44):
It's a pretty cool race to havelocally. Yeah, I know. That's a
big, you know, there's, youknow, some some big fighting
about that, you know, that, youknow, the old records were
suddenly records when the roadwas still dirt and gravel on the
upper sections, or even still inthe middle sections. And then
now it's, it's paved the wholeway. So how do you I mean, the

(01:08:05):
right question, you're this rockguy, you're doing you rock
sports. And we knew about shortcourse we'd seen short course
which is same as all of a suddenseen trophy trucks. You go out
and get a pro lite and that'sthe next level for you. And you
start racing pro like what madeyou
make that jumper? How did thathow did that jump happen? And

(01:08:28):
then let's talk about your yourcareer is short course driver
over the past 10 years. Itcertainly didn't happen fast. I
think 2010 might have been our ithink is 2010 was our first
year. And in 2007, we went outto out to prim the track out

(01:08:49):
there. So we flew out to Vegas,my wife and Roger and I because
I wanted to get into shortcourse bad I didn't want to go
racing, you know, and this isthe hot stuff. And that's, you
know, the pinnacle of off road.
And we ran out there and ranright up to the fence and watch
the car coming around and sayyeah, this is awesome. And then
we just got roosted with all thethe marvels and everything. So

(01:09:09):
you learn lessons quick, andthat was the same race in the
video is still out there. ButRick Huisman, a fabtech teammate
of mine, those guys have done anawful lot to help out our
program early on, but he he wasrunning his pro for across the
whip section. And he hit somewhoops wrong. And he did a
double front flip and landed onthe wheels enrolled off the

(01:09:32):
course and it was right aboutthe time I saw that. I said, I
don't think I'm ready for shortcourse yet. It took three years
but what I really owe it to isamsoil amsoil has always been a
big supporter of grassrootsMotorsports and professional
Motorsports, especially in theMidwest, and they were very much
entrenched in the torque series.

(01:09:53):
And we got really lucky in thefact that Chad horde was moving
up to pro two andThey were looking for a pro
driver. And I kept asking andasking, and I know it, it
bothered a lot of people thatwere in this sport already, they
felt like amsoil should havelooked within the sport, but
they they look to me and, andI'm still really thankful for
that. So we bought a chassis andwe put it together and went out

(01:10:18):
and, and ran Crandon that wasthe first race. And it was, it
was very humbling, because yougot to understand why we were
pretty, pretty dominant in rockcrawling. In all the years, I
can remember one event or twoevents, there's a super crawl
where we better run the motor.

(01:10:38):
And there was an event down inHouston where we just had a
crappy event and we got to 11th.
And outside of that, we'repretty much on the podium, every
event so here I am sitting in mypro life thinking about how
great a racecar driver I am. Andtake off in my first race. Go
through turn one get halfwaythrough turn to tap a truck

(01:10:59):
break a tie rod, my race isdone. I'm thinking oh my god,
this is awful, you know. So thatwas spring crane. And that was
the first race. The last race ofthat year. JT came out to help
us probably first race JT cameout to help with and Rain Rain,
rain, no chance to go out andpractice nothing. And by that

(01:11:21):
point, I realized that I neededsome help. So I got I've got
myself a racecar driver selfhelp book. You know, one of the
I can't remember who wrote it,but talking about race craft.
And one of the big pieces ofadvice is anytime you're in a
race car, drive it like a racecar, you know, drive it to the
limit, don't screw around, anddon't get comfortable driving

(01:11:43):
that thing at half throttle. So,okay, so I soak that up. So we
had one parade lap, before we goaround in line up for the race.
What do you do?
I throw it into the argon turn alittle bit hard, and I roll onto
the lid. And so to this day, Ithink well I'm one of two guys

(01:12:04):
who've rolled on a on a paradelap but so I'm upside down and
I'm pretty sure there's fueldraining into the roof out of
the car. And and they come overand pull me pull me back over
and the hoods all messed up. Andyou know, I'm wild eyed because
I you know how it is with ultrafor folks. I mean, we're we're

(01:12:25):
going this one thing I believeabout ultra for is you never
quit, you keep going. So I'm notgoing to quit. So I pull up to
the line and JT is there with asaws all they had time to get us
off. And he's trying to hack thehood off and cut it off. And
they're getting ready to throwthe green. And I remember JC is
pulling the last bit of hood offin the track workers literally

(01:12:47):
pulling JT off. So bang flaggets thrown and I actually I had
a fairly good race going, I wasin the upper third of the pack,
and ended up it was like acouple turns left ran out of
fuel, because the fuel drainedout of the car into the roof.
And that was the end of theseason. And I thought for sure
I'm done. I spent all this moneyon this pro line, I'm gonna get

(01:13:10):
fired and amsoil had thelonger vision I guess. And we
got a deal the next year, whichyou know, led into a
relationship with Nissan and,and some good backing and some
good advice. And we want achampionship that year and it
was hard fought championship, Imean write down tooth and nail.

(01:13:30):
And that's definitely one of themost rewarding championships
have had that pro at one yougarnered, you know, one respect
to you know, just the amount ofknowledge that you gained from
you know, just the little bit oftime you you're there in a in
pro life moving up, but therelationships like I I know, I
can walk up to Scott Douglastoday. And he's like Mr. amsoil.

(01:13:53):
And I only know him because ofyou.
So, and he comes up to King ofthe hammers. I don't remember
seeing him this year, but I sawhim last year standing around
kind of by the by the actuallyby the mainstage when you guys
won last year. Yeah, yeah. Soit's, you know, so much of

(01:14:15):
what's been rewarding for me isyou have all these heroes that
that you look up to inmotorsports and getting to meet
them and and then maybe gettingto develop relationships with
them that there's mutualrespect, and that's certainly
been true with with ScottDouglas. And you know that you

(01:14:36):
know how it is we're allfighting but we're fighting
together and Scott for a coupleyears. Let us just go work out
of his shop out there inWisconsin to avoid the long
drive home. So the boys havemany hours out in the shop there
and we camp out here this thisawesome building that used to

(01:14:57):
they used to build lock homesout of so we had a house right
there.
We'd camp out and, and had a lotof good times. So since then
he's been coming out to King ofthe hammers with amsoil. And,
and you might have missed himthere. He's probably a little
incognito. But he was out thererunning around this year. So
it's great to to not only rubelbows with with heroes like

(01:15:19):
that, that I've looked up to,but just be able to really
consider him a teammate. Yeah,he's, I mean, there's so many
great individuals like that. Iremember. So JT gets, you know,
I'm always I'm usually down forstuff except for going to
Mexico. I'm really bad aboutthat. JT, as we talk about JT
Taylor all the time. He's, youknow, the, he's like my co host
that he's not here right now.

(01:15:41):
He will always be I think he'salmost stopped asking me to get
to Mexico, which is sad. Sorry,JT. Because I've told him no, so
many times, but he's like, Hey,what do you got going this
weekend? We're gonna be at XYZshort course race. You want to
come? Yeah, man. So I remember Iwhen I came to floresville, with
you, definitely a Dallas race,maybe a couple of years. But I
remember at one point, we're atthe drivers meeting. I don't

(01:16:04):
remember why you drunk why youguys drugged me along by Sit
down. I'm sitting next to Arilineback Jr. And he's on my
left. You know, this guy's onThe Bachelor, a year later, or
six months later. And my wife islike, you know,
thanks. Are you something else?
And are you something else, buthe's sitting next to me. And he
folds, he crosses his legs. Andhis and he's wearing his jeans.

(01:16:26):
His jeans have elastic cuffs onthe bottom. And I'm looking
across the USAC race trailer.
You know, it's in this big 18Wheeler trailer and the lounge
and I'm looking over you and JTtrying to get your attention
like point andlike the little finger.

(01:16:47):
Like Who is this guy? I don'tknow, even if we get out there.
And so he's, you know, that'sour line dikes and our line. I'm
like, Oh, I know who Alright,like my kids. Wow. I didn't know
those. Those pants were instyle. But hey, you wear goofy
pants. You get called out oneway or another? It doesn't
matter. Right? Yeah, it's you'regonna get hit.

(01:17:07):
So definitely good stuff withyou guys in in. I know that that
event itself was I want to saythat was your first event with
your pro two. And at this point,you had stepped up from pro life
to pro two. So there's threeclasses right the pro lights the
little guys that many trucks soto speak. Still pretty, pretty

(01:17:28):
bad limited travel. And then youmove up to the pro two which is
basically an unlimited two wheeldrive. And then the next the
unlimited the big boys, the profours which is the unlimited for
all drives. So you went from thepro lights, you build a pro to
you unveil it. I think that wasa Dallas or Texas or Yeah. And
then you as a way to, you know,make ends meet. You know, you

(01:17:50):
already have the race trainerspace and the staff available
and all that you have anarriving drive of Bobby Ryan Jr.
and he has a prolight that guy'sawesome. I still follow you
know, on LinkedIn, his hisfather, Bob Runyan. Got a great
guy Bob. Bob may live inCalifornia. He'll never listen
to the show. I'm sure but ButBob Runyan. I do. We're

(01:18:11):
connected on LinkedIn. I youknow, at least once a week he
has one of his posts on LinkedInwill be something I'm like,
Yeah, yeah, I've been readingthat or That's awesome. I hadn't
caught that. And so I really seeeye to eye with Bobby Runyon
Junior's dad. He's a great guy.
I only know because youabsolutely but he Yeah, he's
he's definitely got his hisviews. And and that was an
awesome program and in thetiming worked out, you know, it

(01:18:35):
takes a ton of money to goracing and it kind of made sense
that combined forces and boy atthat time, we had had two full
time guys running back and forthin the toder and then we got a
second trailer and truck andwe're a full blown Carnival out
there on the road you know, wetow and all kinds of stuff all

(01:18:55):
over the place. And it was agood program and he he's an ex
karting champ and did prettydarn well in pro life and has
since moved on from them. But itwas fun looking back and what is
crazy, because he always wanteddifferent schemes on his truck,
you know, and it was fun for mebecause I like designing the

(01:19:16):
look of trucks and I but again,I'm not always gonna just change
the look on my truck. So he wasalways wanting wacky stuff. Like
at one point, he wanted a mazeon his truck. Okay, so and I
think, hey, it's gonna bebadass, but it's not. It wasn't
like anything repeatable orsomething you could print, it
ended up being like, literallyamaze. So I had to lay it all

(01:19:38):
out by hand and then bake inspare parts for it. And we ended
up we're still doing it at therace. And his mom comes over and
says why you guys spending somuch time on this? Well, it's
you know, it takes time to layout. She's like, Bobby, we're
not doing the maze anymore. Weneed to be working on making
this trek fast. So that was theend of that pattern but great
folks.

(01:20:00):
Yeah, they're they're good,folks. So you're in pro life,
what made the step like you saidwas some like Scott Douglas
moved up to pro four and youwere able to, or what allowed
for their spot to be available?
The you go, Okay, I'm gonna I'mgonna build this pro to this
seems like a big step, it's abig step. Why did we do it?
That's a good question. It'sit's wanting to go faster it's
wanting to get that ride it'swanting to, you know, ultimately

(01:20:23):
at the time I wanted to trophytrack, you know, push it as far
as we can absolutely push it inpro two is the next step there.
What it turned out to be, it'shard. And when you get, you
know, when you're doing specracing, it's hard because people
are doing a lot of little thingsto get around the spec rules.
And, and that sucks. But whenit's unlimited, it's unlimited.

(01:20:44):
And for the spec, trophy truckstuff we're doing now that's a
spec motor. But you know, we'recompeting against people with
choppers and people withmultiple trucks and full blown
warehouses, they're preppingthis stuff in. And the same is
kind of true and pro two. So thething with pro two, it's all
about the horsepower and puttingit to the ground. So you know, a

(01:21:06):
lot of teams, you don't like160 $1,000 engine, you go buy a
$70,000 engine, and then you buya backup engine. And it got to
the point that we just couldn'tkeep up financially or you start
to have to make sacrifices. Andit was really frustrating going
to the track knowing that maybeyou're already a leg down

(01:21:28):
because you just can't affordthis stuff. Where you can't
afford the test time is at thatpoint, which maybe it's just
maturing through a career, but Ikind of decided I don't want a
trophy truck anymore, right? Idon't even want to race engine
anymore. They're miserablethings, they're super high
dollar, and they need a ton ofmaintenance to keep running. So

(01:21:49):
honestly, I think it was kind ofa point in the sport where maybe
that made sense for everybody.
Because there, there wasn't themoney coming in to support these
astronomical engine bills. Sothat turned into a spec engine.
And which I'm trying to turnremember what engine it was is a

(01:22:12):
427 or something. And by thetime that engine got put in, it
was a little bit detunedcompared to these race engines.
And those trucks were awesome.
It went to a D o t tire. Also,so so much more balanced. We had
better times and that specengine and those do t tires,
then with all this horsepowerand trying to sort it out and

(01:22:32):
get it tuned right and do racetires. So at that at that point,
it got really, really fun again,and we Oh man, we had a great
season going and we had a couplebad races. We had a water pump
failure, Wyatt, that it was anew water pump that I put on

(01:22:53):
because the old one was leakingand I think hey, we're really in
it for the championship. So Igot a new water pump from
whatever supplier I don't evenremember who and there was a
bolt on the back cover platethat they hadn't tightened all
the way and it blew out and itblew the head gaskets in it. So
we DNF around we tore the enginedown and put new head gaskets on

(01:23:17):
it for the next day. And it blewthe head gasket out again. So we
DNF two rounds and ended upnarrowly losing the Luke Johnson
that year but again those arehard fought championships man
that that one got away. Oh,that's rough. Now remember, you
guys had the fort for guys outat one of the events and they

(01:23:39):
were you know taking lots andlots of readings off of off of
that motor the first time theone thing that I really found
surprising which is once you'reinvolved in and engrossed in you
know embedded in it, it's notthat surprising but from the
outside showing up to it was thefolders filled with tire
grooving pictures of whatgrooves you know, using the hot

(01:24:00):
iron to cut the tire for whatthe course was or what the track
was to what the conditions wereand how crazy that was and like
you go like like Creighton Kingmissed the old Mr. Max's I mean
he'd be standing in you knowthere'd be like fire ant mounds
of tire rubber grooves where hejust stayed on there for hours

(01:24:24):
on end just groove and tires forfor guys to ensure that you know
that tire slides correctly butalso gives you the right amount
of Ford might seems obvious.
Yeah, it's it's an absolute art.
And it's a huge investment intime. And we'd come out with
dozens of tires mounted becausemaybe you do a groove and then

(01:24:46):
the weather changes so you needto do another groove and BFG
always had guys out there doingit the track I can remember
being in the truck helmet it upand the tires are just showing
up on ourHit cart, they slap them on the
truck, and off I go, you know.
And it's one thing to do a D o ttires, you can do a fair amount

(01:25:08):
of work. But the full blown racetires that BFG had, it got to
the point that they were showingup. And they're just slicks,
there's no groove in there,they're they're literally laying
out the whole traction patternright there at the track. That's
that's where the cost of shortcourse kept escalating at the
time again, and again, is kindof a tough time to be in the

(01:25:31):
sport. But in my opinion, itkind of led to a slow collapse
because the the sponsorship themarketing dollars coming in,
even if they're private dollars,versus the amount of work that
has to go into things at thetrack and prep work in between
it got kind of imbalanced andand hopefully we'll see if we

(01:25:52):
can get that corrected. Now.
What do you think about the youknow, ultra for is now you know,
in the short course game withyou know, Lucas exiting the
short course, business in theWest? And David company, you
know, picking up what's nowcalled the gas, the gas series.
What's your coming from Your theone offer for Raisa that is a

(01:26:12):
short course racer and has thatpedigree at this point. You've
got some championships underyour belt in that world? What's
your take on that move? I thinkit's a it's a tough nut to
crack. Yeah. Dave, you know,Dave is is very good at making
events work. And there's someother guys with some short
course history. I think Adler,Greg Adler might be involved in

(01:26:35):
pull variety. And out in theeast. Frank D'Angelo and old BFG
guy is pretty influential, orrunning the champ off road
series out there. And so there'sthere's a lot of right minds, I
think, but it's a tough, toughthing to crack Wyatt and I, I

(01:26:57):
can remember Frank DeAngelotelling me back in the day when
we're talking about, you know,hey, I need more support, why
can I get this to work. And hesays, you have to put the
drivers First, you have to putthe drivers first and you have
to make it fun for them to cometo an event. You can't put the
crowds first or the track firstor sponsors. It's got to be fun

(01:27:18):
for the drivers and the rest ofthe things will fall into place.
He's been involved with the thechamp off road series out there
this last year. And in even withCOVID and stuff, they managed to
pull off some events. And Ithink things are maybe heading
in a better direction there. Butwhat I think is it needs to
start from the ground up again.

(01:27:40):
There have to be classes thatmake sense. But But every time
you come up with a new class,you exclude somebody, you give
somebody new a new opportunity,and you screw up somebody else.
So I I can't pretend to know howto navigate that. And I do think
that it's a it's a great way toget out and go racing in a

(01:28:03):
desert racing isn't foreverybody. Ultra for has done a
fantastic job of getting racingout of just the Southwest, the
desert southwest and some ofthese woods races. And honestly,
why I think you got to look tothe new feeder of all this,
which is utvs. And absolutelyyou TVs I think are something

(01:28:25):
that maybe aren't as fun towatch race is a, you know, 800
horsepower, pro 4000 horsepowertrophy truck. But that is the
most accessible way to getinvolved with all this. So if
you look to the drivers and givethose classes a chance to run

(01:28:45):
and help find ways, you know,you can't fake it. It's it's got
to work for people to get upthrough the ranks into these
entrenched race programs thattake years to develop. And I
think it can work and wellhere's the other big kicker is
everybody's got to worktogether, Lucas and torque,
there is a lot of bad blood backin the day, and it didn't help

(01:29:08):
anybody. And it didn't helpdrivers. And quite honestly, the
same thing goes on now with bestin the desert and, and score.
And, you know, we have a spectrophy truck. And you can run a
couple different engines inthere. Well, there's only one
configuration from one builderthat you can run in score,
invest in the desert. And it'sthose types of things that in

(01:29:31):
that class is really healthy,because there's because it's
fun, it's awesome. But it'sthose types of types of things
that are going to help classeswhen they're struggling a little
bit. Well it boils down to andthis is the people that clue in
on this that, you know aren't inthat world or in that genre, but
they're into the ultra fours andthey're under the king of
hammers. What we saw the youknow that desert Invitational

(01:29:55):
weed the desert weekend, thefirst weekend of hammers week
when the announcers are talkingabout
The T ones and the T twos andthe T threes. And it's like,
okay, that's a trophy truck. Andthat's a spec trophy truck.
That's a, you know, anunlimited, and then that's a
6100. You know, they are thesame thing, but then we're
having to call them somethingdifferent. Because someone else

(01:30:16):
has an AI and it's that type ofstuff, where from the fandom
side of it is like, really, youguys can't work together on
this. This isn't? I don't know,it's it's frustrating, but I
respect why they're protectingtheir naming, but I don't but it
it takes something away. I mean,it's, it's ridiculous is the

(01:30:36):
name of the vehicle, right? Andit, I get it, but everybody
needs to play nice together. AndI think we all have to bend a
little, I think, honestly, rightnow offroad Motorsports is
pretty healthy, it's worries methat it might be a little too
healthy with all the TVs thatare getting sold during COVID to
people that might have moremoney than brains out in the

(01:31:00):
desert. But you know, it's, it'stimes like, you know, when, when
short course,struggling to maintain, maintain
teams, that the inability of theseries to work together, just
kind of hurts us, I think that'swhere, and I have no inside
knowledge on it. And I thinkthere are a lot of good brains
involved now, but hopefully,they they work together to

(01:31:20):
compliment each other, ratherthan, you know, take away from
each other. Well, I actuallyhope that's actually what's
going to happen here, we'regonna get some economies of
scale between the gas deal andultra for and, you know, maybe
if, at some point with amajority vote in off road, that
you get a start controlling anddictating kind of how those

(01:31:42):
relationships work and how, andultimately, how you get to
address sponsors and marketingdollars and giving back to those
guys more than they put intoyou. And give them you know, and
that's that's ultimately howwe're going to end up growing
it. Because it takes dollars tomake you know, the merry go
round around and there's nodollars, then it's all private

(01:32:04):
funds. And at some point, guyslose interest. You know, the,
I've spent way too many dollarsto go around this tracker does,
you know, for my race car, sitin this shop being prepped for,
you know, each race, as at somepoint they start walking away,
which I mean, like looking at mywife, you know, we had a, you
know, 100 ish 4400s razor Kinghammers, I saw the registration

(01:32:27):
list had 24. So I hope you know,this past weekend, as you're
listening to this that a wholebunch more people showed up then
the 24 that are currentlyregistered.
Because that just just seemscrazy. It seems you know that
that seems to me, that seems oneof the major problems that ultra

(01:32:47):
four needs to solve is how tokeep drivers engaged. For more
the season, not just be youknow, one and done in February.
I agree why I would like to youknow, we've long thought about
building another truck for ourtrucks. Let's talk about your
truck. Right now. Let's, let'stalk about the 232 This is the

(01:33:10):
time to do it. This chassis is12 years old now. 13 years old
now, I think. I think it's 14.
So we you know, there's the 13event, right? So 2007 we didn't
do that. But in 2008 we debutedthis vehicle at first king of
hammers his first race. So we'vewe've done almost all of them.

(01:33:31):
We've had successes andfailures. When we built it, we
built it with the idea that it'sa rock crawler, but we saw king
of the hammers look prettyawesome. So we designed another
fuel cell that fit back thereand a bumper and we really
hadn't seen to kind of changethings out and has that very
first race it was Jeff Huismanand Rick Huisman and Dan

(01:33:52):
Huisman, they're all out there,and they're gonna help us tune
our shocks with fabtech.
I had Jeff in the right seat,who is awesome prolight driver
in a lot of people know but Jeffand Rick lost their lives in a
small plane crash years ago. Andit always makes me sad because
they're right in the highlightof their life. But Jeff was

(01:34:15):
riding right seat with me and Iwas going through the works like
when you head out towards pit tokeep saying Oh, you got to go a
little faster. And all I'mthinking is no man, that's
that's fast enough for me. Andso he's like, Well, let me let
me drive it let me take it and Isaw him haul ass down there. It
was like, oh my god. So then wetold him it's like All right,
you guys tune the suspension.
We're gonna go pre routing.

(01:34:39):
And they did a bunch to help usout but yeah, the we competed.
I don't know lots of years.
We're doing the unlimited race.
Wyatt. We had a no we had afifth one year we had that
second in 2010. We we've blownup transmissions in the front
diff and and had issues alongthe way.

(01:35:00):
And then the the EMC race camearound. So for the first few
years, we were running bothraces. And we did pretty well we
I know we won the 4800 class,the first time is around and we
did real well in EMC and thenone year, we broke the all the
front bracketry off the axle. Inthe EMC race, of course, the big

(01:35:22):
race is the next day. And well,you know, small world that Dan
Huisman happened to be in thenext fit. He said, Hey, if you
cut all the pieces all weldedup, so we're over there, band
son and grind and doingeverything do he patches up the
whole bracketry on the frontaxle, which is still the same
bracketry that's on there, bythe way. And we ran the the big

(01:35:43):
race the next day, we had aproblem with the front diff of
Baron went bad. And we ended upfinishing We're in 17 spot we
ended up finishing 11 minutesout of time. And that's when we
figured you know what, forgetthis. We're gonna we're gonna
just focus on the EMC race. Sowhat was it? 16 and 17 I think

(01:36:04):
we won in 19 we won this year wegot second so the the vehicles
still plenty competitive in thatclass. And I think like this
year, I you know, I think wehave the pace to when we have it
figured out. But we just didn'tgo fast enough this year. You
know, the other cars keepgetting a little faster. So
great, great run this year, youknows is a good race. Yeah,

(01:36:28):
you've done a sting. I wasstanding there when you guys won
last year. And anyone thatlistens to this, and you've
probably heard me says the onthe 4400 day I travel like
so I'll catch the MC race. Iwon't catch the 4400 race. I'll
watch it because the live thelive shows so good. This is me

(01:36:48):
plugging the altar for live showagain. It's just that good. And
it really really was that goodthis year. I enjoyed it from my
couch in Texas with my hammeralong. I was I was I was sick
the entire next week. Like Yeah,and they thought I had you had
the COVID No, I tested negativebut uh, but yeah, I've never had
a hammer loan before out of, youknow, 10 years of going out

(01:37:10):
there. I'd never had a problemwith that. I think it was
because I had to wear the mask.
All the you know, as much as Idid wear the mask. Um, I think
that actually was my problem.
But who knows, we'll never know.
We'll never know I didn't die.
That's the key. That's the keypart. So yeah, that's it. You
quit racing. The short coursestuff, you know, you there's you

(01:37:30):
know, that's that is racing.
Right. You know, you figure outyou know what bullets you have
in the chamber and where youwant to spend them and, and you
end up moving over to 6100 youwanted a trophy truck. If you
have for many years now, a unitwith a spec trophy truck. Tell
me about that world. You've beenracing some best in the desert.
You've been racing some score.
It's a gorgeous truck, Americanflag livery. And you've had

(01:37:53):
quite a bit of success in thattruck too. Yeah, well, it's we
we ended up selling everythingwe could have our short course
equipment, and took that wholebig old pile of money and gave
it to a customer of geysers tobuy a used geyser, trophy truck
or spec trophy truck. I call ita trophy truck when I'm around
people who aren't in the sportbecause it rolls rolls off your

(01:38:15):
tongue a little easier. Butthose who No no. So this this
was one that had been raised bysmiley. And we got it we made
some updates to it to it did alittle work. And having all my
newfound wisdom from my prolight days that you know, you're
not going to just jump in it andgo out there and win. We put a

(01:38:36):
lot of miles on it before forour first race. And I G we took
it out to the mint might havebeen our first race and then
went down to San Felipe Bay. Youknow, the whole idea is we
really want to hit all thesedifferent venues between bests
in the desert and score. Andwell I can't tell you how much
fun that track is to drive it.

(01:39:00):
It is absolutely amazing. Andyou know, like in pro two, when
you have that $60,000 bullet upthere that you can put up in
smoke and absolutely destroy.
It's intimidating. hearing itwine and at 600 rpm. I mean, it
is absolutely awesome. But it'sa little worrisome. And what if
the dry sump belt comes up Imean, there's it's just too rich

(01:39:22):
for my blood. So with this yougot a LS three, you plop it in
your AC season, and the truckhas more suspension than it does
horsepower. Although I'd arguethat that formula is evening out
quite a bit. When we started theclass has evolved already as 420
horsepower 37 inch tires, nowonder drive. Now we're up to

(01:39:45):
525 horsepower, I think 40 inchtires and under drive. So you
can you can gear it a lotbetter. And that thing is it's
so Fast and it's so smooth. Andit's it's composed. It's hard
like comparing it to our rockracer, we're out there beating

(01:40:08):
the crap out of ourselves in thedesert, just to get to the
rocks. And this, you know, whilewhile it's, you know, probably a
bumpy ride for a lot of people,it just flies over stuff. It's
like racing your couch thatterrain. It's unbelievable
because you see stuff and it'slike, I'm gonna die, and you
just move right over it. Andit's nothing. That was that was

(01:40:31):
how I felt when I startedracing. You know, that class one
car, and it was stuff that likeyou pucker up, like, you know,
the bucker like, Oh, yeah, he'sgonna hurt. And then you go
through, like,I even feel that What? What? How
did that happen? We it's like wegot, you know, transported,
teleported across the drain ofthat g out or whatever, wow,

(01:40:53):
every time you do that, yourealize you can get away with a
little bit more, a little bitmore, a little bit more. And
it's an extremely competitiveclass. There. There are guys
doing wind tunnel stuff, youknow, they have choppers
spotting them, they have a tonof support. And, and that's,
that's great. I want to competeat that level. We've had a

(01:41:15):
handful of successes. We haven'twon a race yet. But I know from
short course days that you notenough times, and your day will
come. Oh, absolutely. So andI've fallen off a little bit in
my following of this. So youknow, for the uneducated here.
So is when we talk about trophytruck. And then we talk about
the specter of a truck. Youknow, and you talked about it

(01:41:37):
was limited. No wonder drive. Itis a spec motor. It was 37 now
you can run an under drive nowwe're up to 525 horsepower. Now
you can run 40s Is it still havethe suspension with limitation
or any of that because at onepoint, you'd have put like
shorter you could take a trophytruck, but you had to put
shorter arms on it. Is thatstill the case? Or so you're

(01:41:59):
you're thinking 7200 Oh mygoodness. So at this point
really spec trophy truck, youhave to have an LS three or I
think there's an lt one there'sa handful of motors that have
you know 500 plus horsepower.
You have to have a turbo 400everything else well, a

(01:42:22):
singlespeed underdrive i guesseverything else is Game on. Oh,
okay. Cool. Yeah. And I remembertalking to Mike cam with Fox and
I think it has four inch shockson the back I don't know but you
can get four and a half and assaying Mike you know you think
we need get four and a half youknow, are these four inch gonna
do it? He said I don't thinkyou'll get going fast enough to

(01:42:42):
need four and a half and all I'mthinking of is come on Mike I am
all in but out there you know,but it's all it's all in
adjusting your vision I canremember quote from Robby Gordon
saying you know life lifechanges after 120 miles an hour
or something well, it you haveto go that fast to make
everything else seem a littlebit slower. And that's

(01:43:05):
definitely what you know, spectrophy truck or trophy truck or
class one will do for you. Ithink that's fair. I definitely
know as you are in the car, whatit feels like, and then someone
shows you hey, we caught videoof you guys, at least while 55
and they you see the video andyou're like on a trailer.

(01:43:27):
But much faster. It's alwaysthat way. It's always that way,
man. I hate it like oh man. Iwas I was like five feet in the
air. No, not really. Yeah, man.
So what's next? What's next foryou guys? What's next? Well, you
know, we are saddling up inApril. And we're gonna go down
and run the sanfl you pay 250 inspec trophy truck. So that's

(01:43:49):
gonna be our first trip intoMexico. Since COVID. In it's
always it's a big campaign goinginto Mexico, we got a lot of
people a lot of trucks andfiguring out logistics, we're
finishing up this UTV pre runnerto go down there. And April gets
to be a pretty busy month for mebecause we'll do that. And

(01:44:10):
hopefully we learn San FelipeBay Area pretty well, because
we'll be headed back over therefor the inaugural 1000 race
only, I don't know a few dayslater. So it's kind of a quick
turnaround. You fours racing inSanta Fe this this year as well.
Are you guys? Are you guysdusting off the car for any you
for races this year? Or is itgonna be wait until king of

(01:44:31):
hammers? 2022? Well, I thinkwe don't know why it that's like
45 days out isn't I haven'tplanned it out that far. Yes.
All right. We have loose plansto do the San Felipe Bay ultra
for race as well. So I might aswell buy a house down there. But

(01:44:52):
we're kind of seeing where wecome out of,
of Nora and then the 250 downthere because you know what it
ends upBeen a lot of traveling a lot of
time away from home. And thenwith some of these forward
endeavors, I travel for thattoo. And I, you know, shoot, I
want to be home sometime and,and I want to make sure I keep a
wife. Right? She knows.

(01:45:17):
She knows, I'll tell you that.
Which where this went, you know,I was talking at hammers about,
you know, scheduling this andyou're like, when does when are
we going to do it? And I waslike, Well, I'm giving you a
case now. But it's gonna be likea month, and then it was like
five weeks or so. And thenyou're talking to us talking
through logistics discussion aswell. Should I bring it with me?
Shall I leave it at home? I'mgoing to be in Phoenix. And I

(01:45:38):
was like, Listen, I'm gonna bein Wyoming. And we're gonna make
this happen. And, and we made ithappen. Yeah, well, it's
certainly I've been a little tooactive lately. So what what's
next is I need to, I need toslow down a little bit,
honestly. And I want you know, Iwant to find ways this this

(01:45:58):
summer and in years to come to,you know, really offer my kids
more seat time, the poor guysend up helping me thrash in the
shop, and then they can't getout of school to go out or
school has been rough duringCOVID. And just with, you know,
it's been learning at home,which our kids have adapted to,
as well as you can, I guess. Butnow, there's, for whatever

(01:46:21):
reason, we don't school onWednesdays. So it's been four
days a week online. And now it'sfour days a week in the
classroom. So I really value thetime that they get there. And I
don't want to just pull them outto go to race after race. But
come this summer, we're going towe're going to go adventure. And
it's something that soundsawesome. I actually do want to
bring up an adventure idea that,you know, I know this came from

(01:46:44):
you. Do you think it's stillpossible to do the pan America
all the way to the tip of SouthAmerica? In today's political
climate? Do you think that'spossible to pull off? Like, if
you did like an adventure offroad? Do you know where it's you
plus 90 your buddies drivinglike your little caravan? You
think that's doable? I do. Iwould, you know, I wonder a

(01:47:07):
little bit about the COVIDrestrictions right now. But it,
it seems perfectly feasible tome, I and a lot of it, one of my
good friends, Andrew Comrie,Jakarta, a rally driver with BFG
had a concept about a pole topole expedition. And

(01:47:28):
I think it's it's actually goingto happen. But in so years ago,
we went up in the Arctic andwent out to the Arctic Ocean.
I'm going off on a tangent here.
But we go out on the ArcticOcean just to learn to see it
was kind of a proof of conceptfor this project he's been
working on, we're talking tosome locals who said they had
made it from the mainland,across the Buford sea, partial

(01:47:52):
Arctic Ocean to resolute Island.
Well, once you get to resoluteIsland, you can go to the North
Pole. But there's there's thechannels that can sometime
sometimes break up the ice. Sothe Anyway, these guys did it,
but they're telling us you haveto be really careful, because
with the ice flows, if you geton one, and it's imbalanced,

(01:48:14):
it'll it'll flip up and yoursnow machine will slide off
right into the ocean. And thenand then it'll come right back
down flat and seal youunderneath there. So it was
right about that time that Isaid, You know what, ACP I'm
out. You can you can do your ownfootball expedition. But I mean,
I that that gives me nightmares.
I don't want to do that. So, butshe has gone down to South

(01:48:35):
America is definitely somethingof I've wanted to do the Atacama
desert and down in Patagonia,there's some really high
altitude mountains down there.
And someday you know, thingsslow down and maybe I'm not
running so hard with a raceschedule. That's the type of
thing I want to get into again,that's that's the big next

(01:48:55):
chapter. Okay, that's why Ibrought it up because it's
totally intriguing to myself aswell. I think that type of
adventure when you go back andlook at the old pan America
races you know, in the50s 60s 70s and what they were
pulling off in like a 1956Cadillac coupe DeVille the paint
it up in rally, you know, rallyfor it in just ripping it on

(01:49:18):
gravel roads going south. You'reright. We should definitely be
able to do this in turn in 2020tech here 2021 tech, but then
it's the the geopolitical issuesof in the COVID issues of what
the borders look like what youknow, Venezuela looks like what
you know, all these things, so,I don't know, I just been in
your year on it. I know. I know.
There are concepts maybe not asgrand as that but there are

(01:49:40):
concepts, whether they come tofruition or whatever. Well, I'm
a part of them. I don't know.
But even if I'm not I'm takingmy boys and head south, you
know. I love it. Well, Brad, didwe cover everything you wanted
to cover? We got a whole bunchabout your why and I think we've
been at it for a bit here, but II really do appreciate the time
just to share, like I say, sharesome of my story and chat with

(01:50:03):
you. And it's been good. Ifyou've been such an ambassador
for rock sports, such anambassador for getting off road,
such an ambassador for, youknow, just the wrenching, the
Fabien the, you know, you canbuild it, and you've done it for
years. And, and the one thingthat, and I said this to you,
your pre show, the one thingthat I've taken from my

(01:50:24):
relationship with you is how youhandle sponsors. And it's
interesting, you said it morethan a decade ago, and it's hung
with me, since they're notsponsors that they are partners.
And if you go into arelationship, just looking for
money, just to put a sticker onyour race car, you're gonna,
it's gonna dissatisfied bothsides, you're both gonna walk

(01:50:47):
away, not in the best of, youknow, mindset, it's not going to
be a successful venture, asuccessful relationship, if now,
if you go into the door, youknow, into the this, you know,
this deal, eyes wide open, andyou are looking for a
partnership that you are goingto help them and they are going
to help you and you develop itwith that mindset that you're

(01:51:10):
going to be successful. And herewe are, you know, greater than
10 years that you've been withBFG this whole time you've
ripped forward even when Fordwasn't wrapping you, you've
ripped Amazon oil from forforever and ever and ever. I
know you're with PSC early inthe in the steering game, but
and then made a move over tohow, you know, in the prolight

(01:51:30):
days, and and you've been withhow for, what 10 years now, or
something like that, you know,Lincoln welders you know, all
the way that we know where thatmarriage comes from. It comes
all the way back from the torchmate days of starting doing
construction, you're getting thejob, you're working with those
guys on porch mate welding, youknow, just where you've gone
over the past, you know, thepast 15 years, I will tell you

(01:51:55):
that I thought it was insane.
When you came out and said, I'ma full time reseller I'm
quitting my job. And everyone'slike, where's the money to do
that? I got to figure this out,like everyone wanted. And, and I
will say in 2015, you actuallyhelped me immensely in 2015.
Rather, you know this or not,you know, I'd walked away from

(01:52:16):
my job to do anything. Anythingelse I was done, I was burned
out. I was not a midlife crisis.
It was just let's This is ranits course on a mentally no
longer engaged. This is nolonger fun. I don't want to do
it anymore. And we talked abouta pro life program. Like you're
figuring it out, and you've gotother people figuring it out.

(01:52:36):
Maybe this is somewhere youknow, I have the dollars I can,
you know, have the time I can.
This may be it. Ultimately, Iwas like, Man, that's that's a
whole lot of work that I alwaysstruggled with as a one man band
to begin with. And I don'tnecessarily like my shop time to
be ate up with, you know, onthat regimen. So it wasn't for
me, but you made it happen. Andyou kept it going and but you

(01:52:59):
were there you were the guy, Iwas able to talk to you
soundboard off of you. And youwere you were straight up about
it. You're like it's it's anairflow to work, but it's very
rewarding. You know, I've had alot of those discussions with
other people in the industrythat you kind of look out and
it's like, how do they make itwork? How do they make it work?
And Ryan, our CFO comes to mindbecause he's one that I talked

(01:53:21):
to about how his formula worked.
But I think in the end, whywhether you're starting out, or
whether you're at where we're atnow or higher on the food chain
than us, I don't care, it takesa lot of hard work, and the only
thing that's going to keep youmoving his drive and passion.
And that's where you know,rewind, I think you really no
matter what in life, you got todo, what you're passionate

(01:53:43):
about, and I you know, peoplepeople are racing to be the
fastest people are racing tohave the big biggest budgets and
all that and I think after 15years of doing this, what's most
important to me is to beauthentic and to be who we are
and I hope that we can maintainthat was support from our

(01:54:05):
partners but it's going back toyou know, we could definitely
make more noise and ring thebell louder, but I'm more
focused on on being authentic.
So again, follow who you are,you can't fake who you are. So
just do what you're good at andthings will come together.

(01:54:26):
Absolutely no truer words rightthere. Well, Brad, thank you for
coming on. Thank you forbringing forward to the ultra
for table that's we know we'revalid we know we didn't we don't
seek validity but we like itwhen we get it
Well, there are a lot of here'sthat's what makes for great is
because you know we got a chipon our shoulder because we're a

(01:54:48):
little guys and now we're notnecessarily little guys anymore.
And yes for it for it isvalidation to that with with
their effort and you know, it'sit's it's a great team and it's
certainly bigger thanMe and we're looking to get out
there and show what Bronco isall about. Well, Brad, you know
much luck to your futureendeavors Safe travels to Moab
here shortly. Like as everyonewill hear this, this is my was

(01:55:11):
this past weekend. So werecorded a little bit out in
front of that. But Safe travels,please keep me apprised of your
adventures I would like to beinvolved in if you come up with
a good harebrained stuff thatyou want to do in the future and
you want to, you know, soundingboarded or come on and recruit
folks come on the talent tankagain, and, and we'll rally some
troops for you. But, Brad, thankyou for the friendship for the

(01:55:34):
past, you know, decade plus,thanks for garnered so much from
you over the years. And credityou to a lot of information that
stuck in my head. It's beengood. And thank you for thank
you for agreeing to come on andsharing your story with with all
of us out here. Well, thank youwhy and you have a lot of kind
words for me. And all I'm doingis rattling on about myself, but

(01:55:55):
you certainly had an influencein in my career as well. And the
help you've given in directionand what you're doing with
talent tank is awesome. And Ilook forward to seeing what's
going to happen with that in thefuture because it's a great way.
It's great stories about peopleand it's a great way to keep all
of us together and understandingwho each other are inside ultra

(01:56:17):
for and off road Motorsports.
Neither of us could do itwithout our wives. Thank you,
Natalie. Thank you, Tiffany.
Indeed, bosses. All right. Well,Brad, thanks for coming on, man.
Thank you. I appreciate it, man.
All right, we're out.
Thank you for listening andtaking the dive into the tail

(01:56:37):
end tank. Please like andsubscribe on Instagram at the
tail end or our website, thetalent tank.com

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