EP 48 Kyle Seggelin

Episode Transcript
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Intro/Outro (00:02):
Let's drop the green flag on this episode of
the talent tank podcast withyour host Wyatt Pemberton
bringing you the best, fastest,most knowledgeable personalities
and Ultra4 and off road racing.

Wyatt Pemberton (00:20):
Alright, alright. Alright, here we go
back in the talent tank firingit up again. Only this time when
we fired up, it's gonna bereally quiet. Like almost
silence. It won't be quietsilence but joining me today, we
got just just one of the coolestcats in ultra for really making
waves in the offroad community.
Having just just absolutepioneer. We've got Kyle soglin

(00:41):
on with us. Some of y'all knowhim as a Boston Kyle, others of
you know him as the driver ofthe shitbox shitbox. Toyota, our
electric vehicle guy, people myprofessional world know him for
being the guy that took onLordstown in the Navy. Anyway,
Kyle, how you doing, man?

Kyle Seggelin (01:02):
I'm doing good, Wyatt. Thanks for having me on.

I'm so excited about having you on and so
excited. You said yes. I mean, Ithink everyone's gonna say yes,
but then I'm always scared aboutpeople actually coming on and
sitting down with you andtalking to you. miles was like,
you've got to talk to KyleBoston, Kyle, you got to talk to
him. And then the first time Iactually physically met you was

(01:25):
ultra three racing. On that wasthat party.

That's how we've been trying to do it. For years.
We have been partying and doingthe ultra three racing. But
finally it kicked off this yearthe weather cooperated. A bunch
of friends showed up and newfriends showed up and we had an
awesome time.

That made the entire week for me. That was
Tuesday night of hammers week.
We're in hammers town. You guysare kind of up in the hammer
heights area, which would bekind of west southwest a town of
hammer town proper. You guyshave like a big I'm gonna call
it a teepee. Is that a TP? TP oflights?

Yeah, yeah. 40 foot led TP

that's a top with what?

Well, this year, we had a flame thrower on the
top and then flame to go offevery anytime. Anytime Don would
hit the button. It's a remotecontrol. flame thrower. And
yeah, I mean, we we just have alot of fun on Tuesday night.
Come on up, you we're gonna getyou on a trike and get you going
around the course.

Like Cody Wagner donated like, like a
dancing. You're what would youcall that thing? It's like a
like a, it's a sea change.

It's a Go Go cage, go go dancer type stuff.

And you guys set up a track. It's it's a
circle. It's basically thecircle of death. It reminds me a
lot of like, barter town for MadMax was kind of like the
environment. But anybody, I'msure there's people because that
missed this. There was no way wefit, you know, 40 or 50 or
however many 1000 people were onthe lake bed around your

(02:51):
racetrack on Tuesday night. Butwe definitely felt like we fit a
couple 1000 it was packed inthere. When I came around the
corner. We're doing some prerunning earlier. And I came in
like late after it had alreadystarted. It was like six people
deep all the way around thiscircle. I mean, it was it was
stuffed in it was a it came out.

It was it was a great night, and we're gonna do
it again next year. And nextyear, next year. Next year.
We're gonna, it's awesome. It'shonestly one of my favorite
nights of the week. It is thedon't miss and I hope people
here so I'm sure people heardthis a few, you know, episodes
in the spring, earlier in thespring when we kind of talked
about it. But I remember walkingaround the RV. I wrote up there
with Adam shear. And we got outof his little Willis and we

(03:31):
walked over there. We actuallyran out of gas on the way over
there. And miles, you know, thetriple agent that he is, you
know, or was he had, you know,shoved gas in it. And so we get
up there we get out, we walkaround some RVs. And we get to
it to you to the ultra forcesite. And it is a circle of
death. You're running aroundthis huge teepee. And you said

(03:51):
yeah, like if six people deep onthe outside of the circle. But
inside the circle like on theinfield, and everyone's racing
around you. I couldn't turn intap somebody on the shoulder and
we were packed in like sardines,tap someone and not have known
them for like 10 years. It wasinsane. It was beautiful. Yeah,
it was awesome. So walk throughthe competition for that how you

(04:12):
guys came up with the idea to doultra three racing. Now we you
said it did blow up this year.
So you guys had done it in yearspast. Tell me how you guys came
up with idea, the idea and thenwalk through the competition of
it. From my side of things. Icame to qH and 17 and then I
really met Tim Baker in like 18and during the year 17 leading
up to 18 and a bunch of brothersand friends from Oregon. They

(04:35):
already had them they were intothe ATC 70 the mini trikes with
gnosis mansion with the hoppedup motors and everything and
they were already into it. Andthen we just kind of went from
there, as far as I'm concernedfrom 18 and on we I think it was
1919 or 20 was the first year weactually set up a bracket like
on you know, on a big piece ofpaper or a piece of plywood and
actually we had a prize. It wasa brand

Unknown (05:00):
helmet. So the the grand prize was a brand new
helmet. That's how we kind ofgot started, you know, the
megaphone and like, you know, weactually had reason Ghana going
on. And then this year it wasobviously kind of to the next
level we're kind of keep tryingto keep the bracket semi serious
is obviously all about fun, butlike, you know, who kind of keep
track of who won and who last.
And that's it. I mean, it'sabout having fun, but we

(05:20):
definitely like some of the guysout there actually pretty fast
on these things. And wow, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Fast. So the waythe competition works is it's
it's a circle. Yeah, it's kindof like an oval, but more like a
circle. Yeah, a little bit of aleash on some areas. It wouldn't
it had some closes and openingson it. But what would you say?
It's probably 200 feet, ofcourse, but diameter of the

(05:42):
circle, maybe 80? across? Iguess, yeah, maybe it's it's
not? Yeah, it's not that little,we kind of keep it small to keep
the speeds down. That's part ofour safety strategy is just
like, Don't make it too big,because I'm going to start going
too fast. Oh, you're good.
Everyone was going way faster.
And so the way that the way theyset this up is two tracks racing

(06:03):
each other, they start onopposite sides of the circle. So
and you know, on a clock face,one is at three o'clock, and one
is at nine o'clock. And thenthere's kind of a little thumbs
up, thumbs up, and then theythey flash our flashlight at the
starters, you flip flashlightsat each other. And that's it,
they're off. And basically, ifyou catch the guy in front of

(06:25):
you, that means you've got ahalf lap on them. And then your
witness was they push themaround the track almost.
And it's high banked. It'sthat's the other thing is it's
high banked. And if you haveenough centrifugal force, then
you pop out of the bank. I mean,you're sailing like it's like
it's exciting. Oh, yeah. Oh,it's it. Yeah, that that's you

(06:49):
can't really pass. I mean, it'ssuper difficult. And that even
just makes it even more sketchyto try to pass. So that's why we
came up with the split startthing is so that we could that's
that's how you tell who one iswho catches who. And that's and
that's how it is because youcan't really get you know, heads
up or anything on it. There'ssome women got involved. There's
some women racers.

(07:11):
And then there was some kids Isaw like some teenagers that
were out there that werefearless. Just freakin fearless.
And then to kind of close outthe night kind of as the racing
kind of came to an end. You tooksome laps and your EV truck.
Yeah, itopens up for sure. If it's got
wheels on it, you might you cantake it around the course no
one's gonna say no, just haveout it and see you know, we've

(07:32):
had we've woken up and it'd belike, there was like a Nissan
Frontier stuck in it one morningand no newzoo it was someone
just driving through camp andgot stuck in the middle of the
night. Like this many golf cartsflipped over in it, like fell
part of it. Well, man, I lovedit. I know from from my
standpoint, it was one of themost entertaining don't miss
events of the of hammers weekthis year for me, I would be so
remiss if I hadn't missed that.

(07:56):
I'd be remiss if I didn't telleveryone about it. Because it
was it was literally the one ofthe funniest things that was
like being right, you're rightin the middle of just mass
chaos, but it was so controlled.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, wechat the tracks clear. It's all
sand and we get everybody back.
Let's think about some hay balesfor next year. Not really sure
if the you know where we'll bewith that. But yeah, I'm trying

(08:19):
to keep it fast and fun. And youknow, as safe as possible, but
it is what it is. Yeah. And it'sin it's an informal event. It's
just basically a bunch of bunchof friends hanging out. Having
beers, and just challenging eachother to eraser on the fire.
Yeah, yeah, that's it. That'sall it is. Oh, man, I I like
that, you know, as a basically apioneer in offroad. Racing.

(08:43):
How's that feel to be calledthat? I mean, I think that's
awesome. A call you that? I wasjust gonna say, Man, I don't
know about all that. I mean, I'mnot the first one is had an
electric car. You know, therewas an electric car that raced
in Baja a few years ago. I'm notsure exactly. And I'm sure I'm
not the first one with some sortof electric truck out in G v.
Before. I'm sure there's beenone. But yeah, I don't know. I

(09:04):
mean, I guess it sounds cool. Idon't know about all that. But
well, I think you're beinghumble. But yeah, I am also
throwing you know, a lot ofaccolades your way because now
we have an Eevee class and ultrafor you, we saw Roger Norman
open up score and add an Eeveeclass to his series. And I just
think that's pretty cool. Well,we'll get into we're actually

(09:25):
going to go there. We're goingto get into how you came to
decide to build one and we'regoing to talk about your current
stuff, but at the moment, I wasjust gonna, you know, flashback
to who Boston Kyle is and, andwe'll kind of walk forward so
you've got the nickname youknow, Carl Sagan, nickname
Boston Kyle. You know, like,we've got Texas Jesus, which I
believe you're also friendswith, with Matt phallus. Yeah,

(09:47):
no, I'm pretty good. So you'refrom you're actually from the
Boston area. You're fromMassachusetts, Sharon,
Massachusetts. And then you endup out in California. But so
Sharon, I looked up I was like,well, this sounds like this.
All town. Well no, it's yourlike right next to Gillette
Stadium where the Patriots playwhere did you grow up as a
Patriots fan? Yeah, so the firstmulti syllable word I said when

(10:09):
I was a baby was Bledsoe andthat was the 1990s Patriots
quarterback like we werepatriots fans, my family through
and through. That's just how itwas ever since I was born. And
that's how it always will be.
That'll be my football team.
Well, you guys have to go that'sfor sure that guy is added.
We definitely enjoyed like anawesome like decade of dynasty

(10:32):
or wherever you want to call itlike it's been it was a pretty
sick way to have like a, youknow, my favorite football team
in in right by where I livedoing so well. And that that was
awesome. Like, and we allenjoyed it while we had it is
pretty dope. Yeah. Tom Brady isI mean, just an absolute stat.
I'm a big gronkowski fan. I'mnot a Patriots fan. So don't
don't hold that against me. ButI am a big gronkowski fan. Rob

(10:55):
gronkowski is like I think hisbrothers went to my university.
They went to Kansas State. He'sa fan of mine like I've seen him
do keg stands in person. This isyour lifting this like six, six,
dude. These guys throwing upover their shoulders to get
drunk to do a keg stand. Prettyimpressive that the doodle rip
and then I would see on TV. Mykids watch the TV show there. He

(11:16):
was on so I'm going through themsee. Okay, Sharon is next to
Gillette Stadium. I'm certainyou're a Patriots fan. So hey,
no sharks knows no surprisesthere. And then, at what time
did you finally leave? I knowyou went to high school and then
you end up going to college inBoston or in Massachusetts. And
then you end up heading out toCalifornia. What year did you

(11:38):
head out to California? 2017.
January 4, I think January 4 waswhen I hit the road. Yeah. 2017
A month later, your first kingof the hammers. Yeah. So I
basically dropped out ofcollege, and I was gonna go back
and I had a security job. And Iwas overnight, I was watching a
fish factory. And I was like,you know, basically just had to

(12:01):
watch the front door to makesure the fish they did. I don't
know. That's, that's kind of howit was. I was like Google,
watching dirt bike videos. Ilove riding dirt bikes. And I
started noticing that, you know,I love watching freestyle. And I
could see that they were allriding in this one place. And I
found it on Google Earth. And itwas in Southern California. And
right next to it was a was likeRV park. And it was like 500

(12:22):
bucks a month. And it comes withthe Wi Fi in the pool. And I had
a Toyota Motor home that I hadbought the year before. Just
kind of for fun. It was supercheap on Craigslist. I don't
really know why I had it had it.
I kind of got the idea. And Iwas like I don't know if I'll
ever make it out there. So Isold my truck, I quit my job, I
sold pretty much everything thatwasn't in my van and put a

(12:45):
couple of dirt bikes on atrailer behind the motorhome and
headed west. And I wanted to goride there. But on the way I
knew I knew of King of thehammers and Lucas Murphy is
actually from my area. And hewas racing it that year. And I
had hit you know, I was like,well if I'm there and you can I
you know help you out, you know?
And he's like, Yeah, sure. Yeah,I'll see you when you know, I'll

(13:07):
see you there. And I got therelike two weeks early for K wage.
And I asked if I could volunteerbasically and they said yeah,
you know, but going straight towork. I never even saw Lucas
Murphy that whole first yearlike I was just working for OSHA
for all day every day so andthen from there I went on to the
to work for the other races.

(13:28):
Wow, that and that's where we'regonna go man, we covered so much
distance. I got to come all theway back to that because there's
so much tonight. Can we go backto Can we go back to share
Massachusetts?
Oh, no, God. Wow. Yeah, that'sthat's a journey that I am
completely floored by growing upas a kid. Were you like

(13:50):
technologically proficient? Didyou like taking apart VCRs? Or
whatever Did you How was callsegment as a kid kids today I
find you to be you know how yourmind works. And what you do from
a technical standpoint is prettysweet. Yeah, for sure. I always
took everything apart. I can putalmost nothing back together. So
I mean, there's just a trail ofparts behind me I guess. I know

(14:12):
my mom was pretty mad when herfan in the bedroom had no like
safety cage around it anymore.
It's still but it still worked,you know, but that didn't cut it
for her standards. You know,just the blade spinning in the
in the room. I mean, my dad mydad taught me so much growing
up. That's definitely where itstarted. And he had pictures of

(14:33):
go karts he had and theneventually we got coke. I got my
first go kart when I was 10 andI broke it instantly. And so it
was you know, time to startfixing it and yeah, I mean just
my whole childhood and growingup was fixing chat. We had a few
toys I always had a toy around.
But then also whatever it was,you know, I remember fixed my
garage door. At one point all bymyself. That was pretty I was
still done that and then our ourgarage was like wasn't really

(14:56):
full of tools and the tools thatwere
There were not in order. So Idon't know that like I had to
make a lot of tools or spend alot of time looking for what I
needed. And if I couldn't findit, find another way to fix what
I needed to. And I think nowthat that's kind of helped me a
lot, because I don't know, justused to fixing things without

(15:16):
the correct tool. And I don'tknow what the right wording for
that is. But thisresourcefulness, like MacGyver
resourcefulness guy was probablyway before your time, because
you're like, 28 years old,right? Yeah. But that said,
you're just the ability to beresourceful, and repair stuff.
Because sometimes either you canbuy it, but it's, you know,

(15:37):
economically not realistic, oryou're in a position like you're
the middle of nowhere, and youcan't, it's not available. So
you got to come out with anotherway and solving it. And there's
so many of us that kind of grewup that way. And it's funny how
we all have kind of flockedtogether and, and gravitated
towards, you know, this off roadworld that we're all kind of,
you know, floating around inthat we kind of grew up that way

(16:00):
and had those types ofexperiences. So I kind of
figured that was how you had tobe. And here it actually from
your mouth that Yeah, you'reyou're okay with breaking stuff
and figuring out a way to put itback together and sometimes put
it back together a better way.
Or sometimes if you don't put itback a better way. Well, at
least you learn another way tofail. And you don't feel that
way. Yeah, right. Yeah, that isawesome. So I mean, just get a

(16:20):
mental picture of your head ofhow your head works is, is
pretty cool. So going throughhigh school, what were you
involved in high school? Wereyou a sports guy, or were you
like a sharp guy or art or wherewould you say you gravitated
towards? I mean, I playedfootball, football and lacrosse.
I was young, I was pretty muchthe only one in Cheran that was
interested in like trucks andgoing off road and stuff like

(16:43):
that. There were a couple of myfriends for sure. But they
didn't go to my high school. Iwent to Shanghai which was
great, but it wasn't really itwas more academic and I'm not
really that way. I guess.
I you know, I was I was I waskind of a black sheep in my high
school a little bit, but it wasgreat. Like, a lot of really
bright people there. And Ilearned a lot like it was it was

(17:03):
great. It just wasn't really forme. I suppose I didn't get good
grades or anything like that. Imostly hung out with kids that
went to the agricultural ortechnical schools around my
town. Yeah, just kind ofwhenever I could go on in the
woods. I had a man hand me downSUV for my mom. There's a 2001
Mitsubishi Montero, which, bythe way is a rally car like I

(17:26):
don't know if anybody's ever hada Montero before, but they they
got a wildside to him. They holdup really good. But I was just
getting in trouble because Ibring it back muddy and with
like little dents on it andstuff. But uh, so yeah, I guess
that's kind of in high school.
That's where it sort of started.
Yeah, I don't know if my firstreal real off road. his truck
was 86 Toyota, that's kind ofwhere like, you know, fell in

(17:49):
love with Toyota's in a realtruck that was like super
durable, easy to work on. Andkind of that's what I really
learned a lot about automotiverepair and trucks and trucks and
like putting big tires on solike the monetary right You mean
that or the toilets or mode oftransportation. You break it on
the weekend? messing around.
What do you got? Do you got tofix it? Right? Yes, sometimes
you got to fix it before yourmom finds out. Or your dad.

(18:11):
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Yeah. You know the guys thatwere your are the crowd that was
run around your high school? Imean, we don't see them chasing
around baja Do we know exactlythough proud to put Chad mass as
my as my hometown because thatfor sure. That was the first
time it's ever been putting ascore book. I was pretty stoked

(18:33):
about that. Like I see.
pioneering, right, you're thesky from Sharon, Massachusetts,
making a name those other guys.
They're probably sitting theyprobably got you know, 2.5 kids
a dog and live in the suburbsand sit at a desk all day,
right? one way or the other.
Everybody you know, whateverthey're doing, they're probably
doing it the best to just alittle different way.

(18:56):
There's a good humble way tostate it, actually. So you like
it? I can offer it. Did you as akid? Did you like monster
trucks? Are you more stressed?
That was absolutely my firstlove. Oh, yeah. Then we're good.
Like, like, I'm like, totallyconnecting with you here. Okay.
Favorite monster truck as a kid.
Bigfoot for sure. Bob Chandler.
Yeah, it's got to be Bigfoot.

(19:20):
And the grip grip is pretty rad.
I wasn't really too sure abouthim at first, but I kind of grew
on me know, for sure. MonsterTrucks definitely grabbed my
attention. And I rememberreading bottom law. I don't
know. I still when I grew up oneday, I want to be a monster
truck driver. I still say thatright now. Like that's that's
the idea. Well, we've had ultrafor guys and ladies, women that
have gone from ultra four to twomonster trucks. We had Nicole

(19:45):
Johnson she drove the ScoobyDoo. I don't know how many years
567 years quite a while like avery long time was if you saw
Scooby Doo at a monster truckevent. Nicole Johnson was a was
driving it. That sounds awesome.
So as I say, you run BobChandler Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
This is Bigfoot was the thingwhen we were kids now, you know,

(20:07):
I've take my kids to go seemonster trucks and it's to
Monster Jam. And it's all done.
It's the Dennis Anderson show.
It's Yeah, son of a digger and,you know, just there you're, I
mean, they're absolutely great.
But my son, and you know, someof his buddies will take them
and, and just watch, you know,they've got their earmuffs on,
and just trucks ripping it anddoing backflips and all that

(20:29):
stuff's pretty cool. And thennormally we would take them
which this weekend is would bethat weekend. It's crazy. You
know, we're right in the year 52weeks a year and here's the
weekend we're having thisconversation in HR a spring
nationals is in Houston. Thisit'd be this weekend. And you
know, we're forecast for rainall weekend, so we're not going
to go and we usually go Fridaynight for qualifying and nothing
like getting your kid againstyou know, down there just the

(20:52):
fence and you know the the topfuels take off and just raw and
you know, the kid looks at youlike oh my god and then you see
like, what Where did it go? Didyou feel that like my chest
hurts? I didn't you know, Inormally talk to James Scofield
around this time because he'she's traveling with a with a
team, but I didn't catch if hewas going to be that should have

(21:14):
actually texting before. Youknow, before this week, I was
thinking about him today andthen got sidetracked about it.
But anyway, sorry. That's such atinge about an HRA but so yeah,
monster trucks I mean, we'retalking about traveling circuses
right yeah. And you know alittle bit about that right as
we get into ultra for ultra forends up being something of a
traveling circus in its ownright. So you are sure what
point did you kind of get intoyour first dirt bike though? And

(21:37):
where did you ride aroundSharon? I was never allowed to
have bikes. You know, I like gokart when I was 10 ruin that and
then lucky enough you know toget a quad we had a little 400
cc quad. And then I wanted adirt bike mostly because we
would take my dad would take meto like random pits around in

(21:58):
Walpole, Sharon Stoughton solike behind industrial areas or
on the power lines for me like Iyou can always read the power
lines because in the East likeall the land is private.
Everything's bought there's nosuch thing as BLM land. There's
no bus Massachusetts doesn'treally like off roading there's
no like, you know, there's not alot of public sentiment that is

(22:19):
good for that if that makes anysense. So but you could always
go to the power lines becausethey get a service road under
them and it says no trespassingand there's always a little road
around the gate You know,there's a little way to get in
there. That's so that's where wego would usually trailer to like
behind some industrial park andbe on the powerlines at one
point. Yeah, I was never allowedto have a bike even though I got

(22:39):
a banshee when I was 17 my dadhad a raptor Oh, my mom still
wouldn't let me have a dirt bikebecause they were dangerous. And
it's like, wow, I'm a bansheethat's like the most dangerous
vehicle ever created. And, youknow, when I was 19, I came home
with one I got old, two strokethat was laying on its side in a
barn in New Hampshire for sevenyears, like roached out but I
got fired up and was writing itfrom now on like quickly I got I

(23:02):
got rMz 450. And like I just Istill love riding I don't do it
as much as I should or want tobut some of our catching air and
grabbing fifth gear and wheelieis like just make us feel alive.
You know. So I love it. Zerodisagreement. Yeah. street right
there was in front of me intraffic just a couple days ago.
And I pulled my phone up goinglike this guy. He's looking

(23:23):
around and you can know thatlook, you know that look in
traffic. He's looking over hisshoulder, and I pulled my phone
out. I just hold it while I'mdriving straight up on the you
know, he went 12 o'clock andjust rolled. Excuse my language.
And that was the just right downthe highway. And I was like, Oh,
yeah, yeah, I got all that Icaught on, hold on. I didn't
share with anyone. But I thinkit would be what I would do if I

(23:46):
was riding a bike in traffic orif I was, you know, out on the
road. I don't think I'd be ableto stay away from Papa wheelies.
Ah, yeah, no, that's that's thething too is like Becky's
there's, there's lots of trees,and it's really tight. And
there's not really big places toso not a lot of people have
trucks. I mean, sure, there aresome offroad trucks, of course.
But for the most part, it's wayeasier if you got a bike or a

(24:08):
quad to enjoy yourself on aweekend because the areas are
smaller and they're in thewoods. So there's just it's
different than the West Coast.
Sure. When it comes to like therec wheeling. Have you been back
at like may for holidays orrazors and side by sides
becoming a thing in that part ofthe world is prevalent as they
are in, like, you know, thewestern states, for sure. Like

(24:30):
that, when increasing inpopularity, probably at the same
rate, but just I guess overall,there's less participation in
usership of off road vehicles ingeneral. Like, yeah, like, I
remember being out on thetrails. I haven't gone riding
since I've lived in the world.
So I go home and Sema folks andeverything but I don't go
missing around. But the I'veseen I've seen racers out there

(24:52):
and things like that. It's justin general, there's just way
less of that culture, you know,so you don't see it as much
I can't completely See youthere. So you get a you get a
high school, you've got a dirtbike, you end up going to a
local college there. What's thecollege name that you went to? I
went to mass maritime Academy.
It's like, regimented college.

(25:14):
So it's not military. It's aState College, but it is they
kind of like it's military withuniforms and rules. And all
that, when I was studying forwas to be a marine engineer. So
I would work on large ships.
What do you get out of thatschool isn't? Did you get a
Bachelor of Science. But what'smore valuable is the third
assistance postcard license, thesort of large ships, a cap, and
a chief of First, a second andthird to legally sale. So you

(25:38):
would have, you'd get out withthe thirds. And then as you sail
you second first and mentionedthe captain a chief, that's what
was going for. I didn't finishit. It was neat. It was any
experience, I got to go on thethree different cruises down
through South America andCentral America. That's pretty
rad learned a lot, for sure. Isthat something that you, you
know, you aspire to be a sailor?

(26:00):
Or is it something that youstill aspire to maybe go back
to? I mean, it'd be to go backnow because to get the lice was
like lifeboat training, firetraining, and then tons of other
certifications. And they kind ofroll that into your four years
when you're there. So whenyou're done, everything's up to
date and ready to go. That'skind of why it's a it's a

(26:20):
difficult thing to get. I don'tknow I never really, really
being out on the ocean isawesome. And I do love it. But
no, at this point, that's notnecessarily My mind's Well, I
think life is a pursuit, right.
And, and sometimes it's not apursuit of what you know where
you're going, it's pursuit andknowing where you've been, and
that you don't want to go there.
Sometimes it's just checking thebox off that you've experienced

(26:43):
it. And you know that you don'twant to experience it again, or
that you've already lived livedthat party life, which is cool
about you. Because actually, Iread that through the notes that
I've got on you is kind ofyou've liked to change things up
at kind of a continuum pace toensure that you're checking your
proverbial boxes off in lifethat you're, you're rolling
through a set of a set of rulesin your head that you want to

(27:05):
get knocked out. So maritimeAcademy didn't work out. You're
looking for a dirt bike ridingyou see you find on Google
Earth, you find a track, youfind this place to park your RV
you own an RV. How old are youat this point? 21 or two? I was
2424. Okay. 24 and you're like,I'm selling all my worldly
possessions except for my dirtbike in my motorhome. Couple

(27:26):
shirts and pants and you throwthem in your RV and you head out
of Massachusetts, cross countryfor California. Did you make it
all like in one shot? Or did youstop a few weeks different
places? Or How'd that go down?
What was awesome about it. And Ialways try to like From now on I
cry times that I get to travelthis way, which would be like,
you know, without having atimeframe. It's so nice. So my

(27:49):
girlfriend came with me at thetime she was on her winter break
from her senior year of college.
So she had X amount of weeks, acouple of weeks. So we left
Massachusetts then so she'sstill with me now. We got and
this wasn't much of an RV by theway. This was an 87 Toyota
coachman motorhome It looks likea dolphin most people think of

(28:10):
them as dolphins. Okay back outof it to make it a toy hauler.
We started and we just kind oflike bopped around we were
trying to go to get out of thecold winter in February. Anyway,
she had a flight out of Austin,Texas, two or three weeks was
probably about three weeks afterwe left. And we just kind of
meander through the self westayed off the highway as much

(28:31):
as possible. got down to wherewe stood Nashville, Memphis,
drove from Nashville to Memphison backroads entirely. It was
sick, it was really cool. Andwent down the Mississippi River,
just kind of jumping betweenMississippi and Alabama, and
stayed in New Orleans for alittle while. It was I mean, it
was just a lot of fun. It was,you know, kind of No, no, no

(28:53):
worries, really, you know, we'reliving cheaply, just food and
beer basically, we're trying topark for for pretty much
wherever we could. And then sheflew out to Austin. And at that
point, I really liked him. Bythe way, we weren't there for
long, but man, that was a coolcity. I like that town. From
there. I just basicallyhightailed it to K wage. So it
was neat. I was having troublewith my transmission in Arizona.

(29:16):
And I call the localtransmission shop. And I kind of
knew what that entailed, youknow, it'd be expensive and it's
like days of downtime. Then Isaw one on Craigslist and this
guy, I call them and he's like,yeah, let me I said I was laying
under under the truck at a restarea. I was like, these are the
numbers I need. And he says hegoes, Oh, he helps out of his
house and runs under and he'slike, hey, and he calls out the
numbers. I forget what they werebut there's the exact

(29:37):
transmission I needed. wasasking 150 bucks for it on
Craigslist. I said, Hey, can Icome and swap it at your yard?
And he's like, are at the streetin front of your house? Like I'm
from Massachusetts, and he'slike, Yeah, okay. I met him this
guy Darrell the hammer and we'refriends. We still keep up here.
But yeah, I was a total strangerto him. And he spent his whole

(29:58):
Sunday with me. He was kind oflike he just
helped me do the swap. weswapped it in his yard. And then
the next day I hung out for anextra day he worked. And when he
got home from work and went fora ride on my dirt bikes, he had
been dirt biking in years. Likehis daughter got to try the pit
bike and his wife andeverything. And like, I got a
shower and got a home cookedmeal. And we watch America's
Funniest Home Videos together onthe couch, like, just these

(30:19):
awesome people in a tiny townDuncan, Arizona. And it was that
to me, it was like, man, some ofthe best people that they're out
there, they're everywhere. Yeah,you know, he just, they're
willing to help people. And thatwas that was awesome. And I
can't wait to repay that favorto whoever, whoever I can.
You're kind of a modern dayGypsy, but you're, you're given

(30:40):
me faith back in you know thatthere is back in society that
it's not a lost cause, right,we're there still a lot of
really good people out there.
You kind of got to go out ofyour way to find a man today
with you people don't even knowwho their next door neighbors
are so little, they don't livenext door neighbor, they
definitely are going to ask ifthey can, you know, swap a
transmission in their frontyard. But when you find those

(31:01):
people, you know, you're like,wow, you're just a good human.
And there's no replacement forgood humans. And I don't know if
people are a lost cause buthumans you know, I don't know.
There are definitely some goodones out there. That's so duck
in Arizona. You get this guychanges your life right there.

(31:21):
Hope is renewed. And then youget on the road. And by the way,
so your trip to California yourgoal was to hit this RV park,
but you didn't know anyone outthere. No, I didn't know anybody
I knew I got on in the LA area.
But that's about it. Like Yeah,just want to go there. But I can
I wanted to go with those jumpswere at like, those jumps are

(31:42):
sick as hell you see onInstagram and stuff and I want
to go Is it the ones where it'slike, you know, it's like grass,
but then they've got the theramps cut out. So like RJ
Anderson is hitting that stuff?
Oh, yeah. Where is that? Ah.
Now that there it's in Beaumont,California. Usually, the dope
spots you kind of keep itkeeping it a little tight. But

(32:04):
now everybody knows now it's,it's in Beaumont. And what was
really neat about it was likethat culture, I was kind of
missing where I had some friendsto ride with. But nobody wanted
to like, jump like the guys outwest. And I figured that's what
I want to do. That's where I gotto go. And every single time I
go riding in Beaumont, I jumphigher than I ever have. It's so

(32:25):
exciting. So a lot of it outthere. So that's just if you're
me, you're like, three, fourstories off the ground and
sailing, you know, 100 150 feet,right? Yeah, I mean, those are
the big dogs out there. And I'vebeen right there when, you know,
the pros are hitting them. Andthat's awesome. I can't do that
stuff. But there's what's reallyneat is that there's they're all
the way from kitty jumps to thatstuff. There. You go out and dig

(32:48):
your own. I've gone out and didmy own to. And it's just so fun
like that. So I love doing oneof the things. So you got out
there, you know, let's call thislike January of 2017. And then
you look around and you know,King of the hammers is coming
up. You've heard about you seenit, and you reach out to Lucas
Murphy Optima battery driver. Ihaven't seen Lucas in a while. I

(33:10):
think he's kind of stepped backfrom ultra for racing. But you
hit him up. He says, Yeah, bringit in, you roll out to Johnson
Valley. And then that's kind ofwhere we left off. I was like,
whoa, whoa, I threw the brakeson you. So start up back there.
I rolled in through yucca Valleyand then I was following GPS to
Johnson Valley I didn't knowwhere to go I stopped it here
hero market and she says oh it'sin a valley So okay, yeah, sure.

(33:34):
I blow right Boone road I'venever been there before. I've
never seen anything I blow rightpast it. And I drive way out
towards Lucerne. But at somepoint I pull over just because I
know I'm gonna be near itsomewhere. So I park the
motorhome to get them I get onmy dirt bike figured I can cover
more ground quicker. And I juststart riding and avenge and I

(33:55):
eventually find it I thoughthammer on what it looks to be
like in the middle of the day.
And I ride open roads now I knowhow to get there by the
pavement. I figured that if I ifI were right now and my bike and
asked if I could help like theymight not they might be like oh
no we open next week. See youlater. I figured if I rolled up
at night that you know they'regonna they're probably gonna be

(34:16):
happier than on a fire. And if Iroll up at night they're
probably at least let me hangout with them for one night you
know they're not going to kickme out at night. So I get back
to my my RV and I go to towngive a close loss get firewood
give me some food, geteverything I need like
everything for two weeks allset, got propane got everything
I need. And I roll back outthere. Sure enough, I find the

(34:36):
smoke from the fire I just drivestraight into hammer town like
half the fences up at thispoint. It's early. And there's
like no racers or anything. Andthe roll up into this fire.
There's like 1520 people or so Icut it off and start walking
there. Everybody's looking atme. You know how it is. I'm like
hi is this king of the hammers?
My name is Kyle and they're likeyeah.

(34:58):
My name is Texas. Jesus. What'sgoing
Man and that's the that's thefirst person I met. And everyone
was so cool and they the neck Iwas like yeah i'll just I'm here
volunteer I'll do whatever youknow I can work and K wage like
blew my mind is like exactlywhere I needed to be the people
I met I can't I remember meetingthe tribe crew and everyone was

(35:18):
like, so cool and so nice. Allthe different. I mean, I mean a
whole wide variety of peopleracers and then also just
spectators out there. You know,whether it's chocolate Thunder
or just going to people's camps,and it was amazing. It
absolutely blew my mind I waslike this is it just felt right.
That's where I need to bewashed. I mean, I love using the

(35:39):
phrase, I haven't used it in along time. But the inflection
point like the inflection pointof the moment where you rolled
up in the RV to the fire thereon means dry lake and getting
out and meeting Matt phallusTexas Jesus in the relationship
you guys still have today isreally tight buds. And then the
group of other people there itset your path for right up to

(35:59):
the point where you're sittingright here talking to me
tonight, but it set the path ofyou on this kind of I mean,
right right right in the circus,right you you end up helping
seven hammer town you end upinvolved with ultra for Europe
continuing to volunteer continueto work with Dave and company,
and then ultimately startracing. And then here you are,
you know where we've got to theculmination today. But that's

(36:21):
quite a pinnacle moment. Right?
That's a that is that's adefining moment in your life
where you can look back and saymy whole life took a pivot a
solid pit just because I walkedup to the right fire that had
those specific guys at it.
Right? For sure. I definitelyhave to agree with that. Like
Yeah, I think it was meant to beor whatever have you want to put

(36:43):
it but like, Yeah, we got alongso well done done so much with
with Dave and everybody elseultra for have had such a good
time. And I feel like we have weput on races but like some
things that we do are pretty,pretty new. You know what I
mean? Like novel ideas. And Ithink that's a man. It's just
been a it's been really great.
It's been really great. But someof my best my best friends now

(37:05):
inside ultra for part of thereasoning and everything. And
yeah, it's it's, it's beenawesome. It's been an awesome
couple years for sure. So aroundthat at Intel. I know there's a
ton of stories in there. And wego back to bit, I'd heard the
story of this guy where this guyhad a, he basically gets offered
a job. He's working for Dave, hegets offered a job at Tesla. And

(37:27):
Dave basically tells the guy,dude, you've got to take the
job. And the guy was like, man,I don't know. And Dave tells
him, No, listen, you understand,like if you don't take the job
on firing you. So you're eitherquitting and taking the job or
I'm firing you and taking thejob, your call, how much truth
is there to that story.

(37:50):
At least a part of it firstyear. I really liked what I was
doing. At the time, I juststarted working for all tech for
Wayne Israel son, I just startedfor about two weeks with him. So
I was kind of transitioning fromultra Ford to that. My new thing
was I was gonna learn shocks. Iwas gonna start at the bottom,
asking a million questions andkind of going from there. And

(38:10):
eventually kind of learned raceshocks on Dwayne. And and then
the opportunity came up. He'slike the Godfather now right of
war style shocks. Yeah, he'san awesome guy. And he has an
insane knowledge. Like I was soexcited to learn from him and I
still am whatever opportunity Ican get to learn from him and
talk to him about racing shocks.

(38:33):
But yeah, I just started I hadlike two weeks there. And I got
an offer from from Tesla to be atechnician equipments,
equipment, maintenance tech.
And, yeah, I mean, just kind oftalking with every, you know, of
some folks and Dave, and thatwas kind of like, well, should I
shouldn't I I mean, I kind ofalready knew I should but I
think definitely. Dave was like,Yeah, you're doing that. So. So

(38:55):
I did. I've got two questions.
Now one is a throwback, becauseI completely skis you completely
iced over it and or glossed overit. What did your parents say
when you told them? I'm going toload my crap in this RV? And I'm
moving to California? What didyour mom and dad say about this?
What did your your sibling sayabout this? Well, that's gonna

(39:18):
be great, right?
I was 24 at the time. So it'snot like I was you know, and I
think my mom had already kind ofgiven up on me a little bit.
They were supportive. Theydidn't think that the Toyota was
going to work with the dam. Imean, it was old and didn't look
like much. But it had good bonesin it. Right? It actually ran

(39:38):
great for the years I had it.
But uh, for the most part, itwas kind of like, well, just let
us know where you are. Whenyou're broken down and we'll,
we'll come and get you. We'llget you a bus ticket or whatever
it is. But yeah, I mean, like Isaid, I was 24 so I was a full
blown adult. I was to make myown decisions, and I decided to
go for it. But there's nosupport. It was all support for
my family. They thought I was alittle zany but it was support

(40:00):
Good use the word saying Yeah,like that. Yeah, you're like but
but mom and dad, where's where'sthe? Where's the support on this
one? Like, we'll come get youwhen you break down. Come on
where's the faith? Well, shedidn't think he would. She
didn't think it would go aroundtown and I was driving I yeah,
no, it's still. Yeah, I don'tknow, man, I tell you what
everybody was always knockingthat Toyota Motor home and I

(40:22):
drove it everywhere it went upand down baja it went it daily
drove it. It's where I lived infor two years. And it never let
me down and got me literallyeverywhere is amazing. That
sounds like an ad for Toyota. Imean, you just can't kill them.
Right. But the 80s ones, thoseare the ones you need. Yeah, no,
no, for sure. So then you get tothis point, sorry. And I miss
flashback to that, because Icompletely skipped that. That

(40:44):
little portion. I was so curiousabout what your parents thought.
And then I look, a squirrel andwe moved on. As you're there.
You're ultra for you're hangingout around Johnson Valley.
You're doing race stuff. And howdid you know you're working with
Wayne? How did Tesla even enterthe picture? Like how did you
did you see an ad somewhere? Didyou apply online? How did that

(41:07):
pop up? How did that opportunitycrop up? My cousin he he's a
couple years younger than me. Hewas working there as an
equipment tech, he graduatedcollege, and that's what he was
doing. And I went up and visitedhim at least once when because
he was living up in that andit's in the Bay Area of
California. And I was living inSo Cal my van. And I hung out
with him and his friends. Thatall worked there too. They

(41:29):
basically had like a bachelorhouse. It was awesome. We drank
a bunch of beers on the roof.
And they all seem Yeah. And hesaid, Hey, they're hiring right
now you should probably applyand I was like, Well, I don't
have a degree and he's like thispeople on the ship who don't
have a degree. So put it in andI'll refer you and I got the
chance. You know, I was actuallyin Mexico. We were about to run
the 1000 are the Nora there'sprobably the Baja 1000 and I got

(41:52):
to interview on zoom on myphone. And I completely messed
up I completely confused PLC andVFD vfds they are two wildly
different things. Anyways, Iconfused him. And he said Yeah,
you got that pretty bad. But inanyways, I got the chance. And
from then I've learned a lot andI feel like I've done pretty

(42:14):
good at it. So So variablefrequency drive. What was the
first one you said? PLC programlogic control? Oh, probably.
Logic control. Yeah. Okay.
wildly different things. And Igot Yeah, you got a flipped?
Yeah, honestly, I believe vfdsare in controls. vfds are going
to be the future of the globedefinitely in the United States

(42:35):
definitely have like our powergrid. You know, what we see
certainly out there inCalifornia, you guys see
brownouts on summary linear,we're starting to see them here
in Texas, because we're we don'thave enough electricity to meet
the demands. So if you can takeput control logic on to your
vfds, and you can dial like yourpool pumps, if you put a VFD

(42:55):
pool pump in, and it gets to bethe peak of the day when
electricity is at a high notewhere you can throttle your pool
pump back from 100%, you couldthrottle it back to 15%, it's
still gonna run, you're stillgonna circulate some water,
you're not gonna circulate it atthe high speed. And so then,
therefore, you're not using allthe electricity. So you're in

(43:16):
conservation mode. And for youguys, you know, California, so
they send out the conservenotices. If you you know, with
Wi Fi and these wired homes andsmart homes today, you would
think you Billy go through likea nest setup. And if California
so sends out a conserve noticethat everyone's vfds would Oh,
dang, whoa, and they wouldthrottle everything right? I

(43:37):
definitely think that that'sthose types of things are what
we're gonna see it in ourreality as we as you know, we go
into the future, everything'sgetting more and more complex,
solve all the parts in theequipment life. And then things
are only going to be moreautomated, they're not going to
be less automated as we go.
Yeah, I mean, if these are gonnatrickle down into components

(43:57):
that we've never seen thembefore, they certainly are
prevalent and have beenprevalent for a long time in
dust in the industrial space,large motors and things like
that. So it's the best way todrive them and control them,
especially when you needprecision. There's going to be
more, not less, and it's beengreat to learn more and more
about them and kind of get therewith it. You know, see what you
can create with your mind.

(44:19):
Right. Yeah. And applied to anelectric truck, you know? Yeah.
So this, so yeah, there we go.
You get the offer. You'rebasically you're down at the
1000 you have a you got aninterview. You banging out of
the park, you get back to thestates you get offered the job.
Yeah, yeah. And I so I went upthere. I live with my cousin for
a couple of years. And that wasawesome. He's my cousin Brendan
is really good dude. And like itwas just great to get to do

(44:43):
that. You know, we're both inour younger mid 20s chair and a
house together in a foreignstate, you know, from where we
grew up anyways. And that wasjust that was an awesome like
thing to get to do. You know, soyour girlfriend from back in in
Massachusetts. The last time weheard her and you're
She made it to Austin, and thenflew back home. Did she come out

(45:03):
and visit you with someregularity in California? How
did you guys keep up? Becauseyou guys are still together
today? How did you guys keep upthat relationship over a
continent apart? Yeah. So shehad finished her last semester
of college. That was the primaryreason why she didn't stick with
me for the But no, she spent shewould spend months at a time
with me out on the west coast,whether it was just living in my

(45:24):
Toyota, or then coming out andstaying with us up at the house
that we rented when we wereworking, you know, with me, my
cousin. So we Yeah, we wouldalways spend once at a time
together long distancerelationships are tough for
sure. Do you now live with mefull time out on the west coast,
but it's been great. I mean, sheI love her. We've we've known
each other for since we werekids, you know, and we just know

(45:47):
she's one for me. There you go.
But good. So she's Was she acouple years younger than you?
Yeah. And she clearly enjoysbaja and off road and dust
breathing dust. Yeah, yeah, weare one of our best. We like
vacations. I get asked what itwas. We spent three weeks going
up and down baja all the way toCabo and that Toyota, and it's

(46:08):
not always comfortable. It'susually not the picture of
comfort. Yeah, I mean, that'sjust, she supports my racing so
much. In every way. It's it.
Yeah, it's awesome. So shegraduates college, she couldn't
come to California. She's reallyshe's got She goes, he gets a
job there in the Bay Area. Likeyou you're working at Tesla.

(46:29):
Now. She's working somewhere.
What does Vanessa do? mostinsecure, killed, you know,
private, I type stuff at thepresent. But, you know, it's
kind of it's kind of evolving.
She's, you know, definitelylooking at Find her career as it
comes. Okay. It's intriguingthat you found basically like
this soulmate that is, well,Mike, I couldn't get my wife
day, live out of an RV or evengo to the desert, even if we had

(46:53):
a big RV. Like none of thesethings would like jive and, and
you guys are just, you have thisvery, very copacetic
relationship on that. And likeI'm so I'm kind of envious. I'm
like, Wow, that's a pretty bad.
So do you guys have a plans forfamily? Kids? Stay in the Bay
Area? Go back to Boston? What'skind of in your house future?
Oh, man, I mean, not to put youon the spot.

(47:17):
Ever since I was little, Ialways thought I'd have kids for
sure. I mean, the there since Iwas a kid, I always thought I'd
have kids. We'll see. I'm kindof getting close there. I'm
almost 30. So that's kind ofthat. Yeah, that's in my mind.
For sure. I also kind of miss myfamily. I got a extended family.
That's really cool. I'm reallyclose with my immediate family,
but also my extended family. AndI you know, I got like, nephews

(47:39):
and nieces and cousins that aregrowing up and I miss them. I
miss my grandma. You know, Ikind of want to think about
living back. I think aboutliving back east a lot. We'll
kind of see how that goes. As ofright now. I'm not about to do
that. But maybe within a year, Ijust don't know. I don't know.
But that's the I'm definitelypulled for sure. Certainly, if
you're looking at you know, asyou guys human, so get get

(48:01):
further along, you know, thinkabout marriage and think about
kids. It's really nice andconvenient to have family nearby
that you can lean on when Oh,yeah, the kids sick and they
can't go to school or the youknow, or you've already missed
work because the kids been sickfor two days. And you can't miss
a third day and or just kidssports, having you know, the

(48:22):
grandpa grandma come and watchhim, you know, swing the bat,
you know, yeah, play with mycousins, you know, like that.
That's like, absolutely iscolored my life. You know, like,
you're who I am today's I'velearned from my cousins, at
least partially. So I mean, thatmakes me too, you know, it's
like, probably being around myfamily. You know, it's probably
coming up here soon. So you'reworking at Tesla. You're on your

(48:46):
second job at Tesla, right? Soyou, you worked one job, tell me
about that job, you know, Iguess in in your terms, and then
talk about your new job. Istarted basically on the factory
floor in the body shop, whichwas it's kind of like Mordor
it's like dark, like dingy. Andthis sharp pieces everywhere.
And there's lots of weldingrobots. And it's really cool.

(49:08):
There's lots of lots oftechnology to learn. It was It
was great.
Too dark and dingy. It's notquite like that. It's it's a
it's a high tech shop. But yeah,I learned a lot about automation
and different pieces ofequipment. How to fix them. No,
and you guys are building Teslacars. Yeah, model three wasn't
the model three line? Yeah,yeah. And we have a 55 seconds.
cycle time. So if you're downfor more than a minute or two,

(49:32):
you know, this people start toshow up. You know what, Hey, why
are you down over here? Oh,we're working on this. If you're
down for four or five minutes,it's a big deal. So it's
learning how to get stuffrunning quickly is where it's
at. When it comes to the thepart of the line I was at, moved
to a different part of line inassembly where we actually
together we got painted bodiesand we assembled you know, put

(49:54):
the put the motors in and thebatteries in and that was a
whole new set of technology tolearn.
Great, you know, I learned a lotabout that stuff. And now I'm in
a different part. It's not onthe manufacturing anymore. It's
more r&d type stuff. So that'sit's been, it's been awesome.
You move from the assemblyprocess and working on equipment

(50:16):
to now you've, you're over inthe r&d, shopping, don't divulge
anything, you know, any tradesecrets or work secrets. But
tell us about kind of how thatmaterialized. And then the new
challenges of the new role.
Definitely part of going withgoing electric truck racing was
part of that evolution, I'd say.

(50:36):
And the challenges of the newrule are, it's different because
it's more wide open in a way,and it's definitely different
than being part of the factory,like being on the plant floor.
It's cool. It's great. And like,I don't know, I, I definitely
felt a lot of pride. And I mean,I still do of being like an

(50:57):
American auto worker. That'ssomething that was, you know,
the the auto industry ingeneral, I think is was was sort
of founded here in America withHenry Ford in the assembly line.
And I definitely felt a lot ofpride, spending lots of hours on
my feet on the concrete there atthe at the at the Auto plant.
And I think that that was thatwas an awesome thing to kind of

(51:18):
get to be a part of even besidesit being a job. It was pretty
cool. I enjoyed it. Did youthink today, based on what
you're doing? Do you think it'smuch more?
I think the right words are? Areyou more right brain, you're
getting to use a lot more yourright side of your brain, then
your your left side, left sidecontrol, your right side is your

(51:39):
ability to be creative. I thinkthat's the it's kind of like the
goal, I think, I don't know ifI'm quite there yet. If that's
what's what I'm supposed to doyet, for sure. It's still left
brain if we're going that waywith it. But it's just been
great to learn, like all kindsof equipment that I can apply
to, to lots of different places.
You know, robots I can not arobot pretty much anywhere. And

(52:02):
I think there's gonna be morerobots and not less as we go
forward. It's a good, good thingwe get to learn. Oh, yeah,
fully, we're fully rapidlymoving towards Skynet, right?
Fortunately, it's, it's startingto look more and more real.
Yeah, it's, you know, like, Ifyou can dream it, it can come
true. Right. So I don't want toget into the the racing and the

(52:24):
AV in the offered stuff you justyet. I guess we kind of what I'm
coming back to on where you wereat Tesla to where you are today.
without, you know, again, I lovethat you're in a role that you
can't divulge stuff that that'sso cool, right? That's, there's
some very cool factors to thatcool points for having having a
role at a company that, hey,it's, you know, I'm in the

(52:45):
middle of trade secrets andstuff. How does that feel to
have you know, effectively, youwere able to get promoted and
move up based on some stuff thatyou were doing outside of
business right outside of yourjob that you're being paid for.
Outside of that you were makingwaves overhand, the off road
world doing Evie stuff that wasquite separate from what you

(53:07):
were doing for your factory job.
And that made waves and now thatthe company identified that they
looked at you, they had aconversation with you, they
pulled you up in the r&d shop,and now they're putting
resources behind you. That'sgonna feel great, right? Yeah, I
mean, for sure that I mean, thatsaid, like, I'm mostly just
dancing around, not because ofanything like super awesome, or

(53:30):
like some secret that's very,very neat. It's mostly just
because I don't I don't want toget I just don't know what I can
and can't say so. I mean, that'sall it is like, but please
believe me, like, it's not likeI'm working on the new off road,
Baja truck or something likethat. It's not that cool.
Promise. Yeah. It's just thatI've already I've already put it
up on Instagram that you'rebuilding a new cyber VA trophy

(53:51):
truck. The cybertruck the TT thecybertruck. Tt. Yeah, I live in
my house. Kyle, Boston. soglin.
Oh, this is like, we're breakingit here first. You heard it here
first. Right? Right. Yeah. No, Iwish it was that cool. It's it's
not it's just I don't I don'tknow what I don't know. I don't
want to make the wrong waves orsomething like that. Whatever.

(54:13):
I'm just not sure what I can andcan't say. No, for sure. Like, I
definitely when I was when me mybuddies, were putting together
the electric car in the shop.
You know, I was it wasexpensive, too. I spent a lot
of, you know, money on all theparts and everything in the
batteries and stuff. And it waslike, well, the way I viewed it
was, it was like, I'm puttingthis on my resume. You know,
like, you know, that's kind ofwhat I how I felt like I was

(54:34):
sort of buying an education formyself. There was a lot of
stuff. I looked up online, and Ihad to learn and then there was
a lot of lessons and things Ineeded to learn in the shop just
actually doing it and connectingthe different components
together. And it's not rocketscience, like I can do it. So I
mean, I think a lot of you know,everybody can do it. But you
just you actually need to getout there and spend the time and

(54:55):
it took months, but it was itwas definitely really neat to
You know, to then get to race kwage and then get some
opportunities come up from it.
You know, I kind of thought thatthat might be the case. And it
was it was neat to have thatvindicated? Well, I think you
nailed it right, bingo. Right?
you invested in yourself, right?
you invested in yourself and youcapitalized on yourself and you

(55:16):
bet on yourself. No one's gonnabet on you harder than you
betting on your own self. Right?
Yeah. So So you did that. And alot of people don't, right.
They, they don't have the faithin themselves or the or they
understand or know what theirself worth is. And you
completely invested in yourselfand went all in. So I'm very

(55:37):
proud of you for that. I mean, Idon't know that. You're proud of
you as something that you're,you're okay with. But I was not
alone. Like I had that my buddy,my buddy, Charlie pangolin. And
he guy that I met throughanother buddy will, that's when
we built the shop. We builtthis, we built the car and
Will's garage and and this willspec right, yeah, yeah, we'll
spec he helped me out so much. Imean, with all the fab and

(55:59):
everything. And then his buddyCharlie hopped in there from the
Honda, they used to raiseHonda's together, he helped me
out so much with the highvoltage and understanding what
we can and can't do. When wecracked the first battery open.
I was, you know, I had like, twopairs of gloves on. And I was
standing there wild eyed, like,I had no idea what to do. And he
kind of walked me through like,just showing me where the I got

(56:22):
a whole new like perspective onhow to think about high voltage.
And he was showing me where youcan't touch like, Don't worry,
we can you can put your handsall over this battery, you just
can't put them right here. Andright here. It's like and you
know, where do you put a wrenchlike this, you can put it
anywhere except for right hereand right here and kind of
learning how it all works andmaking sure that it's fused at

(56:43):
all times, just in case you dodrop a wrench, those kinds of
things like, okay, I didn't doit on my own. There's no way no,
no, yeah, I wouldn't. I didn'tmean to suggest that. I just
meant that when it comes towhere you're at, in your career.
Exactly what you said put thison your resume that you did
invest in yourself now. Sobefore we even talk about how

(57:04):
you decide to race how you endup with your race car, and he
that, how did you end up meetingup and flanging up with with
Charlie and will spec because ofyou? I follow will spec garage
on Instagram. He's got he'sgreat with content. I love his
content. Yeah. So how did youflange up with those guys and
develop a relationship withthem? I met Will it work? You

(57:25):
know, like my first day at work?
I walked in wearing a king ofthe hammers t shirt. And I
relieved him because it shiftswork there. So I relieved him.
He's like, you know, King of thehammers. And I was like, Yeah,
yeah, no thing too about it. Andyou know, and we got, we hit it
off instantly, you know, andhe's just by one of my best
friends right now. I mean, I doanything for him. And his whole

(57:46):
family is awesome. And we'reactually in the podcast room
right now. It's like, it's ashed type thing. It's like a
nice shed that he built in thebackyard for for this kind of
thing. So this this kind ofthing and some and obviously
some some automotive stuff. Sowe'll spec garage while we try
to put out as much content as wecan on Instagram. I see that.

(58:09):
Yeah. And that's where I youknow, a lot of the updates on
you actually come from him. Likehe's the one who's really on top
of keeping your your message outthere. And, man, I really
appreciate really appreciatewell for that. Thank you for
him. Or he's way better at itthan I am. I don't don't.

(58:30):
Yeah,that works. Okay, so so let's
let's dive into this portion ofthe show. I'm so curious about
so. You, I mean, we're gonnatalk about your racing, we're
gonna talk about kena hammersgrid, talk about what you did at
Baja, the 250. here recently,but let's talk about how you get
to the point to say, Hey, I'mgoing to risking the hammers,
I'm going to do it in Eevee.

(58:52):
What am I going to build andthen buying your Toyota that
you're racing from Dave Cole?
And then it's history. So that'skind of where I want to go. But
so like, what was the genesis ofwas you and will sitting around
on beanbags and going, Hey, weshould raise an EV k? Ah, what
was it? Well, it actuallystarted years ago, I've always
thought about making an electriccrawler I remember working with

(59:14):
ultra for would have long day,entire days of driving the
trailers, you know, to and froma race and all the all the rigs
were hooked up with microphones,not microphones, race radios,
and we just, you know, kind ofbe rolling and there was just
like a constant conversation forlike, 10 hours now. You wouldn't
necessarily always be talking.

(59:35):
But what that means is like atany given moment, a radio might
just spark up and just have aquestion thrown at you about
some rig or some shock or some,you know, some alternator setup,
at any given time. And peoplewould just, we would just, you
know, riff on it. And I wasalways going back to electric
crawlers and the advantagesyou'd have there, especially if

(59:56):
you have four wheel motors andwhatever. So I mean, it's kind
of been in my mind.
For a long time, and then I hada I had a Toyota Corolla with a
three oh in it in the three Oh,Rex I wrecked it during like
wheeling when when COVIDhappened in 2020 in the in the
in the spring, I wasn't gonnarepair the three liter that's
like the worst motor ever so Iwas I was alright now it's

(01:00:18):
finally time to do it nice youcould buy a Nissan LEAF for like
three grand and thenthunderstruck Evie has the
standalone control component for500 bucks, it's like alright,
cool. I'm gonna make my Toyotaelectric, that's what I'm going
to do. It's just gonna be forfun. I don't care about range. I
don't care about anything. I'mjust going to make it work kind
of enough to get around hammersand just to do it. And then that

(01:00:42):
I bought the leaf I alreadybought it. And I was kind of
preparing for it and then talkedto Dave and Dave was like, we're
doing an Eevee class this year.
And it was kind of like, dang, Igot to make a race car. How do I
do that? And we're talking towell at work about it. I was
like, Well, you know, we didn'treally have enough time to make
my stock bodied 89 for runner aracecar in you know, starting in

(01:01:06):
October and being given a linein February. And I know that
Bailey's old racecar was sittingin the weeds. And so I just
floated the idea by Dave I waslike Dave, what if I converted
that car? Because you know it'salready got a chassis it already
has raised seats and harnessesI'd have to get new harnesses
but it already it's alreadylinked. It's already Yeah,

(01:01:27):
sorry. Got it was still was astock class car. So it still had
leaf springs in the back. But ithad it was long travel with
dever and it had, you know, aMarlin trans in it and a few
other things and Mr. racecar.
So, you know, and he was like,do it. I couldn't believe how
onboard he was. He was like,yeah, that's awesome that the

(01:01:47):
other thing too, is that thatcar is really used up. There is
nothing straight on that frameor the pickup points for the
front suspension. The arms arejank, everything about that car
is like barely hanging on thosekind of like, you know, sure,
why not kind of go for it. It'snot needed refresh, like, yeah,
it's a way to breathe some newlife into it. And then the other

(01:02:08):
thing is that we're, you know,we're racing, but we're not
really going that that fast. Soit's like, if you're gonna put a
VA in it, you destroy the cardinstantly. But with 100 horse
cap, 100 horsepower leaf motor,you could probably, you know,
get around the course and itmight hold up, you know, so and
it's kind of like a new legacyfor the car that cars had a lot
of awesome hands in it. Jesus,Texas, Jesus built it. And

(01:02:29):
Bailey raised it. David ballraised it. It's been raised in
Mexico. And then I think itdidn't have success in Mexico at
a race. I feel like maybe Davidwon something in it. I don't
remember all the details. Yeah.
So David, Jesus raised it in theNorland 1000. Like right after
they built it, they drove fromTibet, it was still street
legal. They drove from Temeculain it. They drove to and Sonata
or simply they weren't whereverthey started the race and the

(01:02:53):
race all the way down. They wonthe class, but then all the
people in the class got sourabout it for whatever reason.
And then they drove it all theway back from Cabo to Temecula.
It only had like two problems,the whole entire thing and they
were minor minor. So that'sthat's such a glorious story.
Yeah, the car's got a lot ofluck. It's got the right kind of
Mojo going for it. Oh, yeah, youdon't, you can't you can't buy

(01:03:16):
that kind of Mojo. So you andyou end up with it you what do
you do run down to the ranchthere and grab it with a trailer
and haul it back to San Jose.
Yeah, as soon as he said Yes, Igot it within 24 hours just to
make sure to change his mindlike I went and I flew down with
my empty trailer and got it backlike I'm cutting it apart. And

(01:03:39):
we didn't really cut it apart,we just moved the gas motor and
put the put the leaf the leaf inplace, right the leaf motor
hooked up to the Toyota transand then through batteries in
the bed. It was like prettysimple, really, I mean, we
didn't really change the programup that much. We just put an
electric motor with the gasmotor went and put electric
batteries where the gas tankwent in the bed. So you had to

(01:04:01):
you know, weld up, you know, acoupler to attach the leaf, you
know the leaf motor to the frontof the the Toyota transmission.
I mean that that wasn't anythingcomplicated, but they did you
end up saving from theperspective of the vehicle like
right, you can get rid of theradiator, you can get rid of all
these ancillary items, but thenyou're adding back all these

(01:04:22):
batteries. How do you think theweight Then did you? Did you
actually go up in weight andthen did all of that end up
transferred to the back of thevehicle? or How was the setup?
It depends on what battery youput in it. So we have like a
small Nissan LEAF battery that'slike the stock one that comes in
like the normal older leafs it's24 kilowatt hours. It's a little

(01:04:43):
under 600 pounds. So if you putthat in the bed, it actually
might be a little less thanthat. I'm not exactly sure I
should I should know but I'm notexactly sure. And then with the
with the leaf motor is superlight. I picked it up off the
ground and put it into thebetween the fenders.
myself without an engine hoist?
I mean, that's way lighter thana 22. Our I can't Oh, yeah, you
know, so I mean, we definitelylost weight in the front. And

(01:05:06):
then we gained rate in theweight in the rear but the
weight was all in front of therear axle. So it still is kind
of centered in the car. Okay,with the small battery I bet we
lost weight. But with the bigbattery, there's we definitely
gained weight the big batteriesover 1000 pounds. That's like
the major fight right now notthe fight, but that that's what
we're kind of waiting on. Is thebattery technology to catch up?

(01:05:27):
Yeah, I mean, I guess we're notwaiting, we're doing it, but
waits. As soon as the powerdensity gets gets higher, we
can, you know, really start togo some distances at at a higher
speed. And then Allah is goingto be awesome. But we got to
start somewhere stuck in somedata and kind of go from there,

(01:05:47):
you know, you know, you get thecar, the truck ready for K wage
this past year. Dave, you know,has an Eevee class, you are in a
class of one, but you're runningin the AMC. And I guess
initially the first kind of timeI talked to you, I we didn't
talk about this because it wasmore like high five man What a
great offer for three, you know,ultra three party you got going
here. But Nice to meet you. Hey,let's talk later. But in that

(01:06:09):
world, you guys were completelyguessing on range, you had no
idea what you were doing forrange. So would be kind of your
game planning and in how youwere going to attack a way to
look from the outside. Becauseyou're the first one, right?
It's not like, Hey, I putanother Ls 400 cubic inch LS and
in this car, I put an LS threeand well those get, you know,

(01:06:32):
five miles to the gallon, youknow, things like that. You
didn't know, what was your swag.
And how did you arrive there andthen what was your actual, so we
really didn't have enough timeto test the car, essentially at
all before km h we grew justbuilding it. And we knew that
going into it. Again,originally, the plan was just to
use this, I bought a Nissan LEAFand we tore it apart. The

(01:06:55):
battery had a 78% state ofhealth and like I didn't care
because I didn't care aboutrange it was just to do it and
enjoy it. I don't even care ifit got five miles. That's enough
to get out of camp and get backand just kind of bop around the
hammers and enjoy it. Well, nowwe're going racing. So we
procured another 24 kilowatthour battery locally from
Craigslist. And then you knowfrom hammer town to pit one is

(01:07:18):
15 miles, and then you got about48 miles back to pit one. And
then 15 miles from pit one backto hammer down for that 48 mile
stretch. I had asked Dave it forthe AV class, we can get a swap
out there because I didn't knowI didn't know how to do this.
And he said no, we're not goingto do that. That's part of the
challenge. Like figure it out.
That's where you get you know,okay, cool. So we need we need

(01:07:40):
more capacity, the 2019 and upNissan leafs had a 62 kilowatt
hour battery. So it's almosttriple, you know, I'm pretty
close, it's it's a lot better.
We were able to find one inMurfreesboro, Tennessee, that it
shipped to us and it wasn'tcheap. But we got it here we got
it torn apart. It was completelydifferent than the other kinds

(01:08:02):
of batteries there was likelaser welded and all this
awesome stuff. But we found away to scab it into our system.
And then that's also the way thecar can except two different
styles of batteries. So we hadto figure all that out. And we
had almost no time to do it. Butwe got it together and got it in
the trailer. We ended upbringing way more battery than
we needed. Okay. That's not abad thing, though, right? Yeah,

(01:08:25):
it was awesome. Basically, theway I kind of figured what we'd
need, it's super simplistic.
It's nap it's napkin math, youknow, the Nissan LEAF gets about
three and a half to fourkilowatt hours per mile when
it's driving miles per kilowatthour when it's driving. And the
same car, which would be like aNissan Versa. If it had a gas
engine in it gets about 40 milesto the gallon, roughly. I asked

(01:08:46):
Bailey Cole and I asked TexasJesus, Dave, what, what is what
did that 4654 car get? And theysaid it got eight to nine miles
to the gallon with the 22 are init? Well, that's about a
quarter, that's about a quarterof what a Nissan Versa gets on
the pavement. Okay, so that'skind of where I figured it, it's
gonna, it's probably going toget about a quarter of three and

(01:09:06):
a half to four miles perkilowatt hour. So we might get
about one mile per kilowatthour. That's about what we've
been seeing, depending on howhard you drive it. And so you
were dialed in like you actuallyeven though it was back of the
envelope math and a completeguestimate turns out you guys
were pretty close. Yeah,absolutely. And a lot of it has
to do with how are you drivingit and then what the terrain is

(01:09:30):
specifically like, if you'regoing to leave hammer town and
you're going to drive towardslike towards chocolate thunder,
but then take a left and thenstay in the low part of the
valley. Turn around and comeback. Then you're going to do a
lot better than if you lefthammer town and went to the
right and went up like pummelpass, let's say and then like
towards giant rock, you went upto pummel pass, turn around and

(01:09:53):
came back. You're gonna get wayworse rains doing that because
you don't really realize it in agas car but what you
did was he just gained 500 feetof elevation, and that you
basically raised the weight ofthe vehicle 500 feet, and that
takes a lot of juice. So it,every little bit of the terrain
counts. And every time you hitthe throttle, you need to be

(01:10:15):
conscientious of it. And that'show you're going to get the good
range. You know, you touched onsomething there that I've never
thought about when I think aboutmileage You said you raised the
weight of the vehicle 500 feetand that's that's the right way
to think about it. But I'm, I'min my mid 40s and I just
recognize this right? You go upa mountain pass in your Gasser

(01:10:35):
will you use gasoline or dieselor whatever it is to raise the
weight of the vehicle to thatelevation. That's totally
different than if you just drovestraight, you know, on a flat
piece of pavement, you know? SoI mean, that's kind of what qH
is, it's a challenge, becausenot only going through sand,
which adds a lot of friction, orrocks, which are like a
different, it's a different wayof thinking about mileage, but

(01:10:58):
there's a ton of elevationchange up and down, you go up
and down all day. And that's,that's there's a lot of juice
there. You know, I mean, it'slike trying to climb stairs 45
times in one day, you know,different sets of stairs, it's
like, it's way worse than justtrying to run for 20 miles, you
know? Yeah, so it can't. So thatwould be that you right? You're
gonna get in theory on thedesert lap on the desert loop at

(01:11:21):
cailleach. Your mileage shouldbe a lot better than on a
Corolla a rock lap. Right? Or,yeah, and I mean, it could be
there's more to it, though.
There's a slip in the desert.
You know, I mean, there's likedifferent ways that it kind of
pans out. But for sure, yeah,yeah, no, yeah, I think that
goes without saying, right,because in the rocks, you're not
you're, you're not gonna berunning higher RPMs. So you're

(01:11:43):
not gonna be running, you know,a bunch of juice offload at the
same time, but at the same, Imean, do they probably now that
you have some numbers do theykind of, even out in the wash or
is, depending on the coursedepends on kind of how, where
you're going to utilize morebattery than less battery. So
something that's neat about theelectric motors is that it's not

(01:12:04):
the same as a gas engine andthat it necessarily burns more
juice at higher RPMs. It's allabout load. It's just like a
vacuum on your on your gasengine. Like that tells you how
much fuel you're using, youknow, but like with with a gas
engine at higher RPMs, you'reobviously burning more juice,
that's not as prevalent withelectric motors, you can run

(01:12:25):
them at 6000 RPM all day, if youdon't have a load on it, it's a
very, very small drawcomparatively, it's just all
about the kind of load you puton it. And they also run very,
very cool. Like we need we don'teven have a fan on the car. And
we just cycle water through theradiator every now and then. And
that keeps it cool enoughbecause they're so efficient
compared to a gas engine. Sothere's a lot of like upsides.

(01:12:47):
There's lots of advantages we'reseeing and we want to improve
upon as we as we improve ourprogram. Gotcha. Okay. That's
been that portion has been superenlightening. And so now you
enter qH you enter the MC Didyou complete all like I feel
like you didn't complete theentire course but you completed
the two laps but that was allthe Eevee add or what was the

(01:13:10):
what was the layout that overfor and set up for you this
year? Because I know there's abig celebration. I just wasn't I
was a little confused aroundwhat what the celebration was
for Yeah, so they we were justracing the single lap the desert
lap we didn't have to go out forthe rocks. That was the Eevee
course this year you know and sowe got the win I you know I

(01:13:31):
that's that's what it was we gotthe trophy that's what the the
course was and it feels awesome.
But we belong in the rocks. Ithat's what ultra four is all
about. That's what king of thehammers is all about. Next year,
we're going in the rocks forsure. Or at least I am if I can
help it. Yeah, we definitely wedefinitely want to go on the
rocks. We want to go further andwe'll know that I think that
makes sense. Okay, so that's whyI was I think I was confused

(01:13:52):
about when I was following youthat day was that I never saw
you you'll the rocks and theycalled you know how you finished
a new one. I was like, wait, youknow, I didn't recognize that
there was a different I mean,no, you're on a different course
it was the same course. It wasjust abbreviated You didn't have
to go back out. And and so howmany hours did that take for you
to get from green flag tochecker flag for you. I think it

(01:14:16):
was knocking on it was overseven and a half I think it was
it was over seven and a half forsure. It might have been closer
to 10 I should know but I don'twe had about two and a half
hours of downtime with asteering issue. We broke
something a clevis on thesteering rack and it was
actually so cool. Another teamhad that we were out that we

(01:14:37):
were bringing spare parts tothem on course we were asked at
a pit and then when we broke welooked in the bag and we had the
exact part we needed was inthere we installed it on the car
we got to them and they didn'tneed that part that was just a
bonus thrown in by their crew.
So they had the part they neededwe both got on course it was car

(01:14:57):
74 Hollingsworth racing 48100 car, it was it was so neat
that, that their team had whatwe needed and helped us out with
it. What are the odds? Right?
And yeah, we mean my sister wasmy sister was co driving for me.
When we looked in the bag wefree was like, Oh my God, is
that really it? And we put thecar together. And I was so
nervous when we started rollingagain, because we hadn't gotten

(01:15:18):
to them yet. I was like dill.
Werewe what are we gonna say when we
get there? And she says, Well,we got to bring the part to
them. Right? We're bringing thepart to them. We'll figure it
out. When we get there. I waslike, Uh, hi. And if they didn't
need that one, they needed adifferent part in the bag. So
they were all set. We both gotbolted up. And we we took off.
It was awesome. Well, youalluded to it, you brought her

(01:15:40):
up and we didn't talk about, youknow, family early on, but
siblings, walk us through yoursiblings.
Um, so it's me and then Deliaand Heather. They are awesome.
They're, and they are the best.
Delia is she? She did the samething I did. You know, what we
grew up together like reallytight. We spent a lot of time

(01:16:01):
together and we're just gettingall kinds of trouble together.
And then you know, later as wegot older, she she did the
Marine Engineering like I wastrying to do she completed it
and she section on a ship rightnow. She's a second. She's
sailing as a second now. Keepingthe propellers spinning on a
cargo ship. I think it is forthis hitch. Heather, she's an

(01:16:22):
Alabama right now she's in.
She's in flight school for thearmy. She's gonna fly
Blackhawks. Oh, very. Yeah, theyare the best. I love my sisters
they are. They're just very,very rad individuals. They kind

(01:16:42):
of they inspire me all the time.
I love spending time with them.
We don't we don't get to spendthat much time together anymore.
But they always come up for Kingof the hammers. Delia's been
three of the four years I haveor something like that. And
Heather's worked for K wagetwice now she's, you'll see her
around. She's kind ofvolunteering in a way or she was
a it was her internship thefirst year. Oh, no kidding.

(01:17:04):
Yeah, she offers internships. Ithink she was the first one I
think she was the first ultrafor intern and she Yes, she had
a read of a report and submittedto her school and everything she
was she was the first intern andI think unless someone else
claims that maybe they made memaybe they were it was no I
think she was oh man they justkick so much ass I love them to

(01:17:24):
death and they're badass wellconsidering I've never even
heard of elf for having ananswer and I'm gonna get I'm
just gonna go in here word onthat they first because why? Why
not? I you know this is this isnew. This is kind of cool. Yeah,
they do sound awesome. So whichone of your which Delia or
Heather co piloted for your codrove for you? I can't wait this

(01:17:46):
year. Delia did and she was shekicked ass like we had she
doesn't have any experience withCO driving. I didn't have any
experience with driving in arace you know, of course, either
of us. And she she handled thelead nav, and we're just using
my cell phone for lean have inJune is great. And was um, I
don't know Cheers. Just awesome.
When we broke, she was the twoof us were great mechanically to

(01:18:08):
try to get the fix going. I wassuper fun. And Heather actually
waved the green flag in thecheckered flag for us. It was
just a really neat mine. Youknow, I was total family of
fire. Wow. So you guys are inthere. You guys get your finish?
You won the elation of yourcomplete mbean not only the
first Evie, class competitor andultra for racing, but the first

(01:18:31):
one to complete a course and winyour class. And I know there's
always the joke like Haha, likeyou want to class a one. But in
your case, I think that's alittle different. Right? It's
the kind of the way I think ofit is like we accomplished the
challenge. Right? Like that'sthat was the challenge for this
year, if there was more carsthan it would have been a race,
you know, you know? Yeah, that'skind of that's just kind of how

(01:18:54):
I feel about I want competition.
real bad. And so when we heardthat there was going to be
another electric car entering itan off road race, we found a way
to make it happen. We had acrossinternational borders to get
there. Well, that's a greatsegue into that conversation.
So I've got a former coworker,you know, friend of mine, her

(01:19:14):
name's denita Park, she works atNRG energy here in Houston. And
she would see kind of my, myLinkedIn post about various
things and I you know, I putmoney down or a deposit down in
order to Nikola the Nikolabadger. And I think that that
meant to some people I didn'tlike I didn't like the

(01:19:34):
cybertruck Sorry, sorry, Teslajust it was just kind of I did
really like the way Ilan muskhandled the breaking the
shattering of the window, theunveil like he shattered the
window. He didn't try to coverup you just turn guess that
didn't work. That didn't workout the way I expected it to.
Yeah, I think we've got somework to do here. I didn't like
from the aesthetic standpoint,but that wasn't the reason why I

(01:19:57):
decided to get behind theniccola
Nikolas, I thought was a muchbetter looking truck from
aesthetic version. But for me,it was the batteries coupled
with this hydrogen fuel cellthat they were claiming they
were going to come out with. Aswe know, Nicole is not going to
go forward with their truck andthe Badger program, and we all
got our deposits back on newtrucks. But I'd love to hear

(01:20:19):
your take on hydrogen, thepotential for a hydrogen fuel
cell. And if you think thatthat's something that will make
its way into offer of racing andextending the range of, say,
your vehicle or your solidvehicle, or other future racers,
and what that looks like beforewe kind of talk about your head
to head challenge. So the fuelcells are really neat. And I'm

(01:20:42):
not I know a bit about how theywork. I'm not I'm not an expert
on it. I'm not exactly digital,I have a lot of questions about
it.
actually met ever since Kingfrom King hammers, I met this
guy, Joe, up in Oregon, JoeMerrill. And he he is more of an
expert on hydrogen fuel cells.
And we've been talking a lot.
Basically, there's a there's anoverarching issue with hydrogen

(01:21:05):
fuel cells. And it depends onwhich way you want to look at
it, when it's from a racingperspective, then sort of none
of this matters, but let's justgo from a transportation
perspective, or passengervehicles or whatever you want to
call them. If you're going tocharge a battery, using hydrogen
and hydrogen fuel cell, then theissue with hydrogen is that it
doesn't have a lot of energy,you know, for its mass, so you

(01:21:27):
need to compress itto compress it takes a lot of
electricity, that you have torun a pump to compress it, and
then it needs to go into aspecial container, a very high
pressure can vessel and thatthose are complicated to make,
they take a lot of energy tomake. And then what you're doing
with that hydrogen is you'rerunning it through a fuel cell,
which are pretty cool. Let's geta cathode and an anode. And it

(01:21:47):
separates the electron from thehydrogen, you pass it through
the battery. And that's how itcharges the battery. Right? Your
only emission is h2o, which iswater, which is awesome. Like
it's very clean, and hydrogensare super abundant. Like I get
it, it's clean, the issue isthat you have to compress the
hydrogen and you have to storeit into something that takes a

(01:22:08):
lot of energy to create, whichand all you're doing really is
charging a battery, you so youstill have to have a battery via
a goal ishydrogen solar, have all this
other stuff, you know? Okay,that says, so we may get there.
But there's a lot of otherissues and a lot of other quite,
you know, deal killer levelhurdles in between here and

(01:22:31):
there. I agree. Yeah. And ifthere was some way to, you know,
separate the hydrogen fromwater, whether it be out of the
ocean, you have to do in asustainable manner, you can't
just like drink all the oceanwater up, like you have to make
it makes sense. And if you coulddo it for, you know, in a light
fashion that could get itcompressed, then for sure. I
mean, that would be dope,because then cars can go a long

(01:22:53):
way. I mean, the new ToyotaMariah has 400 miles on Philip,
I was actually looking at maybegetting one of those, because
when it comes to racing, what Iwould do is bring that down to
King of the hammers and run aplug off of it off of the fuel
cell and charge my batteriesthat way. Okay. And then then
the then the electric race car,when it's on the course, I can

(01:23:14):
say that it's powered byhydrogen, which is renewable. So
all the energy spent by theracecar, on course, would be
renewable. And that's kind ofwhere my mind's going with this
program, I want to try to findbecause we charge our batteries
by generator, you know, a gasgenerator, I want to get away
from that, I want to try to finda way to at least say that all
the energy spent by the car oncourse, was renewable. And

(01:23:35):
there's a lot of different waysto try to solve that puzzle.
still working on it. So don'thave the hot ticket yet. And I'm
with you on that, like the theclaim degree now I
greet let's see zero carbonfootprint on the race racing
itself. But you know, I don'twant to get into the argument

(01:23:56):
about what the carbon footprintis of everything to make up to
get to the point where you getto take the fight is we've got
some issues, there is somesuffering, but I want to go back
that so I really liked theniccola. And so I put down a
deposit and my friend, you know,former coworker denita has seen
that she's following me and thenshe sees, you know, kind of the
K wage stuff. And she invites meto go to her the checkout the

(01:24:20):
Lordstown. And the Lordstown wasreally everything for me that I
kind of wanted like it was itwas a Silverado Silverado
chassis. So I'm thinking aboutthis and see my feeble mind on
this. Okay, there's already anaftermarket for long travel
suspensions for the Seratoplatform. So I'm gonna kick in I

(01:24:40):
was looking for a commutervehicle at the time so I'm, I'm
like, I'm currently commuting inmy, my pre rent you know, on 40s
that's fun that truck partiesit's a blast. You know, I love
driving it in traffic, but tojust go put 90 miles on it every
single day wearing out a truckthat really
That's not what I own it for andwant to use it for so so I'm

(01:25:03):
looking for something elselooking alternatives. And so she
invites me to be energy's guest.
The Lordstown unveiling here inHouston. So I checked this thing
out like, Okay, this isbasically a Silverado with a
classy body. It's still Serato.
And but it's got these wheelmotors. And I'm pretty enamored
with the wheel motors. I'm like,Okay, this is this is cool.

(01:25:25):
Okay, well, I'm kind of likingwhere this is going. And you
brought it up earlier, whenyou're talking about, hey, I'd
like an electric crawler. And ifyou could get the torque at the
corners, and you could get theweight right, you can get the
the difference that we have inall of our photocards is sprung
versus unsprung weight. You'reworking with wing Israel sent on
tuning shocks, it's sprungversus unsprung. And then off

(01:25:46):
road over forced racing, whereit's a 40 inch tire going
traveling up and down. It's afight, you know, if we can move
all this weight now, down there.
Now this 40 inch tire weighs alot more because we have motors
down there. It's a newchallenge. But you know, we've
simplified the whole truck.
There's no drive shafts, there'sno there's so many things that
go away. So didn't need to seizethis. And, you know, the what I

(01:26:11):
was interested in you to beinvolved in Lordstown. But then
we talked about king of thehammers and i've you know about
the talent tank show. And so shestarts following you at King the
hammer. So I have this corporateamerica friend that works in the
energy industry that is nowabsolutely texting me and
cheering you on from thesidelines for kh and we

(01:26:33):
introduced this whole new personto this whole world where, oh my
gosh, he V's are racing. Andshe's a Tesla. You know, she's,
she's on the on the Teslabandwagon. I love her for that.
I'm not necessarily the I'm notthe biggest fan of the Eevee.
But I see that one day we'regoing to get there. And I'd like
to I kinda would like to be anearly adopter. So sorry, that
was such a tangent to get off onKyle. But as we talk about the

(01:26:56):
Lordstown, it was this greatsegue to be in. You guys see
that there's going to be anotherEvie vehicle at the score baja
250. And it's Lordstown and youguys thrown your hat in the
ring. So talk about that story.
Let's Let's go down that pathand how exciting that kind of
whole event was. We had just youknow, we finished k wage and it
was awesome. And thinking aboutrace and more. It was right

(01:27:19):
after that, pretty close thatthey put out that they were
going to race the same fleet pay250. You know, I don't know, I
saw the I saw it. I saw thepress release or whatever. And I
didn't think too much of it. Ithought that was cool. And then
kind of grew on me. And I textedDave, I was like, Dave, you seen
this? What do you think aboutthis? Should we be racing these
guys? And he was like, let's go.

(01:27:42):
Let's do it. And that startedthe conversation and we started
to put together what we wouldneed to do to make it happen. We
already knew a lot about what weneeded to do. And that was our
strong suit, like open trailersa prerunner. And you know, we
already had the rigs you know,the tow trucks to make it
happen. Yeah. And we knew SanFelipe Bay and the main thing

(01:28:03):
was that we didn't really havethe batteries to run 250 plus
miles straight in a day. Weactually couldn't even use the
batteries, take those out of thecar, put fresh batteries in and
then charge the batteries on thetrailer as they're going down
the highway to the next hit tohave them ready to go. We didn't
have enough time in between inbetween pits to get to keep the

(01:28:27):
car charged. So we needed a shitton of batteries is what we
needed. We needed like more thanis usual in that is a scientific
measurement as well. Yeah,that's exactly what it is.
That's what we needed. And weactually that's how we got
linked up with EV West. MikeAdibi Wes he was super cool down
in So Cal and we went and saidhi in person. And he had a ton

(01:28:53):
of these batteries. They wereactually Tesla cells that were
made for the Evie smart car. Andhe had them sitting in plywood
boxes on shelving. And, youknow, we told them what we
wanted to do. He's He's intoracing. He actually I think
holds the electric record todayfor Pikes Peak. I'm not. I don't
I'm not quite exactly sure aboutthat. But he did for sure when

(01:29:14):
he ran it years ago. Okay, andhe's actually seeking I think
they definitely hold the landspeed record for electric
vehicles that they set thisyear. So they're all about
racing and like hanging out athis shop down there. In the end,
I forget the town San Marcosawesome guy in it was like,
Well, here are the batteries, wecan borrow them. We'll return

(01:29:36):
them in aluminum enclosures thatare useful for racing so that if
another race team would like touse them for whatever they want,
they're now in something that'slike a you know, a tough box
with like a heavy duty plug onthe side so that they can make
their cargo. Okay. Yeah, so kindof making this we're moving

(01:29:56):
towards a world where kind ofmaking them universal. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean better than sittingin plywood boxes in a warehouse.
Let's set them up in aluminumboxes. And if someone wants to
make a race car, well, here's anempty aluminum box, here's your
dimensions, you know, whatever.
Go ahead and build your cararound this. And then when you
get to the race, you know,either pick up the boxes on your

(01:30:17):
way, you know, with thebatteries in them or that maybe
they'll be there I you know, issort of a organic conversation
we're having with with TV West,and so we got a at all, man,
tons of them wasn't cheap. Butwe didn't really we kind of
rented them right? We didn'thave to buy them. And we put
them together in these limitedboxes. Team Baker, fab derek

(01:30:39):
derek Baker, Chad Britton,Danny, Danny agar, Berlin and
jianna. And Vanessa helped meout so much with putting these
things together. Like there's noway I could have that we crammed
for three days before we leftfor Mexico. With just trying to
get these 21 boxes we had to putsix modules in each get them all

(01:31:01):
charged up and get themassembled it was insane laser
not cut the cut the aluminum andhad a pent up for us. That was
like that was the real push ofthe Baja effort was getting
those boxes together. And thenyeah, then we went down there
and gave them hell. Well, that'scool coat. Yo Cody shows up, you
know, with the laser net stuffand helps you guys out. But team
Baker fab. I mean, that crew wasall there that ultra three night

(01:31:24):
and I mean, they are the epitomeof ultra for racing. They are
they're the folks right. I thinkso. We're pretty hardcore. Like
that's, it has to do with raceand and if it's worthwhile.
We're all in like that's it.
Absolutely. Like it was it wasan insane effort by by

(01:31:47):
everybody. Their team Baker. Wegot it done. It was tough.
There's three days of sometorture. But we got what we
needed. Done. We made the zipline system out of the trophy
truck trailer to get thebatteries in and out of the race
car. We found a way to mount theboxes in the race car like the
amount of fab that went down inthree days. was just insane.

(01:32:10):
Like it couldn't it couldn'thave. I didn't need friends. I
needed the right friends and Ihad them that's the only way I
got it done. Yeah, the that wasone thing that was impressive. I
actually shared that to myLinkedIn on this was how you did
your your refueling right. Andyou guys built this kind of a
gantry system that rolled downthe center of the the the race

(01:32:30):
trailer, and you basicallylifted them up and you call it a
zip line. I think that's anexact great word for it. You you
would winch up the box how muchhow much did each box weigh 262
pounds so enough that they wouldsuck to carry you could do it
but a couple guys but it's stillit's still certainly do it to

(01:32:51):
two strong backs could do it.
But it's not fun. No, no, itwill whoop your ass. So you and
then you guys gantry him downand get into the the tailgate of
the 4854. And you just slip themin, right? Yeah, yeah, so we put
a we put a I hook on the racecar like on the trailer on the
race cage. And so when the theracecar would back up to the

(01:33:13):
trailer, you hook the winch toit. And when the winch draws
tie, you now have a zip line.
And with that said, we got theold ones out and the new ones in
with relative it was way easierthan trying to do it manually.
But we did have two pits thathad to be done manually. And
that's where Poncho and Jorgeguys from Cody racing down in

(01:33:36):
Mexico and then they had a wholebunch of guys to help them. We
did it manually with with likepry bars and just muscle and we
got the we got the batteries outand then when we needed to. And
I can't say enough about thoseguys, too. They helped us out so
much on the effort to get thatdone. Talk to that race. It was
a 250 mile race you guys DNF Ithink you guys made it like

(01:33:58):
about 180 miles and through157 157 and you guys had some
you guys were fighting someelectrical Gremlins is what I'd
heard. So yeah, so the car wasgreat all day, like we never met
Lordstown up until we weregetting we were staging for the
for the take off. And then so wesaw their truck. And they were

(01:34:18):
you know, sitting over there andwe went we were 50 yards away or
so. And they can't like the COdriver and Brent oil guy and
another guy came out and saidHi, we were shooting the shit
with them. And it was allmutual. Like I was like, Oh,
yeah, you guys stuff is awesome.
And they were like you guys arestuff is awesome. Like it was it
was really cool. You know, can'twait to get out there. We're
gonna butt heads when we're outthere. We're racing, but for
sure, like what you guys gotgoing on is great. So we're on

(01:34:41):
the same page there and thentook off from the line. We
passed them in the first milebecause they were stopped on the
side of the road for somereason. And then they followed
us through zero. And then theypassed us again we had a
navigational issue. But then atmile 40 we like our car was
almost dead on juice and we werejust barely getting a pit. And

(01:35:03):
they were stuck on the side ofthe road. They were getting
hooked up to a raptor to getpulled off. And we pulled over
to talk to them. And, you know,they were like our cars dead.
And I'm like, Yeah, mine is deadtoo. But I only got a half a
mile to go to get us batteryswap. So we swapped our
batteries, and we kept going,they took hours and hours of
charging or whatever they weredoing. I don't know, wasn't my

(01:35:24):
concern, but I saw it was likethey had a box truck with a
generator in it and they werejust chillin. I think from what
I saw about their their effort,like I really do think that
where they're at with hubmotors, I still think that's
gonna be the wave of the future.
I really do think that what Isaw there trek was total work of
art. It totally gives me faiththat we can build long travel. A
long travel pre runner trek forsomebody somewhere already has

(01:35:46):
the front knuckles already CADdesign, so we just got to hit
enter on a five axis mill andcut some out. But I think they
hadn't thought through the thecharging battery situation the
way you had, like you were somuch further advanced in this
modular design where you couldplug and unplug. And they

(01:36:06):
weren't. Yeah, that for sure.
Like two different strategies.
And to be honest, I think thebest solution is to fast charge
the car. I don't think it's todo it the way that they were
attempting to do it, it would beawesome to be able to create a
car with around the battery soyou can set them in the chassis
the way you want and wire themin really, really good. Some

(01:36:27):
things that you know, youintroduced when you have 21
different batteries is that's somany more wiring connections.
You know, you could havefailures there. So if you could
set up the car where you couldfast charge it, I think that's
the ticket. It's just it's it'sa difficult thing to it's a
difficult nut to crack. I don'tthink they quite cracked it.
Yeah, we swapped them out. Itwas awesome. We went we went up

(01:36:49):
pretty good. I think the car wasgoing good all day. Everything
was working. And then we had anissue where we ran it ran it
dead. And then from then on wewere popping fuses. I think we
might have damaged the inverteron the motor. And then from then
on, we were running too muchcurrent through the system were
Yeah, it was Yeah, it was likeworking too hard. So it's kind
of like I don't know how else toput it almost like running with

(01:37:12):
flat tires. Now your enginesworking hard, and it's
overheating. So I think wedamaged the inverter. So we're
running it too hard. We'redrawing too much current. We're
popping fuses. I mean, well,that's, you know, like Jason
shear, right? he popped toretires at km h. And so maybe
his mileage went up, but thenthey also didn't, you know, get
a full load of gas. So, but thataside, but right, that's kind of

(01:37:33):
a little of the two. It's alittle bit you know, it's kind
of like in the air but exactlywhat Yeah, you didn't get a
finished in score. But what youdid was you went, you know, 113
miles further than a sevenfigure effort. Right? Yeah, it
would have been cool to havethose seven figures we could

(01:37:54):
have definitely think we couldhave made the 250 he would it
would have been different but Imean, you guys you guys made you
did make make history and whatwhere I saw in the online
presence of history because thatwas a crazy day for racing. We
had a there was ultra forego onthat day. Plus good be had a
race going at Nortel THAT DAYPLUS there was chasing you. So

(01:38:15):
if anyone knew that Saturday wasa it was a busy day for for
Motorsports, and basicallyfollowing you and seeing your
success down there was kind ofcool to see it online. Like you
know, often fish foreigner withfish logistics was giving you
he's given trophy truck updates,and he's giving shitbox updates.
And I was so cool like that. Iappreciate the hell out of fish

(01:38:40):
bar. Like that was dope. Thatwas that was really neat to be
on fish just like as much as wewere like, yeah, it was really
fun. I think it's this, thisthis embracing, right, it's
embracing of, well,you're cool. I mean, you're a
cool dude. And you exude this,this
this aura that people like to bearound they like that you are

(01:39:03):
the one pushing limits. And andI called your pioneer in the
field earlier on. I know youwere humble about that. But you
kind of you kind of are and Ithink that's what you know, I
think that's what baja racing isto begin with. It's this
challenging of the environmentchallenging of the classes
challenging. And in, you'redoing that with an Eevee and
people are like, wow, that'sthis guy. He's embodying the

(01:39:26):
challenges, and he's rising tothe occasion.
We have nothing but to cheer forhim. I find that fun. Oh, yeah,
that that's it. I mean, it'sjust me, me and my friends like
trying to do something rad Imean, you know, like that.
Pretty simple, pretty simpleequation like let's you know, as

(01:39:47):
long as everybody's goodfamilies healthy everything's
all right then let's What elsecan we do? Well, geez, let's
make an electric race car and gorace it you know.
Like that. And like you said, iton you and or I set about you
was the whole invest inyourself. It did what you've
done actually pushed your careerfurther forward and changed
where you were, what you'reworking what you're doing from

(01:40:10):
from a career standpoint. I'mexcited for where racing takes
you. I'm excited for where yourcareer takes you. I'm excited
for you. Does that take you backto the the East Coast? And if it
does take you back to the eastcoast? What do you think you're
going to do for work there? Andwe think you're going to do for
racing there. You're gonna startlike EV circle tracking it? I
mean, what's the what's thegoal?

(01:40:32):
Geez, I don't know. BecauseYeah, the racing in the East
Coast is nothing like out herelike but back home. When I was
racing with my cousin. We dodemolition derbies at a third
mile paved oval track, it wasfigure eight with jumps in the
middle, like, we were jumpinginto each other with pickup
trucks, like, in a paved oval,it's completely different than

(01:40:52):
what we do out here. I mean, Idon't really know, I'll be
honest with you. I like kind ofjust shooting from the hip
making it up as I go. It'd bereally cool to bring ultra for
style or, or any any sort of,you know, unlimited four wheel
drive off road racing to NewEngland. Like, I think there is

(01:41:13):
a thirst for it. Even if thatthirst hasn't been, it hasn't
been realized yet. It's up therefor sure. I mean, we got our
monster, which is like a megaTruck Race. weekend that happens
up in Vermont, and there's somestuff. But I think that there's
some rocks up there that can befound. I don't think you're
gonna get an 80 mile loop, likeyou would out on the west coast.

(01:41:35):
But I think I think there'sthere's some potential up there.
So I can see that. Do youremember when they did frozen
rush when Red Bull would dofrozen rush? They bring the
proforce? Man, I missed it. Ialmost went to that weekend, I
almost made that I did miss it.
I wish they would bring thatback. I mean, like we were
making plans, I think they didtwo years in a row. And then so

(01:41:56):
the third year we're all making,there's a group of us making
plans to go out there and gofreeze our asses off. And I
think it's in Maine. I thinkthat's
on a ski slope. And they'reracing, you know, pro fours up
and down the ski slope. And Iheard it was just the best thing
since sliced bread, then it justwent away. And that was that was
that. And that was now that thatsucked. So Kyle, what is? What's

(01:42:20):
the next race for you in yourtruck? What's the plan? Well, to
be honest with you, I'm notsure. The idea would be not
necessarily to race that truck.
But I'd like to put somethingtogether that makes a little bit
more sense. For what we'redoing. The main two takeaways
that we've learned is that thetruck is heavy. And it has
pretty limited suspension. Iguess the third would be that

(01:42:44):
it's recognizable. And it's kindof cool. Like it's a Toyota.
It's a Toyota truck. Lots ofpeople like that. And that's,
you know, I mean, I do for sure.
But if we wanted to go fasterand further would need to shed
some weight and increase thesuspension, not necessarily
because we want to go a lotfaster, which we do, but it's
mostly so that we can maintainmomentum at a smoother pace. So

(01:43:07):
you're not on the accelerator asmuch during the day, you're
mostly just trying to maintainyour momentum. And that'll allow
you to go a lot farther in therough stuff. So the next race
for us, if we get to puttogether something that looks a
lot better, potentially, like aside by side chassis, probably
when it's ready, which at thispoint might be kayo H or
earlier. But if we're gonna racethe Toyota again, it's it's

(01:43:30):
likely going to be at the men.
That's kind of what I'mthinking, Okay, it's a lap race.
It's got multiple pets. We havealready worked out some battery
with the Evie Wes.
That'd be pretty neat. And it'salso Vegas, and it's the levy
that'd be really, really cool.
And instead of Matt. Yeah, it'sjust gonna it's the mat. And
then I didn't see the Martellibrothers did come out, they've

(01:43:53):
launched it, they're gonna havean Eevee class as well, right?
Yeah, I bet they didn't, even ifthey didn't, whatever would try
to put in for it. I mean, it hasto tell us not to if they if
they didn't want us in there,but yeah, for sure. We, at this
point, we'll, we'll enter anyclass that we need to, but that
that gives us enough time toactually get that car set up

(01:44:14):
better, you know, in trying tofigure out a charging system
because we will need to for thatone. 400 miles. Yeah, right.
everything that surrounds a man,you know, the Fremont experience
and that yes, in general, andhopefully doing it like not
under the auspice of COVID willbe fine. Well, yeah, I hope it's
all blown away by then. Geez.
Over over. Yeah. All right,Boston. Kyle, we're at the part

(01:44:38):
of the show. Where did you covereverything? Did I cover
everything for you that wewanted to kind of talk about
that you wanted to get off yourchest? I got something. I want
to take a page out of Adamshears book. Let's go. I want to
talk about Massachusetts.
He wanted to talk about Texas.
Okay. Yeah. Well, let's talkabout

(01:45:00):
Mass. it's it's a it's a reallygreat state. It's got a lot to
offer. The Far Far East isProvincetown, which is like an
old, old seaport. And then itgoes around the ogre on Cape
Cod, which is kind of like anarms sticking off of
Massachusetts. And this justIt's its own thing out there.
There's lots of great beaches,and it's a, they're all about

(01:45:22):
the seafood out there. Most ofbasses used to mess up but the
seafood, Boston is a town fullof history, you take the Liberty
Walk, it's basically just a redline on the pavement, on the
sidewalk that goes around andshows you historical sites and
the town itself. If you everfind yourself in mass in Boston,
try to try to link up with thewith the Red Sox game at Fenway

(01:45:43):
Park, and I don't even likebaseball. It's just an
atmosphere that happens atFenway Park. I think it's
America's oldest ballpark, evenif you don't care at all about
baseball, go check it out, sitthrough a few innings and take
it out. It's like a livingmuseum. It's it's really neat.
And the town itself was superinviting. it's small enough you
can get around it easy, but it'sbig enough that it's a real

(01:46:04):
city. And then you go out toWestern Mass and everything
changes. It's like you're you'reout there you know it's it's
it's East it's it's very denseEast deciduous forest. And it's
a totally different atmospherefrom the east to the west part
of mass. Love the state I'm fromin all of New England in
general, Northern Vermont, andthe fall for the leaves is some

(01:46:27):
is a sight to behold. Like,never seen anything like it. I'm
from mass, I know what leavesthese changing looks like. But
northern Vermont in the fall issomething else. And then Maine
in the winter is great forsnowboarding and snowmobiling
around like, yeah, I Love NewEngland, I love Massachusetts.
And if you've never been there,and you get the chance, go for

(01:46:48):
it. Let me know when you'rethere, I might be absent tips
where I'm gonna get tips fromyou. Because our kids have they
have a fall break. Now it's inOctober, we have a four day
break. And our plan is to go tothe northeast, and based on
where it falls, we stand apretty good chance of catching
the leaves. And so talking towill Gentile, he's there in

(01:47:08):
Connecticut. And the thought isthat we would fly into Boston,
we would do Boston, we wouldloop through Connecticut,
basically to check offConnecticut off our off our list
because otherwise we would nevernever get there. But try to see
we'll while we're there, andthen loot north and try to hit
up there through New Hampshireand Vermont, and then try to fly

(01:47:30):
home out of Maine is kind of theloose plan that my wife's
working on but well I will hityou up because I mean, I need
the details. The the insidescoop, usually, if they've got
this four days, four days off,or whatever, we'll add a day on
the beginning in the end fortravel. So we will, you know,
we'll get you know, a night onthe front end, you'll probably

(01:47:52):
in Boston, then we'll do alittle bit there. And then my
family is good. Like the four ofus, we will throw some miles on
a rental car. So we can checkthe boxes and see the sights and
see the place. And then when weget back it's like we need a
vacation from our vacation. Butwe will have seen it so yes,
you're you will. You're on myshortlist for people. I need to
call about that. Well, thatsounds awesome. And you can't

(01:48:14):
you can't can't go wrong in thefall up in New England. Like
it's just it's one of the timeswhere it really shines. It's
great. I've lived in West Coastfor a while now and I just
missed England. You know, it'spart of it for four real
seasons, really strong seasons,just a different vibe out there.
It's it's, it's badass. Awesome.
So that's how I know you're afan of the show. You've listened

(01:48:34):
to so many that you rememberedyou know that I'm sure thing and
you've thought to bring it uphere at the end. But I know
you're you told me you're acouple episodes behind here at
the end of where we're at. Soyou might not have heard
everything I've input I'vechanged something starting to
good B so you probably heardindicated B's was yet maybe top
three songs that are kind ofimportant to you right now in

(01:48:55):
life or just top three that youcan just no matter where you're
at when it comes on. It takesyou to a certain place where
you're like, that was a greattime in life for that was
whatever. Top three songs go.
That's tough one, obviously, youknow, everyone knows why that's
tough one it's like you know,favorite three cars or whatever.
You can't really do it. But Iguess coming in third would be

(01:49:17):
them shoes by Patrick sheenyPatrick Sweeney. It's just got
thissort of thing to it that I can't
get out of my head. I'd love it.
There's one of my favorite songsthem shoes. The second would be
anything by tool. Like tool ismy favorite band. I don't even I
like music. I don't necessarilylove music. I mean, I guess I do

(01:49:39):
but I don't think about it thatmuch. I don't have my own stuff
on my phone. I don't when I'mdriving. I'll drive for 10 hours
and have the radio silent andjust be I don't even know what
I'm doing. I'm just talking tomyself. I guess it's just
thinking in my head. But tool isdifferent for me. Basically all
the tools music is like myfavorite superhero.

(01:50:00):
Angela, I think the lyrics aredope and the music is even doper
like that's, that's my thing.
I'll interrupt there. So DannyCarey, the drummer for tool is
from the booming metropolis ofpaella Kansas, where miles
masochist is from and myself isfrom Danny Danny's. One of
Danny's best friends was, youknow, friends of our family and

(01:50:21):
so my mom would travel out to LAwith him and they rip it in LA.
And then he had a place inEnsenada. And it's my mom is
vacation with Danny Carey. Youknow, the draw from tour. I've
met him a handful of times. Andit used to be, you know, this 10
years ago, I had an basically anemail address for him that he if

(01:50:42):
they weren't playing anywhere inSouth Texas, I could shoot an
email to the address and therebe I get tickets, we'll call and
then backstage passes. That bandnever comes back to the
backstage. So the backstagepasses. Were never worth
anything. So people are like,Oh, I got backstage the tool.
Okay, well, you went sat in aroom and waited for the band.
That was they were never gonnacome because that's not what

(01:51:02):
they they would ever do. Butyeah, these are very different
in so many ways. Yeah. Yeah. Butuh, that is the I have no
connections to any other bandthat I can think of. But But
tulia Danny Carey, just just anamazing drummer. And I mean,
he's, he's like one of the top10 drummers of all time, and I
find him pretty fascinating. I'mnot a super big tool fan. But

(01:51:22):
I'm, I am super, super big fanof undertow, that whole album. I
don't know if it's just the timeof life where I listened to it.
And I really liked every song onit. But everything kind of after
I've really not been great, youknow, it just hadn't hadn't
spoken to me. But yeah, man, Ican see that there's a lot of

(01:51:42):
people that are hardcore,hardcore tool, like, and I can
see why. Right? They'redifferent. Yeah, it's different.
It's intense. And I think thelyrics are really meaningful on
most of their songs. And for me,like, just, that's where I'm at.
And the number of number onewould definitely be zero sum by
our wild America. Mostly cuz itwas the it was the theme song in

(01:52:06):
heavy metal concepts video, thekm h video. The one we like, it
starts with, um, with Tom ways,dip into the desert, and then it
kind of goes through just lotsof shots of racers in the people
of New Age. And we listened tothat song every single time two

(01:52:27):
or three times that we worked onour race car getting ready for
King of the hammers. And wedidn't know if we were going to
do it. We didn't know if wecould get it together in time or
we didn't you know, there wereso many questions like we didn't
even know if we get to get goingto get to go racing. And we
played that song a lot. And Iplayed every time I'm in JV and
I plan for me like that's that'sprobably like, where my my my

(01:52:48):
mentality is that especiallywhen it comes to racing, so
that's probably about myfavorite song. I really like it.
And I wish I had all those yearskind of blend together on on the
movies. Like maybe it's thekingdom I don't know. When a
wheel could roll it off the rollit off immediately. Just Will's
head works that way it's wheelhas a catalog in his head of
every single clip he's evershot. It's crazy. What do you

(01:53:10):
got with? Wow, Kyle? Okay, Ilike I like where you go in
there two of those songs. I'vegot to go look up though. I've
got to go look, I'm I'm playingfor myself and and be like,
Okay, this is this is whereyou're at? Well, hey, man. That
concludes that concludes theepisode. I'm super pumped that
you you agreed to sit down superpumped that you you shared your
story with all of us in myself,and let me ask dumb questions or

(01:53:32):
fun questions or whatever. Thatis a big one. Thank you, dude,
thank you so much. Man, I reallyappreciate it. Like I'm humbled
to get to be on the talent tanklike especially since so many,
like great people have been onbefore me. It's insane to think
that that I can be a part ofthat. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for theopportunity. Well, I look

(01:53:54):
forward to what you have goingnext. And on that note, we're
out.
Thank you for listening andtaking the dive into the tail
end tank. Please like andsubscribe on Instagram at the
tail end or our website, thetalent tank.com

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EP 48 Kyle Seggelin

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