EP 49 Randy Slawson

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, welcome back
everybody the talent tank backin session. Man we are chasing
the chasing the sunset at thispoint on the spring season we're
we're closing in on the lastcouple episodes and this this is
a guy that I've wanted onbasically ever since episode
number one. I mean, you've gotit. You've got to get the Kings
on and nothing better thanhaving a three time and current

(00:43):
King Randy slawson sitting infront of you and in discussing
everything about who Randyslawson is and what Ultra4 means
to him and how many cars he'sbuilt and all that, Randy,
welcome to the show. How youdoing, man?

Randy Slawson (00:56):
Thanks. I'm glad to be here.

Well, it did take us a while to get this
going right? Between sillychords and my technical
ineptitude. I think it took ustwo hours. It wasn't even that
it was the computers we hadtrouble with. Even our phones,
like I wasn't even though get agood phone connection with you
just to call you. So I was mostfrustrating felt like there was
solar flares or something. ethenwith us? Yeah. Thank you for

(01:21):
taking the time. You know, wehad talked. When did we talk? We
talked right after kayo Ah, youknow, maybe sometime in late
February about coming on. And Isent you a case and then we
didn't quite flange out. And youdid. You did another podcast,
which was awesome for thewheeling wine and whiskey guys,
Chris and Jason. What do youthink of that experience? good

(01:41):
experience. That was super fun.
Yeah, they get a littledifferent program than what
we're doing now. They both cameover to the shop and brought
booze and we just sat around andwrapped for a couple hours. It
was pretty fun. Yeah, I findthat I find those guys to be fun
as can be. And I was at a Forddealership and you called me and
you kind of like you lead withlike apologizing for doing this
their show and what we had goingI was like, whoa, whoa, no way.

(02:02):
irini right, you are currentKing, you need to take every
opportunity. It's just not you.
I mean every racer in my opinionneeds to take every opportunity
they can to get their messageout to the media for me that for
you promote and bomber fab andyou promoting the stuff that you

(02:23):
your products to, you know,promoting BFG and promoting just
King shocks in what you do.
Yeah, you were apologizing? Iwas like, No, are you kidding
me? I think it's awesome. Andplus, that said I also really
like Chris and Jason. I meantheir their show women wine and
whiskey. They do a good job. Andthey somehow means they crank it
out every week. I can't keep upwith their pace. Right? Yeah, it

(02:44):
was a really good time. So herewe are, you know, your episode
is going to come out here youknow memorial day week. So we're
recording before that but youjust you just came back from
quite an adventure you you codrove down and simply Bay the el
rey de los ma hos I still don'tknow what that means. You know

(03:07):
what that means? I don't I can'teven say the words a little and
know their meaning. And then youhold a 4800 car down there that
you built that you're so you'reyou've got an EMC car. Right So
how was that adventure?

Well, the we raced to the race like I am
famous for we started buildingon that car. We started back
building on that car I shouldsay like two weeks before we
went to Mexico and we were youknow welding it out and
finishing body panels andbuilding the exhaust and you
know, mountain bits and piecesand getting the plumbing

(03:45):
together and literally had thething a completely empty chassis
laying on its side welding thebottom of it a week before we
were leaving. And somehow hemanaged to pull it together and
I put it in a trailer here anddrove down to Southern
California CBM and they got itrunning for me it hadn't run
when we left to go to the race.
And then we figured out that ithad some plugged injectors and

(04:08):
it had some crossed wires andthis and that and got it fired
up and put it on the dyno and itput 410 to the wheels. And we
pulled it off the dyno and putit in the trailer and went to
Mexico had never been in thedirt before we got down there
you set yourself up. Oh yeah,always just to have it there and
have it run and we were able todo a little bit of shock tuning
with Qing and then set the polein DMC you know the fastest time

(04:33):
by few seconds was pretty fun.
Oh, absolutely. And then, youknow, we all know that you
started. You had a new employeestart that week leading in San
fleabay. With amber Turner.
How's how's that gone so far?
She's a couple of weeks in withyou. What do you think? I love
her attitude. She just wants todo it all see that I'll learn it

(04:55):
all. No shows up and works hard.
So, so far. It's been reallyfun.

Yeah, that was my take on her since I didn't
know her before I interviewedher. She made me you renewed my,
my belief that they're stillgood humans out there. Right
good people out there. Yeah. Soit turns out so often you and
you and I've had thisconversation a decade ago about
bad people and people we dislikebecause they're bad people.

(05:21):
And we could get we'll go theredown the road, but uh, just the
some of the stuff that she wassaying, I was like, wow, I love
I do I love your your outlook onlife. And so it was awesome to
have her on. This isn't amercia.
We had her a few weeks ago. Butit was awesome to hear that she
started with you. And she helpedyou get the 40 100 down to
simply pay you did you put it onthe pole and then

(05:41):
walk through walk through thatrace? What was the outcome? how
did how did it work out for you?

Well, it didn't go as we planned, right? you'd
imagine it rarely goes to plan.
So put that out there. But wegot less than a lap in and that
thing was overheating. And weended up having a burn up comm
cables from the s pod controllerto the to the main brain. And we
knew that we'd had problems withthat in previous cars. And we

(06:05):
didn't have time to get a hightemp cable for it. It was a cat
five cable that it's fairly hardto find that stuff in high temp.
So I had problems with that. Andthen we had to jump for the
fans. And so we fixed that atthe end of lap one and the car
was cooling great again and wewent back out but the pressure
relief valve I've been usingpush lock for the dash six back

(06:26):
to the reservoir off theexternal pressure leaf for the
power steering.
The hose that we used, I don'tknow if it didn't jive with the
push lock or what but it gotwarm and popped off and end up
spraying a bunch of fluid downin the in the middle of the car.
Fortunately, it didn't spark upand we didn't have a fire was

(06:48):
the biggest thing. I was happyabout that scenario. But yeah, I
just you know how it is. There'salways some silly little thing.
50 cent part, you know, youneeded a hose clamp type of
scenario that will take you outand it's always good to have
some testitude time on beforeyou decide to go and race them.
So, lesson again.
So what's the Genesis behind andbelieve me, you're you haven't

(07:13):
you on a subject matter expertcuz you were billed and race
combined. So you know, yourcar's absolutely inside and out.
So I definitely am going to pickyour brain on that stuff. But on
the 4800 itself that you you'vehad, you're typically not a
series racer, right? We see youOkay, ah, and I fully fully get
that. And I think a lot ofpeople do. It's like, you've got
so many bullets in the chamber.
And as a small business owner,that's building racecars, you

(07:36):
pick and choose and you knowwhere you're good at. Right?
You're right one at three times.
What was the decision two weeksbefore? What was the catalyst
two weeks before to say, youknow what, let's get that car
together. Let's have an EMC car.
Is it the intent that you'regoing to run that at ky this
coming year? So the catalyst tous deciding to try to finish

(07:57):
that car and go race it wasChris wicks, Justin wicks, has
been riding with his dad, hisdad gave him the opportunity to
choose one race for this seasonto drive. So he chose the Mexico
race, he thought that would be afun one. And his dad told me
that he couldn't ride with themwouldn't ride with them, he

(08:17):
needed to find a co dog. And soI said, You know what, if you
guys can't find anybody, I'd I'dbe down. That sounds like a good
time. I read with Justin thefirst day he drove the car, his
dad brought it over here to thehouse, and we ran around out in
the back 40 in the BLM land bymy place, and the kids very
respectful. You know, it's notlike typical kids these days.

(08:38):
And he's a mountain bike racerand a dirt bike rider and just
got a really good feel for theequipment. And he's not going to
push it until he understandswhat it's capable of and just
gave me a really good feeling.
You know, he operates like I do.
Say, you're a dirt bike racer,too. I know you, you definitely
put you pre run on a bike andyou read terrain really well. Do

(09:00):
you see the similarities? andJustin wicks is yourself? Oh,
yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's a,he's a very talented kid. So
ended up deciding we're going togo down there and Chris, talk to
me about it, and then left, andI told them that we were going
to go down there and supportthose guys and co dog with them

(09:21):
and whatnot. And then we'reworking on that 48 car and we're
like, I'm wonder and he's like,let's try. So I'm not going to
push a guy like Adam, you know,to do something that he doesn't
want to do, but when he wantedto do it, it's fun for me to
take on a challenge that, youknow, I've got my haters that
are like you can't finish thatcar and I'm like, watch this,

(09:43):
you know, and we got it done.
You know, it didn't. We didn'tget the finish that we wanted,
but we started the race. That'sright. You went to Mexico and
you took the green and and thenyou'll figure it out. So that
car is is your plan for km h tokind of be like

Some of the other drivers that we've seen
enter earlier races in the weekso they get that extra pre run
time that extra look at thecourse. There's no pre running
like racing. So fully agree.
absolutely want to run it in theaemc I don't know exactly what
that's going to look like ifI'll, if I'll Run DMC myself
I'll have my brother run lapwhen we did it in 16 I had a

(10:22):
little v six powered 4800 car heran lap one and I ran two and he
was my co dog for the 4400 raceas well so we between the two of
us seen all the all the trackthis is a good point to bring up
Yeah, so you bring up yourbrother your brother Mike also
was raised as well has been withyou off and on kind of three are
you to be asked let's go back tothe the genesis of I met you and

(10:45):
Mike the same time in personlike I know who you were but
2009 Vegas to Reno. What was TVnight? Someone were called
unite. Yeah. Is your TV night. Ifeel like I met you next door
back door possibly the yearbefore? an entirely possible
thing of the hammer. Did youcome to King of the hammers?
2008 or 2000 2009? was nine.

(11:10):
Yeah, 2009 we would have wewould have met entirely possible
to as a nine It was a that wasour first time out there. And
then that would have beenFebruary and then August that
year was that Vegas room? So myquestion is meeting you next the
back door. He had the maroontriple nickel car with the was
it? It was the flames on thefives, right? Yep. Yep. It's

(11:31):
kind of like that. Or we orsomething? Yeah, I I always kind
of thought it was the memorableconversation I had with you was
it was k wage 2010. And it waskind of near where the old start
finish was. And I don't rememberthe exact details. But I
remember rolling up I was inthat crawler and see you and

(11:52):
since I'd just done Vegas arenawith you, you know, five, six
months earlier, I remember.
Yeah, you come over, you'rewearing carhart's You're pretty
chill, dude. And I got alongwith you. And I'd always I'd
already heard you know me peoplesaying like, they don't get
along with Randy. And I'm like,how do you not get along or
Randy, I love Randy, like wejived on Vegas, Reno. And it's
funny, we're sitting and we'rekind of BSN. And this, this guy
walks, buys 100 feet away. And Ipoint out who it is. And you

(12:16):
looked at me and we both hadthis look like that guy's such a
douchebag. And we just was like,I knew like you were my people.
Like I could bond with you andhave that conversation like
people that you know, aren'tgood humans. But you know,
they're, they're in our samegenre. So you're not going to
discount them. But I really Ibonded with you over that. So

(12:36):
over the years, people say, Oh,man, Randy, Randy's not
approachable. Ronnie's anasshole or Randy's whatever. And
I'm like, easy? I don't thinkso. I think you're quiet. I
misunderstood I believe, I thinkso. I'm definitely not a bad
guy. I have my my ways of doingthings. And a lot of people
don't understand that. But ifyou come up to me with a

(12:59):
question or, you know, whatever,we're going to share a beer and
talk about racing and go crawlsome rocks and I love love rock
crawl, and more than just aboutanything. So I think I'm plenty
approachable. I feel like I'mmisunderstood. Because, you
know, I'm in the shop all dayevery day, I'm under the welding
hood. I'm working on my car. Andthen when I get out in public, I

(13:21):
come off people assume cockywhen it's actually just reserved
and I'm a little bit you know,shy and kind of in my own little
world still. So I know what tobring to you. You know yourself.
I think you know yourself betterthan anyone else. And that's
exactly from what I know aboutyou. I think that's exactly it.

(13:42):
And that's the words I've heard.
You know, when people have askedme Hey, when are you going to
have Randy on the show? In theexact words like they want to
know about you because youaren't really a well known? I
mean, you're well known but nowI don't know all the the
background on you, you know,they they know a little bit of
stuff they you know, glimpsingglimmers and and now your three

(14:04):
time King and like, what's hisreal story and like now we're
gonna talk I'm not scared toRandy. I like rainy I like rainy
a lot. So we're good. We'regood. So So Mike, so your
brother Mike. I met him Vegasarena with you. And, and you
guys were racing. The car thatyou won your first kfh with it
was the Oji bomber that BenNapier had just purchased from

(14:28):
you. And we teamed up on thatcar. I remember before the race
talking to you on the phoneabout we were trying to kind of
put together a a parts list ofcommon parts between the three
cars that we were campaigning inthat event, and you just
basically laughed at me. Likethere's nothing common like that
cars doesn't share any of thecommonality with anybody else.

(14:50):
Like it's like it's this thatall these different things and,
and you made your conglomerationof parts, work and it put it put
that carOn the box in 2009 and then
Napier ends up with it, we raceit Vegas to Reno. And then Mike
himself Mike, what year did Mikerace k wage and 4400 he got a

(15:11):
car like maybe 14 or 15 it wasafter that, I think it was 17 or
maybe 18 I think it was 18 thathe raced that car. That was
actually the car that I built inone in 13. And then it went back
east to Tim Cameron and kind ofmade the rounds back there and
then it came back out west and Ihelped him remoter it and

(15:36):
rebuild it and try to get itdialed in. Oh, that's a great
story. I remember seeing TimCameron he knew so this was
Kentucky. How man I'm gonna say2015 Ultra for it was a Gosh, I
mean, I can't remember all thedetails of this race. But the
new call surely was his codriver and they knew they needed

(15:57):
to be in the top I think it waslike top 11 we're gonna get to h
spots. And so he monster trucksa rock pile like some ROM like
ROM prindle did at Nortelrecently like just doesn't even
check up for the rocks and justmoss I mean just airborne looks
like currently sailing throughthe air just sales that car the

(16:19):
pictures of it are your bomberit had white panels on it and
it's like it's a solid 20 feetnear solid 20 feet in the air
and he lands it and and yeahthey got the they got a K weight
spot conveyed to him but Ithat's a that's a cool circle
backstory that that car cameafter Tim stop racing I forgot
who was who was funding theirultra for efforts or somebody

(16:42):
that was putting a bunch ofmoney behind them. Dude by the
name of rich. I don't rememberhis last name at the moment. But
I went out and did a rockbouncer event. It was right
after February king of thehammers when I was in that car.
And I linked up with Cole surelyI knew him a little bit and gave
him a ride around the park inthat car. And then he's like,

(17:03):
you got to give Timmy a ride inthis car. So I gave him a ride.
And then shortly thereafter webroke a rear axle shaft in it
and didn't really get to playwith it anymore that trip but
out in Arkansas at superliftPark. That's probably the
furthest out there I've been butthose were the guys that tried
to build what we talked aboutand I Fs bomber is that the
tangent we're on where Yeah,that that transpired. They

(17:27):
bought the bomber and they'regoing to get some seat time. And
then they wanted me to do anindependent car. And we had a
pretty cool parts list compiledand we're getting things going
and ended up getting the secondArmada independent front end
from those guys that are modengineering the second one to
the red dragon and startedbuilding that chassis and then

(17:50):
we rented timeline problems andmoney problems and the guys like
I just want out of the thing andso ended up Robby Gordon sent
Todd Romano that Tonka trophytruck driver to me. Yep, Park
City, Utah. Yeah, I ended upselling that car partially
finished to Todd and he he's hada three different shops or four
different shops. I think it'srunning and driving at this

(18:13):
point. I haven't seen it outactually racing anywhere. But
yeah, I haven't seen it raceeither. But I think he's had it
in Mexico a couple times to prerun with it. I have definitely
seen it out driving. But yeah, Idon't know. I mean, Todd's a
wealthy guy lives in Park City.
He's, you know, kind ofneighbors over there with you
know, our own Paul horschel. Ihaven't seen that they've

(18:33):
interacted it would be cool. Youknow, Todd Romano is an
interesting character. He, Iknow you're a dirt bike guy, two
wheel guy when they did the oneof the king of the hammers
motos. kena modos. Tada. Anotherdude did motos and electric
bicycles. Shoot. Yeah, I didn'tknow that. And they finished.
Right. And they finished prettywell. Actually. It was it wasn't

(18:56):
mad. Yeah, it gets really ugly.
Just carry your bike over it.
That that's kind of I think thatwhat their modus operandi was on
that. I found it interesting.
They're good dudes, but it wascool to see you did that I that
independent car, the chassis andeverything and then it left. And
then it just went intohibernation for years, like,
three, four years, five years,and then it pops up kind of back

(19:18):
in Utah anyway, and then, and Iheard about it from Brian
Gillespie. he's a he's a Utahguy now and and he hangs out
with Todd I think theywhitewater raft or something
together. But uh, that was lasttime started seeing pictures of
that thing being driven. I thinkit got finished out in Vegas. I
can't remember who though. Whichroute to Vegas first, I believe.
JT Stevens. Is that son right?

(19:43):
Mexican dude that races a classone car. Oh no. TJ Flores. There
we go. That's the right name. JTStevens is who bought the Dave
Cole's original irfs car thekirbyville that we raced in. oh
nine that Ridgeway caught onfire. Right J and J two.
I think he's a Missouri guy. ButI don't know what happened to JT

(20:03):
he has he's been out of the theracers circle for by easily for
years. And I don't know whathappened to that Kirby car
either. That was a kind of arevolutionary car for our sport.
Yeah, definitely at the time itwas the big old is class one
looking monster. Yeah. Right. Sowe kind of went down the path.

(20:24):
So where we're at today, hereyou are, you're in gardnerville.
garden Ville, Nevada, whereyou've got your bomber fab. You
know, your shop, set up yoursole proprietor, you've got a
couple employees, and you guysare cranking out cars. But
you're not in Nevada, you'reactually from California, right?
One race, not from California.
I'm born and raised in Oregon.

(20:44):
That's in my part of the world,that's roughly the same place.

Give me a hard time I really have no idea where
you're from, you think you wouldknow like, I mean, I think a lot
of people probably do know, I'vealways known you just as a
California guy. And then I evensend out like a questionnaire
like to get make sure I get somebackground information and
facts. And let me let me look atyours. It actually tells the
timestamp of like, how much timeyours was, you'd open the app

(21:12):
for 14 minutes and six seconds.
And most of the answers are one,if not two words, maybe three
words. So I've read it, I justlaugh And so yeah, I'm gonna get
some stuff wrong about you.
Because I've assumed Yeah, so Iwas born in Grants Pass Oregon,
okay. And I, my parents moved totell them with Oregon, which is

(21:32):
where the cheese comes from,okay, when I was about three
years old, and then I lived in acouple different houses until
the muck till I got married,which was 24 us out for, you
know, college couple years, butmostly just wheeling around, or
tomac burn and all the loggingroads, riding dirt bikes, beaten

(21:53):
on old Ford Bronco that I had incollege, in high school, and
then, but after high school, Ibought a 95 y j from the
wrecking yard in Portland andscabbed it back together and
beat on that thing and drive itfrom tellement down to the
Rubicon and we'll Rubicon indifferent places get my rock
crawling fix when I was young,how closest tell him what to or

(22:16):
even Grants Pass in dsidSchneider from like a little
small town in that area to Idon't know if Dave and I crossed
paths wall. He was in WashingtonState and I was in Oregon. I
don't know if we crossed pathsuntil we were down in California
or I was already down inCalifornia and he would come
down. I remember for suremeeting him at some of the real

(22:37):
early Cal rocks events. Lionspride in Johnson Valley was
about oh one maybe oh two. Therewas a event I believe it was
after that that. I remember whatthey call it but it was rocks.
Sorry. I was thinking he wasright there near Tim McMillan.
He was monta Sana Washington. Soin my head, you know, like I

(22:59):
said, we were a little mudToyota guys, you know, we wanted
to be rock crawlers, but we justhad mud and snow. So we both
definitely came from the sameera up there. But I don't think
I ever crossed paths with inthere. Now. You got married at
24. Krista? Yes. How did youmeet her? So a friend of mine
went to Walla Walla to communitycollege took auto mechanics I

(23:21):
didn't know what I wanted to bebut I knew I liked cars. I
wanted to learn more about it.
And I was driving my jeep whyJay and I saw this sweet Toyota
four runner and I startedtalking to guy and we became
fast friends and later roommatesand all kinds of stuff and did
tons of wheeling and camping andstuff together. But Levi was
from Wenatchee, and my wife wassort of annachi and he

(23:44):
introduced me to my wifebasically we ended up taking her
out wheeling and that was it

by the Jeep that she should that's how you
got that's how you landed or youknow Walla Walla that's the has
the town so nice. They named ittwice.
I have a college professor andthat's me in the Wenatchee areas
gorgeous man I've been up thereand then the lake Leavenworth
have gone to some conferencesand when actually a few times
that's a pretty part of theworld The last time I was there
though, it was kind of a smokebound because there was so many

(24:16):
there have been so many forestfires in that area.
And that's suboptimal and thenso you guys was near will go off
on the side of like you grown upI think you were you are you
Seventh Day Adventist? Yeah. IsChris I think Christy is to
write in so that that equals Ican see her so that's a
commonality right you guys haveyou grew up very similarly and

(24:38):
right, kind of the birds of afeather flock together. That's
how that goes. So well a wall ifyou're if you follow a seven day
Adventists wall the wall is ahot spot. Okay and then we went
straight from Walla Walla toLoma Linda which is another big
hotspot and she took surgicaltech and then nursing in Walla
Walla er at Loma LindaUniversity Medical Center in

(25:00):
Inland Empire in SouthernCalifornia. It's an all new
getting married and moving downthere was that's where Johnson
Valley was. So that wasexciting. That's where the
Johnson Valley is. Oh, man. SoSo Krista, I have a lot of
respect for her at just at thevery moment because our two our
two and a half hour session oftrying to figure out why we

(25:21):
couldn't get things to work andthe microphone to work and it
didn't be in the cable in thekit that I sent it's been well
it's made it around the worldenough times enough other guys
have beat on it. You just endedup with a cable that was
loosened in quiet one engagewell, and so Krista solves what
you and I couldn't figure out sounbound out her like she's,
she's a hero in my book at thismoment. But, uh, you recently

(25:45):
built her a car. Right? Talkabout that? Is it sexy is a good
looking car. I appreciate that.
I'm pretty stoked on it. Sobefore that, in 2017, I took the
legends card king of thehammers, and we had problems
during the EMC race and, andparked it. And, you know, in my

(26:07):
mind, we're just getting readyfor 4400 The next day, and some
of the crew talked my wife intoentering it in the 4400 grace.
So

she ran around and Brian Maloney had won the
backdoor shootout, and how tospot so he drove lap one and
then she drove lap two and lapthree, and then finished. And
she beat me she got 21st and Igot 50 s or something. I think I
was the last finisher of theday. But we had, you know, a ton
of problems, obviously. Butanyway, so. So she beat you. She

(26:42):
has beat you. This is on record.
Yeah, this is solid Good for herfirst and only race she's ever
raised. She beat me. So she'sgot that going for event. She's
been wheeling with me, you know,since the Walla Walla days. And,
you know, we spend a ton of timedown in Southern California
riding dirt bikes together, andshe's quite the little athlete
in her own right. She reallyunderstands, you know, the

(27:04):
dynamics and you know, she canreally read drain and then drive
over stuff. I remember early onin Johnson Valley, we were
running my old leaf spring ecocage, poop pipe, Toyota truck,
and she was driving it up,wrecking ball. And I remember
john James, in the background ofour video. Probably the only
reason I remember just sayingshe gets it. She's fearless. You

(27:27):
know, doesn't play john Jamesfrom pirate days from, you know,
20 something years ago, but itonly dates us a little bit.
Yeah, just a little bit. We'rewe're definitely getting older.
But yeah, so the trail bug,yeah, decided that, you know, I
had so much fun with the one Ibuilt myself. And it's been two
years now. I was like, I don'twant to fight over who gets to

(27:51):
drive, we just need another car.
So one of the, I guess the firstbatch of kits that I got, I
started putting it together andjust kind of more or less
cloning, the one that I've beenwheeling was just kind of an
abortion of a bunch of bits andpieces that I'd had laying
around that I modified and puttogether as cheap as I could.

(28:15):
But hers, you know, just startedwith a nice new fresh kit and
all the bits and pieces and Ijust really built her a nice
car. And then for me personally,I don't want side panels. I
don't want glitzy stuff, youknow, I want to take it out and
just torture it, beat it todeath and roll it over and laugh
about it and then roll it backon its wheels and keep going but

(28:38):
she wanted to side panels. Soonce we got that in my head, you
know, then it's well what colorare we going to paint it and
then you know, it ended up beingthe candy red powder coat and
somewhere in the middle there. Iended up hitting up john from
crawl and said Hey, man, I gotsomething that I'd like to have
you shoot if you're interestedin he had made some noise about

(28:59):
wanting to shoot my, my trailbuggy and I was like nobody
wants to see this thing. It's noit looks like it's been through
a meat grinder. It's just beat.
So when we got that thing goingit was like a week and a half or
so before we left for King ofthe hammers. And we literally
drove in the trailer and took itover to moon rocks and not many
rocks, we take it to prisonHill, took it to prison Hill and

(29:20):
unloaded it and the first timeit saw dirt was you know,
pulling off the trailer. So youknow all the nipples on the
tires and as fresh as it wasgoing to get so got to shoot it
dude got to cover and they gospread in the magazine and then
drag it down to Johnson Valleyand that was some little new car
tuning blues and stuff gettingthe fans working correctly and

(29:42):
this and that and but the carsturned out to be super rad. She
can drive it anywhere anybodyelse can drive and it's funny,
you know, like Sunday we willlit prison Hill and then Monday
night after work. We went downto knuckle Buster this week.

You know, two nights in a row basically, we
learn that thing and I wonderedgoing into it how long it was
going to take her to startgetting cocky. And she'll point
the thing in anything that youknow, anything that I'll do,
she'll try and and usually dojust as good or better, you
know. So she's pretty gooddriver, so she pushes you and

(30:20):
keeps you on your game, huh?
Yeah. Well, definitely thepictures I saw just from your I
think your Sunday trip was ajust the vertical. You guys were
doing some some pretty sweetverticals. Nothing looks like a
go so that Well, I've tried it20 times I made it once. And she
poked at it three times anddrove straight up the thing. I

(30:40):
blame the tires, but those RedLabel 42 crawlers on her car
really, really stick and hook upgood. So it's pretty neat. I
like the car. And I think it'scool that she has it one and two
that she's such a good andaccomplished driver. I heard
back to the grapevine that shethat she'd made some comments
like oh, it only took 20 years.

(31:02):
So

after that, but no very, very, very, very, very
nice. I'm frustrated with myselffor I sold the trail buggy to
Nolan Grogan, my first trailbuggy that everybody on dubs.
No, sorry, it was a rush buggy.
No one named it what am I tryingto say he christened it he
dubbed it. Nolan dubbed it thebash buggy as was just a beater.

(31:24):
It was a pretty cool car. In itsday, it had a three rz which I
believe was the first threeyears the in a tube car. And it
was all cromoly front to back,you know, all all the chassis
was all 4130 tubing and it had anarrowed 60 in the front. And
that Toyota 8.4 in the back andthe thing was 2600 pounds on 39

(31:44):
inch gsls exes are not TSL sexbut regular old gsls I guess.
And the thing, it was just anabsolute Riot to wheel it had
like a 7030 weight bias withthat 16 the front, you didn't
need to run water or anything,just anything, you could push
that 60 if it would drag therest of the car along behind it.
So I sold that thing. What I wasgetting at is I can't believe it

(32:06):
took me from that was oh five to220 18 2019 I finally built
another trail buggy and Iwheeled the dog crap out of you
know a bunch of my race carsover the years because I was all
I had to play with. But thetrail buggies are a ton of fun.
I think what you've done bywinning k weights three times

(32:28):
being in a solid x a car isproven. And where I'm kind of
going with this is proven thatyou know the rocks and you
didn't just learn the rocks onday one, you didn't just buy a
car, build one car and go outyou have you end up you know, in
Southern California and then youend up close to the Johnson
Valley and you end up basicallyjust living out there for the

(32:51):
most part for many years, butleading up to the onset of K
wage becoming a thing. Right.
Dave? has told me I don't knowhow many people he shared it
with. But that was one of hisinspirations for starting king
of the hammers. One day we wereout there running sledge hammer.

(33:12):
And me and my buddy Shane whitebro with the fro Empire. We went
up sledge hammer in past Daveand his cronies and then came
back around down the sand hilland passed them again. And they
hadn't gotten that far. And I wemay have passed them three times
on the same trail basically inthe same spot. And he was like,
dang, we should do a race. Sothat was my mo before racing.

(33:38):
Rock racing was really much of athing was, you know, let's,

we've seen that we can drive these trails. Let's
see how fast we can drive now.
You know, and that little Toyotabuggy worked out really good for
that back in the day for me. Youknow, I still will every now and
then randomly we'll text NolanGrogan great guy lives in a
some little Burg north ofJackson, Mississippi. I can't
think of the name of it off thetop of my head but love the guy.

(34:04):
I've gone and stayed with them.
You know, his little ranch thatthey they live on. I wish I
could remember the name but itwould come to me. You know they
fill movies out there on aregular basis. And the biggest
one I remember being filled outthere was Oh brother Where Art
Thou with and they feel met atNolan's place north of Jackson.
But yeah, that that bash buggy?

(34:24):
I didn't know that you didn'tname it. That's funny.
But I know that was a car thatthat dude loved I think of all
the cars that he hadn't he hadsome nice different wheelers. I
mean, had that four seat twistedchasms at one point, but it
always seemed like I'm notputting words in loans, but
advice he might read in hisemotions was the basketball. He
was the car that he missed themost like that. He got you know,

(34:46):
I guess maybe was because it wasthe match. But he didn't. He
wasn't so nice to it. And so wegot a wheel harder versus when
you got that twisted customscar. It was so much money and it
was so nice. And it didn't getus to its full potential maybe I
don't know.

So I'll tell you how I met Nolan. I don't know
that I knew of Nolan. Maybe I'dseen. I call it one Grog. I
don't know if that's how youpronounce his screen name from
pirate. Yeah, but I may haveseen it. But I went to
to Arizona and we ran thebumblebee area for Martin Luther
King Day, in this, I believe was2005. Or maybe it was 2006. But

(35:26):
Nolan and his buddy Jim had comeout from Texas, and Jim had this
$150,000 sunray. Engineeringbuggy. That was beautiful. And
Nolan had this red Land Cruiseryou call me, Kate? Yes. That
sounds Yeah, that's right. Yep.
And it had, I believe it justhad a solid axle like a 60, or
something in the front, but ithad, it had mogh porlex on the

(35:47):
back with a nine inch center.
And I was like, steel, you know,I want to call it a fabricated
nine. But everyone would havethe wrong idea of factory Ford
housing, and the extra leverageand the way that thing was set
up with the boxes. He got moneyshot, which is the first
obstacle that they did when theypulled the rigs off the trailer.

(36:10):
And he twisted the tube rightout of that center section, and
broke it and broke the shock andthe springs were falling off.
And that was the end of hisweek. He made it you know, not
five feet on the first rocktrail and the thing blew up. And
Jim, his car, he made his top ofmoney shot but he landed on the

(36:30):
front Lincoln it side loaded itand it broke the weld bung The,
the tube adapter out of the endof this weird fabricated link
that they built it sunray and itdidn't have much engagement on
the bone. And that was just alittle cute, pretty TIG weld,
and it just sideloaded and brokeit right out. No, I ended up
riding around with me in thatcar for the rest of the weekend.

(36:53):
And the very first thing he saidto me when I pulled it out of
the trailer was doesn't run. Hewalked over and looked at it.
He's like, does it run? And Iwas like, Well, yeah, I came
here to wheel it. Obviously itruns but I used to get that a
ton with that car. I buried allthe wiring and all the plumbing
the best I could the car didn'tlook complete, you know, by most

(37:13):
people's standards. like where'sthe battery? Where's, you know,
and everything was just tuckedaway as much as I could come in
from work in a couple years atthe same car shop down in
Southern Cal. I tried to hideeverything the best I could. So
anyway, he asked me somethingabout is it for sale? Or would
you sell it? And I was like,Yeah, for 25. Please like 2500

(37:36):
Don, I'll take it today. I waslike, Fuck, you can't have it
for 2500 bucks. It's 25,000bucks. And he laughed at me and
then he rode around in it forthe weekend. And by the end of
the weekend, he's like I'll bein touch. So within a month or
something I think he mailed me acheck for it and had it picked
up some of the some of his otherLand Cruiser cronies came by and

(37:59):
picked it up and took it out tocontempt see for one of their
big runs in Texas. Yeah, he washe lived in Dallas. He's he is
from Jackson, Mississippi area,but he lived in Dallas for quite
a few years. And that's when Iinitially met him. And then Jim,
when Jim had that sunray but hebuilt you know, Lance Gilbert
was at Sunrise at the timebefore PSC and then before

(38:19):
tribe. And you know, Lance knowsthat car inside and out. But Jim
passed away, basically with thatcar and Clayton and they were
cutting trails, and he had aheart attack. And you know,
winter went to Jim's funeral. Itwas it's probably the cleanest
I've ever seen the North Texaswheeling crowd, you know, somber

(38:40):
moment, but you know, at thesame time, it got us all
together, cleaned up and not onthe trail and not holding beers.
And it was a good loss of agreat man. That card left that
summary card left the basicallythe circle. After he passed away
his widow bounced it. I don'tremember where it went, but it
came back. And a good friend ofmine Derek Stewart now owns up

(39:04):
in the Dallas area. So it getsit gets regularly wheeled at
this point versus it didn't fora long time. But yeah, that was
that sunray Mikey, it's it'ssomething else, I mean, huge
like 1550 steering joints andyou know, just these custom
aluminum knuckles like it was itwas pretty baller back then. And
now even today, I just rememberthe inner C's are like inch and

(39:26):
a quarter or something thick barthat they press broke into a C
shape. Yeah, and then machinedit all out. And it's pretty
wild. It's pretty cool to justhave the the tooling that will
allow you to do something likethat. So that's, that's where
we're at. I mean, it's stillthere's things on that car that
are still cutting edge today.
And it's a 13 or 14 year oldcar. I would say it's usually

(39:47):
13. It may be more than that. Sofive or six when I met him when
he had that. Yeah, there we go.
So there we have, maybe it'seven 16 or 17 years old and it's
still there.

things on that Viola the electronic sensors for
recentering the rear the rearsteer like it has a little
electric limiting delco Remysensors where as it bumped it,
it would know where it's whatresistance range. Yeah just I
mean just little stuff likethat. I mean just just fun is
out the unknown. Grogan gottilba Bogue that's the name of

(40:23):
his, his place there and TildaBogue I don't know what Tilda
Bowden means means but it's lotsof Spanish moss hanging on trees
that's what I'll go with andthen less very humid there. This
is exactly what it is it butthere's no population there's
nobody lives in Mississippithere's like 14 dudes and I get

a lot of action so so you're you're you built
this the bash buggy and So Calso you're you guys moved down
from Walla Walla you moved to SoCal Chris has gone to school?
What are you doing because Isomewhere in here you've started
learn how to weld How did youlearn how to weld fabricate and
go from that kind of world in SoCal to unit with a job you were

(41:11):
a welding teacher at fab school,jumped through that those couple
chapters, those couple years inlife of how you went from there
to there to there, connect thosedots for me, well, I'm gonna
just skim through it real fastbecause it's not super exciting.
The first job I got the onlything that I knew was in So Cal
was was all pro offroad. So Iwent over to him it and I ended

(41:35):
up getting a job for john and ithink that lasted about three
months and he fired me. And thenI worked for a tire shop,
Goodyear Tire dealer and I madelike 650 an hour I think busting
tires and changing oil. That wasterrible. And then I quit and I
started working on my garage onChris Ridgeway buck brought me a

(41:55):
little Samurai that he'd rolledin Moab and turning that thing
into a bogey he a friend of hiscut it in half and they
literally like wheelbarrowducking excuse me like wheel
bear the thing into my shophanging onto the back frame
rails and he brought some Toyotaaxles and just a bunch of scrap
yard junk you know some Toyotarelease springs we put up front

(42:17):
and some some TJ coils we put inthe back like stock stuff from
from behind somebody's shop orsomething and we know building a
little car that really workedway better than it should have
and made a lot of people cryused to make john Reynolds
pretty sad when it would lap himon back door when they would
race and this is so long ago.
Ridgeway still he'd already losthis leg at that point right.

(42:38):
Actually during the buildprocess he did have it cut off
okay, so as soon as it wasfinished he was out there you
know on crutches basicallyoperating the clutch to this
five speed buggy you know, withthe with the crutch and his
other leg with his new stumblebandage dub, I can't imagine

(42:59):
being in that situation to makethe decision to have your leg
amputated. Yeah, I hope I neverhave to choose that. But he had
had his ankle fused. And thenhe'd go back racing dirt bikes
and get more and more play andmovement in it. And then you
have it fused. And offseason,year after year of doing that,
and then it had real bad deemaand it was just just a mess. And

(43:23):
it just constantly was you know,he was in pain and on
medication, Norco, you knowpainkillers, and he just said,
you know, it's not worth it. Idon't need this thing dragging
me down. So he cut it off. Andthen he was able to go race
extremity games, with all thegames,

like, terrible.
Well, you know, I know a friendof mine, a guy in the community
now is kind of going through,you know, kind of the same
thing. It's Josh West over atCBM. You know, a guy that, you
know, and he's he has kneeproblems and, and I think he's
going through the end, he was onthe talent tank a couple
episodes ago, but I just foundout, you know, past maybe two
weeks that he's in a situationwhere he's considering an

(44:07):
amputation of his leg because ofhis problems on his knee. And I
just I just pray for him. Ican't imagine being in the
situation to have to make adecision like that. Yeah, I'm
hoping that they can do a newjoint in his knee or something
like that. He's already has anartificial joint, but it's just
not working out for him. Butyeah, football in his college
days wasn't nice to his knee, Iguess. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's

(44:31):
a big guy. So SouthernCalifornia. How did you how did
you meet Ridgeway just, we wentout at Johnson Valley. Yeah, so
he brought a samurai out and Iwas telling amber about it
because it reminds me of hers.
It was just a little 10 top on,you know, it's 31 or 32 or
something like that. And he'stalking about how he's gonna run

(44:54):
wrecking ball with it. And I wasjust shaking my head like, no,
you're not running up wreckingball on

One inch tires on a stock Samurai that he gave
Hill and then, you know, raninto him a few different times,
but ended up you know, hebrought that thing over to me
and we turned it into a buggyafter he mangled it in Moab in
that era, you know, this was waybefore km h was even, you know,
a glimmer in anyone's eye. Howmany weekends Do you think you

(45:23):
spent a year on means dry, like,running around Johnson Valley?
Oh, man, I wish I could swayEmber a lot, you know, we'd go
out during wheeling season, youknow, a couple weekends a month,
maybe more. And I would go inspurts, you know, when I first
got down there, and it was itwas that time of year went a

(45:45):
lot. And then I think I ran thatToyota truck that I moved down
there with for two or threeseasons, and started getting
kind of tired of it. And thenyou know, got onto the buggy
build thing. And then, ofcourse, when the buggy was done,
I think the first time we ran,it was at the 10 vendor, January
and April, and it was alreadygetting hot, send up relocating
the radiator to the back of thecar. So we didn't have all that

(46:07):
heat from the radiator fanblowing at me. And then we would
go out on Friday after work andwe'll till three in the morning
and then crash out on the opentrailers or in the back of the
truck or whatever and get upwith the son You can't sleep
anymore at five o'clock in themorning or whatever it is. And
we'll until 10 or 11 when it was105 or 10 or something out there

(46:28):
already. And then head home. Andwe did that for a year. I only
had that bash buggy for a yearor so before I sold it to no one
actually I think was nine monthsfrom when it first ran till when
it was sold. That's nothing atall You barely even broken in at
that point. Right? I did thatwith the first the first bomber
car too. So when those LandCruiser dudes came by and picked

(46:51):
that thing up and took it toNolan, one of the kids that was
in the group, his name was Matt.
And you touched on earlier thecaddy on dubs, he ended up
coming to me and brought me abunch of parts that he'd been
collecting to put in a LandCruiser that he had. And we
started building a buggy out ofit. And at first it was a TBI
350 ns 700 R and some a portion,duel transfer case Land Cruiser

(47:18):
stuff I don't know anythingabout and one piece at a time I
talked him into an LS and thentalked him into an Atlas and but
he showed up with these, theseportal axles that were by portal
tech. And I ended up being theguy that was the first their
first victim I would say, dealtwith that for close to a year

(47:41):
being lied to every time Italked to him on the phone and
strung along. And portal tech issome of the people might realize
became super 14 years later. Sothat's where Doug's axles are, I
guess, they have hair still withthem. Yeah. So those guys are
some of the worst people haveever had the misfortune of

(48:03):
dealing with. And that'scurrently torque. Right? But I'm
gonna get them wrong. I'd liketo RC but not the ones that are
the green logo in the northeast.
This is like an orange logo. Iget good. Other torque bad.

(48:24):
Torque bad. That's right, man.
And if you'd need if you everyou know, need to know the right
one just call Phil accardi andbe like Phil, which which worst
examples? Worst axles are gonnaget a spiel, right? Yeah, I
could have saved a lot of peoplea lot of grief if they don't
listen to me. But sometimes youjust have to learn it the hard
way. Right? Well, I think we'reall kind of, you know, the

(48:45):
school of hard knocks. I thinkthat's why we all like each
other because we're hard headedenough to, you know, cut our own
path and blaze our own trail.
And, and with that comes somelumps. And we try to make the
best of the lumps. But uh, yeah,all we've done is we really
haven't failed. We just found away not to be successful. And we
won't do that again.

Oh, man. So you do rejoice Boogie, do your own.
You've done carry on Dev. You'vedone a couple things out of your
place there and so Cal, how didyou learn how to weld because
today, you know, you walk thecup like a pro you throw down
these amazing bull well, porn iswhat you know, it's it's
commonly known on Instagram aswellborn. You've got these

(49:31):
beautiful, just beautiful beadsthat you run with the TIG torch.
It's clear you've had hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of
hours of visor downtime,perfecting your craft. what
sparked that? When did you pickup the torch and when did you
start, you know, burning metal.
So that leads perfectly backinto your first question about

(49:51):
where I've worked. We gotsidetracked on Ridgeway and
working on the samurai in mygarage, but he'll do that to us.
Yep.

That project lasted a few months. And
how did it go? I ended up a newneighbor moved in and he had the
chops on the grinder and he cameover with checking out what I
was doing. And he had a littleshop in Grand terrace, which is
up three miles up the road fromme that he called suspension

(50:22):
dimension, and it was airbagmini truck stuff. And he was
working on aabout a 99 or 2000 Chevy crew
cab. And this was like, oh, two,three, maybe. And he was putting
44 inch boggers or, or TSL orsomething under like the biggest
tire you could buy at the time.

(50:43):
And solid axle swap in it and doit a big drop down. You know,
subframe cradle big old, fourlane, just a monster truck. You
know, big old show, showboatingBluetooth front drive was a Sema
fail belt? Yeah, exactly. So Iended up going to work for him.
And that shop, just so happenedwas two doors down from extreme
performance and cars. And whensuspension mentioned wasn't

(51:05):
doing great, he and I both wentand went to work for our NEEMO
that owns extreme performanceand cars, then a really that was
the beginning of my skin color,formal education. That's not the
right term. I think that is Ithink that works. Because if you
apply that to your welding, butalso a lot of what your I think

(51:27):
your the path you're going towalk us down here is it applies
to your mindset and mentality incar design.
Yeah, that's fair. So that waswhen I started playing with the
TIG, I'd had the opportunity in,in college to
TIG weld, and I told them, thewelding instructor at the time,
I'm never going to have a TIGwelder, I'm never gonna have

(51:49):
access to one of these things.
Again, all I want to do is putstick welder in play with the,
the gas torch and then do someMIG welding. He's like, I just
just keep after it. So now thetiggs up pretty much the only
thing that ever comes out in myshop. But yeah, I got the
opportunity to start weldingthere at extreme and I learned
how to weld aluminum quite well.

(52:11):
And we did a lot of plumbing ontwin turbo LS motors back in,
you know, oh, 30405 era,everybody was refining their
house and taken out of fatSecond, you know, dropping
$100,000 on 1000 horsepower,saying buggy. You know, what,
what else could you want to do?
Take the Glamis and rip it.

(52:32):
Right, exactly. So, yeah, I justI learned a lot about, you know,
building stuff clean and hidingstuff. And, you know, it's kind
of that chopper motorcyclementality, like dragging the
wiring through the inside of thetubing on the chassis for the
tail lights and just keep thingsreally clean. And obviously, we

(52:52):
don't do that on the rockcrawler. But I just always try
to hide things on my cards asmuch as I can and make make
whatever bracket I'm making itneeds to do, you know, double
duty, at least a couple things,if not more, you know, we don't
just willy nilly hang things onthe car to do one purpose. It's
always got to be thought outand, you know, do do as much for

(53:15):
us as we can, which I find youknow, you and Jessie Haynes kind
of have very similar mindsetsand theories on that. And it's
cool to see where you guys camefrom completely different
worlds. But then you'vegravitated towards the same
mentality, then we're more orless neighbors that two lives
about 40 minutes from here. Youguys both punched out and ended

(53:37):
up over there. And I mean, not abad place in the world to live.
Certainly it's not in the stateof California. So good on y'all.
It's close enough that we canhave all the perks of California
without the downside. In thetaxes and the people. Well, the
people are unfortunatelyfunneling in pretty quickly, but
yeah, just the big city life andall this stuff that goes along

(53:59):
with that. Hey, I just found outtoday my wife told me today that
you know, this is Texas, we wecertainly are importing blue
voters at a record pace as well.
And she had to tell me aboutsome people that we know that
uh, we are exporting them to toa blue state, you know, they're
moving to Illinois, and Icouldn't help but laugh like
yes, we got one to get the otherdirection. We got one to leave.

(54:22):
Yay. Finally.

Oh, Lord, sorry, sorry about the tangent
on there. So you're you'reworking you're building sand
cars, you're making them simple.
It's you're developing thismindset and mentality of how to
build an uncommon may becomplicated, but make them look
as simple as possible. And thatwas the first thing that went
through my head when I got tosee the first bomber in person
and look at it and it was justlike, Where's all the crap? You

(54:51):
know, normally it's this, youknow, 10 pounds of crap and a
five pound sack on any RockCrawler on anybody and yours.
seem like 4.9 pounds of crap anda five pound sack. And you've
perfected that over. Well nowwhen was you know? So 12 years
ago that was your first one. Andhow many bombers are out there

(55:13):
today? I know we're getting offoff subject in jumping ahead but
you I mean, you develop thecrate your, your basic bomber in
a box program. Right. So I usedto keep super good track and I
call them bomber one and bombertwo environment three. I've lost
track somewhere up over 25turnkey cars that I built myself

(55:34):
in the shop. But there'ssomewhere around 75 or maybe
over 80 now running around outthere in in the wild. And I just
picked up another 25 chassiskit. So the barns full of
spaghetti bunch of bent tubesready and waiting for the next
project. Now I saw somethingthis is a tidbit This is an

(55:58):
Easter egg. But you posted onsocial media about interest in
Oh, you see where I'm going? Youknow where I'm going? I know
you're going in pint size, orthe three quarter three quarter
sided bomber kid bombers? Yeah,are they seven eighths or three
quarter or what what? I've beenapproached a number of times,
but a dude hit me up onInstagram midweek or, or over

(56:23):
the weekend or something. Idon't remember what it was
whatever. And he's like, Hey,man, I will buy, I'll buy two of
them. I'll buy three of them.
I'll do whatever we have to doif you build these things, and I
was like, You know what, let meI'll put some feelers out both
on social and see if there'sother interests and you know,
hit up the CAD shop the CNC shopand see what they what they can
do for me with that. Typically Ineed to do like you know 10 at a

(56:46):
time to get the price point downwhere people can stomach it. So
I hit him up for a price on 10Chelsea's for what I came up
with was Toyota axles are threequarters of the width of my
racecar axle. So three quarterscale simple three quarter
scale. Well I was in Cody Wagnerwas a customer of yours at one

(57:07):
point, you know, he he had acouple bombers and and I was in
his shop. It was a key. I don'tknow this year last year. I
don't know the years runtogether, but I got to see his
mini buggy or kid buggy orwhatever you wanna call it. And
it's quite cute, but I was like,this thing's like it was legit.
Like it's it's a three quartersized, amazing little crawler so

(57:27):
I won't say it was on. I don'tsay it's on 35 but I mean if you
have little bombers runningaround, I mean what are you
gonna call them bomb? It's whatdo you got? You figured out name
for him? I really haven'tthought that much about it. IEDs
improvised explosive deviceright mama Fatman one of my
employees back in CaliforniaKyle my my main man. He was on a

(57:51):
budget and we were going to doback in back in those days. We
were bending and notchingeverything by hand so we're
going to put the pipe die in thein the bentek and and do up a
pipe bomber. Yeah, there Yeah.

pipe. Yeah. It worked for a lot of my early
projects. So So what was the Iguess I've used this word now
twice now catalyst what was theworld where you left the same
car world and and end up yourteaching? Perhaps go was it you
know crash of Oh, wait. I mean,what made that that move for
you? I just outlive my myinterest in that place. I guess

(58:33):
moved on. I started working onthe caddie on dubs project right
about then I sold the firsttrail buggy and I bought a TIG
welder and I bought a lathe. AndI set up a little shop in my
little tiny two car garage inColton California. Matt came
along and we started on thatketi on dubs project. And I
thought that would sustain mefor a while but it got to be,

(58:56):
you know, portal tech couldn'tkeep up with the parts and the
kid couldn't keep up with themoney and it just got where I
needed to find another gig. So Iended up I don't remember how I
got turned on to it. But therewas a shop close to my place
that did paintless dent repairtools and they needed well there
so I ended up going and reallyburn a lot of rod Weldon handles

(59:20):
on paintless dent repair toolsand welding these little
light frames that they use to tolook at the light down the side
of the car when they're doingtheir repair on vehicles. So I
welded You know, I think I wasonly there six months or a year
or something like that. Butevery day you know it was at the

(59:41):
welder welding so I got a ton ofseat time there. Then that dude,
my boss there ended up turningme on to Trey Johnson. He's like
crows, crows a badass. And I waslike, Who's Troy. So one day at
lunch, I cruised over to theshop, and they were just in the
very beginning stage.
Just setting up the school youknow, there's still running

(01:00:02):
power and air around the shopand building the work benches
and with the all the curtaindividers and stuff between them.
And so I ended up going to workfor him shortly thereafter. And,
you know, welding and buildingon stuff in the beginning he had
Johnson fabrication and the fabshop was a couple rows behind

(01:00:24):
the the school. So we wereworking on class one buggies and
10 cars and welding and buildingon race cars in the evenings and
doing the fab school thing, youknow, getting that place set up
in the morning and getting, youknow, some experience at both
ends of that. And then when hegot the school fired up, he'd

(01:00:44):
have 60 kids, three classes, 20kids a piece, a morning class,
an evening class, and then one.
So it was like Tuesday,Thursday, and then like monday,
wednesday classes, so we had 60kids going at any given time. So
I got to interact with a bunchof different people doing that
and met a bunch of cool guys andstill have some friends today

(01:01:06):
that were students from fabschool. And I understand that a
lot of people think I went tothe fab school that I was a
student there, but I definitelylearned a lot while I was there,
but I was an instructor andmostly welding and fabrication
stuff. But believe it or not,I'd stand up front in the
classes and give theory onsuspension geometry and this and

(01:01:27):
that. So it was a definitely agrowing experience for me. I had
to get out of my shell a littlebit. And I think I've reverted a
lot from that experience. I wasdoing pretty good there for a
while but I learned a ton and itwas a really good experience for
me. And then from there. As soonas I quit that job I started the
first bomber car in my littletwo car garage and but by that

(01:01:51):
point though Randy Yuda you knewgenre and olds, you co drove in
the 2007, king of the hammers,the very the inaugural, the Oh,
gee 13. That was 12 cars. Andjohn Reynolds, Jr. wins the race
with Randy slawson and the COdriver seat, correct?

(01:02:14):
Yep. And that that really fueledthe fire, of course, for the
next step, which is to have myown race car. And I already been
working on it. And I'd beentrying but we had a few
different setbacks. You know, Isold the first buggy, and I was
gonna build a LS one poweredcar. And I had the motor and I
had the trans and I had the Tcase and I had the axles. And

(01:02:35):
then we got kicked out of ourhouse, we had to rental program
wasn't working out, we had tomove and I'd pack up all of my
toys and put them in ministorage. And that
that was right at the end of thecaddy on dubs deal. I built that
caddy on dubs thing and I had tobackburner my project, and then
we lost the house, and we hadput everything away in storage.

(01:02:56):
And then so anyway, my wifegraduated nursing in the same
day, I quit fab school andstarted working on that project
that had been mothballed. Wemoved into a new house and nine
months later, the first bomberwas born. The baby

Wyatt Pemberton (01:03:13):
and then that in that car went on to I mean,
it lived if it lived for a whilelived internationally. That
thing went to Australia for awhile. Did all the Napier and
then it's back here. Who owns itnow?

Randy Slawson (01:03:26):
The Cairo bar body Cairo body the kind of
blank what's that dude's name?
He's up in Washington State.
Jeremy Jones. Now he's an Idaho,sir. Right.
I haven't talked about getting aquick minute. I think he still
owns it. He has a chiropracticclinic in tri cities or Dr. Ma,

(01:03:46):
somewhere up there. It'sfloating around with the other
8080 bomber kits that are outthere. So that's something else.
So that first, you know 2007rendering around john Reynolds,
you guys, you guys win. And thatreally kind of sets you on a
trajectory to have your own carand be be there on your own. Did

(01:04:08):
you race? I'm sure you raced ina Wait. Did you raise your own
car? No way or did you write tosomebody? No way. So backing up
just a tiny bit. Dave invited meI would have been no g to the
first 2007 king of the hammersand I just sold that car to
Nolan. And so I was talking toNolan about it. And he was like
if you if you want to come andpick it up in Texas, you can

(01:04:29):
race it and just fix it back upand bring it back to me. And at
the time driving to Texas 24hours one way it was just not in
the cards. I didn't have ashitbox old half ton Chevy and
you know, I didn't have gasmoney like that. I couldn't
afford to be driving around thecountry to borrow that car even
though I wanted to really bad.
So I didn't get to, you know, bea no gs 13 driver, but I did the

(01:04:50):
next best thing and was thewinning co driver. So then carry
on dubs buildgetting towards the end of it.
The kid was like if you finishit in time, you can raise it and
King of the hammers. So we endedup in Maria and King of the
hammers, and we drew a thirdstar position, and we pass first
and second real quick, and wewere out in front crazy story

(01:05:12):
about that one. So at the time,I was working for Troy, and we
were out shock tuning, and itwas, you know, the very
beginning of, you know, myexperience with King shocks and
those guys in shock tuning. Andyou know what that was all about
and how amazing that is, like,if you haven't had a car that
shocked incorrectly, you'rereally missing out. So we're

(01:05:34):
shock tuning in this L q. Ninethat turnkey engine supplied,
put some nasty heads on thereblew up Brook piston. And this
was Thursday, and the race wasFriday. So we loaded up, we went
down to fab school. And a fewdifferent guys came with us. And
one of them was I'm so bad withnames. Just Reese that races

(01:05:56):
this stock Toyota truck. Yeah.
And Justin came down and, andhelped us pull the motor out of
that car. We got to fab school.
I don't know what it would havebeen two in the afternoon, three
in the afternoon, something weshowed up at CBM. And Chris got

(01:06:17):
wrangled by Troy in to help usfix the motor. So we showed up
there will pass closing time onThursday night, it was, you
know, 7pm or something likethat. And we showed up with a
couple $100 and Taco Bell forthe crew. And he put a piston in
the thing and new head gasketsand new spark plugs and got it
all back together. And I thinkit was probably two o'clock in

(01:06:40):
the morning or something beforewe had the car running. And we
put her on a trailer and I don'tremember whose tow rig it was, I
don't remember much about it. Igot in the backseat and tried to
fall asleep. I don't think wemade it back to the lake bed
until you know 334 in themorning, something like that I
got just a tiny little cat napbefore we had to be suited up
and and take the checkered flagor the green flag rather. So we

(01:07:05):
got off to an early lead andrant 25 of the that year was 50
miles in the lead and then the

POS performance off road steering Does that
sound right? pls I was a Texasguy I think or something.
Anyway, history stuff lived upto the acronym that he called it
in front seal fell out of thepump and ended our day early.
But that was the first time Idriven in a race myself. And you

(01:07:36):
know it really really sparkedyou know that the need for
speed. That shock to meexperience and that l q nine
with the Cameron heads in it wasmaking 500 horsepower or
something. And that was superexciting. So it didn't take me
too long to get back to the shopand start working on that first
bomber car. And at the time, youknow, the thing was completely

(01:08:00):
cutting edge, you know, hadleading arms and trailing arms
and it was kind of a long, lowlean machine back in the day.
Everybody was pretty excitedabout it. Oh, no, for sure. Not
you aim today you had I thinkthis is a testament you know,
the light bright crowd took yourcar this year. You know, I say

(01:08:20):
crowd, crew, husband, wife, youknow your crew. And they
finished Katowice their firstultra for race. They think I
think 17th somewhere in there.
Does that sound about right? AndI wish I could remember but
again, it just goes to testamentthat if you're a good driver and
you have good equipment you canyou can pull that race off and

(01:08:41):
they did their you know, very,very good drivers. I really love
where you've gone with with thebombers. Over the from that
first one that you completed inoh nine to where we are today.
How many chasse ease iterationsare there? Is there very many
derivations between all thattime period? I know you're

(01:09:02):
constantly evolving little partsof it making better parts fit
better. What are the nuanceslike what are the biggest
nuances even maybe? Well, bomberone was 111 inch wheelbase. And
it had single shock. And really,when EMC and legends class came
around, Dave pretty much madethat class around that car, more

(01:09:22):
or less, you know, it fit thebill the specs for EMC 48.
Exactly. Other than the tiresize. The bomber two car when I
built it, I stretched it to 114and we put bypass shocks on it.
Both those cars were inch and ahalf cars, and I thought that
was cool. It was lightened sleekback in the day. The next car I

(01:09:43):
did was for Chris garrison, andhe wanted an inch and three
quarter car so we built anengine three quarter car and
that was the last of the inchand a half cars of course, the
main engine three quarter oversince pretty much always, you
know the first one, the secondone, the third one oh

Way down the line, they're all 4130 cars,
it's all 4130 plate that I keptbrackets out of. There's been
lots of, you know, subtle littlechanges, we started rolling the
roofs versus flat roof and wemoved the cabin forward, then we
moved it back to move the engineforward, and we move the engine
back, we, you know, justmonkeyed around with them from
car to car trying to figure outexactly what we wanted. After, I

(01:10:23):
think it was the 2014 car that Ibuilt. We raised the sliders up
an inch and a half compared toeverything else in the car,
which gave it a lot more groundclearance. And we along with
that bump the seat height upjust a little bit, which made
for a lot better visibility overthe nose of the car. kind of
counterintuitive to go up. But Ibelieve it made it a lot faster

(01:10:47):
on the rocks, you can see betterand you're not hitting the
sliders on the ground as much.
And then the biggest changesover the years have just been
the componentry you know, bettershocks better to mean. And then
with that comes, you know whatonce you can go faster than you
need more power. And then onceyou have more power than you
need a better transmission and abetter transfer case and better
drive shafts and better axlesand on down the line. It goes

(01:11:09):
you know, it's just a viciouscycle. This is a good good segue
to I wasn't really prepared totalk about this king of hammers
that you just want. I mean,you're when you're first one in
13 you're you're backed it up in15. And then it eluded you for a
handful of years. You're stillyou're still the solid axle guy.
You're still staying solid axleyou win here recently. And the

(01:11:30):
rumor I heard around this andAmber kind of backed it up a
little bit, but she was likethat's Randy starlin taught that
you actually didn't go all boyhowdy on motor this time you
actually backed off horsepowerso that you were saving
components. Is there any truthto that urban legend? So the 20
I built a new car that we raised2017. And the deal with that was

(01:11:53):
the car they raised 14 1516ended up going to China so I
bought a new car. And when webuilt that car, I'd had an LS
three 425 stroker. That was, Idon't know, I think it put 330
to the wheels. And I was likeman, I need some more power. I'm
getting getting out poweredeverywhere. So we ended up

(01:12:15):
putting a aluminum LSS styleblock in the thing built the 440
with LS seven heads and stuff.
It was a big step up from thepower that it had. And I raced
west coast in 17. I did all theseries races and I ended up
getting a few thirds and endedup third for the season and had

(01:12:37):
some fun doing that. It was kindof expensive, you know, dry all
out of pocket, but I enjoyed it.
You know, I had a really goodtime racing with the guys and
getting out more. The Texas racewas probably my favorite all
time race was the name of thattown. I know exactly where I've
drawn a blank is just just eastof El Paso. It's you know, the
famous Border Patrol checkpointis there where they like, you

(01:13:00):
know, brag about busting WillieNelson for smoking pot or having
pot on his bus. It's not techSanta europea Yeah, there it is.
So Sierra Blanca, other thanking of the hammers is probably
the favorite. My favorite raceever raced. We were out there on
these country roads, and prereading and I was talking to
Dustin my cousin was co joggingwith me. And I was like, This is

(01:13:23):
the stupidest thing ever. Whatare we need a rally car not a
rock crawler. What are we doingout here? So we pre ran and the
car was set up real loose forKing and hammers. And we came
back to the pits. And I walkedaround the car with a wrench and
I put, you know, a turn or so inevery rebound tube. I was like
something's got to get like thisthing's terrible. And we didn't

(01:13:45):
even get to pre render practiceor test it out or anything. We
just went racing. And realquick. I figured out that I
nailed it. Like the car was justglued to the ground. It was the
rally that I wanted. Yeah. Andit felt so good. We were having
a blast. So we're moving alongdown this you know, little lane

(01:14:07):
and a half farm road gravelroad. And these guys had built
these kelechi road we call themkelechi roads here in Texas
kelechi kelechi Well, they builtthese water bars with cattle
guard on top of them. And itfelt like it was five foot
vertical elevation gain from theroad way itself. And I hit one

(01:14:27):
on one accident at 95 miles anhour. And we flew it was like
one of those ski jumps that yousee on the way so I'm gonna

work the song while you're in the air.

And I was like, I'm gonna when I hit it, I was
like, Oh man, this this is goingto be bad. But it landed perfect
and we just looked at each otherand giggled, so we just hit all
of them at 100 miles an hour. Itwas insane. And I can't believe
nobody medialive was out theretaking pictures and video of us
how

In those crazy cattle guard crossings, we just
had an absolute blast. So did itdid it look and feel like like,
like, you know, like Laughlinlike the highway crossing or
like prim like the dike jump oranything like that. I feel like
it looked like that wasn't onthe outside, unfortunately.

(01:15:20):
Okay, yeah, it literally feltlike we flew a couple 100 feet,
you know, just like, not superhigh off the ground, but
airborne, you know, for a waysthat feels good, though. When
you feel the tires droop out andhit the end of the straps. You
feel that the straps hit, you'relike, Oh, yeah, this feels good.

Oh, this feels really good. That was pretty
fun. I ended up having a guycome along and bought that car.
You talked to the red, red andblue, not red, blue, black and
blue. Oh, black Martin, NateJesse, Nate Jesse Brown. So Nate
called me up one day, and hekind of talked about his his
side of that whole experience. Iwas on my way to axial fest at

(01:16:03):
the campground, Cisco Grove atthe end of the Fordyce trail. I
talked to him on my way therewith that car. And he was
looking for a legends car andsaid, Man, I already sold
Legend's car. But I have this4400 car that you could have for
the right price. And so wetalked on the phone a little bit
and got off talk to his lady,call me back. He said I'll put a

(01:16:25):
check in the mail. So I went upto that axial fest. And we were
goofing around having fun. And Iwas going to give some of the
the axial employees rides inthat car. And I ended up heading
up the access road towards fourdice. And then as I do a
squirrel, then I got sucked intoit. And we made it all the way

(01:16:47):
up to the first crossing prettyquick. And I looked at it I was
like it doesn't look any deeperthan normal. And we plunged down
in there and hydrilla thing andfreakin window the block on the
most expensive motor I ever had.
And as all bad from there. Whatdo you think flow rate was on
Fordyce at that point.

(01:17:07):
Man I I'm bad at that it wasprobably 350 or four or
something like that. If I had toguess it was about four inches
deeper than my car wanted tocross.

That was a bit of a downer. Well, I still love
that story of how Nate Jesseends up with a 4400 car he you
know he was in LA is you know,Indiana guys tell him to come up
to K he should he buy someclothes. And you know, because
he was in work, you know, likedress suit clothes. And he goes
up there. And a year later, he'sgot an 18 Wheeler and

(01:17:40):
he just went all the way as faras you could go. Nice is what
you guys ever. He's awesome.
He's, he's definitely my hero.
Yeah, he liked his style. He'sin he does. He's got lots of
style. That whole team up and acrew is something else. So
you're going up to axial festand mess around those guys. So
this must be around thattimeframe. Where did they

(01:18:01):
approach you? And how was thatapproach? Because today axial
has in sells a 1/10 scale bar.
And it looks just like your car.
It's Blue Bomber fab Kingstickers. I mean it is it looks
just like the car looks when itleaves the line at getting the
hammers. And you can you know,any hobby shop, you can pick one

(01:18:23):
up young the 450 bucks andthey're fun and fun. And hell
that's that's that's another keypart. I remember you're selling
them for a while or you werealways carrying around a couple
234 Hey, if you want one, I'vegot one hit me up. But how did
that conversation happen andstart to where you now have an
RC car running around there.
That is something that existedinside your brain for many

(01:18:44):
years. And then you built it.
And you built the the one to onescales and now there's

RC versions. How fascinating is that? So I've
told this story to the to theaxial guys. And they got a
chuckle out of it. I hadattracts the sledge hammer and
rc 10 when I was in gradeschool, so I was an RC kid way
back. And then when I was at fabschool had a guy, one of the

(01:19:11):
students come in with one ofthese xela extends it was their
first Little Rock Crawler kitthat you can buy and put
together and you know had solidaxles and coil overs and
whatnot. So I was like, man, Ineed one of those. And he's like
I can hook you up so I don'tremember what they were, you
know 53 or 50 something bucksback in the day. And my wife

(01:19:33):
actually built that thing on ourliving room floor. Every piece
of it put it all together selfwhile I was out tinkering in the
shop doing the real thing. Whenwe're done with it, you know, I
tweaked on it a little bit, cutthe spring shorter and lowered
the thing down, tried to make itwork a little better. But the
link geometry was absolutelyterrible. And it worked exactly

(01:19:53):
the way it looked like it wouldwork if it was a one to one car.
It was fun to drive, but it justdidn't wheel that
Good. So for a quick minute, Ithought to myself, man, I'm
gonna cut this thing up and turnit into a bomber, you know, make
make a testbed that I can tryideas out on and I was like,
Alright, just keep building oneto one. Yeah. All right. So I

(01:20:14):
never ended up messing with thatthing, but I still have it. So,
fast forward a few years morenames. Jake, Yeoman, Jake
Hollenbeck, right name? Jakehallenbeck approached me and
wanted to buy the bomber twocar. And it was like, right, it
offered Expo time in October.
And you know, I'm getting gearedup for you know, King of the

(01:20:36):
hammers is four months away orwhatever. And I told him no,
like, I'm not selling this car.
I'm going racing king of thehammers. And he just wouldn't
take no for an answer. Just keepkept grinding on me kept
grinding on me. We had the carand offered Expo, he came down
and looked at it, and ended upoffering me enough money that I

(01:20:57):
decided I could probably livewithout it. So my guy Kyle and
I, we ended up starting buildingthe new car. We had projects to
finish up before we could starton my car. And we started, like
Thanksgiving time. And six weekslater, the thing is on the dyno,
and that was, you know, straighttubing from the tubing rack.

(01:21:17):
Like every bit every piece. Icalled up spidertrax. And I
said, Hey, I need, you know, acouple of dlm housings and
they're like, well, we're fourmonths out, and I said, No, the
car is going to be on the dynoin a month and a half not
waiting for axle housings, likeWell, sorry. So I hit up john
curry, and went down there. Andhe just opened up the shop, he

(01:21:39):
said, Whatever you need, man.
And you went above and beyondthat year, we don't want to do
us read racing knuckles, and youknow, they don't sell that
stuff. They've got their ownbrand, but he made actual
shoutouts for the front end ofthat car. And machine my read
racing knuckles to accept hisstyle a yoke. And he let me weld
together cromoly housings, theirfab nine in their facility,

(01:22:04):
they're setting me up a shop inthe back, or a spot in the back
of the shop, and I welded it alltogether. And it was really
awesome working with him. Youknow, he set me up with sway
bars and stuff and all thegoodies to go race that year.
And I think it was about January15 or something, we diode it.
And then the next day, we fixeda few leaks and stuff we had on

(01:22:29):
the thing overnight and took itout to Barstow and went chalk
tuning with King and took itback home and, you know, tied up
a bunch of loose ends for a weekand took it to Johnson Valley
and run with it. So that was,you know, the first time that I
won, and it was a pretty radexperience. I towed that race
car out to King of the hammersin a truck. I sold my brother

(01:22:49):
later for 3500 bucks, not justbecause I like him, because
that's what it was worth. That'sthe program that we run. I get a
lot of flack from a lot ofpeople. Why don't you race more?
You know, they think I've got amoneybags and I've got all these
cars and all this this momentumbehind me but burn the most hand
to mouth tight. You know, budgetrace team of anybody that's one

(01:23:11):
king of the hammers and on onehand, I'm I'm not proud that I'm
I'm broke. But on the otherhand, I'm proud have done what
I've done with you know what Iwhat I had to do with? Well, no,
I'll back you up on that. Iremember you had this whole
halftime is that was a haftenChevy. And how many years did
you drive that? I think youprobably one king of hammers

(01:23:32):
twice and you were still drivingthat truck? Yeah, I think so.
And then you finally treatedyourself too. Did you treat
yourself to a new truck or anewer truck? newer? I have a no
seven Duramax that I bought withthe first check that I won with.
So I had $25,000 in the bank andI went and found a truck for 25

(01:23:52):
grand and bought it and thereyou go. When you won that first
time Did that help you basicallylaunch bomber fab itself? Did it
help? Was that the thing thathelped you get off the ground?
It didn't hurt but I was tryingto think of the timeline when I
guess that Yeah, cuz I waslooking at the hammers and then

(01:24:13):
immediately I had an Indonesianguy we bought the car for and
then Cody and Jim Wagner cameand we built two cars for them.
And then in late 2013, February,February,
November again Thanksgiving timeI ended up building starting to
build a new car and we raced abrand new car and everybody gave

(01:24:34):
me flak like why would you raisea new car when you don't car one
last year was not good enoughand we really made some massive
improvements. We went fromjunkyard wheel hubs and junkyard
style you know, Dana 44 a lugbreaks and stuff to you know,
all unit bearings and you knowwilwood calipers and all the

(01:24:55):
cool kid shit. So it wasdefinitely you know, leaps in
Downes better than the car thatI've raced the year before. The
King Shark package had finreservoirs and a lot of nicer
parts on it. And the car wasabsolutely night and day, like
20 mile an hour fast in thedesert, and then the previous
car, and it, it was painful thatyear that 14 Racing king of the

(01:25:19):
hammers, because we had allkinds of problems. We ended up
getting an eighth or ninth, Idon't remember exactly what it
was that you're. But I knew thatI could easily win in that car.
So we took it back in 15. And wewon with it. Yeah, I mean, that
was kind of what that was yourLauren, Lauren was one in 14 and
kind of, you know, upset you butyou were the clear favorite,
except for this new car, thenthere was that was a lot of

(01:25:41):
questions. And that kind of setyou up. I want to jump back
because we didn't close the wedidn't close the loop on the
axials. Right. Yeah. What arethey so you called them they
called you? And they said, hey,let's do it. Let's make these
things. So the deal was Jakeowned ck RC, which was a hobby
shop in Reno. And he specializedin internet sales of rock

(01:26:02):
crawler RC specific stuff. Sothat was where the axial Wraith
came from the race was Jake'spersonal rock crawl that he
built, came along and built theminiature version, the RC
version of the race. So thenJake was campaigning my bomber
to car and race and doing reallywell. And they came to me and

(01:26:23):
they said, We want the rights.
We want to license this with youto build axial bombers. And I
was like, cool. So from thefirst discussion to the last
discussion when it finally youknow, we signed a contract and
they started making the thingsthat changed a lot, because in
the beginning, they wanted tobuild Jake's car. And they
wanted to call it the race towin. I was like, absolutely not.

(01:26:46):
You can't call my mom or card arace. And so they had to slowly
but surely come to terms withthat and wrap their heads around
the fact that, you know, youcan't rebrand my product,
another builders, you know,name, right. And then during
that time period that I wasdealing with them, Jay quit

(01:27:06):
racing, and I'd said you know,why would you build the
hallenbeck version when you canbuild the rent fossil version?
I'm the one that won king of thehammers. So by the time it
actually came to fruition theybuild the Randy slawson bomber,
you know, not that Jake axial torace whatever was Jake's a great
guy, but it didn't carry thewater. The blue and black and

(01:27:29):
gray and white. Randy slawsonkena hammers winning bomber
carries. It's not as iconic.
Right? Well, I'd like to thinkso. Well, yeah, I mean, sure. I
am performed with a buncheconomics. Yeah, it's a super
cool thing to, you know, go outto the mall or whatever and see

(01:27:51):
one or, you know, you go tovarious rock crawling venues
and, you know, some kids runningaround in their little bomber
car. And, you know, it'sawesome. It's super exciting
every time I see it, and, andit's super exciting when these
young kids come up to me withtheir, their little axial bomber
cars, and they want me to signthem and stuff. And it's been
super fun. Yeah, you're asuperhero in that world. Right.

(01:28:15):
Okay, man, as we've kind of gotthrough the construction and the
constructability and kind ofyour design philosophy a little
bit, we've touched on some ofit, you know, simple as better
make the bracket new, threeseparate things. Let's talk
about your, your race acumen.
Like you don't come out of thebox over the past. Let's call it
1314 years of King the hammersitself going on, and be a three

(01:28:38):
time winner.

If you don't have a really solid race
program, for you, I know. I wantto say one year in there. Oh
910. You finished really well.
Or you might have even been thefirst one across the box. But
you got dq. And I remember thatand it was it was some like at
the top of sunbonnet or 2021.
You were supposed to go left andyou went right in unit and when

(01:29:05):
Dave, Dave or Jeff or whoeverapproached you, you knew exactly
where where that was. What wasthe story around that and then
let's talk about your raceprogram like what is been the
feather in your cap that isallowed you in the in a solid
axle to continually to, to be inthat conversation and to
continue to return back to thepodium. The story you're talking

(01:29:27):
about is 2009 2009 was literallythe first time that I raced the
bomb or car right? So I had thatnew car Previous to that I'd
raced 24 miles or whatever andin 2008 buying the wheel, I
really didn't have much seattime in the cars as far as
racing, you know. And you know,I don't I'm technically

(01:29:52):
challenged as we saw earlierwith this hole in the snipe
thing going. So the GPS, youknow wasn't good at that the guy
that I had with

He wasn't good at that at the time, I knew where I
was supposed to go, which wasthe Masters courses area, the
rock pile up there to fuel thatwas where the pit was. And I
knew how to get to the pit. ButI didn't know the way they
wanted me to get to the pit,then we went the wrong way. And
it was like three tenths of amile difference. But when it
came up, and they said thatthey're going to penalize me an

(01:30:22):
hour, it bumped me back toplaces by me from second to
fourth, I said, you know whatthe rule is, if you cheat, or if
you short course, you'redisqualified. And I said, I'm
just call find myself. So thenthe next question was what has
moved forward? It took severalyears there in the beginning,
you know, figuring out sillythings like stay on course,
sounds simple, but it's harderto do in real life than it

(01:30:44):
sounds like it might be. Andknowing the place like the back
of my hand, like it did do didis actually a disadvantage some
times because you're not relyingon the machine, the the GPS to
tell you where to go, you'rerelying on your own intuitions
and your own knowledge of theplace, which bit me in the butt
on that one. And then 2010, Iended up I sold that 2009 car to

(01:31:10):
ban and I didn't have a chanceto get another one done. I was
working on other things anddidn't get to build a car. And
so I rode with Ben in 2010. Andthen 2011, I brought out the new
bomber, two car, and the thingwas wicked fast. And I remember
at that race, we were comingdown sunbonnet and we had we got

(01:31:34):
to the bottom of the crossover,Hell's Gate devil slide to go
back around the does the otherway. And the thing I kept
smelling coolant coming downthat trail, and we got down to
double slide. And that was thething was overheating. We pulled
over. I mean up spending, like20 minutes on the side of the
trail before the next car showedup. I was like, man, we had a

(01:31:57):
huge lead. That's so rough. Yep.
So I ended up I still have it. Ihad built an aluminum thermostat
housing, and well it alltogether and I had silicone did
on the front of the water pumpon this LS one, and the weight
of the water line hanging offthe end of that thing had
distorted it and cracked it andit started leaking. And it

(01:32:19):
started leaking at the silicone,you know, normally you'd have a
like a rubber gasket of somesort that would an O ring or
whatever that would have somegive to it and and keep it
sealed. But I just silicone iton, when it started fatiguing
and moving it that cracked thesilicone. So I took the thing
off and I was like what can wedo to make gasket. So Greg parts
Greg, Greg Adler came along. Andhe had the Ric car, the EZ rig

(01:32:46):
car at the time. And he had aflat tire and I had a spare. And
I traded it to him for all thewater he had in his car, and a
sheet rock knife. And I cut theleather chafe guard out of the
back of the seat belt bucklethat cut that off the passenger
seat belt. And I fashioned athermostat housing gasket out of

(01:33:08):
that piece of leather and gotenough water in the car that we
were able to get back to mainpit. And then was being pitted
by Scott Hartman with the dustjunkies that year. And I kind of
got lucky enough to tag on tothat deal. Because, you know,
Ben and I were buddies, and hewas racing one of my cars. And I
came in with that repair. And Itold the guys on the radio what

(01:33:29):
I done, I said, if it's notleaking, just give it a light
little snug on those bolts andfill me up with water and send
me on my way. And Scott took alook at that. And he was so
proud of me, he's like, we'regonna help you out. You know, I
was filling out a five gallondirt by gas cans with no fast
fill tube on the car. And justdoing it all wrong doing it like

(01:33:52):
a broke rookie. And he's like,we can take you to the next
level, you know, you gotsomething going on. I think we
came in like ninth or some 10thwithout repair and got clear
back up to second. And the carended up vapor locking out
inline fuel pump more new newbielearning curve stuff that we're
well on our way to a solid, youknow, second place finish even

(01:34:16):
with the problems that we hadwith that car, when all of that
transpired with the fuel system,but good times. So Hart Hartman
and dust junkies, you slide inunder their wing a little bit
and you learn from all their,all their years south of the
border and all their years andMDR and, and get a apply some of
that to your program. Right?

(01:34:38):
Yeah, those guys have becomevery good friends. We love Scott
Tandy, and they love Kristen, I.
Ds helped me out every yearsince you know, with the pinning
stuff, you know, talking shoptalking strategy talking, you
know, fuel system repairs, youknow, not during the races, but
you know, what are we going todo to make sure this doesn't
happen again, type of stuff.

Just a lot of a lot of good times call to good
memories. And I do like theHartman's. I really enjoy them.
I enjoy them a lot. This isn'teven a week ago, Scott calls me
it's like 1130 Central Time, PM,and I was in bed. And if Scott

Scott's gonna call me 11 (01:35:15):
30pm, I'm gonna go get out of bed and
go to the other room and havethe conversation and talk to
him. And I love catching up withthat guy. We, I got to know him.
Because of we were in energytrading together. He was at
SoCal Edison for many years. AndI was at a company called
Calpine, and it would be 1234 inthe morning and I'm talking to

(01:35:36):
him on the phone because thatthat was our shift we were on.
We were we were running powerplants and dispatching
electricity during the middle ofnight, but I didn't know who I'd
met him out in the desertmultiple times or races. It
wasn't until pirate four by fourbig naked burly guy big naked
burly I bet on chit chat. They'dhave the Friday night or

(01:35:57):
Saturday night losers club likewho's who's the losers that are
up and big burly naked guy putsup the A he was up dispatch in
powerplants or somethinginteresting so I pm or whatever
the it was a pm right on piratesi p private messaging or
message and I'm like, Hey, whatdo you do? I'm I'm I'm run

(01:36:19):
California power as well. ButI'm McAlpine in Houston. And he
just texted me and my phonerings. Hey, man. Are you
serious? Like we've been talkingto each other? But we didn't
know that we were you. We didn'tknow that. You know, the guy on
pirate was the guy on the otherend of the phone line that
you're buying and sellingelectricity with? It was so

(01:36:41):
well, I mean, that happened inOh, 708 somewhere in there. And
yeah, I've been closest theHartman's ever since. They're
just good people. And now it'scool to see what Scott's doing
for ultra for and working overthere. In his next chapter live.
But so you you won k h thisyear? How good did it feel? You
know, you won twice before, butthis is six years later?

Seven years later, somebody? Right. Your
last time was what? 15? So,yeah, you're Yes, six, six times
six years ago? Why? How'd thatfeel to back it up that you
still have it feels great. Youknow, year after year, we're
always a threat. Anybody thatyou know, that meme that popped
up that said enraged lossesrelevant again, you know, I feel

(01:37:30):
like I'm always relevant thatKing of the hammers, I'm always
there to win. I'm always goingfast. I'm always, you know, I
can't tell you how many yearsI've led, you know, one point or
another. And then we've had, youknow, so little problems that
have taken us out of the game,but I feel like I'm the in the
contention in the discussion.
Yeah. And you know, I build agood car, I drive a great race,

(01:37:52):
you know, I know the place likethe back of my hand still a rock
crawl, I have more seat timethan anybody else. I guarantee
it there's nobody in order forthat gets as much the time that
as I do and bounced around andyou know, in the back woods in
Nevada here and had tons andtons of seat time in California
to the point where I was justtired of of my surroundings. You

(01:38:13):
know, I there was no moreadventure to be had because I
knew what was around everycorner, you know, doubt 1000s of
miles on the dirt bike andrazoring and you know, now up
here, it's still the dirt bikeand I've got this little beater
red to come with it. I've put20,000 miles on mostly dirt. And
then you know always out therace car aside beside or

(01:38:36):
whatever. I'm always outplaying. Well, you brought up
something that I wanted to askyou about. And it didn't occur
to me to re ask you about this,but I handful years ago, three,
four or five. I don't rememberwhat year it was. You entered
the rock bouncer event at kth.
And you you put on a clinic?
Yeah, not only did I win secondthird were bomber cars. Cody

(01:38:57):
Wagner and Ben Napier roundedout the podium in 2014. backdoor
shootout. Yeah, that that waseye opening. It wasn't that
long. It was a 14. I don't know.
It seems like it seems like

Yeah, it does, man. Okay, so did we cover
everything that you wanted tocover? Did we get everything off
your chest that you wanted totalk about? I think we went
through we definitely wentthrough your your chassis
program. Because I love thebomber in a box is by far. One
of the coolest things for oursport allows the guy in the shop
that doesn't that can that canweld the ability to build his

(01:39:35):
own. It's such a sweet deal. Ican tack one up in a day and a
half, you know full chassis in aday and a half. And for what I
would call a pro fabricator, andtake two guys, you know,
probably a week and a half,bending and notching by hand,
the old school method and thenallows the garage warrior to

(01:39:57):
build a car without enough

You're a vendor, you know, you don't need bentek
or some kind of you know whatwax program, you can just put it
together and put your junkyardone times and your, you know,
whatever it is, whatever yourflavor is you can put it all
together and have a race provenrig. Yeah, absolutely. All
right. So top three songs fromme that define you right now in

(01:40:23):
this slice in time. 2021 Oh,odd.
I'm so bad at that. We listen toPandora non stop and we've got
quite the genre mix that we run.
You know, most of its outlawcountry type stuff. A little bit
of AC DC. some some some tractorwrap. Let's look Whoa, what's
tractor wrap?

phrase before Well, what's really never heard
the country wrap. Oh,absolutely. And that's tractor
wrap. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It waslike Cole swindell. Or no Colt
Ford. Sorry Colt Ford. Ford.
Yeah, let's somebody church. Oh,Eric church.

(01:41:09):
There's another one. Anyway, I'mterrible. A little bit you know,
m&m never heard anybody know hegot some of the throwback, the
80s rap stuff going on. So youreally never know what's going
to come across the radio. Soyou're, you're on all spectrums?
Okay, so it's, it's race day. 22king of the hammers, you're

(01:41:31):
lined up for the 4400 race youintend to back to back it? You
know all Ah, Jason cheer 1819.
And you've got your go to musicto get your pumped up with the
line. It's 7am. What are wecranking?

Man? I'm just gonna say back in black. Okay,
so AC DC. Okay. We'll get youon. Okay.

Hey, I just put you on the spot. See, see see
where your head's at the youlike kind of everything if you
can busted out some Beethoven Iwould have been like, oh, wow, I
didn't know we were gonna getinto classical. Yeah, no, I'm
okay. I like AC DC. Back in backis great. Great for me,
Metallica. Any of those in therecould absolutely. Absolutely

(01:42:14):
ramp you up an amp. Yep. Well,awesome. So that's the game
plan, right? You're gonna,between now and the summer,
you're going to hit any otherultra for events between now and
February. I'm shooting towardsgetting that 4448 car, excuse
me. A little more dialed in andgoing out and playing at
Sturgis. I've never been toservice for the Bike Week.

(01:42:36):
Right? It sounds like a crazygood time. Seems like the people
watching it'd be pretty off thehook. So I'd like to get out
there and use the race as anexcuse to go people watch mostly
right. And then, you know, theWest Coast series really didn't
turn out to be very West Coast.
So that's probably the only onethat's really on my radar. My

(01:42:56):
brother's gonna be racing inMontana. That's where he lives.
The shoot on a blank again,what's the name of the one
that's coming up next month inMontana? I don't know what they
call it. Yeah, it's the Northseries. And I know there's a lot
of there's a lot of interestingdiscussion around the points for
that. And the points arecalculated, because if there's

(01:43:18):
only if there's five cars, andyou get fifth place, you
actually you're gonna have youknow, infinitely more, you could
do D, D, and F even at Montanaand get more points than seven
place finisher at km h. And thatcould then in turn put you in
national points, titlecontention by just racing

(01:43:40):
against, you know, four or fiveother cars. But now that said
the four or five of the cars arepretty legit. You know, you
know, Jason, Jason the pointsanyway, yeah. Jason, Jason share
Bailey with with rock royalty.
And then fun Havers both bothfun Havers, Lauren Healy and

(01:44:00):
Vaughn getting, I saw that theywere gonna be there that and
then there's a couple others,not trying to offend anyone by
not calling anyone. I just don'tremember what the list was. But
I was like, Wow, it's only a fewon there. But, you know, if you
I didn't realize, I didn'trealize that the North series
counted for points this year.
And that those points weretowards the national

(01:44:21):
championship. I, I think theguys that did catch that, like,
obviously, Lauren and Vaughn, Imean, they were doing their
homework, to be in contentionand look at that opportunity and
plan to go to Montana, which isgood, right? That's, that's how
you build up our counts at thesevenues that aren't the standard
venue every year. Right? You youmove the shell game around, to

(01:44:42):
move where people go to, right.
I think given old for thebenefit of the doubt this year,
they're having hard times withvenues. And, you know, they're
they're having to kind of digdeep to find places that we can
race. For instance, the MexicanRace wasn't the track that they
really wanted to put togetherfor us. But Mexico told them no,

(01:45:03):
you can't race here. And theysaid, Well, what do we got to do
to make it happen? And theybasically use the track in from
two years ago fire mental study,impact study, blah, blah, blah
from two years ago to make thathappen. So I appreciate the
Dave's tenacity and his hisability to overcome at any cost.

(01:45:24):
You know, the fact that Kinghammers happened this year was a
small miracle. So I reallyappreciate how hard he's pushed
to to make it happen this year.
And hopefully in the future, wecan have some some more cool
events and cool places. Yeah,absolutely. Absolutely. I think
what ultra for pulled off in2020 was something else with

(01:45:50):
some of the stuff they did thereyou pull off you know, a
nationals Oklahoma, and we'regonna be back there nationals
this year. But yeah, care whichhappened on this year was
something else in the fact thatyou were the guy that walked
away at the scepter at the end.
It's pretty cool on its ownright from you. Right? I had a
few different people call me upas soon as Dave released the
track information, the courseand said, You better be on your
game, buddy. This is yours tolose. And kind of a chilling

(01:46:13):
little deal. So I was at thefinish line, congratulating
chase Cabrera he just won EMC inhis 48 car that I built last
year. And Jason's rollingthrough contingency in his in
his Bronco. He looks over at meand he waves me over. And he
goes, you're gonna win ittomorrow. And it was just like,

(01:46:35):
a chill, you know, runs downyour spine, you get goosebumps,
and you're like, wow, you know,Jason's one of those guys that I
really look up to. And he's gothis shit together. And for him
to predict that I was gonna win.
It was pretty cool. He had ajust a couple bad breaks. I
mean, but yeah, the discussionbefore the rating before the

(01:46:58):
green flag was this was a solidaxle year with all the approx.
And you prevailed, right? Youcontinue to, to do what Randy
Lawson does, you just you justkeep going you don't quit just
like the cut in the leather offyour seat belt to make a gasket.
There's no quitting you. It'slike this, this interview itself
right now, we spent greater thanthe amount of time of the

(01:47:18):
interview working on just thetechnical difficulties of
getting it to the point. Therewas no quitting you. I was like,
Hey, we can put Until next week,you know, like, that was at over
an hour into us fight andtechnical difficulties. Like,
you know, there's just, it justwasn't meant to be and I'm okay
with that. And you're like, No,man, I'm good to go. Let's go.
We've got tonight. Let's Let'sdo this. Let's get this done.

(01:47:39):
why we're doing all right, man.
I'm here for you. We're Randy. Iam very elated that you, you
agreed to let me interview youand carry your story on the
talent tank. Like I said, I'veknown you for 1213 years, and I
find you to be a veryapproachable, fascinating guy.
And I'm glad we're able to showyour show that side of you.
Because I've heard the otherside, I've heard the other side

(01:48:02):
of the coin where you'll findyou're not approachable. And I
think it's just as I've jokedwith people, when they brought
you up, like no, he just hasreally good RBF you know, the
resting bitchface you just havethis very good RBF. Like he's
that, if that's the look he'sgiving you. He's actually
smiling. That's, that's reallythis is totally true. I have the

(01:48:23):
resting bitchface really bad.
I'll see pictures of myself, orI have just a really innate bad
something. I don't know what youwant to call it. ability to
portray exactly what I'mthinking on my face. And I don't
mean to you. It just happenswhen I'm when I'm perplexed at

(01:48:45):
something. I'll just look reallypissed off. And I don't I'm not
but I looked at stuff. Andpeople assume that I'm pissed
off or that I think you're afucking idiot. And it's not the
case. Yeah, there you go. Well,hey, man. Again, I value your
friendship. Congratulations onon your third king of the
hammers. So you've got you know,a year with the scepter. And

(01:49:07):
thank you for the last couplehours talking sharing your
story. I look forward tocheering cheering you want in
Sturgis the track good. He'sbuilding out there is pretty
awesome. And then I look forwardto catching up with you in
February on Johnson Valley. inyour backyard Man Randy, thank
you for coming on withValentine.

Sweet. It was a pleasure. Wyatt always enjoyed
talking with you. And Iappreciate the opportunity. Like
I told you when we were talkingabout doing this my new favorite
pastime when I'm travelingchasing parts or going to races
or whatever is is listening toThe Talent Tank and wheeling
wine and whiskey and, you know,similar podcasts finding out

(01:49:43):
what people are up to and whatbrought us to the places we are
now and so it's cool to be ableto share a little bit of that
with you guys. Hopefully you'llenjoy it.

I did. Alright, on that note, we're out.

Intro/Outro (01:49:57):
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EP 49 Randy Slawson

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