EP 50 Jeff Knoll

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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, fastestmost knowledgeable personalities
and Ultra4 and off road racing

Wyatt Pemberton (00:21):
all right all right all right, here we go.
Episode 50 spring season Ender2021. Looking back at me one of
the one of the guys that gotthis whole thing started ultra
for King of the hammers. one ofthe founders, Jeff Knoll,
Jefferson Knoll, how are youtoday?

Jeff Knoll (00:42):
I'm great. Thanks for having me on why and
congrats on 50 episodes of thetalent tank. Thanks for the
opportunity.

Well, you're a milestone guy. And so I knew
when I you know was going afteryou I've charted it out and then
we just happen to have thatclubhouse session, and I had
your name on the list and we hadthat first clubhouse session for
the Moab race and you stayed onafterwards and you made a
comment like hey, I'm alwaysgame I'm getting for that. And I
was like, Oh, yes, this ishappening.

Unknown (01:10):
Yeah, I've been listening for a long time.
You've had some really greatstories on here that I've really
enjoyed You know, I think latelythe brand level one was really
good learned a few things butyou know, dad is probably my
favorite you know, that was thethat was one of the best
episodes I really enjoyed it wasa trip down memory lane and I

(01:31):
got to learn a few things sohopefully we can live up to the
to what everybody else has done

which always cracks me up on some of these
like guys that absolutely knowevery what I believe you know,
being a Texas guy and not a WestCoast guy where you know you and
Wayne lived in Menifee, you'reyou lived in Menifee, you lived
a couple miles apart in Menifee.
And I knew you guys knew eachother. You're over there with
some regularity. But whensomeone like he was telling me
things that about Wayne that youdidn't know, I'm like, Wow,
that's pretty dang cool.

Unknown (01:59):
Yeah, it was it was a great episode. And Wayne's been
a great friend and enjoyed hisfamily. And growing up through
racing with him. It's beenawesome.

We will get into cash, all the chronology
and I'm really kind of excitedabout where this is going to go
because it's not necessarilyracing centric, because there's
gonna be some history here. ButI think there's some really cool
mental challenges that I want todiscuss with you. And I know you
have interesting takes on butbut today, here we are, we're
sitting you know, 2021. This is,you know, spring and Episode 50

(02:33):
of the talent tank. It's comingup on a two year old program,
which is crazy. That meansyou're the 15th guy, or lady gal
that has been a pillar withinthe ultra for community, either
from racer promoter, an ultraworking for ultra for being a
sponsor being a vendor, andthere's no end in sight. I mean,

(02:53):
you're 50 in there's there'sanother couple 100 right of just
amazing individuals making newstories. Every single day, every
single race every single nightin the shop.

Unknown (03:03):
Yep, there. That's the beauty of it. You get a whole
new crop coming in, you know, Myson is building a Jeep right
now. In, in inside and outsideof my shop. He's doing a lot of
the work outside because hecan't get the thing and there's
not space for it. And paintingand doing all that so you It's
awesome to see the nextgeneration coming up and
carrying the torch.

Yeah, this is this is all fun. So you are you
know today working for LincolnElectric. You live up in the
Reno Nevada area. I believe youare involved with if I remember
correctly, and this goes back along ways. We've known each
other for many years. But youwent to work for torch mate,
which I think most of us arefamiliar of torch mate certainly

(03:43):
in the old days but it was a noKoontz big sponsor of of off
road he he raced regularly. Hewas you know, sponsor when he
raced at the levels. JesseHaynes went to work for him at
one point they built that ttvcar. There's just a lot of folks
around the torch, mate circle,and then torch may hit a
threshold. They hit a plateauwhere Lincoln Electric they
popped up on the clouds andLincoln Electric bottom you read

(04:06):
welders. They snag you up andyou're working there now and I
believe you do stuff still inCutting Systems. Is that is that
right?

Unknown (04:13):
Yeah. So I started off my relationship. Shortly after
King I left king of the hammers.
I started up a little marketingagency that was focused on
racing and off road. And so wehad some good clients Kawasaki.
We worked with them the offroadBusiness Association and towards
me, and so bill was contractingwith me to kind of manage some
of their race program. Thenafter Lincoln purchased, we

(04:37):
stayed on board for a while andthen Lincoln offered me a full
time gig so went to work fortorch mate started off with just
some basic marketing and blockand tackle work for them and
kind of grew through theorganization. And at this point,
I think I've held every frontend of the house job within
Lincoln or excuse me withintorch made included even manage

(04:58):
the business for a little while,two years ago. So just a
tremendous opportunity to growwithin Lincoln. And today, I
still manage a group of fourmarketing for torch mate. We've
got a lot of structural steelstuff that we're responsible
for. I've got a team of peopleall over the world that work in
marketing and productdevelopment. So my newest gig

(05:20):
with LinkedIn is we're focusedon product development, they
moved our product developmentover to the marketing function
for for the cutting products.
And so I've got a few productmanagers that report to me, and
we're just trying to build somereally exciting new products.

So when we were working to schedule this up, you
told me you had some timingconstraints, because I think you
were managing a team that'smaybe in Europe, or you were on
a different schedule. So you'rehaving to be up really early in
the morning, but also late atnight. Is that still going on?
Oh, yeah,

Unknown (05:53):
yeah, my days start typically about 5am, sometimes a
little earlier. And they gountil four or five in the
afternoon. So we're pumping outa lot of hours right now. We
just purchased a neworganization in Austria, and I'm
part of the integration team forthat. So we're bringing them on
board and pretty excited aboutit. It's automation, robotics,
robotic welding, and assemblyare structural steel.

Well, that's super badass. I have a torch,
right and myself, I absolutelysuck at it. You know, you see
guys, they just think in thatthree dimensional cut world. And
in X, Y axis, my head justdoesn't work that way. But I do
have a torch mate. And so I tooka Polish, of course, actually
drove by the Lincoln facilityhere in Houston, every day,
twice a day, once each way. Andthey have a they have a pretty

(06:37):
sweet little building. Andthey've got a little clap
classroom in there. And thenthey got a big shop in the back
with a lot of test equipment.
And then yeah, they had a crashalmost. It was a four day
course. It was a multiple daycourse. Who's your main trainer?
You said his name? I definitelyremember feel like it like
Spencer. Jake, Jake read or he?
He it was he? That's who it was.
So is he still with you guys?

(07:00):
Oh, yeah,

Unknown (07:01):
yeah, he's the face of torch mate. He does all of our
video tutorials and ourmarketing videos and stuff. So
I'm really fortunate, I was ableto build a full video production
team in Reno. So we shoot a lotof video, we're doing always
doing a lot of video stuff,which is the wave of the future.
You know, everybody, nobodywants to read a book, they just
want to watch a video.

Yeah. And then you go back and hit pause and
backup if you missed it. Andsome and that's really been what
helped me, but I will tell you.
Yeah, he was awesome. Like Isaid, I sat through, I want to
say was three or four days ofcourses with ag. And, you know,
looking at the new system. Andyou know, my system at this
point is, gosh, I won't say it'slike a 2010 or 2011 model. So
it's it's a decade old, it stillcuts great, but you know, I

(07:42):
don't use it remotely to itspotential. And maybe I use it
once every two months. It's notvery, it's not very often, he
shows me the new model, the new4400 that was sitting there and
working through that. And I waslike, wow, I need this. I really
need this. And then like hegives me the price on I was
like, Well, I don't need this.

Unknown (08:04):
Yeah, you know, for those that are paying attention,
you might see the my thumbprints on the 4400. With the
name, it's a little bit of a nodto our legacy. So there was some
pushback when I when I pickedthe name for that series.
everybody's like, why are wecalling it a 4400 dice at all? I
just think it's a great number.

I mean, I did I can see the connection I
certainly associated in my headwhat but I didn't know that
there was well now we knowthere's the big easter egg.
Yeah, sir. And those thosemachines are something else and
they've taken your just CNCplasma cutting has taken, you
know, our genre of Motorsports,all Motorsports to just this
next level, and then being ableto get them you know, torch

(08:47):
might take them to the pointwhere you hit, you know, the
hobby guy can get one in his inhis own garage, and have one in
that. I mean, you still have theability to take, you know, hand
plasma and a grinder or, ortorch and a grinder or you know,
a bandsaw and a flat disc andstill create meant to get rep
you know, if you're doing youknow, set of 16 tabs. You want

(09:09):
them all to look the same. Yeah,you know, back in the day when
we were getting 25 and $30,000for a car that was built. That
was one thing today these carsare $100,000 and they're just it
looks like some garage millhack. Shit. It's not gonna fetch
that it's it's just not so whattorchlight did for pirate and

(09:31):
then what it did for kind ofKing hammer stuff, man remember
when they used to have a tableon the like bed, man. So a

Unknown (09:39):
lot of tables down there. I mean, that's really a
testament to Bill Coons vision.
He's, you know, he was the onethat pushed that and really had
this idea that everybody canhave a machine in their garage,
then towards me, it's beenaround a long time his dad
started the business. I think itwas 1979 when they started
selling pentagram kits out ofthe back. Popular Mechanics so
been around a long time, I thinkthey really push the envelope

(10:02):
and blink and brought a lot tothe table and opened up doors to
develop new things. And, youknow, it's they got 11,000
employees around the globe orjust about 11,000 employees. So
you get a lot of opportunity to,to meet really smart people when
it comes to this industry. Andthe thing I like about Lincoln
is they don't really diversifyout of the industry, they're

(10:22):
really focused on puttingtogether an acorn to oak
platform for somebody that'sinto manufacturing. So you know,
they can help you, if you got aconstruction business, they can
help you if you've got a lightsout manufacturing business, and
they can help you if you're justa guy with a dream in your
garage that's working on thefloor with a vise in a grinder,
like you're talking about. So Igot something for everybody.

I'm gonna have to send you an invoice for the
advertising you're getting here.
Not just a great company, Ireally believe in them and they
got a great history. I'm fullywith you there. Like I said,
I've been very happy with mypiece of equipment and I needed
a little touch up trainingsession and I got an email from
you guys. And I had a window onmy schedule. I went and he was
the man I really appreciate theguy and I know you can pick up

(11:06):
the phone and call your techsupport. It's all really good
and set up. Let's actually talkabout ultra for and the reason
I've got you on right what is inwe're talking about current
affairs for you, basically life,life after racing, like that
exist. That's number one. In mybook, you're kind of like an
older Gypsy, you know, you'relike an older Kyle segolene. You

(11:27):
know, you like you You have thisbeautiful brain, great human,
and you will apply it but at theend of the day, you're always
doing something that is a littlebit different and off from
everybody else.

Unknown (11:42):
That's fair. That's fair. So I guess we're we go
anywhere you want with this.
Why? You know, I think it wasright around the time of the Oji
13 event. I will call it or nonevent. I was actually planning
to be there Dave and I had madethese plans before we jumped
there

sure go back to the exact Genesis like where you
guys sitting at a bar with awith a napkin and you wrote it
down on the back are as talkingto Randy slawson slawson said,
Hey, David said, you know, theywere they were on whatever his
Toyota on 30 ones on wreckingball or somewhere. And, and
Randy said we basically laughedhim three times. And David said,

(12:23):
you know, that was like theinspiration was like, Well, why
do we do this show? Why don't wejust see if we can do all the
trails? Yeah,

Unknown (12:30):
so the one thing I would just my disclaimer to
this, and I'm really, I'm reallybig on studying this topic right
now is perception, right? Soeverybody's history is going to
be a little different. And mydisclaimer is that my history is
probably a little different thansome of the other history
because what I remember bits andpieces, absolutely. And
perception really kind of drivesthat. So what I would say is, it

(12:53):
goes back to when Dave and Imet, we were my wife, and my
brother and his wife, werepromoting what was called crca,
the California rock crawlersAssociation,

and we're going to talk about that here in the
future. As we get into correctchronology.

Unknown (13:07):
You know, there was a group of people, Bart Dixon
comes to mind Kary, steiners.
And other there was a group ofpeople that I've just four
wheeled with. For our part, weweren't really in that group of
people weren't really in theloop with the Pirate four by
four crowd, there was all theselittle factions or tribes, if
you will, based around clubs.
And so everybody had their ownlittle deal. But But what we

(13:29):
like to do was, you know, wewould go out to the hammers in
the summertime, when there wasnobody around on a Friday
afternoon after work orsomething, you just go run
trails, and we just pick atrail, go run it, come back, and
then you know, get back at onetwo in the morning and you pack
up or drink a couple beersaround the fire and then go home
in the morning. So we were uptrying to run trails pretty fast

(13:51):
back then. There's like lastCody's Indian reservations,
Scott Hartman and I were in aJeep club together. We used to
spend a lot of time there. Andwe would go out on night runs
and run pretty fast. Usually, italways happened after you had a
few beers, and you and you'd goout on a night run and
shenanigans would happen. Butthis idea of going trail racing,
if you will, the folks thatavalanche ranch Weaver Mike

(14:15):
Weaver, I think he was doing anavalanche ranch race with zarei.
In the early days, he had the 24hours on the hammers, events. So
this idea of bringing theexcitement of Baja into rock
crawling was always interestingto me. So you know, Dave, and I
met through my step mom nowy. Wegot together, and we're talking

(14:36):
about some ideas. I'm still kindof formulating this idea for a
virtual racing platform. AndDave and I got together to talk
about how could you do this? Andyou know, 12 years ago, 15 years
ago, that didn't exist at all.
We didn't know what apps were.
And Dave was the one that saidlook, instead of trying to make
this so complicated, why don'twe just put on a race and go do

(14:57):
the race and that kind of wasKind of just set aside, it was
like, hey, that's a great idea.
Until Dave kind of said, Look, Ijust want to do it. Let's just
do it. You know, unfortunately,I had some issues with business
I had at the time, I wasn't ableto attend the PG 13. That's a
whole nother story where I hadto back out the day before and
not show up because I wasdealing with some business
issues. But that's kind of howit happened. I mean, it really

(15:19):
was not much more than just anidea on on the napkin. I think
we were at an Applebee's orChili's or something like that
in San Bernardino, where we gottogether just started
spitballing ideas. And nextthing, you know, the king of the
hammers happens.

And you said, I've heard you say this, you
know, oh, gee, 13. And, youknow, JT, let us all know, you
know, there was only 12 of them.
But you push back on that. Andyou say, No, there really was 13
it was Dave was number 13. outrunning around in front trying
to keep everybody

Unknown (15:50):
that's my feeling. You know, I if anybody ever asked
me, there's 13 and Dave would bethe 13th guy. So he was part of
that Oji tribe or or group, ifyou will, that made it happen.
So there's 13 To my mind, andI'll be more than happy to take
that 13 spot to King of thehammers if I ever want to race
if if he's not interested in

it. So Oh, I like that. Yeah. Well, I think I
think you should we need to lineyou up a car and and figure it
out. I mean, today, he can getinto UTV and they'll let you
run, right.

Unknown (16:22):
Yeah, that was part of my exit agreement. So I do have
a standing invitation for Kingof the hammers whenever I want
it. So I don't have to qualify.

Oh, there you go. You get to write your rule.
So that was a Oh, seven, then.
Oh, 8090 10. And then you x did?
When did you exit about 1112?
Somewhere in there?

Unknown (16:41):
I think 11 I got to look at my notes. I can't really
remember. But I think it wasaround 11. Yeah. 2011. And that
was shortly after the race in2011.

I mean, that was a shock. At now hindsight,
looking back. And even you youyou haven't perspective in
retrospect on this, which isalways interesting to have that
conversation now at the time wasthat you you approached Dave to
buy him out? Or he he wanted youout? What was kind of the as we
look back at it, you know,wounds have healed and band aids

(17:14):
have been pulled off. And whatwas kind of the, I don't know,
the genesis of

Unknown (17:20):
it wasn't that clean?
You know, there was anybodythat's worked with Dave knows
that it can be difficult attimes. And looking back on it, I
will tell you, I wish I was moremature in business at the time
to maybe check some of myemotions. But we fought like
cats and dogs and we had somefamous fights, we actually left
Bart Dixon standing in themiddle of the desert, in the
summer with no water took off inhis truck, because we didn't

(17:43):
want to fight in front of him.
And I don't remember if we wentback picked him up for a walk
back to camp or what, but he'spretty sore about the whole
thing. We had some pretty famousfights and the 2011 race was
especially difficult, you know,with BLM permits, and all these
new safety rules that had to beimplemented. You know, it just
was a case where I no longerwanted to have a partner, you

(18:07):
know, the I don't want to dig upbones or pull up baggage. But
that whole year, that wholeseason, we had launched the
there was a lot of tryingepisodes, I would say, we
launched the race up in Reno,the stampede, and it was just a
it was a difficult year forgrowth. And, you know, I wasn't
in a position where I wanted tohave a partner anymore. So I

(18:28):
asked to buy out Dave and Dave,you know, said look, I'm not
interested in selling, you know,either we're gonna work this
out, or we're all making thesame offer, you're making me and
I accepted his offer unless theorganization.

So I remember, some my daughter was born, you
know, like seven days beforethat race. So I wasn't at the
20 11k wage. And we're you know,is this kind of transpired and
made its waves through Facebookwas still for the most part
infancy there was still a littlebit of a pirate, but when that
news reached, you know, the restof us that you guys had parted

(19:03):
ways it was it was like, Oh mygosh, the world's ending. And it
didn't, right. I mean, it's it'sgone on, they've just taken
ultra Florida where we see ittoday, I'm gonna come almost a
loss for words. He's a big ideaguy, and everyone will tell you
that and he's done some justabsolutely amazing things. Do
you think if you were if he'dgone the other way, you know,

(19:24):
this alternate reality where Mr.
Destiny happens and it's youended up with it and Dave walks
away. Where do you think ultraforce sits today? You know, with
the different management styles,different ideas, styles? What's
your take on where you wouldhave gone with it?

Unknown (19:40):
I don't think it would be nearly as big as it is today.
If I had taken the helm I'm alot more conservative. You know,
I you know, we've talked aboutthis offline. And you know, over
the years why, you know, thebusiness was held was healthy.
When I was there with solvent.
We paid our bills on time. Idon't know what it is now. But
that's The big deal to me is tomake sure that you've got enough

(20:01):
capital to keep going and beable to do the next event. So we
were always in a pretty goodspot while I was there. And
again, I don't know what it isnow. But you know, growth costs
money. I know that and that thatbusiness has grown tremendously.
There's a lot of choices thathe's made that I think have been
very successful that I justwouldn't have, frankly, had the

(20:22):
guts to do. I mean, yeah, theguy and the guy goes for it.
There's no doubt.

He does, you know, and, and yeah, we've
again, talked about working withDave is trying and difficult.
And, you know, even you know, myside just been media covering,
covering the organization hasbeen, you know, interesting and
trying, but I give him kudoshe's done. He's done something
else. I'm always curious to seewhere we would have been, had

(20:49):
you been there and in your takeon that, and not saying that you
were better or worse, or Davewas better or worse. It was
just, you know, it's sometimesyou know, you like a coke and
sometimes you like a Pepsi?
Yeah, yeah,

Unknown (21:01):
I feel, I mean, for lack of a better word, I'd say I
feel very blessed for thatopportunity to grow something
like that, to have an idea andto see it come and become what
it is. But you know, there's aprice that's paid that goes with
that. I like to think I have avery strong marriage after
almost 31 years, I'm not surethat my marriage and family

(21:22):
would have come out in the sameposition had I still been
basically being a carny, youknow, chasen racing all over the
country. So, you know, that's atrade off that I'm, I'm
satisfied with I you know, I'mvery, very happy that it's done,
what it's done, therelationships that I was able to
build, you know, I think that'swhat I miss more than anything

(21:42):
about racing. It's not so muchthe thrill, or, or the
adrenaline rush of racing, it'smore about the relationships
that that race community has, Imean, you just don't see things
like competitor willing to giveyou a complete axle assembly or
differential or drive shaft orgive you a wheel and tire off of
his car while he's racing. Youknow, you just don't see that

(22:03):
everywhere. And I think that'swhat's great about ultra for
that community. The thing that Iwas most proud of is unlike any
other kind of racing that I knowof, in those early years when
the winner came across thefinish line he didn't leave
stayed there. I stayed there forhours and hours and hours
welcoming everybody across thefinish line and you may recall

(22:24):
that we did the same thing wewent to best in the desert you
know every other racer wouldpeel out and there'd be all
these ultra for guys crowdedaround the finish line rooting
for the guys are competing toget the greatest thing in the
world to me is that communitywas so tight and you know I'm
not close to it now but Isuspect is still pretty tight.

Yeah, no, it really has you talk to guys like
Lauren Haley and Lauren willtell you the day that turns into
not that is the day that hehangs it up and I think a lot of
other competitors have that samethat same thought and same
mindset that uh i mean don't getme wrong there's still some
secrets right there's still somesecret sauce and some setup but
by and large it's it's stillopen versus you go to a drag

(23:05):
race and they hear nothingthere's you've got to hire one
of their crew guys to get in thesecret sauce and and even then
that's unlikely going to happenso let's get into Jeff no let's
let's get into where you'refrom. So you're from Menifee,
California. You brought up yourwife you've been married to
Angie for 31 years. It'll be 31years this month. Yeah.

(23:27):
Congratulations on that. Andthen growing up in Menifee?
That's an interesting area likewhen you know the first time I
was there was with you I'mriding around a truck with you
it's 2009 Vegas to Reno is on Idon't remember exactly the setup
of how I ended up in that mix.
But I do know I buy a planeticket I flight Ontario

(23:49):
California so you pick me up atthe airport for for Vegas render
you've got your your your superduty it's all you know, Chase
trucked out and you drive methrough Menifee and over to
Wayne Israel since to dad'splace. And the thing that I was
shocked about around the Menifeearea was it looked like that's
where they filmed wild westshows from the 60s and 70s.

(24:12):
These like rock stars do theserock formations just next to the
road. And they were the big hugeboulder rocks and all those
things are like well, no wonderyou guys were all in a rock
crawling because you didn't haveto go anywhere. You just have to
have a you grew up in a housethat had the best you rock
course right in your backyard.

(24:32):
Yeah,

Unknown (24:32):
I had an actual rock racing course on my ranch
property. So you know, we brokeplenty of stuff at the ranch we
used to have. I had a birthdayparty. It was for my son and
myself and kind of Memorial Daybecause Cody's birthday is this
weekend that's on Saturday. Wehad a big party one year and
just told everybody bring theircrawlers and I mean it we ended

(24:53):
up having a rock crawlingcompetition with you know big
speakers and big party and therewas broken junk everywhere. I
mean, people just destroyedtheir cars and I had a blazer
there that belonged to the fullour brothers. I think the thing
was there for two years becausethey never came to get it after
they busted it up at that party.

All the flying philosophies. Yeah. Well, that's
a good good times. Well, sothere's Eric. What's his
brother's name? Ryan Ryan.
That's it. Yeah. Ryan there.
Yeah. fallar Yeah. And thenthose guys in Jeep speeds and
help man out we do have a lot ofdistance to cover. Yeah, so
Yeah, right there. I remember wepull into your place you lived

(25:34):
on was it no lane like the roadwas named after your family?
You've been there so long? Yeah,I put the sign up. No. ranch
road. You did it.

Unknown (25:43):
Yeah. We've been there a long time. I think our family
was the the third owners Thehouse was built. I don't know.
When there was no manaphy it wasMenifee Wilson was actually the
homesteader that built theproperty. That was his mining
claim that the ranch was builton. So I think we were probably
the only the third owners in myfamily moved there in 1972 or

(26:07):
73. My mom and dad moved outthere and there really wasn't
anything out in Menifee. So wegot away with pretty much murder
as kids ride in our dirt bikesall over the place. And you
know, I met mograph family, Ithink in probably 1975 or 76.
And just tore a motorcycles upall over that valley all the

(26:30):
time. We were kids just ridingriding as much as we could.

And that's what I was in awe of, you know, being
a Kansas growing up in Kansasand I knew Jeremy McGrath was
and there I am riding around,man, a few of you and you're
like, Oh, yeah, I grew up ridingdirt bikes with Jeremy McGrath.
I mean, this is you guys aregoing about like famous race
folks that I've only heard of,you know, like, like Ivan
Stewart was with you when I met,you know, Ivan, the Iron Man the

(26:56):
first time and it was like,that's Ivan Stewart. Like I
remember playing his racing gameat the Pizza Hut. Yeah, yeah,
we're

Unknown (27:04):
fortunate they're in Southern California. I mean,
it's really the epicenter for awhile Menifee was the epicenter
motocross world. Bunch of theguys live there. The who's who
of motocross there and probablythe late 90s to the 2000s was
benefi.

That's where you went. And so you and Angie,
you guys catch 31 years, so thatbacks us up to 9099. Yeah, okay.
Yeah, we went to high schooltogether. And then you guys have
a couple of kids. They'readulting today there. Yep, way
long gone.

Unknown (27:36):
One One more than the other. Trina's. adulting. a
little harder than Cody. He'sholding on for it. Can't blame
him.

Fair enough.
So, yeah, you've got onedaughter. Where did she so you
flew the Cuckoo's Nest. Youguys, you and Angie got out of
there. Is she still back inCalifornia? Or did you bail and
she bailed too or

Unknown (27:55):
Trina left for she? She went to school at the University
of Montana, never came back. Wespent a lot of summers up in
Montana at Carey steiners. Placeher cabin off grid and enjoyed
Montana and Trina was able tomake friends in Montana a lot
better than she couldn't. So Calhas a different different
lifestyle. So she just felt likeshe fit in more in Montana. And

(28:17):
so when the time came, you know,she applied for schools really
early on, and was able to get ascholarship partial scholarship
for the University of Montana.
And so she left. I think she wasstill 17 when she headed up to
Montana and went to school upthere and met a really nice guy
and she's married now and has anine month old baby girl. And
they live in Polson, Montana, myson in law's hometown.

So that makes you and Angie grandparents
house. That's right. That'sgreat. It's a good transition.
It is. It's awesome. Reallyawesome. Oh, but I bet that is
I'm not even close to that. I'mactually kind of scared even to
ponder that thought of my kidshaving kids. So but Yeah, wow.
Okay. And then Cody. We all knowCody, he's Khodro for folks.

(29:03):
He's raised he's, he's a welder.
Did he go to fab school? No, hewent to the Lincoln Electric
Welding School Lincoln likeokay,

Unknown (29:12):
so he's got Pettit, he's pedigree welder, man. I
don't even know how many certshe has. He went in to get three
certs and I think he came outwith six or seven. He made
friends with the teachers there.
He didn't have anything to do.
He's alone and Cleveland, Ohiogo into this welding school. So
he made a deal with them that hecould stay after and clean every
day. And they said, Well, wecan't pay you but we'll pay for

(29:35):
certs and we'll get you extratraining. So he really he did a
great job there. We've got abrand new weld school Lincoln
now but the old weld school.
They had these cinderblockstalls for each of the students.
And Cody had kind of paintedmurals and stuff on his and one
of the things he had done withhis chalk was he he painted shut
up and weld and I went backabout, I don't know a year after

(29:58):
he was Gone that was stillpainted on the wall. And I said,
Hey, you guys didn't you know,my kid graffitied the wall in
here? You guys didn't clean up.
There I go, No, man, that'sCody's booth. He's, uh, he's,
that's, we're gonna keep that onthe wall forever. So he really
made an impact back there. And,you know, he's a, he's an old

(30:18):
school welder as a kid, youknow, he wants to do everything,
exactly by the book and right.
And that doesn't always playwell with some folks. But, you
know, he's very processoriented. And you know, his
feeling is, I'm gonna weldsomething's gonna protect
somebody's life. I'm gonna putmy name on it, it's gonna be
welded, right? So he doesn't cutany corners and pretty proud of

(30:39):
him. He does a great job.

I think so I'm, I'm a big fan of Cody's
Actually, he beat you on thetalent tank. Before you know
this, you talked aboutperspective, you know, looking
back and, or perception, let'sgo my words perspective
perception. How you perceivewhat happened to the event, and
different people have differentstories over the same minute.

(31:03):
Well, it's like, three peoplecan watch the exact same thing
happen and then you're gonna getthree different stories and, or
if you have two people arguing,you know, there's at least three
stories to those two people areusing his his and what actually
happened, right. So yeah. SoCody came on, but I remember,
Cody got out of school. And thenI think he ended up did he
immediately end up in Floridaworking on that combined cycle,

(31:26):
power plant build?

Unknown (31:27):
No, he came to work at torch mate for a few weeks or a
month or so. And he made nobones about it. He stayed as a
temp. And HR was trying to gethim to convert to a full time
and he's like, Nope, I'm a tempand I'm, you know, I want to
have the freedom to leave at amoment's notice. And so my
brother works for floor. And hegot him on on that on that job
in Florida. They basicallycalled him I think on a Thursday

(31:50):
and said, Hey, if you want thejob, you need to be here Monday.
And he threw everything he hadin his little Jeep Lj and that
poor thing was on the bumpstopsand he drove it across country
and started up that job.

The floor is headquartered right here in
Sugarland, Texas. So, I know alot of people that work at
floor, and then that's it. Thatwas a cool project. And I
remember when I saw maybe onFacebook or Instagram, seeing
that he'd landed there. I waslike, wow, this is a this is a
really cool step for him. And sowhen he was down there, what a
couple years and then came backto California.

Unknown (32:23):
Yep. Yeah. TIG welding all night long. Oh, he's got a
lot of TIG experience. He'sprobably well, but mile TIG.

Yeah. boiler tubes and, and all that jazz.
Yeah, he's a, he's somethingelse. But yeah, so I've got even
my phone. I'll text him everynow and then. And I'll hit him
up is like a subject matterexpert on on various things like
or to settle or resolve or giveme some information.

Unknown (32:50):
He doesn't forget anything. I mean, I don't even
try anymore. I just asked him.
You know, I don't even try toremember I'll just say hey,
Cody, what? What was this? orWhat was that? Because if you go
against him, he'll he'll callyou out? No, it's always been
that way. Since he's a littlekid. He just very attentive and
listens a lot. And when he talksthough, he's usually telling the
truth.

He'll text me things like that, like, Hey, I'm
episode, whatever with whoeveryour facts are wrong. I don't I
never to be the keeper of thefacts. You know, I it's my
reality. My reality was this.
And that's how I remembered itdoesn't mean it was correct. It
was close. Right? I maybe got usin the ballpark. Close enough.

(33:30):
Close enough. So he's downthere. You're over in Reno now.
And Angie, I believe and she'steaching, she's been teaching.

Unknown (33:41):
Yeah, she's a history teacher. She's actually very
close to finishing up hermaster's in western history.

What is she gonna do with that? hanging on
the wall? I've been asking herthat question all the time. Oh,
dang that,

Unknown (33:54):
but she's, uh, you know, she's very passionate
about history, especially inthese times, you know, where the
Biden administration's tradechanging up some things. She's
really passionate about makingsure that the kids know what's
true history is and she'sfocused on the western states
and the contribution that thewestern states made to, you
know, the US becoming asuperpower. So I mean, she's a

(34:16):
wealth of information. I justlike to say she's a historian,
because that's pretty much whatshe is. She can tell you almost
anything you want to know aboutWestern history in the United
States. Well, there you go. Thatbrings me to a an interesting
analogy I had recently have youread the book, The Accidental
superpower? No, I have notadapted

to my list. So it and I'm sure people are like,
Oh, what's this book? Why? Well,it's basically the hit the
history of the US how the USbecame a superpower. And despite
the American's best efforts tototally ruin our place in the
world, that no matter how bad wescrewed up any of the world
wars, we were going to be asuperpower, baby on natural

(35:00):
resources, there was no wayaround it. We really, if we did
we have this country, we have ahistory of many missteps. If we
look in history that should havewould have taken down many other
countries, but because of ournatural resources and our
competitive advantage, theaccidental superpower was us. It
was it was us. And so this, thiscame up, and I kind of, you

(35:24):
know, I couldn't help but drawthe parallels to King of the
hammers. And in Dave on this,like, despite sometimes Dave's
best efforts to torpedo, variousthings are very people, the king
hammers was going to besuccessful, no matter who was at
the helm, now would have been asbig as it is today with him, or

(35:46):
the different alternate realityif it had been you. I have no
idea. I mean, I'm just, youknow, throwing spitballs at the
wall, but uh, but I couldn'thelp it think about Wow, was
that location in SouthernCalifornia in Johnson Valley,
and then the timing, you know,the timing of pirate and where
we built up this camaraderiewhere, when to that by the time

(36:10):
2008 happened, and you end upwith 50 racers, and then 2900
racers, you showed up on thelake bed, and you knew
everybody, like, I'd never metyou before. And you pick me up
with your truck in Ontario,California got it. And I was
like, we're all buddies.

Unknown (36:24):
I think that they could probably do a case study on how
that worked in the middle of arecession. You know, I learned a
lot of really valuable lessonsfrom starting king of the
hammers and going through kingof the hammers. People told us,
we were crazy. I mean,literally, people told us, we
were crazy, nobody's gonna dothis, nobody's gonna build a car

(36:44):
for this, you know, you're outof your minds. And I, one of the
lessons I learned is that you'vegot to be 100% committed to
whatever it is you're doing. Ifyou want to be successful, you
cannot take something halfway.
And it worked. Because we didn'thave a choice. You know, I, my
business closed up, I had to Ihad to make it work. And I, you
know, I promised my wife, Isaid, look, I think I can make a

(37:08):
go of this Motorsports thing. Ithink I can make money doing
Motorsports. And we don't reallyhave a lot of other choices.
Because the economy's tanked,the construction company we own
just tanked. And, you know, I'mgoing to go in 100%. And I think
that's part of it, you got to be100% committed to whatever it is
that you have on your plate orwhatever target you're focused

(37:31):
on. You got to be all in. Ifyou're not, you're not going to
get there. And I will tell you,I've seen that with other
endeavors I've had, where I'mkind of half into it, not 100%
committed, and it doesn't havethe same effect that we had with
King of the hammers. The otherthing I would say is, it taught
me collaboration is key. Youknow, I practice a lot of the
things I hated. With myrelationship with Dave, I

(37:54):
practice those regularly today,which is getting that
collaborative discussion going,which is almost argumentative at
times, getting healthy debatesgoing. Today, you know, I've
learned to do it with respect,and you leave the emotion out of
it back then I wasn't matureenough to set aside a motion and
get married to a specific idea,you know, but an example I'll

(38:14):
give is, is the LCU. Though Davecame with the idea, the LC Q, I
think today, I think was thebest thing could have happen to
King of the hammers at the time.
You know, it? I didn't think so.
And we got a pretty good fightover it. And what became of it
is what you had, at that timewith the CQ it wasn't really
Dave's idea. And it wasn'treally my idea. It was something

(38:36):
that morphed from that argument,where we took bits and pieces
out of it and created a reallygood product, you know, so those
are some of the lessons I thinkI've learned that have helped me
along the way with my careerpath and, and other things in
life is good, healthy debate isgreat. Let your emotions sit
aside and and, you know, I'monly disappointed that I didn't
learn that younger. Because II've had some rough rows with

(38:59):
some of my partnerships over theyears, because I've got let
emotion get in the way.

No, and you're absolutely correct. That will
burn you down every time I'llburn you where you stand as soon
as you get super emotional, oreven a little bit of emotion.
But don't get me wrong. I don'twant passion to be confused with
emotion. I think you know, youuse your, your your P word. I
have a couple you know, I'd liketo use a passion and
perspective, you know, wassomewhat interchangeably as soon

(39:27):
as you lose perspective forwhatever you're working on or
working on, or working with inas soon as you lose that or you
lose passion. It's dead. Likeyou said, you know what you're
remembering, that plays in aswell. But when it comes to that
emotion, you have to bepassionate about it. But there's
a place for holding youremotions in check to where your,

(39:52):
you know, anger and elation andkind of those check downs. Don't
cloud your judgment and We'reall we're just human. I mean,
we're human. We're all guilty ofit. So at the end of the day,
when someone does that, whensomeone gets, you know, shows,
you know, anger in front of meabout something, or are you I
look at that as, wow, they arereally passionate about this. I

(40:17):
had underestimated their passionfor what we're debating or what
we're talking about, or what theissue is or what the problem is.
I'd under estimated that now, Ialso still think that, you know,
I find that to be immature, Ithink you've you've got to
certainly go down that path ofshowing the anger there shows
immaturity, and I think you evenbrought that up, like back then

(40:38):
I was immature. And I don't knowthat. Maybe Cody has it at a
young age, I didn't have it, Istill, I still will get angry
about things. And five minuteslater, in retrospect, I'm like,
God, I'm an idiot.

Unknown (40:51):
Well, the ego certainly plays a part in all of that,
right. So that takes a longtime, I think, to be able to get
your hands around ego, you gotto have an ego, if you're going
to be involved in motor sports,you know, if you don't, you
can't, you can't win, you're notgoing to be somebody that's
going to compete, if you don'thave a bit of an ego, it just
takes a while to be able to flipthe switch and say, Okay, my ego
is driving this. And this isn'tmaking bad decisions here. The

(41:14):
ego is really the enemy here.
Not, not Dave or not Wyatt ornot Cody, or whoever, you know,
whoever you're debating with,and I actually, in today's
world, I crave good debate, Icrave it, and it's hard to find
people that can you can have areally meaningful, deep
discussion with whatever thetopic is, to where you can
really get, you know, fired up.

(41:36):
And then, you know, have a beertogether afterwards and still be
friends. You know, I've got afriend, I'm not gonna say his
name, but he's in the industry.
And he challenges me. I mean, Ilove having conversations with
him because he, he challenges mehe will say, you know, does that
really the way you feel? Did youreally? I mean, that's done.
Come on, man. really feel thatway? Really? And then just go,

(42:00):
yeah, you're probably right. Idon't really feel that way.
Being combative.

I need to rethink about this will in the
day and age will you're not onFacebook, which you know, we'll
drop that in there you are onInstagram. But that's even been
a flirting conflict between youand social media there. But
yeah, not on Facebook. We'retoday Facebook, if you want to
start a fight, man, just keep onyour keyboard ran it, you know,
it was at least back it feltlike in the pirate days, we

(42:27):
there would be some fights. Butfor the most part, there was
like a pretty high level ofaccountability. Even though we
had different screen names. Itstill knew who big burly naked
guy was and you still JeepRecovery Team was we knew each
other. And now on Facebook. Imean, anyone that sees me on
Facebook, well, I don't use myreal name on there. I'm Tripp

(42:47):
Nichols, for triple nickelracing. And it came down to just
in my neighborhood, myneighborhood is a very, I should
say, blue, very blue County. Ilive in a very blue county and
I'm a very Read, read guy andeverything can be construed as
whatever your perspective is,you sometimes she'll make

(43:10):
mountains out of molehills,sometimes they make things out
of it's called like reading yourhoroscope. Right. The horoscope
is. Well, it's written to kindof fit everyone. And so when you
read it, you're like, oh,they're talking to me? No,
they're talking to everybody.
It's like a or a fortune cookie.
You know, it's it's kind of thatlike, you can make sure you can

(43:31):
make it up to be about you. Butit was never it wasn't about
you. And and somehow we're inthis in this spot in the life of
our country where everything isit's not about what's real, and
what's fact it's about how itmakes people feel. And it's
about the feelings.

Unknown (43:48):
Yeah, I miss pirate. I wish we still had that platform.
I wish forums were still popularenough that I think that
platform lends itself well tothose kinds of discussions. I
mean, you're not going to have abuild thread on Facebook, you're
not going to really learn how toshave a 14 bolt on Facebook, but
you certainly could on pirate.
You know, you could learn how toset up geometry on pirate for

(44:09):
suspension system, you're notgoing to learn that on Facebook,
you're not gonna learn onInstagram. It's it's shallow.
That's why I don't like themedium. I think it's too
shallow. And you know, I learneda while back when I was on
pirate that. Keep in mind that,you know, communication requires
multiple forms. So you can'tjust do it in written word. You
know, you got to have the toneand you got to have the body

(44:32):
language to go with it. Socialmedia is even worse. Social
media is these little, you know,two second tidbits of nonsense
that you may or may not evensee. Because they control the
algorithms. At least with pirateyou saw everything you wanted to
see. You know, it was all there.
You could do a search. I don'tknow. Can you do a search on
Facebook?

I don't think so. Maybe you can read it. It
sucks. It's terrible. And thenlike if you that used to be Hey,
I saw that in general four byfour. I saw Yesterday, so it's
probably if it's not on pageone, because it's good stuff,
it's probably about on pagethree, and you knew where to go.
Facebook does not work that wayat all. Because the algorithms
are constantly shuffling andfront end loading and waiting,

(45:13):
what it wants to show you. Sojust in probably because you've
now seen it or scrolled past it,it gets knocked to the bottom of
the algorithm list. And so youprobably will never see it
again, unless you happen toremember who have your friend
list posted, whatever, whatever,whatever. And then you go find
their wall. So yeah, it's, buthere we are this the world we're

(45:36):
in.

Unknown (45:36):
Yeah, when I first started with Lincoln, I used my
Facebook as an experimentalplatform to figure out how I
could drive more social reachfor torch me. And so it you
know, for me, it was a tool Ineeded to use, I don't manage
the social platforms for any ofthe Lincoln products anymore. We
have people that do that. So Idon't have to be involved in it.
So I'm not, you know, that'sthat contributed to me leave.

(45:58):
And I was I was like, Look, Ifor me, it was a tool, I could
go make experimental posts andsee how to get a better reach
for myself. And then whatever, Icould learn experimenting, I
could, you know, apply inbusiness. But today, I don't
really have a need for I do missbeing able to keep up with
people. I think that's the piecethat I wish I had more of. But
hey, you know, most people knowmy phone number. And I'm just as

(46:20):
guilty, I can pick up the phoneand call somebody to which I
much prefer over trying to chatwith somebody on a I am or
Facebook dm or something likethat.

So I'm almost a little bit different than that.
I think there's, I'm not uniquein this. And basically, don't
call me if it's something youcan send me in text. Like, I
find that phone calls, I willabsolutely talk to you. But I
find that based on your busybusiness management as well,

(46:49):
between a meeting every 30minutes all day long, you know,
a lunch meeting your My phone isconstant, it's either ringing or
it's text messages blowing up.
Plus, you've got emails, andyour multiple emails with
multiple, you find yourself in asituation where just being
overloaded with touch points. Soit's hard to get up from a
meeting and go have a phonecall. It's hard to walk away

(47:10):
from dinner and have a phonecall. It's hard to know I think
that's probably why like, youknow, guys like JT Taylor, Scott
Hartman, have, you know, I'vehad conversations with them just
in the past week. And what timedid we do it? You know, JT was
at like, 1030 last night. Andlast week when I was talking to
Scott, it was 1130 Central time.
And so you know, there's thisquestion of, I love those guys.

(47:31):
Man, I actually kind of foughtfor went some sleep to have a
conversation with him. That'show that's how important their
relationship is to me that ifI'm willing to forego sleep to
talk to you, you land up there.
So I don't know where I wasgoing that but it I do, like
being able to reach back andstay in touch with everyone.
And, and I've certainly I thinkit's cool, but I do I do Misil
platform. But as I digress,anyway, back in the 80s, I'm

(47:56):
gonna go back to you and minifeeyou've you got into offroad
motor sports at a very earlyage. I think your your dad was
into a buggy club. I think youguys spent a lot of time at
Glamis. And I think you actuallyhad a job out there if I
remember my details kind ofcorrectly on you. How far off on
or die just describe somebodyelse?

Unknown (48:18):
No, no, you're pretty much dead on. I like to tell my
kids that I've got an off roadpedigree because I been involved
and have the luxury of beingaround some really awesome
people through that are off roadrelated. I got my first
motorcycle I think 1975 it wasone of those little Honda trail
trail 50s with the foldinghandlebars. I don't know if my

(48:40):
dad borrowed it from somebody orwhere he got it. But, you know,
I was mobbed and that thingpretty fast and then jumped on
my my mom's she had a stepthrough 90 and I was riding that
I think when I was six yearsold, so my parents divorced I
want to say around 1980 and mydad was part of the Looney
tuners, buggy Club, which spenta lot of time in Glamis. My mom

(49:02):
and dad both used to take us toGlamis. When we were kids, we I
had a first and RM six Suzukiarm 60 and then a Rm 80. And,
you know, a bunch of atcs andthings like that. But after my
parents divorced my dad ended upmarrying my stepmom, no, he who
is Chuck Boardman'sstepdaughter. So the board

(49:22):
Mudville trading post, we werethere when it was a single wide
trailer out in the middle of thedesert. And they used to serve
ice cream and, you know, they'dhave a couple six packs of beer
and a little ice cooler. And youcould go you know, out in the
desert and refill and add a fueltank, fuel tank there so you get
some gas. And my job was pumpgas on all the major holidays

(49:45):
all through the winter. So we'dstart going out there sometime
before Halloween to get theplace kind of cleaned up and
ready. And I was just there inpump gas every major holiday and
most weekends out at Glamis andin trade for that show. He used
to let us you know, take some ofthe vehicles they had there and
enjoy ride them so I think I wasprobably God I don't even know

(50:09):
if I was 12 I was probably 10 or11 years old learning to drive
out in the Glamis sand dunes ina Volkswagen bus that had paddle
tires on it and bigger engine Ithink it's probably a 2110 or
something in it. They had allthe doors off of it in the wind
all the glass was out of it. Youcould pop wheelies in it because
it was so light and had a bigmotor. So my brother would ride

(50:29):
shotgun and we would go rip thedunes and a Volkswagen bus you
know, pre teenage learning todrive.

I know nothing about VW is but I think I know
this fact and he backed me up onthis or not, was it the buses
had the strong transmission soeveryone was after the bus
transit? Yep. Hmm, is it I don'tknow. Yeah.

Unknown (50:53):
I got to spend a lot of time in Glamis you know through
my preteen years ripping aroundpretty much by myself I you
know, I never got lost out thereI was able to keep up you know,
the keep the chocolate mountainsyou know on the on your left and
that meant you were going homeand if they were on your right
meant you were going away fromhome so wasn't too hard for me

(51:13):
to go out there a lot of timesby myself and go explore.
Although I did go out one timewith my aunt Kelly. I think she
was probably like 19 or 20 andit was the summertime and we had
gone out there's nobody in thedunes and I had a pretty bad get
off on my dirt bike. And I thatwas pretty scary because she
couldn't help me. I was down tothe bottom of a bowl and we

(51:33):
couldn't get the bike out of thedamn bowl. So eventually it just
did a corkscrew and kept ridingcircles around the bowl to like
enough speed to come out of thething but never really had too
much trouble

almost like a carnival Daredevil right riding
around the

Unknown (51:46):
yeah my my aunt Kelly if I remember right, she was
famous for wearing like a bikinitop and you know cut off shorts.
And she was out there in thedunes with no shoes on right in
a Honda 185 s in the summertimeso she couldn't even get off of
the the ATC because she burnedher feet in hot sand. So she
tied her bandana on or on onefoot and I had a bandana on I

(52:08):
gave it to her for the otherfoot she had made some bandanas,
sandals or something to be ableto come help me.

So when did you get so you you run around the
sand dunes? When did you kind ofget into off roading and jeeps
and Toyota's in that world

Unknown (52:26):
that was after Angie and I got together so I had a
Volkswagen bug in high schoolthat never ran because I'd go
out racing it and break it. SoAngie would drive me to school
every day because I couldn'tkeep that stupid bug running.
And shortly after high school, Isold the bug and I bought a 1985

(52:47):
Xr five Toyota pickup truck itstraight axle EFI air
conditioning power windows, itwas really a it's an a unicorn
today. I wish I had that trucktoday. And that's where we
really started four wheel andinstead of the sanding stuff, so
I had been a member of a bunchof mini truck clubs in high

(53:07):
school. So stylin minis was Ithink the most popular one I was
a member of. So it was a lot ofmini trucks stuff in high
school. But there were theseguys that I can't remember the
name of their club but they hadthese big jacked up trucks. And
I just thought that was cool.
That's what I plan to do withthis Toyota pickup truck was
jack it up and you know go dothe mini truck club thing but

(53:28):
but I don't have enough money asa poor guy. So I didn't have the
money to lift it. So we justended up learning how to four
wheel drive and I met Gregjavonni from Safari guard fame.
He later went on to be the D 90guy, the defender fabricator guy
and a gentleman named Roy do whois still a good friend today. We
used to call him rollover Royand the three of us kind of

(53:49):
taught each other how to go fora Whelan and go trail riding and
then eventually turned into moreextreme stuff.

So is that like your incarnation as a Toyota
guy? Cuz I think you're a Jeepguy.

Unknown (54:03):
Yeah, I'm a Jeep guy.
So I still like Toyotas a lot.
The Toyota I had for about at Fdas gangee. But I think we only
had the Toyota for about eightmonths because it got stolen.
The bummer of it is is that Iwas actually living in the
Toyota at the time that it gotstolen. So I was Van lysing
before van life was cool. It hada camper shell on it and I was

(54:24):
living in the back of my Toyotagoing between Riverside to see
Angie and working up in Ventura.
So I basically lived in theparking lot of the Ventura Yacht
Club. And would you use thebathrooms for the liveaboards I
had a key for the liveaboardsthat I use the shower in the
bathrooms in the live you knowlive aboard area and lived in my
Toyota. And when it got stolenit was a bummer because it not

(54:48):
only did I lose all my tools andall my clothes, I lost my house
too. So it was a free sketchytime to not have a place to live
and and thankfully my Barbaratook me in and Angie and I got a
personal loan and we bought ourfirst Jeep which was I think we
paid 2000 bucks for it and itwas a 79 cJ five. We actually
got married. We left our weddingin that Jeep.

You know where that thing is today? Not a clue.
I'd be shocked if you did thevehicle I remember you haven't
as you had a Chevrolet standardcab stepside for drive. It was
like silver gray, but it wassunbaked like the tops of the
rails seemed that's what mymemory and it had a with a like
Alcoa's or mags it had some somepre pre decent aluminum wheels

(55:38):
on it. That's the truck Iremember you haven't.

Unknown (55:41):
I've had a few of those trucks that truck that truck was
actually Angie's truck. Funnystory she wanted when we got the
ranch in Menifee, she wanted aranch truck. And what she wanted
was like a 69 Chevy, half tonfour wheel drive, you know, good
redneck truck and but wecouldn't find one for a decent
price. So we found this graybattleship gray long bed three

(56:03):
quarter ton I want to say it waslike a 78 or 77. And she she
owned it like three days and shegot t boned by a driver in the
Hemet and just absolutelydestroyed the truck. Thankfully
she walked away because it wasyou know, big heavy truck and a
car hit it. And so we didn'thave full coverage insurance. So

(56:23):
I basically her dad was a heavycollision mechanic for years. We
straighten the frame on it,tossed the bed, and I threw
those big tires and wheels onit. I don't remember where I got
them. We used to wheel the crapout of that thing with no bed on
it. It was fun. It was just abeater truck. I'd take it down
to the TDs Safari. I think onetime I put a couch on the back
of it and I slept on the couchand we'd go wheel the notches in

(56:46):
that big truck. But we owned afew full size Chevy's I like
those trucks and we were tryingto think about how many jeeps we
owned the other day. I think weowned about 2025 jeeps through
the through our marriage. So Idon't have any jeeps right now
except my wife's

Grand Cherokee.
And your so maybe that's thesecret to secret to your
marriage is that you guys if youcan survive Jeep ownership, you
can survive anything.

Unknown (57:11):
Maybe I mean, the kids grew up in the back of a Jeep
Trina, my, I took her out whenshe was really small. I don't
remember how old she was. But Idon't know if she was even a
year old. Maybe she was a yearold. And she wore all the hair
off the back of her head becauseit was sliding back and forth on
the car. So she had a big baldspot when I brought her home

(57:32):
family wasn't too pleased withme about that. But trade has
been wheeling since she wasreally small.

So when in there Did you guys have a you
know, when you started hostingrock comps at a no Ranch,

Unknown (57:44):
I want to say around the winter of 99, or the first
part of 2000. My brother and Iwent to the ark event out at
Johnson Valley. I think it was aWalmart nationals. And we took I
think we took our kids with us.
And they kept telling us we hadto move we were on the course
and we're like we don't evenknow we're on the course like

(58:06):
where is the course there arepeople everywhere. And it was
cold and windy. My brother and Iwere sitting on a rock and
saying, you know talking aboutall the things that were wrong
with this rock crawling sport,you know, because we've always
said, Hey, if they can make thisa sport, we're gonna compete. We
didn't understand it at all. Itwas like golf, you know, we just
didn't get it. And we sat thereand we're talking about, you

(58:29):
know, it'd be a lot more easy tounderstand if they just put a
time on it and told you to gothrough as fast as you could go
through and a hell of a lot moreentertaining than the subjective
1001 1002 1003 stop, you know,like point you're like, what the
hell this guy's counting fasterthan that guy? You know, how is

(58:49):
that even fair? It's completelysubjective. You know, we just
didn't think it was a goodformat. So one of those parties
that we're talking about, wesaid, Hey, we're gonna have a
rock racing event. I built alittle course, at the race at
the track. I mean, excuse me atthe ranch. And I think we had
maybe five people show up. Wekind of I guess you could say

(59:10):
that was our proof of concept.
Everybody had a good time andloved it. So we just expanded it
and scaled it up and turned itinto crca.

So talk about crca real quick.

Unknown (59:21):
So crca was we only did it I think for three years,
maybe four years. And we did itwe actually did at the wooden
nickel ranch next to the ranchnext door to ours because we
outgrew our ranch pretty fast.
We did the first two events atour ranch. And then we rented
out the wooden nickel ranchbecause they had better rocks.
And so our whole thing was itwas a rock race, straight up

(59:42):
rock race very much like zareibut we tried to make it
entertaining. So we hadannouncers Leslie Robbins was
one of our announcers and shejust knew so much about the
drivers back then she would do alot of research. She would talk
About the drivers, and we hadmusic going. So it was like a
rock concert. And you couldpretty much see the whole

(01:00:04):
course, from the spectator. Weactually had some bleachers at
one time, we had a few rows ofbleachers, you could sit on the
bleachers, and and watch it.
And, you know, I think our claimto fame was that everybody talks
about tiny and the shot heardaround the world and how they
changed the world with that,that air cooled Volkswagen Rock

(01:00:25):
Crawler, but that actuallycompeted at a crca event. For
the first the first time theyused it. They competed our
event. So john Bundoran broughtit out. I think he might have
blown up the engine or somethingwith it, because the course was
they weren't prepared for thething to overheat. But oh, he
raced with us first.

Wyatt Pemberton (01:00:43):
Well, you know, you're talking about the Female
Announcer you brought somebodyearlier that I hadn't heard her
name in a long time was CarrieSteiner, and Carrie, was she the
first female rock racer, orfirst female competitor? kayo.
Ah, yeah. For king of thehammers. Yes. Yes. Yeah. How she
today.

Unknown (01:01:03):
She's great. She lives up in Montana. She's currently
on an expedition in Alaska andan RV she she bought a class CRV
and she lifted it and put alocker in it change the gear
ratio, put big tires on it bigbumpers, and she's up driving
around in Alaska right now.

How fun is that? Okay, sorry that Tanja I
made a mental note. You broughtit up. And then I you know, oh,
squirrel and I got off track. Soyou guys are put on stuff. You
know, the rock crawl events.
They're around your place inMenifee, you met Dave coletta
crca event. So I do rememberthat portion. But you get
involved in by the time I end uprunning around with you and like

(01:01:41):
oh nine, you had been involvedin some desert racing like you
had? I think you didn't getinvolved maybe and and the
reason why I say is is becauseyou had told me how you guys
would practice like tire changesand thrown the lug nuts away.
And I think that was withpflugers team. Yeah, tell me if
I skipped a couple chapters herein the Jeff no life of

(01:02:03):
Motorsports. You there was Jeepspeeds. I want to talk about the
3000 car stuff because I foundthat to be really fascinating
when I came out to visit youguys that first time in oh nine
but how did you end up involvedin in the desert scene going
from rock crawling into desertstuff? Because at the time there
wasn't a middle ground therewasn't this for Dr. middle
ground.

Unknown (01:02:24):
So Bart Dixon, who's probably one of my best friends,
if not my best friend introducedme to Alan Pflueger, Bart and
Alan actually went to dealerschool together. And so they
were friends. And Alan, thetruck was still red, white and
blue. Invited Bart, because hedid Bart had these, you know,
rock crawlers and said, Hey, canyou come down and bring this

(01:02:47):
rock crawler because we wantsomebody in metonymy wash. We
need somebody that can get to usif we have a problem. So Bart,
you know, said, Hey, Jeff, youwant to do this? And I'm like,
heck, yes, I want to do it. Thatsounds great. So we started,
that's pretty much our job is toget into the nastiest places
possible pre run those areas inadvance. So we understood not

(01:03:08):
only the course, but how do weget in and out without being on
the course if somebody needssomething. And then we try to
post up at the, at any spotwhere we thought Alan might have
difficulty, which was usually atummy wash. And you know, most
of the time, it was just fly byvisual of the car, everything
looks great, cool. You know, wejust spent two days pre running.

(01:03:30):
And you just went by and youknow, in 25 minutes when you're
out of our range, we can crackbeers and have a good time. The
downside of that is that itusually took us so long to get
back. We didn't we didn'tusually get to celebrate with
the team at the finish line.
Because you know, we'd be out inthe middle of nowhere. So that's
how I got involved with bluger.
And then, you know, when theythey'd signed up monster, fun

(01:03:52):
story, Bart, maybe a littleembarrassed by this, but Bart
and I showed up in in sanada atthe coral hotel. And typically
when we would get we'd show upthe team would you know they
wouldn't be in the parking lot.
They'd be everything would belocked up and they'd be doing
their thing in the hotel. Butthis the first year with monster
everybody was in the parkinglot. And I kind of thought that
was odd. And one of the teamguys comes running up with this

(01:04:15):
two cases of this Monster EnergyDrink and he says, Hey, we just
landed this new sponsor for thisnew soda pop. You got to try it.
It's amazing. Well, they're alldrinking monster. They're all
fired up. That's why nobody wasin the hotel resting because
they're all amped out onmonster. So we didn't know any
better. We just I'm like, Man,this stuff tastes great. Bart
has one I have another one. Barthas another one and around 11

(01:04:38):
o'clock at night midnight. I'mlike, hey, Bart. I'm feeling
really good. We got to be in SanFelipe Bay tomorrow morning.
Let's just go to San Felipe BayThe Night March like heck yes,
we're going to San Felipe Bay.
So we throw our Monster EnergyDrink in the backseat. I think
we cracked a few more. We driveto San Felipe Bay. We get to the
military checkpoint and there'sit's the middle of the night.

(01:05:00):
It's like, you know, one in themorning, there's nobody there.
And they had told us that like,just give Monster Energy Drink
to everybody, you, anybody andeverybody just give it away.
That's what we got it for.
That's what monster wants us todo. Well, they want me to get
hooked on it is what they want.
But, you know, we give a couplemonsters to the federal rallies
man in the military guys at thecheckpoint, that we end up

(01:05:21):
hanging out with those guys forlike half an hour, 45 minutes
drinking Monster Energy andchatting with them. And so we
went on to San Felipe Bay andour room was absolutely
terrible. And we found a guythat we said, Hey, if you'll
watch the Jeep, you can drinkit. You can drink all the beer
you want. It's in the cooler.
And we got these Monster Energydrinks. You can drink as much as

(01:05:42):
you want. There's waters butjust watch the G pours tonight
make sure Nobody messes with it.
So Bart and I come out after youknow trying to sleep to go do
our pre running. And the dude issitting in the jeep. He's got
the headsets on and he's likedriving. He's just like, you
know, making noises and drivingit and there's like five empty

(01:06:04):
monster can sit outside thejeep. So he's just completely
wired on monster hook them. Wejust did great times down there.

So was that with a flute? Or was that your
first for a south of the border?
in Baja?

Unknown (01:06:17):
No, my parents used to take me down to Canada, Canada.
And I think it's called justsouth of Rosarito. The sand
dunes there. We used to go downthere with the mograph family
and say, I can't remember thename of it. It wasn't kind of
Vienna, but we would stay downthere and ride in the sand
dunes. And I think these devilmotorcycle race down there, we
would go down there to watch inthe 70s.

So going from the trophy truck team working
with the flying Hawaiian. Yougot your flange up or you knew
how did you how did you end upmeeting or knowing Jim Knox?
Man? That's a good question.
Right. I I met Jim througheither through fo JV That's what
I think.

Unknown (01:06:58):
or somehow through dust junkies, or through Wayne
israelson. I you know, honestly,I don't know because it's a
Blur.

Blur? Well, so yeah, who was the car? You know,
he raced a class one at thetime. And I remember it was
there was there's like three ofthem and they had a very
specific Look who built those.
Do you remember Carl ScanlonScanlon, that's what it was. And
then that's how we ended upsegwayed into talking about the
3000s. So how did the class 3000thing come to be? And you end up

(01:07:31):
involved in that because you arenow racing with a helmet on and
your your racing class? 3000.
Right. That's what I reallyyeah.

Unknown (01:07:41):
Yeah. So after racing, Jeep speed, I think we might
have, I think we won a fewraces. The mograph family
actually introduced me to CarlScanlon. And because they were
friends with him there inMenifee, and he was building a
team. He was a heavy equipment,contractor. And you know, 2008,

(01:08:02):
everything was shut down. Hedidn't really have anything to
do. And so he decides he's goingto build the race team. So he
builds three of those cars.
Desert dynamics, I think builtthose cars. And he had a guy
prepping them. And he would put,you know, try to put people in
the car to find out a good raceteam. So Jeremy actually raced a
race with Jeremy, in those class3000 cars at Glen Helen one

(01:08:24):
time, had a blast co drivingwith Jeremy and was able to race
one of them myself at GlenHelen, which is probably about
the funnest time I've ever had.
I raced against Jeremy, maybelike the second time we raced
up, there was just a lot of fun,good, good, clean, fun. And
those are great little cars,they're faster than they look.

(01:08:48):
When you're in the car. The onething I that taught me racing in
those little 3000 cars is youknow, you always hear people say
oh, give me a trophy truck andI'll be that fast. No chance in
hell. You know, you really gotto work your way up. Because you
there's no you can't handle it.
I mean, that was the fastestthing I've ever driven and I
stuffs going by you like sofast. You don't have the

(01:09:09):
reaction time you don't havetime to think about a GE out,
you know, you don't see itcoming you better know it's
there. You better know whereeverything is. So you better
figure out how you're going tomotor through it. Do not lift
because that's a recipe fordisaster.

Yeah, when in doubt, throttle out right this
pin pin it in it and let it doits thing. So I did then I got
those things out of order in myhead. You got involved in Jeep
speed with Hartman and the theflorist the flower brothers go
through that. Like I know, Lancewas involved in Jeep speed for a
while was Shaffer, you know,Mike Shaffer up there. He was in

(01:09:47):
Mountain House at the time nowhe's out in the Bay Area. But
that was kind of the the the erawhere Jeep speeds were a thing.

Unknown (01:09:54):
Yeah, a lot of great racers started and G speed. It's
a good platform. It's fairlyinexpensive. deterring all
things considering if you wantto win, you're going to
certainly spend some money. ButI got involved with Jeep speed
with Hartman. I think Bob, agentleman named Bob Greene is
the person that kind of gotthere was the catalyst if you

(01:10:14):
will on Jeep holics, calm and alot of discussion about building
a Jeep speed and going to raceJeep speed. And I think
ultimately, what we ended updeciding was we were going to
build a TJ, we built the firstTJ Jeep speed. So I worked with
Clive Skelton to try to get thatallowed in Jeep speed and then

(01:10:37):
Hartman, Mark Underwood, andQuinn moss Colts, the four of us
went in on the Jeep speed. Itwas a I think it was Mark
Underwood's wife's Jeep orsomething that we converted. So
we had four partners in the deala whole bunch of friends turning
wrenches at my my ranch, I thinkmight have had a dirt floor at

(01:10:59):
the time or maybe had gotten theconcrete by then, you know,
working nights and weekends andeverything we could to get that
thing together to go race atParker putting, I think we were
still working on the car and thetrailer on the way there and
working on the car, certainly inthe contingency line, Mark
Underwood, because he had ownedthe gap drew the straw to drive
it first. And jack Graff fromctm was his co driver. And I

(01:11:23):
don't know if they made it 13miles and blew up the engine.
Scott Hartman could probablytell you what, what was wrong
with it, there was somethingthat didn't get done right, or
something that happened, but itdidn't go very far. And we were
all very disappointed. But I'lltell you, it took us pretty much
the whole season to iron out thebugs and people left, you know,
Mark, I think we bought mark outright away. And then and then

(01:11:45):
Quinn left shortly thereafter.
So it just got my we worked outthe bugs throughout the year. I
you know, we had some decentfinishes. But I wouldn't suggest
anything great. We've had someDNF since that first year. But
by the end of the season, theHenderson race, which you know,
I don't know, maybe five raceslater, we handedly won that
race. And after that there wasreally no stop. And that team, I

(01:12:08):
would tell you, it's more thanthe car. It's the team. You
know, the team by then dustjunkies racing, which you know,
is morphed into somethingentirely different. But but but
by that last race, we knew howto pit correctly, we were super
fast in the pits. The car wasfast, we had it dialed in our
prep package was good. RJ Raineywas was prepping the car. And

(01:12:30):
you know, it's expensive if youwant to win and Jeep speed,
because the rules are prettytight. And if he ain't trying,
so you try to shave everythingyou can for an advantage. And
you know, Ray Griffith, who is Ithink one of the under
appreciated drivers. And indesert racing, he was racing
with us at the time, I can'tremember the names of some of
the other folks and the fortunewas racing with this at the

(01:12:52):
time. And, and I rememberGriffin and the fortune and I
were on a dry lake bed with justwooding the cars. I mean, there
was nothing left the cars had.
And they were so evenly matchedthat they I mean for miles
across the dry lake bed, we werejust three wide going exactly
the same speed. So I mean,that's close racing. It's really

(01:13:13):
close racing. And I like thatkind of racing because you got
to be smart about it. It's it'syour team that's going to get
you there. And it's it's yourpreparation and you know,
knowing the course and havingthe notes doing all the homework
that wins those races. It's notjust about the guy in the
driver's seat.

No, actually, I think it is. Yeah, well
something about the the guy thatour receipts like what uh, what
they tried to do with the Iraqseries, right, it was all match
cars. And it came down to thedriver right, who was the better
driver and I think you got it.
You got the opportunity to seethat or in who was the better
team in visa desert, but Oh,yeah, Ray Griffith rageous. One,
he just he just wanted an eventsomewhere. might have been the

(01:13:54):
250. He just wants somethingrecently, though, but I liked a
party with him one time in LakeHavasu and couldn't keep up the
not even close because we wereracing class one and you end up
hanging out with some otherclass one guys and he was one of
them. We party with a regularguy? Yeah. So kind of going

(01:14:16):
along that path. You You didJeep speed then then the class
3000s came? I met you now Ican't I was at qH on nine but I
don't recall us meeting like Iyou know, it's your you were
putting on an event. And

Unknown (01:14:33):
yeah, it's not fair.
People come up to me and say,you know, they would say oh, I
met you king of the hammers. I'mlike man, I probably met 6000
people at King of the hammers. Ican't process all that true.
Sorry, but I don't remember you.

So you you pick me up in oh nine for Vegas, Reno
and I go we end up going to dadsand then some circling back to
where that story goes. I've toldthe story before on the show and
it's we spent I'm working withBSI and putting his his car
together you and the OSI teamedup on the s&m fab car. I think
that car later burned if I'mcorrect. Yeah, it's That's

(01:15:11):
correct. It's back together. Itlives again. Is that the one
that's nicknamed Christine?

Unknown (01:15:16):
I have no idea. I don't think so. But I could, who
knows, I just know that it runsagainst somebody put it back
together.

So we go, we go to Las Vegas, and we're at the
station, one of the stationcasinos. And in Henderson, you
walk up to the best in thedesert reservation table,
checking table, and it's RJBrown, Chris, poke myself in
you. And you lay down thispacket. And you pull out all the

(01:15:43):
paperwork for best in thedesert. And this is the this is
the first registering of a 4400.
This is the 4400 class and thefirst registration of it. How
cool was that?

Unknown (01:15:57):
It was it was really cool. But I will tell you, the
stuff that led up to that wasway cooler for me, working
closely with Casey, on gettingthe rules adopted and getting
the class and having theinteraction with him. He was a
fantastic promoter. I was at theHall of Fame offroad Motorsports

(01:16:18):
Hall of Fame dinner once and Iwas in line behind him. He
turned to somebody I don'tremember who he turned and he
says, I want to introduce you tothe greatest promoter in the
United States. And he introducedme, and I just was like, taken
back. I said, Casey, you know,that's not me, man. That's you.
And he goes, Nah, man, you guyscreated something entirely new.

(01:16:39):
It's crazy what you guys havedone. So I just, I really
admired him. I know he was roughand tumble guy. But I really
liked him and the opportunity towork with him and Diane leading
up to that race and for him tohave the you know, to believe in
these idiot rock crawlers, orthese rock donkeys or whatever
you want to call it. We're goingto come out and try to race

(01:17:00):
their their clapped out junkacross the desert for three
days. This fantastic time. Imean, we're just so blessed to
have worked with people likehim.

He throw out a boo Yeah, in there. Yeah, for
sure.

Unknown (01:17:13):
Now, for sure, he might have called me a whistle
something or another but right.

This was the time this era that we're talking
about was when people laughed. Imean, just absolutely laughed at
us. You know, and I've told thisstory a billion times because
it's it's a vivid memory wasseen Andy McMillan and he was he
was very young at the time. Andbut he was still a trophy truck
driver and, and him pointing andlaughing at the rock cars and,

(01:17:43):
and we were you know, there wasalways this, you know, there was
a saying like, you'll if youguys could ever be faster than a
Jeep speed. Maybe you'll havesomething. Yeah. And now Yeah,

Unknown (01:17:52):
well, we're we're at it's tenacity. You know, that's
what it is. It's tenacity. LikeI said, a while back, it's
people believing in it and andmaking it happen. And keep
pushing it pushing it myfavorite t shirt. I really
enjoyed all the T shirts wemade. That's a piece that I was
heavily involved in. My favoritet shirt of King of the hammers

(01:18:12):
of all time is the one that saysthat just happened. You got
passed by a rock crawler. I lovethat one. And that's we did that
specifically for that event, youknow, where it's like, we know
we're going to pass some of themwe know I mean, I was racing
Jeep speed. I knew I knew for nodoubt in my mind that ultra for
car could be faster than a Jeepspeed. Maybe not off the start.

(01:18:34):
Maybe not when we first got himgoing. But there's no way it
couldn't be it was unlimited.
Yeah, you know, eventually wasgoing to happen.

And now they're way up there. But yeah, so
Casey, folks, I don't rememberwhich event it was, but it was,
it's the best in the desert.
Casey's talking to me. He'slike, he's like, oh, what class
are you? Am I you know, 4400 butI was I was racing up in class
one at the time. And he goes, heis Oh, are you Nick Nelson. And
I am not Nick Nelson. He goes,Oh, well, Nick Nelson came to

(01:19:05):
Parker last year, man. He justput on a clinic. If you were
Nick Nelson, I think you I haveto shake your hand like he just
taught me. And I'm standingthere like, Yeah, man. I'm not
not that fast. Yeah, yeah. Didhe Mickey gone to the blue
water? I think Shannon Campbellgone there. I think it been a

(01:19:27):
beer as well. I feel like it wasthe three of them together. And
Nick. Yeah, Nick, Nick, put on aclinic in Jimmy's car that he
had at the time. But and I won'tsay maybe this was the May does
the blue water challenge. Ishowed up. But the next parkour
event, the 425, which would bein five months later in the next
racing season, but it is anywayas we kind of work through that.

(01:19:50):
So you had worked on like aclass 3000 rule book and now
you've worked on the 4400 rulebook. You register the thing we
race it man we had a good time.
Our car didn't do that great.
Certainly told the story aboutme pulling the radiator cap off
the car at one of the pits onday one and, and boy told that
story a few times. Yeah. Becausethat's the worst. Because Well,

(01:20:13):
it makes me look human right?
Like, I am human, but it alsomakes me look very fallible,
right, I grab a radiator cap,knowing full well it's hot and
throw it open and it's not thatthe water came out it was the
urine came out. Ha boiling pissall over everything. So yeah,

(01:20:34):
that's what we were talkingabout before. The before the
show, you know, offline like,maybe it's time for the talent
tanking these stories in ultraforeign developed to the point
where, you know, they're bigger,the whole thing's bigger than
me, right? It's it's currentlywhy it's still, you know, this
is the 50th show. This is the50th big episode and maybe, you

(01:20:55):
know, it's like Johnny Carson,he hung it up and and let Jay
Leno come in. Maybe I gotta findI've got to find who that limo
is right or, or for limo to findFallon. Like we've got to, you
know, I know there's somebodyyounger with the new stories.
You mean all these guys aremaking stories at just breakneck
pace. Let's Usher them in withthis next day. I'd like to be

(01:21:18):
the one to be able to get in mytruck in the morning and drive
to work and listen to the talenttank and hear someone else
carrying the torch. I would Ithink that'd be I think that'd
be pretty cool. But

Unknown (01:21:28):
yeah, I had lunch this week with a friend of mine who's
a promoter was was a promoterfor motocross. You know, I asked
him I said, you know, what doyou do in these days, you do
promotions, and we're friendly,I spent a lot of time with him.
And we got on the subject topromotions. And he said, you
know, what I really enjoy isthat I show up to the track in
my spare van, I wheel out mydirt bike, I go pay my $35. And

(01:21:52):
I signed my waiver, I put myhelmet on, and I go rip the
track for two, three hours. Andthen I go home. He's like, I
don't need to be the promoteranymore. I just want to eat is
I've been given my entire lifeto the sport, I want to take a
little while and I think he'slike 54. And the guy shreds on a
bike still. I mean, he needs togo racing, that he enjoys

(01:22:15):
getting something back. Youknow, he's he feels like he's
did his he's done his part. Sothere was no harm no foul in
that you want to be able to makeyour contribution and and then
sit back and let somebody elsedrive for a while.

Yes, I think there's there's that and we're
certainly you know, this wholeepisode here we're talking about
you and your mark that you'veput on kicking the hammer star
racing ultra for racing, 4400class racing, what you didn't
used to be 3000. But I want totalk about the future. And why
we are where we are today doingwhat we're doing today because

(01:22:49):
of your philanthropy. And that'sthe stance that you took, you
know, with friends at JohnsonValley, when you know, the
Marines were looking to takeover at one point you end up
testifying in front of Congress,I remember sitting at my desk at
my office in downtown Houston,with the c span on watching, you
know, your testimonyrepresenting the offer

(01:23:11):
community, walk through thatyour perspective on that. And in
that time of life, where we lookto lose our hundreds and
hundreds of 1000s of acres torecreation. And you were one of
the guys at the table leadingthe charge on saving,

Unknown (01:23:28):
I kind of ended up. You know, I don't even know how I
ended up in that spot. To behonest with you, I will tell you
that when I left king of thehammers, as shocked as everybody
else was I was a little bit inshock too, because I had put
together a plan to buy king ofthe hammers and you know, go do
king of the hammers, and so kingof the hammers ends. And I don't

(01:23:50):
have a job I don't have I don'thave a plan. I don't really know
what my next move is. But whenthe base expansion started to
heat up, kind of felt like okay,this is my thing. I made money
off of Johnson Valley. I mademoney off the industry. Maybe I
can give some of that back. And,you know, even though I don't

(01:24:14):
need to protect king of thehammers from a business
standpoint, I felt I needed toprotect Johnson Valley from a
recreational standpoint. Youknow, one of the reasons the
race was always on a Friday wasbecause we were terribly
concerned that some, you know,nine year old, you know, 1979
version of Jeff in the present,was going to get hit by a racer,

(01:24:39):
just out there with his parentscruising around his dirt bike.
So we always felt like, let'spick a time of year when the
weather's not so good. And let'spick a day when you know, people
can swing get a Friday off tocome out and check it out. But
we don't want a kid to get hurt.
And so I've always felt aconnection to that and I just
felt like, Okay, this is what Ineed to do is get involved in

(01:25:01):
this. And I, you know, theorganizations, they all work
really hard. The associationsthere, God bless them, right?
It's a thankless job, but theydon't approach this with like
the mindset of a business.
They're volunteers typically, alot of times, they're, they're
retired folks, or they do it onthe side, because they're super

(01:25:22):
passionate about. And myapproach was, we got to, we got
to break the mold, and orba kindof presented that opportunity
we, you know, to work withbusinesses, and look at this a
little differently. I remember Iwas with Mike lasher, out at
Glamis north, which is a kayo, acampground with hot springs,
sitting in his RV, everybody wasout drinking and having a good

(01:25:44):
time in the hot springs. And Iwas sitting in the RV, right in
this white paper. And, you know,I got the book that explained
what that battalion trainingwas, I was able to download it.
And it was a I mean, it was alot of reading. And I read the
whole thing, I think I read thewhole thing two or three times,
I got to give a shout out toKevin Kerry, because Kevin Kerry

(01:26:07):
was the guy that I would calland say, what's this acronym
mean? What is this? Like? Idon't know, what mechanized
battalion training is, what isthat? Actually? What is it? And
Kevin would just spend hoursexplaining all this stuff,
because he was in the military.
And he he understood it. And sohe would dissect it all for me
and tell me what it meant. Andthen I would try to wrap my head
around. Okay, what's the plan?

(01:26:29):
What could we do that couldcouldn't make this work? And so
I wrote that white paper, Ithink it was called common
ground. That was kind of ouridea collectively, for how can
we make this work. Andultimately, Common Ground turned
into the basis forrepresentative cooks, bill that
he submitted. So a lot of work,a lot of people involved a lot

(01:26:51):
of money, will ultimately wewere able to hire one of the top
lobbying firms for military inWashington, DC, I have no idea
how they agreed to do it, butthey did, I have no idea how we
paid for it. But we did. And thewhole community really rallied
around this idea that we'regonna take a new approach, we're
gonna, we're gonna explain that,you know, this is an economic

(01:27:13):
impact that we're having on thecommunity by being out there.
And if you take that away, thecommunity is not going to get
that revenue. And I'm prettyproud of the fact that handful
of people on pirate four byfour, created an economic impact
study collected data from allover the world using pirate, we
put that into a document andthat documents in the Library of

(01:27:36):
Congress. that's a that's alegitimate document that was
created by a group of peoplethat just believed in it.

Was that also the the genesis of the the blue
star? I think it may have beenYeah, that's a question for
Lance. But I think so. Did youwork with Don Raul on that? Was
she involved there? Because Ithink I'd heard stories that she
was that I have never talked todawn.

Unknown (01:27:59):
Dawn came in a bit later. So representative cook
wasn't even in office, when westarted orba. We were actually i
can't i think the guy's name waslike, IMS, or something like
that. There were two candidates,because the previous
representative who was inforever, they represented the
area was retiring. So they hadan opening, both the Democratic

(01:28:21):
and Republican were runningtheir game, and we were lobbying
both of them. You know, a lot oftimes when you're trying to save
land, you need to spend moretime lobbying the Democrats, as
you've probably already got theRepublicans. And so I think
there's a misunderstanding that,you know, some of the money that
gets spent or the networkingthat happens, you know, somebody

(01:28:43):
may snap a photo of an advocate,that's, you know, with like a
Dianne Feinstein or a BarbaraBoxer or something that's taken
the wrong way. But that's reallywhere you have to focus your
energy. You've got to focus yourenergy energy in those places.
We spent a lot of time inFeinstein's office, working with
our staff to try to get hersupport for this because we knew

(01:29:04):
we'd have the Republicansupport, which we did. You know,
we had McCarthy wrapped upthat's in orbit, as you know,
hometown Bakersfield, Fred's gota relationship with him. We
didn't have to go lobbyingMcCarthy, we knew we were going
to get his support. We just hadto put a good plan together, you
need that bipartisan support.
And sometimes that takes you gotacross the aisle and go work on
the democrat side. We can't dothat if you're not respectful

(01:29:26):
and can't go in there like abull in a china shop. And
that's, I think that'sunfortunately, one of the
problems we have with our landuse advocacy groups is they're
so hardcore, conservative andRepublican. And then sometimes
they come off as combative,you've got to find common ground
and you've got to be able towork across the aisle as

well and you need to get out of your own echo
chamber. Right? If you're ifyou're just want to talk to
those that are already on yourside, you're never gonna have
that opportunity to eitherconvince somebody to move their
stance or they're not gonnaconvince you to move your state.

Unknown (01:30:00):
Yeah, yeah, I think the tipping point for us was really
getting the lobbyist on boardand getting them to commit and
having that expertise. They hadmilitary expertise that took
what we had to the next level.
You know, they looked at theplan and said, this makes a lot
of sense. We think we can getthis done. But we got to do some
tweaking. They certainly did.

(01:30:20):
They didn't let us down. And Ithink it was good money. I will
tell you, for your listeners outthere, I would challenge them.
The thing that I'm disappointedin is that we set a precedent
with the save the hammers, weset the precedents that we
created the firstcongressionally designated o h v
area. And I don't think peoplequite understand what that

(01:30:40):
means. That's like creating awilderness area. It's
congressionally designated. Theonly way that that can change is
by Congress. And there's aprecedence. And I have not seen
yet one other effort to createanother congressionally
designated Oh hv area, anywherein the United States. And we
missed a golden opportunity withTrump, that we could have done

(01:31:03):
that, you know, pick a place, Idon't care where you go, pick a
place and protect it. Otherwise,we're going to keep being on the
defense all the time. You know,the thing with Oceana, I'm glad
there's people more passionatethan I am about Oceana, because
I wouldn't fight that fight.
That's going to cost a lot ofmoney. We've been in that battle
for as long as my entire lifewe've been in that battle. with

(01:31:24):
keeping Oceana open to hv, andwe spent a lot of effort, we
spent a lot of money to be ableto keep that place. And my hat's
off to the people that keepfighting that good fight. But I
don't have it in me to fight thesame fight for 50 years. You
know, I'd like for us to go onthe offense. And that's one of
the reasons I haven't playednicely with some of the
association's is that I don'tlike being on defense. And

(01:31:46):
sometimes defense is better forthem, because they can raise
more money, but we need to goget on offense, and we need to
go get what's ours, protected.

I fully agree with every single word you just
said, there. That's the sadreality of where we're at here.
And for those of us in the nonwestern states where we don't
have public land the way thewestern states do, we really
don't understand it or grasp it.
You know, if we want to do anevent, it's you've got to talk
to the landowner after landownerafter landowner to put it
together. And it doesn't makesense to us, right? We're like

(01:32:18):
it. And then if you go to youflying to Vegas, and you get off
the plane, and you see as youget asked city limits, you're
like, you look around and likeWow, you guys just just all
recreation for you. Yeah, forthe most part, it's just not
that way. And in the EasternState. So to get support outside
of San Bernardino County, isrough. Right? Yeah, yeah. And

(01:32:39):
the other thing is, since I'm onmy soapbox, I love it keep going
is, you know,

Unknown (01:32:46):
if you want to fight these fights, you got to pay
people, you know, I feel likeI've done my fair share, I've
invested my money, you know thatthat was pretty much my job for
better part of a year and I, youknow, didn't get really get paid
for it, you know, I reinvestedbecause I felt passionate about
it, but I can't do that over andover again, I can't, you know, I

(01:33:09):
can't put I don't want to golive in a single wide or
something. So I can just be theland use guy. You know, we
don't, we just don't, I don'tknow, if we it's not that we
don't value those people enoughthat we just don't, we're not
attracting the right talent,because we're not willing to pay
them. If you want to volunteerto do the work, you're going to
get volunteer results.

I think a fair state will hire some people. And
I think that's a fair statementto make, not just in land use,
but pretty much in anything inlife. Right? If you want
somebody to give it to you fornothing, there's gonna be valued
at nothing. That's prettysimple. Now, don't get me wrong,
I will say that, you know, likeKing of the hammers doesn't go
on without a lot ofvolunteerism, like, that event

(01:33:49):
itself does not get pulled offwith that a lot of volunteerism,
and kudos to all those peoplethat volunteer, I mean, that it
doesn't happen that way. But ona long term, regular basis of
consistently asking forvolunteers, man, they fit in
where they can, but you know,between lives and work and lives

(01:34:10):
and kids and events, you know,it's it's hard to find those
dedicated people, unless theyare, you know, able to feed
their family out of that.

Unknown (01:34:19):
Yeah. And they got to get a decent wage, right?
Because it's, in my case, I waswith orba. I don't know how many
years, three or four years and,you know, they paid me what they
could, but, you know, they'renot going to pay me what Lincoln
pays me. And I'm not going tohave the security that I have
working at Lincoln Electric. Youknow, that's one of the great
things about a job is you you goget a job that pays you well and

(01:34:43):
has it has benefits that you'rehappy with and a security level
that meets your needs. But ifyou're going to go go be the
land use guy or land useadvocate, man, you don't you
don't know where your nextpaycheck is going to come from

most the time and you like to be a punching
bag. For yeah For both sides,

Unknown (01:35:01):
yeah, for both sides, you're gonna get it from your
own people. I think that's themost disappointing thing that
came out of the save the hammersthing that really depressed me,
and made me withdraw is thatthere were people inside of our
own organization industry thatwere telling me I was a sellout,
I gave up no grain of sand.
Like, you know, you sold us out,and some pretty angry people.

(01:35:22):
For a while I was like, I'lljust never even go back to the
hammers again, I was sodisappointed in some of that.
But the reality is, is that markMatthews and I, we had our
favorite area of King of thehammers there, you know,
knocking hammers, but ourfavorite areas of the hammers,
Johnson Valley. And that's inthe base now. And I gave up my
personal favorite area ofJohnson Valley to save the

(01:35:46):
traditional hammers trails,because I knew that 90% of the
people never going to go whereMark Matthews and I would go,
they're not going to go outthere.

That's the sad reality. But it's not the
compromises best, right?
Sometimes, you know, if youcompromise, if you're if you're
stuck on the set of road tracks,and you compromise, right, your
choices are to stay on the roadtracks and get hit or get off
the road tracks and not you hitWell, if you compromise, you're
still half on the railroadtracks, you're still gonna get
hit. And so compromise isn'talways the best thing. But damn,

(01:36:19):
man, I mean, it's hard. And Iabsolutely see how you were in
the shooting gallery for forcompromise. And that's been the
the thing for me being outsidelooking in on what I've seen out
of the West organizations is theinfighting. It's
counterproductive. And I don'tknow that I'm not exhausting.

Unknown (01:36:37):
Yeah, it's exhausting.
Well, what would you say youranalogy with the train is, it
depends who you're compromisingwith. Because if you compromise
with the train, then it might beokay to get halfway off the
tracks. Because you know, if youcan get him to either slow down
or stop, then might be okay.

That's why we're having a conversation,
because that's a completelydifferent perspective. I've
never pondered on that analogy.
depends on who you'renegotiating with. Yeah, see,
there you go outside the box.
Alright, so we're chargingtowards the finish here, I've
got a couple more things that Iwant to make sure I get get out.
One of the things I like to gointo is kind of your advice for

(01:37:14):
younger racers coming in, orsponsors or kind of that medium
of interaction of the thechanging hands of dollars in
parts in the racing community.
And I know you have aninteresting perspective on this.
And I actually shared a lot ofthis. But what you have
witnessed being at a very largecorporate, that does do a lot of

(01:37:35):
sponsorships that you guys have,you know that you've had this
ghosting issue, and elaborate onthat, and how Why do you think
that is happening in the sponsorspace? Where do you think that
we need to go to alleviate it?

Unknown (01:37:53):
I don't know the answer to the question. I will tell you
that. It's an issue. I think itstems back to back to that
perception. I think it'sperception of people that are
getting into racing, that youhave to have sponsors. And you
don't you can have a plain whiteRapper Car, that the king of the
hammers you don't have, it's nota prerequisite to race to have a

(01:38:16):
sponsor on the side of your car.
And I think people get the wrongimpression that they got to go
get sponsors, and then build therace car. The race proposals,
don't make it to my deskanymore. But I used to get them.
They're highly vetted by thetime they get to my desk.
They're pretty good. And I willtell you, we can have a separate
conversation about, you know,execution of those proposals.

(01:38:37):
But you know, I used to getaround October, I'd start
getting proposals from peoplethat I have no idea who these
people are telling me howthey're going to build a car,
race and King of the hammers,and when King of the hammers,
and I should give them money orproducts, because they're going
to put my name on the side ofthe car. First off, know your

(01:38:58):
audience, do some due diligence,understand who the right person
is. And the decision maker is.
Those people should have knownthat the guy that they're trying
to, you know, pitch was the cofounder of King of the hammers,
and I know damn, well, there'slike five or six guys in the
world that can win king of thehammers at that time. You're not

(01:39:18):
going to come in there and winit. It's impossible. You know,
there could be a dark horse likeLauren Healy, Lauren Healy had
his shit together. The guy knewhow to drive. He had a good car
in a good team behind him. Heknew what you know, he knew how
to make it happen. You're gonnago build a car in like three
months and tell me you're gonnawin the king of the hammers. No
way. Thank

you. You are Shannon Campbell.

Unknown (01:39:38):
Right, there's not this is not gonna happen. So know
your audience, I think is a bigthing. And I'll tell you from my
perspective, and I'm notspeaking for Lincoln here, I
want to make sure I disclosethat that this is just Jeff's
opinion, not Lincoln electricsopinion. You got to understand
what the company needs, youknow, a welding company like

(01:39:59):
Lincoln lectric may not needtheir name on the side of a race
car. People know who they are.
They, you know, they may notwant their name on the race car,
because there's liability if youhit somebody, they're gonna sue
everybody on that race car. Soyou need to understand, how can
you provide value to the personyou're pitching. And in the case
of someone like a LincolnElectric, and I'm just using

(01:40:22):
them as an example, you know,content creation, using their
products happens in the monthsbefore the race, you know, you
don't have to go out and fightfor media attention. At a race
where everybody's fighting formedia attention, you can do that
in the shop in the nine monthsleading up to the event, because

(01:40:44):
that's where the products aregoing to get used, and make that
content there. And I've neverseen a pitch like that nobody
ever has said, we're probablynot going to win, we may not
even finish, but we're going togo build a car. And you know, me
and why we've never really racedbefore. It's a dream of ours to
race in the 4600 class, we gotthis old clap, Dougie, and we're

(01:41:05):
going to build it in our garage,and we're going to post on
YouTube. And oh, yeah, by theway, I don't know how we did it.
But we got 80,000 followers onYouTube, that are really into
what we're doing, that's gonnasell that product, you know, I
think people get hung up in thefact that they're gonna put my
name on the side of the racecar, and I'm gonna go out there,
and nobody's gonna see it, youknow, you know. And the other
thing I would say, is part ofknowing your audience's

(01:41:28):
understanding, you know, let mejust back up for a moment, hit
the pause button here, there'slike four types of sponsorship,
in my mind. There's the bestsponsorship in the world, which
is your uncle Louie, who justwants to see you have a good
time. And he's got plenty ofmoney, and he just wants to hang
out and go racing. And he'lljust write checks, because he
doesn't get any better thanthat. That's the best racing,

(01:41:48):
you got the startup companythat's trying to break into the
industry, that's going to giveyou some product and wants to
prove their product. You know,for guys starting out, that
could be pretty good, as long asyou believe in the product, and
you're not going to bouncearound from product A, B, and C,
you can stand behind theproduct, you could give that
person some testing and somefeedback is pretty good for a
small sponsorship. The thirdstyle is what I like to call the

(01:42:11):
Generate type of sponsorship,it's not a company that needs to
break in or get its brand built,but it needs to maintain its
brand and its culture, you know,I think generate does a good job
of that I think poison spiderused to do a good job of that
with Larry, of maintaining theirposition and kind of getting
their tribes built around them.
So that that's a pretty toughtype of sponsorship to get

(01:42:34):
because usually the businessowner is heavily involved in
driving that. So you're probablygoing to be on the coattails.
And then that fourth one is theholy grail, which is that
corporate sponsorship, you know,everybody wants to get corporate
sponsorship, but I don't thinkthey take into consideration is
that a guy, let's just call himJeff, who has a marketing budget

(01:42:55):
of X, Y, or Z is responsible forthat marketing budget of X, Y,
or Z. And if he's gonna give youthat either has to be a home
run, or he's got to getsomething for it. You know, it's
got to be, it's got to besomething that's going to help
him in his career, or maybe he'sjust interested in going racing,
you know, I'm not suggestingthat that's a great place to be

(01:43:18):
when you're in corporate withcompliance and things like that.
But I know people that do it.
But at the end of the day, if Igive $1 to you why out of my
marketing budget expectationfrom people above me is that I'm
gonna get $10 back in sales. Ifyou can't put together a plan
for me, that makes that veryclear that that's going to
happen, I'm not going to takethe risk. Because I'm the one

(01:43:39):
I'm the one taking all the riskin my career, I could lose my
job if I don't perform. So whenyou go and ask a corporate
entity. And then let's sayyou're you're lucky enough to
get to the decision maker, theguy who has the purse strings,
strings, you better have areally solid plan on a return on
investment for him at thecorporate level. And you or you
better have a really goodunderstanding of what their want

(01:44:01):
is, you know, if it's just anawareness campaign, like maybe
the new Bronco, perhaps, maybethey don't care about a return,
maybe they just want to getawareness and they want to
associate with something reallycool. Maybe that works. But for
a lot of these brands, they gotit they want to sell. And that
marketing guy is responsible toshow those sales. And, you know,
I see you jumped in there. Butthe last thing I would just say

(01:44:23):
on this subject is maybe you areselling a whole bunch of the
widgets, you better give areport to that marketing guy
that says how many widgetsyou're selling. So that it makes
it really easy for him when hegoes into his quarterly
marketing meeting to go reporton his performance that he can
say, oh, and here's thePowerPoint from Wyatt Pemberton,
who just sold 3000 widgets forus and made us you know, $6

(01:44:44):
million. And we gave the guy$100,000 and he made a 6 million
like, you're gonna get a checkstroked every year you keep that
up.

I have two words for that. That is real
talk. Real talk. You broke itdown. I mean, there's a, there's
even a book out there calledMotorsports marketing, pretty
good book, but you just summedup that entire book in three
minutes, four minutes. That'sexactly where it's at. And I
hope people listen to that andback this up and rewind this and
go back through it a coupletimes. But that's exactly it.

(01:45:17):
Now, the spit and polish ontheir presentation and the
details in there. Yeah, that's,that goes a long ways to it's
got to look good. It's got tolook professional. But you need
the content. Once you getaccepted. This is the key that I
see continued to fail. And itis, once you've accepted once
the the Jeff at the company XYZgives you the money or give you

(01:45:41):
the parts, then your job is justbeginning. And many apps feel
like the job is now complete, Iget a slap a sticker on the side
of my car. And you see guys thatwill literally make the side of
the car look like the back wallof a 711 and Compton. It just
looks gross. I mean your feet upbecause they see the guys that

(01:46:02):
actually have the corporates andthey want to emulate them. I'm
not I'm not saying people wantto be like Lauren Haley, but
people want to be like LaurenHealy. People want to be like
Shannon Campbell, they want tobe like Shannon Campbell,
they're gonna put the stickerson. Even if the sticker was just
given to them and contingency,they don't want to look like an
outsider. They don't want tolook like they don't have their
stuff together. It's been verycool refreshing to see guys,

(01:46:24):
like I haven't seen in a whilebut like Michael Bergman,
Michael Bergman came in with hisnew car. White panels, nothing.
There was no sponsor anything onit. And because that was right,
you know, it's the whole meprogram, right? Yep. The number
one sponsor is is me, I wasalways very serious about
keeping minimal stickers off ofmy car. Because I didn't have I

(01:46:48):
didn't have any real, real truesponsors like that, like, you
know, certainly had somepartners, and guys that jumped
in and helped on my car, youknow, like, like a mass motor
sports. They absolutely, I paidfull boat for my motor and
harness and all that. But theysupported fixing things. And
they were good guys, that tookcare of me. And so yeah, I put a

(01:47:10):
sticker on my car. But on theflip side, I mean, if you roll
through, you know, techcontingency, you can easily add
another 100 stickers to the sideof your car. And every time you
do you diminish the value of theones that are on it. That's
right, and not just the ones onyour car, but the ones on
everyone else's car. So when youfinally get your personal brand,

Unknown (01:47:29):
you're diminishing your personal brand as well, when
you're diluting it with all ofthese stickers that might pay
you $25 in contingency. Sopeople should think about that.

So I learned that so I didn't have to learn
this lesson. I already had thismentality. But I had a shop that
I mean, this is easily 10 yearsago, I was buying a an axle
trust for 14 bolt. And the guysays, Hey, if you run my
stickers, I'll ship it for free.
And I was like I was I was like,Well, you know, how big is the

(01:48:00):
sticker? I'm thinking, you know,like a little four by six. I
think shipping was gonna be like25 bucks at a time. It was
really nothing in the grandscheme of things. I agreed. I
said, Yeah, sure. So thestickers in and we'll wait waive
the shipping. The sticker showedup. They were seven by 30.
Orange. And they the only placeyou could put them is the dead

(01:48:24):
center on the door because theywere so big. And I felt
offended. Like I was totallyoffended that the company
thought that that's what theywere going to get your free
shipping your worth to them.
That's right. And so I I calledthe guy I was like, man, I owe
you for shipping. There's no wayI can do this. And I paid I paid

(01:48:45):
him the 25 bucks for shipping.
Like I just don't, don't offendme. I mean, like that was that
was a fence Even it is know yourworth. And don't give your worth
up for, for nothing or for freeor for even negative return. You
don't just because you have thestickers on your car, that you
don't have to have the stickerson your car. It doesn't make you
it doesn't make it go faster. Itdoesn't add horsepower. It

(01:49:06):
doesn't mean you're going toavoid that rock on lap three.
It's

Unknown (01:49:10):
Yeah, there's there's a couple pieces of advice I'll
share that are just, you know,take them for what they're
worth. They're free, right? Thefirst one is, is if you don't
have any sponsors, and you'renew to racing, find out who the
title sponsor is, find out howengaged they are. So I'll use
grip Griffin radiators as a as aexample. If you know they're

(01:49:31):
going to be there. And you know,there's TV coverage, and it's
likely that they're paying forthat TV coverage. Go talk if you
have no sponsors and you want todo you want to get some value.
Don't put the title sponsorsstickers all over your car for
free. Cuz you're likely going toend up on the TV show. Because,
you know, there's not going tobe another car that has only

(01:49:54):
stickers of the title sponsor onthe racetrack. Make sure
everybody knows go hustle goTalk to whoever you need to talk
to you at the place and makesure they know you're going to
be the Griffin car and get someTV coverage. get your name out
there build your personal brandthat to me that's a fair trade
for stickers on a car if I haveno sponsors, that's what I'm

(01:50:15):
going to do because I can I canhave them say There goes Jeff no
man first time racing in theGriffin car number 4405. He's
out there get your dog.

That's a pretty good miles house acoustic
personation no doubt about it.
Yeah. And along those lines,your your new guy, go create a
one pager or post not posted outbut like a, you know, a postcard
size cheater with a picture ofyour car on one side, your your
your head, your face, orwhatever, and some little

(01:50:49):
details. And when you walk, youonly need to make one of them or
two of them actually, for asmall amount, but maybe 10 M for
K. And you go hand them to Mylesand Pam and Ian and Scott rain
and you go hand them off. Sothat Yeah, and they're gonna
remember that. And so when yourcar comes up on the big screen
or your car comes up on the TV,they're gonna be like, Oh, man,

(01:51:11):
that's, that's Billy Bob Jones.
He's driving blah, blah, blah,blah, but because you just spoon
fed them spoon fed in theinformation of who you are,
where you're from. And that's,that's advice for the new guys.
I mean, everyone knows whatLauren Haley's car looks like.
Everyone knows what horses carlooks like. Like these guys have
built brands over the years. Sothey don't have to think twice

(01:51:34):
about you know what a bomber carlooks like. Now it's like, which
which bomber car is? Is it Randyor is it not Randy? But if
you're a new guy, and you'recoming in, go do something along
those lines. I mean, thinkthink, well, now it's not
outside the box. I've now thrownit out to everybody. Yeah.

Unknown (01:51:49):
Well, I'll give away one of my other secrets. I you
know, when I was racing, I usedto get my sponsorship at off
road Expo, like many people willwalk around with their proposals
during the show. I didn't dothat. I thought, you know, these
people paid good money to be atthe show. You know, now that why
do shows I don't want to havepeople come in and try to pitch
me to during your show, I'm hereto sell, I paid a lot of money

(01:52:10):
for the booth, I need to sellsome products to be to pay for
the booth. But what I used to dois two things I would go to
people like I'll use Jim real asan example, because I like Jim a
lot. You just go to somebodylike Jim real, and you buy them
lunch. And you just say, Jim,take a break. Here's your lunch,
go sit down from it all man yourbooth that will go so far. With

(01:52:34):
that small business man, the daywill take care of you for a long
time, when you just offer thembecause they can't get out of
their booth to go to lunch, theyprobably don't have somebody
there to help them. They may noteven get a bathroom break. And
they're talking nonstop for 10hours a day. Go buy him lunch,
give them a break. Just go givethem a hotdog or hamburger a
sandwich or something and say Iknow your product. I'll take

(01:52:57):
care of it. Go sit in the cornerover there and enjoy your lunch
for a minute. And then show himyou know the product. You know,
let that guy see you sell andhustle that product because then
he's gonna be like, heck, yes,Jeff. Anytime you need to drive
shaft, just call me because Iknow that you know my product
and you're gonna support me. Theother thing I used to do is just
open a beer tab in the bar atnight, work the bar and buy

(01:53:19):
people a whole lot of drinks.
And you know, then they'llremember you. The guy who bought
us drinks.

Definitely the next day is they're cussing you
for the hangover. Hi. As weclose that, close that chapter,
I've got two more things that Iwant to get through with you.
The one is simple. It'ssomething I've had a very very
recently is Hey, what's your topthree songs that define Jeff
Knoll today? Oh, GeminiChristmas. I can't answer that.
I have no idea. Jimmy Christmasisn't a song. I hate Christmas

(01:53:49):
songs by the way, but I've neverheard one called Gemini.

Unknown (01:53:51):
That's a study got me stumped. I like music a lot. I
listen to music non stop. But Icouldn't even tell you. I listen
to all kinds of stuff. So sorry,on that one.

So what's your thing that you? Are you
listening to some NPR today onyour drive? Are you listening to
what what is the, you turn iton? And you either zone out or
it gets you in the mood?

Unknown (01:54:14):
I don't. I'm working from home. So and admittedly,
I'm working way too much. So Idon't have as much time as I
used to. But I will tell you thething I'm enjoying is that new
clubhouse platform. I'm enjoyingthat because it's very real and
raw. I listened to it the lasttwo days. Three days actually

(01:54:35):
I've listened to it. I tried totake a break and either go for a
run or a walk or something. AndI listened to I don't wanna get
overly politicized. But Ilistened to on the anniversary
of George Floyd's death. Ilistened to a group that was
talking about police reform. Itwas a bipartisan group of just
average, regular Americans. Itwas enlightening to hear you

(01:54:59):
know, how would they Biggspolice reform. And it wasn't
what you would expect. And itwas a very diverse group. And it
really got me excited and mademe feel like you know, whatever,
regardless of what we're seeingon the media, average, Americans
don't think like Fox News andCNN, though jerkins thinks
somewhere in the middle. And Ithink you know, what, what we

(01:55:21):
all want, is we want them to dowork, we don't want them to go
up there and be stuck in a rutof while we're Democrats, and we
believe this, and we're going togo crazy and swing the pendulum
really far. And unless on theflip side is where Republicans
and we're gonna swing thependulum really far on our side,
we want people to do work andcome up with meaningful
legislation and solutions to ourproblems. And that group on

(01:55:45):
clubhouse was doing that theyliterally, were writing down a
list that one of the people onthere was in Washington, DC, and
he says, I'm literally going tostart walking this through the
halls, to try to get somebody toadopt these ideas. That was
super exciting for me. The flipside is I listened to one today
for about a half an hour was eatmy lunch where they were talking

(01:56:05):
about sales. And it was a youknow, one of the sales guru,
professional, professional guysthat were role playing. And I
thought was great. You know,there's some people completely
bombing their pitch, and he waseating them for lunch. And then
there was some other guys thatwould come in there and just
bomb him. So it's a neatplatform. I don't know where it
all goes. But I think it's neatjust to hear strangers,

(01:56:26):
discussing topics and you canlurk or you can get involved,
whatever you want. So that'skind of what I'm into right now.

Okay, that's fair. I think those are good.
And I think those are goodanswers. I am. I struggle with
clubhouse like we, we've usedit. I mean, that's kind of the
you know, I've used it for thisshow for the the bintray
sessions before events, becauseI think it's a really good
platform for that. But I haven'tbeen able to embrace the other

(01:56:55):
stuff. And maybe because myeverything I'm listening to in
the car while I'm drivingdoesn't really, I guess play
into that for me. But anyway, Ido think it's I do think it's a
cool platform. But funny I sawsomething from his buzzsprout
recently that was like hisclubhouse bed. And I think my
hang up with clubhouse is kindof anyone can start a room. And

(01:57:20):
if they're kind of the firstmover on it, then they become
like a self appointed subjectmatter expert. And I think that
leads people the wrong way. ButI'm not I'm not willing to
debate that. The last thing Iwant to get out of you. The last
thing is current life. Jeff No.
and Angie know what you guys arecurrently doing. I'm about to do

(01:57:41):
because it blows my mind. Ithink it's amazing. Walk
through. Tell us tell us whatyou guys have up your sleeve?

Unknown (01:57:51):
All right. Well, it's kind of it's kind of big in some
would probably say that it'srisky. I don't think it's risky.
And others might say we'rehaving a midlife crisis, maybe
we are maybe we aren't but youknow it back in October. Right
at the end of the October my mywife's brother had a stroke. And
he survived it. But it's beenpretty rough on him in in that

(01:58:13):
time to other family members hadmedical issues that it within 30
day period that kind of was likea shot of Hey, you know, we're
working way too much. My wife isbeen studying non stop. I've
been just hammered down withLincoln, and doing a home
remodel in the process. Right.
So I've been remodeling thehouse, this damn house for about
six years. So in I don't knowwhat's today, Thursday. So in

(01:58:38):
about five days, we're going tolist our house for sale and sell
it want to take advantage of themarket. I feel like I've read
this book before and it's aShakespearean tragedy.
Everybody's going to be sad atthe end. So I want to try to get
out of the market for thathappens. Take my chips off the
table and take a little breakfrom the real estate. And Angie

(01:59:00):
and I are gonna move into our RVand go travel around for a
couple years.

I think that's a lot of fun. And, you know, I
just had Jeremy Dickenson on andfound out that he kind of did
similar when he moved to Texas,he bought a big toter home and
parked at one place and then ifthey decide to go wheelin or do
a race, he's a Cline in thedriver's seat and away they
went. So when you told me thatand I just talked to Jeremy I

(01:59:29):
was like, Wow, that's prettyfun. And you know, I just had a
call segment on kid that's kindof what Kyle did. Kyle sold off
his or people possessions, piledit in a Toyota RV and drove to
California with it. Yeah, Imean, just like, I couldn't do
it, but I absolutely am gonnalive vicariously through you
guys and and in be followingyour adventures and be like,

(01:59:50):
God, man, that Gypsy lifestyleyou know, it's it has a calling.

Unknown (01:59:55):
We don't know if it's gonna be for us or not, but we
wanted to do something to shakeup the snowglobe you know, we
get you get in a rut in life.
And it COVID it's been tough, Ididn't leave the house, you
know, except for maybe 20 timesa year, you know, I think going
to Home Depot was a treat forme. And some of that was my
obligation to my job of, youknow, trying to stay healthy and

(02:00:16):
safe. And regardless of mypersonal feelings about all of
it, you know, sometimes you putthat aside for your career, and
you just adopt what's best foryour for your role, we needed to
break it up. You know, I'mfortunate that I'm in a position
where I can do this. I know notmany of my colleagues are, so
I'm going to take advantage ofit. And you know, it may not

(02:00:38):
last for as two years or whoknows, I don't know what's next
for me in my career path atLincoln Electric, they may tap
me on the shoulder and say, Hey,we need you to move to God knows
where. And I want to be in aposition to take advantage of
that. So you know, if theeconomy starts to soil gets a
whole lot harder to sell yourhouse and you can't just up and
move. So that's that'scontributed to it. My wife's a

(02:00:59):
little disappointed in some ofthe policies in schooling. So I
think she's ready to take alittle sabbatical on a break
from teaching for a little whileuntil this kind of settles down.
And we need to go have someadventure. So I think Barbara
Rainey for those that no trailmom, she coined the term the
Knoller coaster. And so we'regonna embrace the roller coaster

(02:01:19):
and just shake up that snowglobe and see what happens and
gain some perspective andrekindle the passion right?
Yeah, we're good there. But

I didn't I went there. I went, like towards
professional life and outlook onlife, but together, okay, hey,
what happens between behindclosed doors?

Unknown (02:01:42):
I think, you know, we just a lot of our older friends
and our in our parents havesaid, you know, go do this while
you're young enough to enjoy it.
Because if you wait tillretirement, then you you may not
be able to go enjoy all thesethings. So Andy's got about 18
months of spots reserved andpicked out and itinerary taken

(02:02:03):
care of for us. And, you know,we're going to get to go do
things that we haven't been ableto do like we're going to be at
the men 400. This year, we'regoing to be at the Parker for
25. This year, we get to go toKing of the hammers this year.
You know, those are things thatwe haven't been able to do,
because of my wife schedule, ormy schedule or stuff. When in
the lining, it's not easy. Youknow, when you're a teacher to

(02:02:24):
get time off to go spend a weekat King of the hammers or even
Sundays, right, so we're goingto, we're going to have the
opportunity to do some of thatwe're going to go see some
pretty awesome places we wantedto visit we're going to go visit
some friends we haven't seen fora long time, you know, we're
going to go to different areaswhere a lot of our friends have
moved, like down to Utah, youknow, Zion area, we're going to

(02:02:45):
spend some time there wherewe've got a lot of friends that
have all moved there and goexplore around and we'll see
where we land when it's all saidand done. I suspect will
probably land in Montana next toour grandchild, but we're gonna
go check it out and see what'sout there.

And don't go getting used to that a RV out
there. I'm gonna take it with mewhen I leave here in three
months. Yeah. Well, Jeff, butman, thank you so much for for
being such a good buddy over allthese years and in gracing us
and coming on the town taking atoll on your side of you know,
the last you know, 10 years forsure. And but really the the

(02:03:21):
rock sports story from yourperspective? Did we cover
everything that you want to getoff your chest? Did I leave
anything out?

Unknown (02:03:28):
You did? And I'm going to be the guy who says you did
cuz everybody says no, we'regood, man. Thanks a lot. Let's
talk about my truck at the Vegasto Reno. Let's talk about some
fiery Cheetos and pistachios.

Wow, you know, bleeding here. Oh, Lord, man.
Okay. So I know you're. So thistruck. You picked me up in
Ontario. It was a new Super Dutyat the time, right? It was
pretty new.

Unknown (02:04:02):
Yeah, it was pretty new. Nice truck. I think Woodley
was the one who said, Man, heused to have nice trucks. I
think that's what he saidsomething like that.

And then he proceeded to mow down several
100 rabbits. Yeah.

Unknown (02:04:16):
rabbits. That was good times. But uh, the piece that I
didn't tell everybody I didembellish the story. I will
admit that for the sake ofentertainment because it sounds
so much more fun. That did ithad stashes and fire Cheetos. I
don't you guys ate those things,but they weren't everywhere like
that embellish. But, you know,the piece that I did leave out
is the smoked AGR cooler and thesmoked turbo because it was a

(02:04:42):
six liter and we I think we runthat truck out at Vegas to Reno.
It went to the shop afterwards.

Sure it was never the same. Terrible. Yeah.
So I I don't rememberpistachios, but I spilt a bag of
sunflower seeds in the driver'sseat. But I thought like I got
them all picked up and kickedout and dumped out and then the
fire he chose. I don't rememberthere being tears in the truck,
but I'm not gonna say theyweren't.

Unknown (02:05:12):
But no worst part was that I personally took that
truck to the carwash and washedit right before in Las Vegas
before the race so you guysdon't have a pristine chase
check to dry we

just

Unknown (02:05:26):
I brought that thing back in the funk that it's it's
stunk so bad like man funk. Inthat cab. I it took me months to
get that out of there.

Remember when we picked you and RJ up you
broken down on the backside of amountain range? And it took us
like, two hours to get to youand then tours right? But we're
riding three. Why? Becausethere's four guys in the truck.
Plus, then you and RJ brown getin. And you guys have your fire
suits tied around your waist.
It's August in Nevada. It's 132degrees in the shade. We think

(02:06:00):
we're sweated through and youguys are in there. You know
we're again three dudes acrossin the front. Three dudes across
the back. You guys don't haveshirts on so we're sweating.
It's like skin on skin stickinto each other. It was gross.
It was terrible. Gross. Peopleare Noren, man. Yeah, it was
bad. And I did I I got yourtruck stuck in like silt with a

(02:06:24):
trailer hook to it. And Woodley.
That's that's the way it goes.
Whoa, stop. Stop chanting toChina. I'm like, I think we're
stuck. He goes like what gave itaway? Like we weren't moving?
No. I couldn't see like, thedust was so bad around us. You

(02:06:46):
couldn't see that we weren'tmoving. And I was like, I don't
think we're moving at least likelike what gave it away? Did. And
yeah, I sunk your track. Andthen I can't remember who it was
they it was some it was somefemales. So women they hold up
and they sent strapped us out ofthere pretty quickly just
popped. And we were on our way.

(02:07:07):
And away we went. But yeah, yourpoor track. And we did. We tried
to take really good care of it.
But we're for big stinky dudesweating it up. And it just it
just it went,

Unknown (02:07:19):
yeah. When you leave the road, in the Nevada desert
with a trailer behind your truckand a race car on it at like
5060 miles an hour. And thinkbad things could happen. I mean,
and that's what what it was justlike, well, I'm just gonna drift
off the road and see if I canhit some rabbits at like 60
miles an hour.

I don't remember it going down like
that. But that was Adam Woodleydriving at night. Yeah, that was
we'll be driving worthy. If wehad an audio recording of that,
but he's like, and what's upwith all these suicidal bunnies?
No kidding. They would just runout that we'd see them on the
shoulder. And then they just runout and we get them over? It was
Yeah, a bunch of really, reallycrazy. The vultures ate well,

(02:08:03):
the coyotes.

Unknown (02:08:06):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And
congratulations on your 50thepisode of the talent tank. Oh,
man. Thank

you. And thank you for being the the finale for
the spring season. And thanksfor all the work you did you
know, 12 1314 years ago, at theinfancy of this thing that we're
all chasing still today.

Unknown (02:08:23):
Well, I'm still looking for that next new thing that a
bit exciting, and hopefully Ican get back out and see some
racing and maybe even be part ofa team someday. So thanks again.
Appreciate it,

man. We'll catch you later, Jeff. And on
that note, we're out.

Intro/Outro (02:08:37):
Thank you for listening and taking a dive into
the tail end team. Please likeand subscribe on Instagram at
the tail end or our website, thetalent tank.com

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Cold Case Files: Miami

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EP 50 Jeff Knoll

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Cold Case Files: Miami

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

EP 50 Jeff Knoll

Cold Case Files: Miami