Ep 285: Dave Cole

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content. Today on the show we have Dave Cole to talk all things KOH. How exactly do we get Dave
Cole on our show? He thought we were the Sysn Brothers that was a rock-crawling group from
back east that in 2005 he totally thought we were the wrong Sysn Brothers. Oh beautiful because
that's all I blacked out at the last KOH. He ran into them at the Olaf events and we shared some
old fashions. Nice I just also noticed Jose wasn't here so I wasn't sure if we traded Jose
or something for this opportunity. No I think it was 100% that he thought we were somebody else
and then once he got on the call it was he just decided to stick around because he's a nice guy.
Because that's a super huge investment like trade on investment like we got Dave Cole for
Jose. Oh I offload Jose in a second. Yeah we got Dave Cole. Fantasy football trade right there. Oh
beautiful.
Hey everybody it is 630 on Tuesday night. We are live on YouTube as we usually are on Tuesday nights.
We started on time tonight probably because Matt and Jose aren't here. I don't know if you guys
have noticed but since Matt and Jose aren't here everything's working. All the computers are working.
No one's trying to log in and try to figure it out so I'm going to blame all of our lateness
on Matt and Jose whenever they're not here. It's the old school rock crawlers podcast.
It's the old school and just as a side note we just found out that there is a pair of Sysn Brothers
that are cool. It's not us. He never said cool. He said old school rock crawlers Sysn Brothers
and I think the only reason Dave agreed to come on this show is because he thought we were them.
So we're joined tonight by Dave Cole. How are you doing man? I'm doing wonderful about yourselves.
Good really good. This is a this is a long time coming and I appreciate you taking the time to
be on a show with a couple yuckleheads like us but we have been big fans of the stuff that you've
done specifically over the last 20 years and I do want to get to a lot of that but
I want to so where are you at right now? I'm physically in New Jersey. I got married in April.
Oh congratulations. Thank you. Yep I'm at our house in New Jersey. I grew up back here. I went to
high school back here and came to California in 99 and when I did my girlfriend at the time
I went back to my high school girlfriend. We just stopped talking and we didn't talk again until
about a year ago. A year and a half ago and life changed. It's amazing. Oh wow that is crazy.
That's one of the things I wanted to talk about with you is the story from 2007 on
has probably been told a bunch of times. Sure. I want to talk about Dave pre 2007. So you grew
up in New Jersey. What was off-roading something you did in Jersey? Was that part of your life
growing up? I actually I've been I don't know why I got into off-road except that except for the
Ivan Stewart game. Oh yes. I was just into the Albert Stewart game and I completely destroyed
my mom's Ford Escort in the Pine Grounds in Jersey. I learned how to do emergency brake
Jayhook turns. I started in the dirt and then graduated to asphalt at speed. It was better in
the dirt safer. Oh yeah. Yeah but Jersey. So Ivan Stewart video games in Jersey and that was
like the the beginnings of yeah like when you're putting quarters in for pole position that kind
of thing. Oh yeah. You and I are close in age. You're a couple years old like two years older
than me I think but I 100% remember the stand up Ivan Stewart video game at lamppost pizza after
my dad's softball games. We would go play at lamppost pizza and I absolutely remember that.
What about out like I'm not familiar with Jersey when I think Jersey I think subways and
yes. There's no subways at all. There's any subways in Jersey at all. Is it the rail?
Isn't there like there's a rail there's a high speed line and Paco thing and down by Philly.
I'm down by Philly. I don't consider what you're considering jerseys up by New York and honestly
no no. I totally didn't mean to offend you. I'm much more I'm much more South Jersey.
Okay. So what is the landscape there? Is there any like is there outdoor is there outdoor
adventures? It's mostly it's concrete up north and asphalt south. Okay. I'm kidding. It's it's
great. It's really green down here. It's huge. It's much more a lot of cell phone trees. Okay.
So so outdoor stuff like was that it was that much of a thing growing up from from before 99
uh organized sport. I matter of fact college football. So I did for me it was all organized
sports growing up and then um I was drawn my um for a short time I lived in Indiana when I was
like in third grade. My dad and my dad was in the steel industry and in the and in the military
between the two of those and parents getting divorced and life happening. I kind of lived
all over the east coast and um but for like three years and probably like seven or eight years we
went to the Indy 500 and my dad was uh one of the gold hat guys you know like the security guys at
the Indy like they're like they're like they're volunteer guys. Yeah. Yeah. And so I got to
go in with him before the race started for about four or five years like six a.m. before the crowd
four doors open kind of thing which was kind of an experience that I think that's where I got
completely hooked on the concept of events and understanding how it worked and I just got really
into it and then racing of course. I mean I was hugely into racing at that point. Yeah. Well I
can't imagine having uh access to the Indy world and not being just completely absorbed by it like
that that's the pinnacle of of motorsports uh racing in the 80s. In the 80s. Yeah. I mean yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I did the I tried watching that there's that Netflix uh Formula One race
thing and I've only watched like three episodes but I heard really good about it. I just arrived.
Yes. Yeah. That's uh that's changing that's changing the consumption of motorsports in general
and um yeah it's all stuff and the whole drama piece and you know trying to get more of the
lifestyle and the culture um understanding the people that are in the sport as opposed to the
sport itself. That goes a long way to getting people hooked. Oh for sure. Yeah. And I think
for spectators of any race event you see what happens on race day but the 48 hours 48 weeks 48
months leading up to that you don't see the the failures and the missteps and the successes and
the all of that stuff and I think understanding all of that all of that story before race day
before the the flag drops makes you that much more connected to the driver when when the when the
light goes green or they they take off from the start line. Agreed. Yeah. I think one of the huge
opportunities we would have on the same line is kind of telling that story of how the the groups
of friends and families come together coming to King of the Ambers I think that would be a that
would change if when you realize it's not Jason Shear it's 45 people with Jason Shear racing right
yes then it's yes then it's um it's a different feeling and I think I think that there's like a
lot of us that are perfectly happy watching really cool cars go around in a circle or on
whatever sort of track right we don't necessarily need a story I just want to watch some cool racing
but then there's like if you can add a story to it you might get some people to come watch the
racing because they've connected to the story. And I think going back to Shear and his 45 people
there's also 100 race teams that have 20 people that are all volunteers working for beers and
camaraderie and friendship and like we've interviewed we've interviewed a handful of people
that that did the team in Camacho was the first one that comes to mind Camacho racing and those
guys the the struggles they went through to get the when we talked to him it was like I don't know
like four weeks before race day and they were like well we still don't have an engine in the car
we're 30 percent done 30 percent done yep you make sense so I I do think that that those stories
behind the racers is is super compelling regardless of the format in which the race
where event we're talking about I think there's so much more there's so much technology and and
passion and drive that goes into these race teams in any in any form of the sport so hence the success
of forms like this but you mean you guys talking like this we're not there's not going to be a
single car going vroom vroom past us but it's entertaining and it's insightful and people
look to hear the stuff that comes out so yeah yeah I'm I'm looking for we're I want to I want to
jump into hammerking and streaming and some of the things going forward but before we get to that
let's talk about summit business solutions oh two to oh seven so so if I am I am known
I am known to be a LinkedIn stalker Dave I am known to be a LinkedIn stock and there's so now we've
both logged into Lincoln one time so business solutions that was how I uh so some business
so when I moved to California I worked for GE capital which is where I started I never graduated
college I played college football in school for two years and got a job at GE in the summer um
actually my first job I was the file both file boy for the first mortgage back security
really cannot make that up yet I was playing college football as a Kelly temp and I put like
5000 origination files in order and it was for the first mortgage back security for GE capital
and I ended up getting a job there right after that and I ended up staying with them through
st. Louis and then then to California and then I ended up going to GM in 2001 and I was in Mexico
city for two years with GM and then I um I was missing being home I was already it was tough
art at that point so I came home to stay at home I tried to start my own business and I wasn't very
good at it and hence King of the Hammers in 2000 you see some of business solutions so hold on yeah
2002 to 2007 are they hungry years they call them the hungry years five years of your own business
is summit business solutions I mean five years is pretty good to feed yourself that's fine yeah
and then business analyst for ceridian from 07 to 10 now ceridian is my experience with ceridian
is like an HR time clock may manage payroll management company yeah it's very big in the
industry and what does a business analyst for ceridian do um I was pretty good at fixing broken
broken business problems like go into a department that's losing stuff or has a problem and I could
figure out the data or figure out problems and help kind of make new solutions
um for GM I so ceridian ceridian was after GM yeah yeah so yeah ceridian was uh payroll
stuff just six like you know what six sigma is yep yep what was the six sigma master black belt
try that one on uh I project management nothing to do with my any kind of physical prowess and
all the jokes that are already starting yeah zero uh the uh yeah I many many years as a project
manager and uh and uh understanding that kind of stuff so then what's that and you know exactly
what I did yes well it so the reason I ask is and like I said at the at the opening is that
we'll get into the the ko h story I mean it's it's it's legend right it's it's something that
we all think about and talk about on a regular basis but I find it really really interesting
when you look at your history in working for a mortgage company that that you know as a file
boy and then starting a consulting business and then go into a HR payroll software company as an
analyst and then and then in 2008 you and your buddies go do some random ass trip to Johnson
Valley that sparks something in you the the the the point I'm making is if you if you look at
Dave Cole from college to 2007 there's nothing that screams a guy that's going to create an empire
that will impact the world of motorsports in over the entire globe for the next two decades
and I find it super interesting that that a lot of so personal like I'm 49 right and there's a lot
of there's a lot of people that are sitting there thinking in themselves I mean I'm 40 years old
I'm still working at this job I don't know what's going on you never know what's around the corner
and and you were how old were you in 08 when you guys did that first 07 when you did that first
07 37 right yeah I'm 52 right now yeah so so I find that part interesting where
now learning about some of your background and understanding I could see where the skillsets
that you've developed in your professional world translate to problem solving and project
management in the in the hammer keying and the koh and that kind of thing but it doesn't
I don't think people give enough credit to the ability to start something without having a
background in starting something does that make sense it does yeah yeah I don't I don't think I
I don't think I ever realized I was starting something I didn't have any background in doing
until it was too late yeah well that because that's the next part I want to talk about because I feel
like I feel like this is the first of all when when this started when when king of the hammer
started and ultimately ultra four it it didn't exist it was from a whole cloth on a napkin in a
bar and you're flying the plane as you're trying to build it and I I can't even imagine the level
of chaos of things getting out in front of the plan and then creating a plan and then things
getting out in front of the plan and managing that level of a chaos catastrophe on a day-to-day
basis I mean is that is that an accurate representation of the first few years of king
of the hammers it's an accurate representation of the last four hours king of the hammers
I haven't changed terribly much I mean oh no I mean yeah I was uh it was pretty nuts I I don't
it never seemed it it never seemed like a big deal until probably about three or four years
in with the whole marine bay stuff and pirate going nuts and the numbers being crazy and then
and quite honestly it it was just a it was just a big like waterslide for 16 years of just like
going non-stop and figuring like you said figuring things out making it up trying to do the best
we could do yeah going back to that that 0708 time frame so you know the the first group my
understanding all my uh linkedin stocking and wikipedia pages so uh you know 07 the the first
group goes out there and then 08 you start hammer king productions what was your so when you started
hammer king what was your initial thought about what it would be so jeff knoll and I came up with
the name king hammer king productions um it was after having the I mean the king of the hammers the
name actually I'll I'll give John Reynolds probably the biggest credit for that John Reynolds is the
one that crowned himself the king of the hammers after he won okay okay which is true um and we
went with it sorry I'm plugging my laptop oh you're good you're good with this laptop um uh hammer
king so one of the things that jeff and I talked about from the very beginning is that content
was going to be the key to anything if we were ever if we're going to do it had to be about content
and so let's fake it until we make it let's pretend we know what we're doing with content
because they'll think we know what we're doing with racing so we made up a productions company we
made a we called it a productions company even though the closest thing to holding a camera
was saying the word productions for me and still I don't know hey we have been faking this since
2016 so I know exactly I know exactly what you're talking about um but but I think that's again
interesting when you think about 2007 2008 when you say content there was no Instagram there was
no TikTok there was I don't even know if YouTube was a thing in 2007 YouTube YouTube and Facebook
were not not existing at that point so that was that was the first the iPhone yeah in 2007 yeah
so right am I mistaken so the real the real thing that isn't there are three hours of a
conversation it's also when the razor came out really oh okay really that went on okay wow
try that one on tell me in 30 years anybody can tell the difference between YouTube being an
ultra four car yeah oh yeah what I want to talk about that but but what was your what when you
said content and it was like I know you when you say content today I think all of us can list
the 48 places we can consume content but when you said content in 08 what kind of content were you
thinking um literally um like did you guys even know rp films was no rat pat rat pat no I don't
even I think that's what they are in the p-standard for a pat was his name um that's rad he made he
came to rock crawling events and shot us and if you like like Tracy Jordan and Becca Webster and
Dustin Webster and all and we're just making like old school rock crawling videos yeah yeah
that's what I was I'm thinking like skate videos like animal chin and power peralta like it's you
you know you buy the vhs so you can watch it with your buddies so for us content really was
pirate four by four okay it was just video clips content anything pictures rumors anything that
all the man was the that was it was it and really actually the fun I was just thinking
about this the other day probably the the turning point or the thing that changed us as a company
was around 2009 I think so 2007 was the was the og race 2008 was the first big race 2000 and we
shot a movie then um Taley shot the movie um and we worked with pirate to make a live show
lance and camo and the next year 2009 they came out and they made a live show again and it was
it was um lance sitting on the start line with just for the laptop and I think camo was at back
door and we'd like we tried I mean it was pretty rad I think we did two years that way and I think
the second year is when I came home from doing the griffin king of the hammers in the desert
to find out that jason shear had won the be of good rich king of the hammers on pirate
oh okay I got you I got you so I went to georgetown and I bought their trailer I bought their van
oh and their candles and their dish so they couldn't get my live show anymore oh no you would you
would think they'd get some of that stuff cleared with you before I don't know but that was so wild
yeah yeah super wild west yes the first one to pull anything out there yeah yeah yeah if you're
camo and camo and lance you're righteous they're the ones that are putting the expense in I mean
go and get a dish back then yeah oh yeah that was expensive yeah 30 40 grand then to make a live show
yeah wow because so because for those of you that aren't that that are you know we've talked about
this a billion times so I can't imagine you don't know but for those of you that don't johnson valley
is the middle of freaking nowhere there's no it's there especially back then there was no
cell phone receptioners or starling to get tree we're still there but we still can't figure out what
so so so that was oh so you guys were trying to do live feeds in oh nine we were doing live
feeds in oh eight we were doing live feeds in a way but I mean literally so holding the laptop you
took the you took the camera remember the clip on camera yeah on said cameras yeah turn that around
so now you're running a meeting from your laptop yeah we could walk we had like a 100 foot cat five
cable that we attached to the three meter dish in the van and as far as you could walk with the
laptop was your camera and you basically walked around doing a web meeting from your laptop that
sounds like us every week like that's that's how low there wasn't any places like we do not like
there wasn't live view or none of that stuff existed at all so you were literally we're sending
video to a frame that the network we're embedding the frame on pirate and that's how we did a lot
show yeah and one of the first things we decided was that the most important thing was to do is to
get people to see it so we made it seem like we were keeping it in my value but the reality is we
had our sponsors pay play the live show on their web page and that's what blew us up then we started
getting non-endemic like people that weren't just our friends or like people in South Carolina are
watching on griffins yeah I mean yeah and that's when I started getting weird
I by weird you mean blowing up well by weird by awesome yeah it was starting to get pretty cool
awesome and it had to be awesome and somewhat overwhelming when you I mean again I'm going
to say today's world someone says I want to do a live stream there's 45 billion companies that will
create a live stream for you and all the equipment exists to do that you do that in 2008 2009 and
it actually catches on fire and blows up that's the moment where you go what the hell did I just do
and and how do I how do I keep up with it right
you know when I really at that time it was there was so much incredible energy happen from the
guys that were racing guys and girls that were racing that it was easy to keep up with because
everybody was I mean everybody was all in I think they still are I don't think that's really
changed a lot I think there's we're having some there's some you know trials and tribulations
and stuff but the reality is there's so much passion from the people that do this whether
you're on the course or off the course it puts you in a good place to succeed regardless because
you're just you're throwing everything at it and we've talked about that a bunch about the off-road
community as a whole bonding together to help each other and all those things and then and then
you watch any of the videos about king of the hammers or hear the stories we've had racers on
to talk about the the event and all that and you hear about the guy that broke down but this pit
is closer and so they're gonna borrow their water pump from this guy and get the truck back up and
run in and like it's it's one of those things where yes you want you want to win that everybody's
competing to win but at the same time you want everybody competing to finish and have a good
time and I that's that's one of the coolest things about this race that I've ever I think you oh
looking back on that now I mean that was a really big thing and I can't put it all one person but I
remember even in the rock crawling days before that but Shannon Campbell said Shannon the big names
for the guys that set that standard because they would be the first one no one came to a race with
spares except for Shannon back then right like no we didn't have spares you had the only motor you
could afford was in your car yes and the only transmission you could afford was in your car
and the only shocks you could afford were on your car right and Shannon was the first successful
like word a he was building cars and b he was he was he had he had some support and he was like
he was also the first one to really just say this bucket this is my life i'm putting everything
I have in my entire life at this this is my life this is my kid my family's life exactly this is
even though it was his life and even though it was his entirely livelihood and everything else
when he was at the course and and he did a lot of ass whooping but he wanted to whip your ass
on the course yeah and if he had a part that got you back on the course so he could get you to break
his part because he was driving too fast anyway and you and you couldn't keep up with him then he'd
be happy to do it that way yeah and it was just it it set the stage and and if you're if the stud
in your sport is acting like that then it then everybody acts like that yeah and I and I very
much think it's an extension of the community before the race started it there's you go to any
off-road trail that we've ever been at and you see a vehicle on the side of the road your whole
group pulls over hey man you guys okay do you need anything you know and that that is part of that is
part of what I love about our off-road community and I love that that when it goes to the the pinnacle
level of competition in this race that piece went with it I agree I'm very thankful as well
yeah I love that part of it um talking about the cars back then I want to I want to talk a little
bit about that piece of it because you know my understanding you go back to 2007 it's basically
the rock crawler buggies that you guys had built to be able to go hit the hammers and and and
enjoy johnson valley and when you look at those vehicles from 08 compared to the half million
dollar machines that are out there now like tell me about that progression from your perspective
not only from a fan of the sport but of how you regulate and manage that process as these vehicles
are getting faster and stronger and bigger and more capable well that's yeah that's a way bigger
that's I mean so when you started talking about the first cars I was thinking about
so I'm extraordinary fortunate that I was able to buy from Damon hopper I bought the jr's car the
bronco and so I've just sat there and just looked at it like and you see stuff like I don't you guys
never get around like really like high-end race like the desert cars are that kind of like yeah
a truck that's well the team that's been racing for 10 15 years and you look at and go oh that's
why they do that yeah that's right there for this exact reason and this is the reason why that's on
the car yeah you look at jr's car was the first one because it was built by pros and vendor built
that car jr put all the love into it but they built that car with a bunch of creature comforts
that that we we look to and race cars now it was pretty cool car um I think what happened
for like after like that first five or six years building cars that were just like brick
shit houses for a while right like I mean every car out there that was like 6500 pounds and just
massive every every car had three alternators on it because every car doesn't even need four
alternators right yeah yeah and and so that everything was like super overbuilt and then
people started building fast cars and it it went even as hard as to try to make the event
be an endurance race the winners the people that are trying to win it are going after as a sprint
so they're building super light fast race cars it's pretty crazy side side no we actually got
to ride in tom waze's car on a short course track back in 2000 at jeremy migrath's short course track
at jeremy migrath's short course track it was 2019 was it yes yes in 19 18 or 19 yeah and then we
were but just that was the little one that was the that was the jason shear car then right
I don't know no I don't know was the passenger seat very small
are you sitting like were you sitting like it no it fit matt so it couldn't have been that small
it seemed like it was the same size seat he was sitting in yeah okay but it it was and casey and I
have had multiple conversations about this it was it was it made me giggle in a way that I didn't
know I could giggle like I didn't like yeah like I drive 2019 ford ranger and I drive that thing
like I think I'm a race car driver and I get excited and all giggly and then you get into
one of those cars and you realize that that car could rip your intestines out if it wanted to
and you just there's something inside of you that bubbles up and you start giggling like a
little girl and you're like kind of embarrassed about it but at the same time it's the coolest
thing ever and yeah it's also very it's like it's to me it was like like that was giggly
it was also calming yes right and then it was also frustrating because that's not how my truck
drives and you're telling me you're telling me uh just sort of call bolster in both your stories
because you guys have been both talking about riding with time ways for 10 minutes and neither
one of you claimed to be terrified and I've ridden with time ways and he's terrified well oh no I
was just about to say it's it it it feels like he's in complete control but at the same time
you're thinking there's no way that we are in control of this video and I would say it was it
was so it was uh a short course there wasn't a lot of opportunity for him to really get to full
speed and launch you know it was a lot of jump break turn jump break I believe in the desert
where it was we would be going flat out and I'd be in the desert knowing that there's two foot
whoops and holes in the ground I would probably shoot my pants but in that course yes in that
short course I don't think there was enough to scare me it was just super freaking cool
like that at the end of the day it's one of our one of our best memories of doing this show
awesome but as the as the technology as the technology got is getting has continued to evolve
in these vehicles and you're seeing more wheel travel more horsepower more speed on the flats
as the event coordinator and mapping the stuff out how how much of that do you take into in a
consideration and go well we need to make some adjustments because this section is just too easy
now it's funny to talk about that we we just had that conversation about the the difficulty of
making courses it's hard oh it's it's really hard and it's hard and there's a lot a lot of
facets that go into it there's there's safety I mean Tennessee did you ever see us race in Tennessee
no okay not in person but I've always I've watched always on okay so you remember we
thought we we used to dig a trench halfway down the pit road on that at that race because
you would come out of a hill you're coming downhill like on a five degree slope
it's usually wet it's grass it's usually like ice it's downhill at the end of downhill 40 lanes
wide it goes into two lane wides with two oak trees and it's really dusty there so like it's
it's like every chance of like hurting somebody right yeah you got to figure out how am I gonna
get a car a Casey Gilbert's gonna come out of these trees Eric Miller's gonna come out of the
trees and he can be doing 115 before he gets those oak trees you gotta stop yeah so the
stuff like that just trying to understand how you can try to rain the cars in um
the the thing nobody still believes to this day that's that's what tire balls was about for me
getting I mean I could not build courses I will never forget Jason Shear passing a dude while
driving all four tires on the catch fence in Tuella about the short short course he got
wedged up into the wall and instead of lifting he was all four tires on the catch fence above
the concrete wall and just staying in it and going around and make the pass well I I saw there
was crazy there was that year and I don't remember what year it was and I don't remember if it was
chocolate thunder or backdoor or whatever but I'm standing there watching and all of the cars
are all backed up it's it's carnage and you hear Tony Pellegrino Tony Pellegrino bottom of chocolate
thunder 2011 2012 yes is that that rock is back right now after the hurricane that rock is back
I'm thinking I'm thinking of Shannon Campbell coming around the corner and going up on the
solid like literally sideways he's like fuck it I'm not going to deal with you guys I'm just
going to go around and nobody thought to try it and he came around with enough speed got up on
the side and just went up and over everybody and people lost their freaking minds because it was
like the coolest thing yes it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen in any form of
motorsports because you're just watching it and you're like man this is this is he's coming it's
just going to back him up and he's got a chance nope he just didn't give a shit and he went
balls out I have never seen a more balls out move in my life yep yep shannon Campbell in his prime
yeah and to me to me that's he in Missouri I remember he lost lost the rear end of the car
he had like a three lap lead in a seven lap race okay and he lost the rear end of the car and he
had to get up a hill that was pretty difficult for most people to get up period but he didn't
have a rear end so he couldn't he couldn't get up it in going forward so he turned around and he
did the Tom Ways oh no on the rev limiter rock balancing in reverse on an IFS car in like 2011
in southern southern Missouri off road race it's more when it's just the stuff we saw that brings
up question now that you mentioned he has it in IFS car in your opinion which style car has
the the advantage at k-wigs IFS or solid axle
I don't think I don't think a car has an advantage at king of the hammers I honestly
I mean I do my best to make the course hard enough but the reality of it is if you build an
IFS car and you can drive it the the advantage for an IFS car is not it's not how fast it is in
the desert it's how how less taxing is on your body in the rocks the articulation and and and I
think I think years ago the argument could have easily been made that solid axle has the the
advantage because the IFS technology hadn't gotten to a point where it was robust enough
to handle that and everybody that tried it was breaking it but people like Shannon Campbell
that were pushing the envelope on that the IFS has evolved to a point where if to your point
Dave if you build it correctly and you know how to drive it I don't know that it's that it's at
any disadvantage it's not a disadvantage it's it it's not certainly not a disadvantage to have
an IFS car that but it's also but the things that people think are inherently weak on it
they're the things that are bad on rough on a solid axle car could be mitigated as well I mean
I'm positive that no one drives in the rock faster than Eric Miller I can see that on data I don't
need anything but data I mean the data shows that but that when you watch them I don't I don't think
that I think if he was driving an IFS car he probably is faster even faster in the rocks
right because he's just he's an animal he sees the rocks out ahead he's plant he's running his line
200 feet ahead of where he's actually at right and and when you're at that level of
you know you're you're clicking like that doesn't matter what car you got I haven't seen it I haven't
come to think of I I don't know that I've I haven't seen everything that's for certain but
Eric I think is one of the best rock crawlers and I I don't think it's because of his car I just
think he's I mean he's a surgeon in the rocks he's good at yeah well it's just like it's it's
like a race car a rock crawler a plane like the the equipment is is a part of the equation yes
but the the driver is equally a part of that equation and you take this driver and put him
in someone else's car you may not end up with the same result and it's it's about it's about hey this
is my this is the way I like to drive if you're like I'm a throttle down bounce over everything
that gets in front of me then you build the truck in a specific way if you're like I'm going to be
more nimble and and strategic about my route you build the car a different way and I think that
that's with the ultra for platform and the ability to to really limitlessly build a vehicle to to
to compete in this race that's why we're seeing some of this technology evolve and we're seeing
the the the vehicles get faster and stronger because people are going I don't have to adhere to x
I want to do this let's see go back to Shannon's moon buggy you know the the first thing that
time rolls out and everybody's like what the hell is that thing and now you're like hey this
stink bug vehicle goes really fast let's see what happens with it I mean but but that doesn't
I don't think off-road technology I'm going to make a bold statement I don't think off-road
technology evolves the way it does or at the pace it has in the last 20 years without king of the
hammers I would agree I don't I don't think tires I don't think suspension I don't think
I honestly believe that the ability to to test vehicles in the most harsh conditions in the
world has forced manufacturers if they want to be part of it if they want their name on the side
of a vehicle if they want to be sponsors it's forced manufacturers to step up their game in a
way they didn't have to prior to this event I can tell you with absolute certain fact because
I've talked to their engineers yeah I mean I know for certain because I've talked to engineers Ford
and can and build their cars to win our race they're they hold that we are their Le Mans we are
their Daytona we are their indie this is it yeah I mean Ford's got their own Le Mans because they
got Le Mans when they when they built the Bronco for the public yes they were building the Bronco
for the racers at the same time and those two teams converse they talked they they built the
best vehicle they could yeah and watching that techno watching that happen I could that that's
a problem that's of all the things anybody's ever asked me now that I've actually said it out loud
watching a company like Ford build a car saying I'm only gonna we're only doing this because you
did that yeah look that's like you started it well no I mean I guess think about and and and
and I'm I don't know anything about anything I'm not a smart man but when I think back to you know
off-roading when I when I started off-roading like in 92 when I got my first Jeep 92 93 it was
Rancho shocks right and and and you know all the shocks were the same shocks it just it was
whatever boot you wanted to get right there was no there was you run yours upside down on the right
side up though they were RS they were RS 9000 they were RS 9000s with that shitty ass no with that
shitty ass of hose system that leaked constantly bullshit RS 9000s but I thought it was cool because
I had our I had the RS 9000 sticker all over that Jeep to make sure you knew and yeah did you have
red boots or pink boots all red 100 red yeah for sure um but like I just I just feel like
yes there's been you know especially over the last decade with a surge of interest in overlanding and
the off-road market and and manufacturers are playing to that because that's who's buying vehicles
and somehow every overlander has a credit of a credit score of 9000 and they're able to spend
four billion dollars a month on on vehicles but in the middle of a pandemic in a pandemic when
they're not working but the said you can buy a spinner van for nine dollars now what
wait a minute where I'll sign up right now yeah I can use a place to sleep but just other than
other than like the the the we rock or the you know whatever the the Baja 5000 Baja 500 Baja 1000
like there wasn't something that was so far out in left field that it forced anybody to do
anything different just you know produce the RS 9000s with a little bit more stroke and you
guess what you're going to win the Baja 500 and then this comes along and you say hey you see that
rock over there that's bigger than your truck you have to somehow figure out to get over that
and then go another 150 miles at 90 miles an hour and that had to be a wake-up call for a lot of
these manufacturers and the one the manufacturers that weren't involved you had people like Shannon
Campbell and the Millers and people fabbing stuff in their own garage because they're like screw it
I'm not waiting for you I'm gonna do it yeah sway bar disconnects Gary Farrell I already built the
sway bar disconnect on a race car yeah I don't know I'm not sure how few guys were in it when Gary
was racing but that dude brought so much technology what about a solid axle guy like I that guy never
got beat on a short course really in his solid axle car no kidding you're lost in his IFS car
but when he was in a solid axle car which was a Jimmy's car oh no so but again that car with
really wide axles and only half the number of springs because you take out the top spring and
run the car squashed it would even be on limit straps he run he run a car with like 700 horsepower
with no up travel it'd be tied on the limit straps and he would go out and whoop the living
shit out of everyone and that goes back to this is the way he drives don't put him in don't put
him in something else let him drive what he wants to drive he was a um no he was a um um a
warm outlaws guy so I mean he was no suspension sliding sideways dirt track guy right and so
he ran he ran that into a solid support car just he literally just like squashed the suspension down
ratcheted it down and put 37s on it and peeled out it's nuts that is that is nuts that is nuts um
so that's gotta be rough no up travel like that just sitting on the bumps I'm assuming
he doesn't have any feeling in his tailbone anymore it doesn't matter
you look wonderful from the top of the podium
he couldn't he couldn't stand all the way up but he was holding the trophy high
so let's let's talk about so we've talked about the ultra ultra four cars and like what that
you know how that has grown at what point did you say this needs to be bigger and we need to
include the motos and the side by sides and then now eventually the trophy chucks and the everyman
challenge and the legacy like how what was the evolution of that of that concept of taking
a race day and turning it into a two week a two week event it all they all everything
all happened into pet like jimmy lewis me and him talked for about a year before we did motos
um now i'm working with jesson lineweaver who was working with jimmy back then but jesson's
a local out there and he he just lives it he knows every single rock and he knows more rocks and
johnson now that i did and um and uh so you know it's it really i mean it seemed like we had
all do you remember we had lawnmowers no i did not see that we had king of the trimmers for one
year you can thank will jump to that um uh we king of the trimmers uh we had uh
i don't even know we've had a lot of weird stuff but it's been more just because someone said hey
let's do it i'm like okay let's do that and it's let's just try it and we yeah try pretty much
everything but the which i love i love the let's see what happens but going back to the we're building
the plane as we're flying it and you've got a drill gun out there trying to screw some sheet
metal together and someone says hey we're gonna add an extra wing and you're like cool let's go
and you just keep building it was it just was it just coffee adrenaline and passion for for two decades
to keep you going no and this won't come surprised anybody it was i had i had the worst ship on my
shoulder like on the planet like like like i well yeah i know i i had i just had to keep going
like and it was it was more just like out of the terrifying of failing i mean i was terrified to
fail and quite honestly i mean luhan luhan and i got divorced 10 years ago but she's still my cfo
she was my wife when we started she's the one that's looked at me in the eye was like yeah let's
not pay our mortgage this this month because there's a race to go to and you can go to the race
you know it's like um and we've we've been there like it's been there's been many rough times and
and um it's it was really purely just from a we can't fail we have to we have to just try harder
and with with that much shorter that chip on her shoulder eats at you for like it's not it's not
healthy and it's and it it yeah it definitely manifested in some nasty ways like i mean i got
i got i got i was tired it was exhausting and but it was i almost unable to quit yeah and and um
now looking back on it now it's certainly just because of the people around us i mean the
both the racers who demanded expected and deserve it right and those are three different things
and and but they're all true and so if the racers are putting that much effort into it
and then the volunteers put that much effort into it and the i mean the sponsors really care
right like we haven't turned really any of this into like a super money-making thing it's just been
everybody that comes really cares yes and and sorry to cut you off but not only not only cares
but i will tell you that for a lot of us when we drive off the lake bed at the end of the
end of the weekend we are already planning the next trip to the lake bed next year i mean it's
for our group we do a trip out there every year and it's anywhere from 10 to 30 people joining
us on our trip to do this and it's it's just to be there just to be part of it and everything from
vendors and and manufacturers and racers and volunteers and spectators this event has become
the christmas it's become the the thing it's become like one of my favorite trips of every year
is being able to go out to johnson valley and just witnessed witnessed the amazing
what we do joke around that like we call hammer town um uh what was their dome thunder dome we call
a hammer town thunder dome and i always joke we joke around and say that that hammer town scares me
because i go to bed at eight o'clock at night and uh we the wheeling wine and whiskey guys and
old kevin jones and those guys are always trying to get us to camp with them in hammer town and i
tell them that i can't go there my mom won't let me the hammer town higher you're scared you're scared
to go into hammer town but you're not scared to sleep at narnia no we are scared i am not scared
no we it's it's not it's not being scared i but i'm so just like just last year i was in bed like
at eight o'clock i was i was in bed and i wake up in the morning and my hungover brother is like
dude i just spent an hour hanging out with dav Cole at the campfire he's gonna come on the show
and i went oh shit what did you say dude oh shit he's never gonna come on this show oh my god
but i know what my brother's like when he's been in the desert for a night and uh and uh one of two
things was gonna happen he was going to your house for dinner because you're now best friends
or you will never talk to us ever again but but i mean the the it's interesting you say that it
hasn't created this big money making thing and and i think a lot of people would be i don't want to
say surprised but like the the and i'm sure that it's a lot of money yes yeah yeah there's a lot of
money moving a lot of money moving right but yes because because you look at the names because
of involved you look at the quantity of quantity of people um i i know that a lot of that money
goes back to the uh to to blm and to clean up and all of those things which we haven't even talked about
but um i i just think that the event itself above and beyond um what it means to the racers
what it means to the spectators is is just as important as what the racers demand and expect
and and and deserve and i think that that every year so i've been going i'd say 2015 2016 every
year i think i didn't go 2020 no what year do we go case 2021 i didn't go um but you didn't go
i went you didn't yeah nobody went but you you can watch you can watch the the evolution of
hammer town and the security and the how we're gonna route this and what we're gonna do and i
have to imagine that is a that is a daunting task and how do you guys accomplish that to make it
what the drivers demand expected deserve and what the the spectators are have come to love
uh we don't do it by ourselves check check it out that you you guys there's you have 30 guys there
right in your camp yeah if something got wonky next to your camp would you let it get wonky
or would you walk over and say hey what's going on yeah everyone of us would walk over and say
what's going on so with the other so with most of the other people there yeah most of the other
people there will as well not to be nosy not to be confrontational not to be a fight but
if something got weird it'll get it'll get solved pretty quickly and because the people
it's there's no way we could possibly do this if it wasn't for the people that are there doing
it that that's the only reason why i mean it's i can still i have to remember like around that
2016 17 time frame i used to walk out into the middle of chocolate thunder before the leaders
got there and we could have a conversation with like 10 000 people like i'd sit in the middle of
chocolate thunder and talk yeah and you could listen to people in the crowd talk back and we
would have a conversation it was crazy and but what what really came out of that is
once that connection was made then no one wanted to be the guy that was messing it up yeah we all
wanted to we all wanted to look after each other oh yeah we all want to live we want the
hammers to still be around and and it we it became more of a much more of a group effort
and a culture that became people leading anything or doing anything i mean
that's it it was it's the culture it's it's absolutely i if i knew if i knew how to do it
i would do it more often and better at it this it's a phenomenon that it's the people it truly
is the people and that that's interesting that you you talk about the phenomenon because i wonder
if this event was created in a different state at a different time in a different sport like
if it could be what it is today and and and the the the we talked earlier about the community of
off-roaders and the the mentality of of the comradery in that community and then and then
you throw an awesome fun race in in front of them and then that starts to grow from that
would any other community in any other location be able to pull this off the way that it i
nobody has the answer to that right but i i do wonder i do wonder how that would play out
some other time and some other place i think that there are some very unique things about
our culture i mean how many how many whatever pick whatever group of people
crocheters or rocket club members or whatever right i mean the ethos of cleaning up trash is
like the thing that's just like stomped into your forehead yeah as a wheeler right because it's
it's our land we're going to protect it we're going to keep it open right if that wasn't the
monitor of everyone coming there and the forethought of everyone there to begin with there's no way
we'd be able to keep it yeah there would be fights there would be you know shit would get trashed
or there would just be too much trash and it'd just be more more than like you said i don't
understand how 50 people can do that yeah you will go yeah 50 000 people doing it the minute
those 50 000 people decide to treat johnson valley live the same way they treat time square yeah
then we're in trouble yeah and so and and i quite honestly i'd probably stop doing it
i i mean it's fun for me because of this right i mean it's incredible for me actually it's the
most amazing thing in the world to know to meet the people and know the people that i've met from
being on the lake bed and to know how much they care and to be there for that and that's why it's
awesome and when that stops then it'll all stop and i don't know hopefully that just never stops
hopefully just keep on going i'm ready to go to the lake bed right now you should that's that that's
so that's the greatest thing that last year i mean i've my life's changed a bit in the year and the
biggest thing is i'm at the at the ranch a lot more at the lake bed a lot more yeah so you guys
live in jersey but you have the ranch in johnson valley yeah i i still live there i mean i'm there
probably eight months there four months here okay is realistic i was just i mean i flew in
only yesterday oh okay all right there all weekend um yeah how often do you get the chance to to get
dirt on tires and go have some fun that's not not race related almost every day oh i can get to the
top of fissure mountain in 17 minutes from my house i can't get to 711 from my house in 17 minutes
you always brag about you always brag about getting to work in eight minutes you know you know you
know i did yesterday two days ago for the first time i drove a four-seat can m up back door really
stop okay so let's so we've made the console i remember in 2000 you said the razor came out in
07 i think 2008 2009 we're at glamis and our buddies bought the first Kawasaki terryx off the line like
their their nephew worked at a Kawasaki dealership and that came out and we i got in it like oh yeah
and i got in and went this is a piece of shit golf course with dirt tires on it and i hated it
it was so and they spent thousands of dollars trying to soup it up and make it keep up with any
other vehicle out there and it still didn't keep up flash to 2020 2023 you can buy a ultra four ready
yeah now we're talking about people not be having enough experience to more power than
above their means like really above their skill level and and endangering themselves
Dave this is Matt Matt this is Dave hi Dave Matt Matt decided to show up so my question is though
it's like yeah i work that my question is like as as you've watched that evolution happen what has
been your thoughts about it coming from like old school rock crawler guy to now side by side what
what's happening like what's your thought um you know i think probably the the only detrimental
thought i have or the only concern i ever have is just more when there's a no barrier to entry like
like there's the off the off road the you know the saying good roads bring bad people bad roads
bring good people yeah right there's not you're not going to meet many really poor people halfway
through doozy or halfway through the rubicon or the top of a tail at the hammers because the the
the barrier to letting like you know for people that don't usually do the things the right way
you don't make it that far yeah you just don't yeah and and so um utbs have kind of opened more
doors in a lot more areas access but i i had for a while i felt bummed like oh i gotta we gotta
this is gonna be harder in this and that but it's it's actually an amazing opportunity for us because
if we don't i mean the fact that we can be talking right now to the state of california about making
permanent off-road tracks across the state of california that's not where we were 10 years ago
yeah right yeah yeah right and and worked we're having those conversations because
their constituents even if they aren't the people that we might have thought we were the think
where their constituents are actually listening yeah and there's because there's people doing it
and that's rad it's it's very rad and you brought up the same point that matt has said a thousand
times is the side-by-side market has made made the barrier of entry so low that anybody with a credit
score can now if you have a credit score and a truck you can now go out there what else do i say
you also you know it you may not necessarily have that code of conduct that that's yeah that's the part
i'm getting to that lower that lower barrier of entry if you grew up camping and and building
stuff with your family or your dad or whoever someone you you understand like hey you know
tread lightly pick up you know make make the place better than you left it you know just just that
kind of mentality you also had some skills you know you learned how to how to drive and stuff
like that so i just speak from experience uh you know my uh sister-in-law had an incident
and a super side-by-side you know i'm a turbocharged just something like what do you guys have
like how how did you are you think do you think that's smart and uh you know she ended up rolling it
and and maiming my my nephew you know and and so now that's like pretty glaring like
she got no training or anything like that she just went out there and it it gives you that
false sense of security yeah you know the day look at look at how capable it's i'm doing 70 miles an
hour you know yeah but i think that as that as that group of people and i'm not saying all side by
siders are not uh responsible but no as as more people get into it it now becomes in uh our
responsibility as the old school people to help educate them on some of those things and i think
events like uh king of the hammers that that includes side by sides has the opportunity
to to do that because now you're exposing these people that have this cool side by side they go
hey i can go see side by sides race let's go check that out and while they're out there
they're going to be exposed to that community that we've talked about that says hey man
you can't throw your trash there you need to pick that up hey man you better watch out for those
kids because they're driving around on their motorcycles go around the other way like
there's a community that if done correctly we can foster that that growth and and education
through the event and through trail runs and those kinds of things and i know organizations like
tread lightly um uh corva or ba they're all working towards that type of educational program to to
help those people that are new to the sport with their 90 000 side by side figure it out
the so as as the as the event has grown and you guys were doing all of the hammer king stuff and
king of the hammers and ultra four and last year you guys made the decision to separate the the the
two and and so ultra four is now being run by somebody else and you're focusing on the hammer
king stuff um how how has that changed the your approach to the event and hammer king in general
like has that opened the door for more creative ideas and more time to focus on different things
tell me a little bit about that made a new spectator yesterday because because we could
because we have time i mean i was in i was in a handed in 20 weeks a year yeah right and now
it's 20 those 20 weeks a year i'm at the hammers so i the stuff that used to be like
i mean we wouldn't even start thinking about trying to get ready for the hammers until
november december and now i've got next year's course done i mean it's ready so it's it's we've
never been in that situation which means now we can start doing tv's we can start getting our
coverage stuff earlier we can start working on other things that are just that much more dialed in
and does that does that bring with it uh i feel like you're the kind of guy that's like oh you
know what we could do oh you know we could do what if we did and so while you're laying in bed at
night you're not exhausted from all your travels how many of those things are running through your
head that you're writing down on a piece of paper someplace so that you can talk to someone and go
i think it's a great idea if we get tractors out there this year um yeah i don't usually write it
down but yeah that's pretty much non-stop yes and the amount of creativity with the team that we
have now or our team is the people that are doing the the work now we i you've been around the
industry a little bit you know you know who brink egobro is remember him from four parts i know the
name yeah yeah these are these are chief operating officer now nice that guy is like the og raddest
of like all the industry he's been doing the things for so long now now we have with the there's
just there's talent and we're starting to figure it out and learn the things so um and i i i gotta
believe that at this point in the game you you guys have the ability to just make the call i mean
it is that is that a misconception on my my part we're like if you guys have an idea and you go oh
i want to try to partner with so and so and do this can you just go and call and say hey this is
dave this is what i'm thinking sometimes sometimes i say hey this is dave and they click but
no i mean for the most part people like trying stuff um uh yeah and and i'm fortunate that
you know that a lot of people around the people that are doing the work they're down for the
challenge and and the the racist trust that we're i mean we go out and do the best we can
it's it's been it's but yeah we we make something up we just go try it it's been a lot of fun that
way what what has been the the one thing that for example for example ferris wheel that's your
that's this year a fair okay i'm excited about ferris wheels i like that what has been what has
been the the one thing that you're like yeah we're going to try this and at the end of it you go
never again never again will i ever let someone convince me to do this oh you know what um
we did did we do we were raised two different races at the same time that was fundamentally
stupid um yeah there's there's been a several things that i've tried that yeah we don't do
anymore one one and done's um but uh do people have to remind you when you get all excited
about doing something does someone have to say Dave remember that time we tried to do two races at
once that's that's that's usually what i'm talking to my friends at the BLM because i'll like turn
to them in the middle of the thing and be like i'm never doing this again and then next year i
tried it back out in the hospital and they're like hey remember when you said you weren't doing the
shootout again how come it's still on the list so actually the shootouts i can't believe it's got so
much people are so weird and out about it um i think it's misunderstood what i'm attempting
attempting to do around the shootout which actually is a perfect thing when you're talking about new
things yeah i want i believe especially it actually touches on all the things you've talked about
tonight i need to find four different groups of people that want to run the four trails just
the four spectator areas at night and i will give you the materials you need like stage music
everything you need but it's your area run it manage it keep it keep it safe keep it keep the
culture the way it's always been formally done right and now it's just a little too much and
we're getting sued by people that are like i didn't realize there was a race happening here
i can't cross right here yeah standing here man on my own business and this just magically
happened to me i don't know how this happened to me yeah and it's like okay and so we need to
we need to and they go those things happen and they go away but the the evening shenanigans
i think are important to the event like that's important but it's also important that we do
those parts right too yeah so it's totally cool to be totally cool to be wheeling like
out of your mind at chocolate thunder and doing crazy stuff you just don't need to be doing it
like with your seat belts off or yeah or with your with your kid on your shoulders as you're
standing four four feet away from where trucks are yeah it's just a tiny bit a tiny bit of
common sensical stuff but more what i'm hoping to do is if i could like we got a group in Oregon
it's the first group to step up they want they want um turkey claw and they want they wanted
they're gonna run it they're gonna they're gonna do you know parties and music and
they're gonna organize the trail runs and they're gonna people are gonna be able to wheel it all
the time but you're gonna be able to do it in a conscientious in a way that we're gonna be able
to keep doing it all the time as opposed to like for the last three years i've just been fighting
the fight of how like how can we stay open does that make sense yeah 100 and it'll be up to them
to sort of govern what happens during the night time shenanigans essentially at least to have
an adult in the room yeah like right now i when if there's only been i can honestly say there's
only been once or twice there's no you woke up in the morning and like you tell me that that
happened last night yeah right yeah that happened at three o'clock in the morning okay and we're
dealing with it um realities all that all that stuff's over by 11 o'clock yeah two the hammers
at midnight on the last night on saturday night's incredibly quiet because everybody's done everybody's
exhausted at that point so it kind of sounds like uh yeah if you had you could uh create your own
culture slash chaperone slash something that you would want to participate in you know oh they
again like you said there's there's a bunch of runs that they do and there's an itinerary maybe
and so it's not just chaos though everybody likes a little chaos it's kind of an organized chaos
exactly with with a chaperone or some somebody that sets some guidelines and rules to follow
and uh we and also make it fun yeah we can we can talk offline i i i can think of uh
three or four groups that could band together uh at one at one location and maybe do i still talk
about that hot dog truck yeah that was hot dogs at back door yeah brilliant okay can we here's
let's can we who named this stuff because i will tell you i believe i believe it was a group of 12
year old junior high school kids going we're gonna try to get 200 000 people to say the words
backdoor and chocolate thunder and i swear to god we love it yeah i met a guy named turkey claw
in cancun one time so i swear to god he had like a a tattoo of his claw on his arm is he involved
we get to say backdoor and chocolate thunder all year long that's that's the best gift next year
next year's dirty sand yes exactly that's gonna be my point where's dirty sand yes if it was like
trail one and trail two no one would care but hey meet me meet me at upper decker and then see
100 someone someone break out so if we're gonna do if the rules the rules on average are really
simple if you run the trail first you get to name the trail oh okay all right okay i want to name
one upper decker if we're if we're gonna take over one of those areas we're pulling out the urban
dictionary and it's gonna be called the upper decker at chocolate thunder
go to the upper decker area at chocolate thunder for nighttime shenanigans make sure you bring
hand sanitizer that's gonna be that's gonna be the the the motto of our uh no oh no i was gonna
go even talk i'm sure if i was watching the chat room there'd be plenty of suggestions about what
we could name it because our our listeners are up to speed on urban dictionary and junior high
school locker and talk that's who that's who we can cater to um so so hammer king as you're now
shifting and honing in on on the event and some of the other stuff what other kind of content
is are you looking for on the horizon with hammer king i honestly believe our opportunity is not
just with hammer king but with an offer in general is to um because the nature of our sport
for the most part whether you're rally racing or short course racing or desert racing or ultra
four racing um you are the best camera location as well if there are almost all those spots so
the current the current climate or the current situation we're in right now we're basically we
take our content we put it up for the world to consume and then we try to scavenge as much um
um value out of that that's still ours yeah right which is almost non-existent right so um
i've been using it okay uh loren healy was talking last year about him jumping off the rocks and
qualifying and that that clip would be generated probably about 150 thousand dollars of value
billions of views yes because it was bad but but but we didn't have a we we leaked out almost
all that revenue because there's 78 thousand different versions right there's five different
versions of the exact same footage that that might have been shot by us but are now just free free
domain like everything's just out there right i believe the opportunity we have right now especially
because um we the drivers the teams the production group has to take so much effort to get the
content in the first place we shouldn't give it away and those drivers should be that i my goal
right now is for loren to have that hundred and fifty thousand dollars before he gets back to the
pits yeah i want the drivers to be able to get paid for doing the things they do immediately
and have the royalties going with it forever because that that clip shouldn't be worth any
less 10 years from now that it is right now he still did it right i mean jack nicholson's movies
aren't worth less now yeah yeah he'll get his royalties so why why do we it's it's it's somebody
out doing the things and we have a unique opportunity because it's so hard to get our footage if we
stop stop giving it away for free and start and more importantly start being able to credit who
actually did the things to make it happen whether it's the promoter for having a race or the athlete
for doing something cool or the cameraman for making the shot all that's information we know
we know when the when that i can tell you who the cameraman was on when loren jumped on those rocks
right obviously it was in the car we know it was partners where we know all the people in play
so if we know that at every turn and all that's just data let's start managing our data better
and let's let's find a way to keep the value of our content i i don't and i don't think that's
unique to what you're doing so there's a uh the i was watching a documentary about music and they
were talking about how you know back in the day you you had a concert and people bought concert
tickets and then you sold the record and people bought the record and that's how you that's how
you made money once streaming came along it was like nobody knew what to do with that anymore
and everybody's still to this day trying to figure out how to credit those artists and find
capture that revenue that's that's rightfully theirs from their creation and i think that
there's that balance between getting content out like you talked about get it out to as many people
as possible so that they can see it but also attribute it to the people that are creating it
and and and doing it and and i think you can do both yeah i think you can still
completely saturate the market and get the get the content out and not lose the authenticity
of where it came from and if we can and i i think we i think we can get there yeah i think i think
our opportunity is because it's so hard to get the content in the first place we were the ones
that have it yes so let's just not give it up and i think i still want to give it away this
isn't like a hoarding thing it's just that that that clip you know michael jordan slamming from
the foul line right that's a billion dollar clip a billion dollar clip someone owns that and every
time someone that that one clip gets shot somebody's still getting paid yeah yeah yeah probably not
michael jordan i don't know probably not michael jordan and that's the part i want to change i
want lauren to get his when lauren's great grandkids are watching him jump off another
cliff in moab i want it yeah yeah and i think that you talked about early on you talked about
calling it hammer king productions and you didn't know what a production was because you'd never
done it before but i think with hammer king productions and the proliferation of streaming
services everything from netflix to youtube to toby and pluto there's there's all these uh
free advertising supported channels and stuff now i think that there's a way to capture that and
i'm not claiming to know the answer but i think about um there was that for years there was the
after the king of the hammers race you could get the the dvd of the with the narration and the stories
and all that stuff yep and i i consumed the shit out of those like you know i mean i would i would
watch them three four times i'd have them running in here in the studio in the in the background
while i was working like there's there's gotta be a because i like we talked earlier the very
beginning of this was the story behind the race is just as intriguing to me as the race itself
and i think what you guys did with the uh road to the hammers and uh some of those some of those
productions where you're telling those stories there's a way there's a way to do that to to
make it accessible to everyone yet still capture the value that that exists in it
i think it's really going to come down to it's almost like if you if you view data um you know
back to the ge days right you have a single source of truth for your data you'd want you
don't want one data repository that's the one place i go to find out my facts right if you
treat content as data which is all it is then you can still have the exact same thing yeah and if
you can tag that and you know that no matter what you should leave your leave your even if at this
point if all we're doing is putting a tracer on it and we just know where it went yeah we might we
were still going to get ripped off but at least now we know it got seen by 16 trillion people instead
of 30 and i think that even if the only thing you were able to do was quantify the views that then
provides the leverage to have the next conversation with the next monster and instead of optima
batteries over the rock that's jumping over here's the bidding war the next time somebody
jumps over this thing it could be up to 48 billion views do you want your banner at the
start line of the finish line right and there's value in that so taking those data points whether
it be the the propagation of the data out to how many different sources right because you can tag
that as well i know this is is now sitting on 200 000 different websites and then also how
many clicks or how many link backs to be able to use that data for advertising and for sponsorships
and for all those other things i think we lost matt i think we started talking about propagation
and data as soon as you said propagation didn't we get rid of that in the 30s like uh pro prohibition
i don't know man you're confusing me you start using big words sorry sorry i get i get a spreadsheet
nerd on these guys and they don't like it uh i'm a i'm a data nerd um the and i'm against
prohibition and yes you're against prohibition um when are you when are you coming back to the
valley when you come back to the dirt i'll be back on monday okay we have the or the orm half
the orm half of border uh border the induction stuff there's an induction ceremony for some
new people going to the hall of fame okay that'll be in vegas for that this weekend um
and then uh and then i'll be home for a while okay what um is your schedule for the next couple
months is your schedule starting to ramp up a little bit i mean i know that you said you've
already started you've got the course you're already stocking them on linkedin you gotta know
what his schedule is you know you weren't even here i was listening i'm a linkedin stalker
hey he accepted the connection that's his fault he shouldn't have done that sorry that is your
percent your fault he's gonna he's gonna get off the off the off this call reach out to the
people that got this schedule and went you son of a bitch i signed up for this you you already
you already ratted me out i i signed up for this at the campfire yeah you did evidently
oh you don't you don't remember that conversation because there's a lot of other things you
you committed to as well oh yeah i think that let me borrow your car was one of them on the trail
like we'll have to i have to find my notes case he's never taken notes in this life he's taking
notes in a campfire even when sober casey doesn't take notes the idea that he's 14 jack and coax
in at the campfire and hammers is like hold on the bartender they had there was making some
really strong old fashions yeah blame the bartender yeah i was like oh my god i i don't know that it's
i think you can handle that you've you've done it before um so thinking thinking about the
what is the what is the the one thing for this year's event that's gonna be a little bit different
you alluded to it but a little bit different and it has you really excited um that the cultural
stuff at the trails and i i do want to get i've been i'm trying desperately to get a
ferris wheel but only because i've been fortunate to been above it it is as mind-blowing as king
of the hammers is at 80 feet off the ground yeah it is unbelievable 40 feet off the ground at 80
feet off the ground just to get the scope of what you're looking at it is bonkers casey is a
fabricator i have every bit of confidence that he could weld together a ferris wheel like
it may be a i appreciate the credit but maybe above my pay grade if you're good at tig what
i've done is i've got a i got a full metrics of a rector set and what i was going to do is just
tig weld the rector set together and make a hey you can swap in my four million rector set you
could build anything with unistret man i have built some serious stuff with unistret it'll
it'll have the big string the string you just have to have one person at the ferris wheel
riding a bike to keep it going the whole time that's that's how you keep it going i really hope
that you pull off the ferris wheel because that will just be that's what it's missing like icing
on the cake that i like when i think about from chocolate they're looking down into the lake bed
that's what's missing it's like a ferris wheel like all lit up like that would be amazing coming
down the 247 and you're not the tree on your boom road you're coming down boon year road and you're
like there's a ferris there's no look exactly i bet if you reached out to barnum and bailey and said
hey we have uh 200 000 people coming out to the desert for two weeks how'd you like to set up a
tent i guarantee that thought about a circus i thought if you don't like the circus it's in
the mall parking lot at christmas time yes that's what i'm talking about that's exactly what i'm
talking about oh i that's a different thing than the ferris wheel the ferris wheel is going to be
it's like almost a long thing but a circus would be rad yeah that would be just for you to be able
to go and see us like just get tickets a kid's petting tickets every night and you get to go
watch the rad circus a hundred percent yeah i have three clowns that we can put on a show i promise
give us a little Volkswagen we'll all fit in there and do stupid stuff oh yeah it's called
class 11 racing gentlemen look it up oh that looks so fun yes that looks fun i keep saying i'm
like okay just we're just gonna buy a bug we're just gonna buy a bug we can't afford an ultra
far car we're just gonna buy a bug that's way cheaper than the every man oh and and i will say
that in your conversation you may not remember this but in your conversation with my brother
around the campfire my brother my brother explained to you that we want to build a vehicle
for every man challenge and we were arguing between his Nissan frontier and my ford ranger
and you said that the ford ranger was a better truck for that event and we should build the
ranger not the Nissan i think if i remember correctly i just wanted you guys to leave and
i figured that was the best way what what gets you off my back just uh that is the most a real
honest answer i think i've ever heard a guest say it's like i just didn't want to talk to
this jackass anymore what was going to make him go away i've built i built a ranger over at Nissan
Hardbody sure yeah yeah we're talking about a 2019 ranger and a 2014 Nissan frontier so
so you have a you have a Ford Bronco yeah yeah it's the ranger the ranger uh chassis was a Bronco
isn't it yeah it's basically the same um i love the truck explain to me you said the parts already
exist for the ranger yeah that you need to run this race yeah it's like okay fine
i'm not letting you build it anyway so it doesn't matter yeah um so what's next man what is i mean
other than celebrating a recent marriage and getting a little bit of free time with some of the
the changes and and getting ready to to to build up this event what is what's on the horizon for
Dave Cole what what do you see like long term
wow um i mean the answer could be i'm gonna do this forever i know we're actually i'm trying to
build a general store at the Amherst i want i want you to be able to not have to drive 60 miles to
get a utv bill i want you to not have to drive 20 miles to get ice and beer and u joints so um i can
tell you that this past year was the first time that the county did a like a economic impact statement
and we had 34 million dollars of direct revenue in a week yeah i i read i don't know i don't know
what i was doing but i was i read a report that talked about the impact that hammers has on yucca
valley johnson valley the surrounding area and the amount the influx of revenue that comes into that
whole three million dollars in direct taxation direct taxation during that week yes wow yes so
i can't imagine they don't like you small towns like have been created for smaller events or you
know like that certainly seems feasible it's it's it's uh it's cool i'd say i'm excited to see what
happens this year when it's not on the super bowl i mean we've been on the top of the super
bowl every year for like i mean i haven't seen a super bowl that wasn't on a lake bed in 20 years
yeah right so i hear it's a thing i hear people watch watch those games so people watch commercials
the commercials are not unless my team's in it they haven't been in it so you haven't missed much
i understand i'm an eagles fan i understand a lot i'm sorry dude say it goes back to his new jersey
roots yeah yeah um i i think uh mike trout being from new jersey and also millville yeah is he really
he's also uh philadelphia it's right that's right my wife's uncle drives drives his him in his limo
to the airport back and forth his mike trout's dad owns a limo service in millville and my wife's
uncle drives for him no kidding that's awesome that is super cool um i think a general store at
i would i would that is a huge missing yes i would i would think that there's another round
you tv rentals on the lake bed yes and another thing that i this is that this i have right now
if you want to drive john rattles bronco you can come to the ranch and drive the bronco you can
rent you can rent john rattles bronco you can rent a jimmy's car you can rent a trail bomber yeah
and you just go rock rock yeah yeah yeah um that's the way you know you know share my coach
yeah so i'm i'm i did a i'm doing a venture with that guy with joe hill to share my crawler and
you're gonna be able to come to the hammers and just run a rock crawler just go wow that's awesome
and and i think there's a there's an there's enough revenue in that two week period to probably
sustain life for a year but but there's dude i was going to johnson valley that's where i learned
johnson valley has activity at all time well you're wrong there's never not people there 300
people on the lake bed yesterday yeah and i left the lake but when i went on sunday night there were
200 people still going on the lake bed there's never not people there whether it be it was 79 degrees
on sunday hmm i think that's crazy it was amazing it's just about desert season here pretty good
yeah today was the first day i walked out of work and i was like huh it feels pretty good
like i turned my heater on this morning what it's chili it got in like the 30s last night what
but again there there does seem to send you a sweatshirt i think i think there's a real need for
like that that base infrastructure like again a general store then the next thing a gas station
pops up on the other side i'm to put in a do you want to put in an ev charger for your time i am
oh no i was trying to make fun of him hey code check this out though if you've got an
entire culture that gets put on the ropes yeah if literally if if the only way you can drive
to go off-roading is in your ev toy with your ev truck and you can't charge your toy and you
can't charge your truck when you get there yeah you're gonna stop off-roading oh 100 and then
we're not gonna do it anymore and then they're gonna be like oh we don't need this land anymore
because off-roading is such a no we're gonna have charging stations but but you're also now
contributing to the the growth of ev 4 by which is great it's gonna happen no matter what percent
fine with that yeah it's gonna happen no matter what no matter what we do yes you know we've always
said that now i'm not gonna run my tesla through uh i don't even think i'd take it down boon road
but you know if somebody had a uh a wrangler e model you know whatever 4 by e or the rivian or
there's plenty an f-150 lightning hundred percent there's plenty of those vehicles to your point
if the ability to charge was there it would it would absolutely change the mentality about
going out for a week you know they may go i'm gonna go out for the day check it out and where
else would you go yeah if that's if you had if if you had an electric four-wheel drive
where else would you go yeah if johnson valley had the the the charging capabilities yeah the
the amenities there we didn't see too many red ribbons last year i don't think but the charger's
in but the charger's in and then you'll start saying i can i can tell you we charged about
375 of them we had charging on the lakebed last year for rivians optima did optima paid for and
they charge oh wow seven times yes oh wow wow well we we interviewed yeah they had that rivian that
rivian we interviewed him at sima um but i i do think the ev the ev world is coming there's
nothing we can do about it there's a lot of pros and cons to it and right now the biggest con is
the ability to charge in remote locations and if you if you give them the ability to do that look
as a new uh new uh tesla owner i find myself like defending like well what about the infrastructure
how you split you know like everybody cites like all the negatives you don't experience those negative
like uh oh there's that guy that bought the the lightning and he tried to tow from here there
why do you do that like you didn't know that just happened too there was a guy that showed up with
one of our rookies towed his bomber race car to the hammers and rivian and couldn't go home he
spent the night at my house oh no so i my charge because i i'm off the grid at the ranch too so
all we had to do was all we could do was charge them off my batteries so i turned on the generator
and then the generator was the only charger like off the one it was like all right it was
done by tuesday range per hour per hour yeah it's 110 volts oh you should be ready to go by
tuesday you know what david i think he planned i think he's like i'm gonna get a free stay at
david's house for a couple of days well i'm stuck you know he had an f-250 diesel sitting at home
but he didn't want to take that that guy genius genius right there he's gonna write a blog post
my weekend with david that's funny but again it is one of those things um you know as people are not
people are still buying electric cars and once uh i that i'm super stoked to hear that you know that
he's he's looking to invest in that i bet you our biggest business isn't even gonna be the it's not
gonna be cars it's gonna be bikes it's gonna be utbs i think electric utbs and bikes will be here
and be far more prevalent before we're towing anything out there and yeah i i could i could
agree with that and and those those uh electric bikes and even electric mountain bikes are are
coming down in price to the point where they're accessible to people that the barrier of entry
is that much lower and i i do think that they're gonna blow up it's all it's all gonna go that
route i saw a guy with a with a rooftop tent in his Tacoma and two electric bikes in a regular bike
rack not like a dirt bike where you had to you know shove it in the tail he had the room just
like one of those tail those super 73s uh i don't know the specific bikes i'm just saying like well
you know you've seen those like bike racks you know that attached to the tow tow hitch or whatever
and you just put your regular mount you could stack mountain bikes on there he had a couple
electric bikes you know stacked on i thought wow that's uh you know he's not i don't know if he's
gonna get after it like like somebody on a dirt bike but he has his rooftop tent and the means to
go wheeling around in his truck and on electric bikes seem like a pretty yeah exciting thing
yeah i i think all that's coming in i i love the idea that you're thinking ahead to to that and
and demat's point if you if you put if you build it they will come if you put the chargers in they
it will be a real it'll remove the reason for them to not be there yep and then it also opens up
an even larger uh opportunity for vendors at the show so now all of going back to the electric
bikes and all of the optima batteries and all of the things you've now just opened up a whole wing
of participants and and sponsors and vendors just by welcoming that community into the into the event
and then and then then there's going to be the e hammer the king of the e hammer
and it's going to be all the electric all right where do we already have any class see there you go
i there it is i'm telling you this is going to be cool uh matt matt and i used to do construction
we can help you build that general store i'm ready to go i can't help you build that i'm like 45
minutes from from the like that so i can help manage the uh the building i can point at younger
people to do the work i'm too old and broken at this point that's right well dave uh i know it's
late in jersey and man i gotta tell you uh i'm very appreciative of you spending your evening with us
and um i cannot i can't recover our sport and thanks for looking after i mean if if people aren't
doing this kind of stuff then there isn't going to be racers racing there isn't going to be
people coming to events because they don't hear about it and yeah the fact that you guys are
actually talking about the cool stuff and then doing the cool stuff is i think it's right we don't
do as much cool stuff as we'd like to because we have to do the job thing but so if you're a
trout if you're a trout chaser when you're gonna come to the hammers and i'll take you on the new
trail that we're we just cut uh i can be there in 45 minutes
okay we will we will plan something we need to do some uh pre-run stuff anyway so i will
absolutely reach out and i have a solution we can do live from any car now so um like without
internet so when you come we can do a podcast while we're driving down the trail oh my god
see that is awesome because i always say that the chatter on our radios on our trips is the best
dad jokes ever like that we need that's that's comedy gold if we could just capture you just
lost and he was like hey guys everything we could have dreamed of happening was happening and then
i have a tendency to fuck it up that's that's what i do that's my job
but yeah absolutely i'll reach out well i would love to to take you up on that invite and come
play um and i'll let you know what that looks like uh and we'll try to coordinate schedules
because that would be very cool and let's show you around the hammers i'd love it and uh i'll
have some follow-up conversation with you maybe later later in the week about some of that other
stuff with those the locations you want a man i i think i've got an idea for that um and uh and
we will continue we'll continue talking about the event and hammer king and everything you're doing
because we absolutely love all of it and we appreciate what you've done not only for the
sport and the event but for for yuckleheads like us to have something to talk about week over week
year over year and about the events and and those kinds of things so i'm very very appreciative
to what you've built and for you to uh spend some time with us so thank you so much i appreciate it
appreciate you guys really do have a great night and i will see you in the desert all right
thank you so much man talk to you soon thanks dave we would like to thank outdoor by form
magazine for their continued support please do us a favor and go over to outdoorx4.com and check
out their content use the code trail chasers to get a discount on your subscription we promise
you're gonna love it um that was really cool uh freaking dave cool freaking dave cool look i i just
have to say uh after after hammers last year when kasey woke me up and said dude i just talked to
dave cool i thought for sure we would never hear from that guy again like 100 um and kasey did we
hear from him the first time no i'm just you said again you were awake was i oh i was awake
i think you got out to pee or something like that that's about right that's about right
i think i remember i was sitting at your tent like he's got to get up soon
throwing rocks at the side of the tent hey are you awake uh yeah so uh i am really excited
about hammers this year it's gonna be fun um we've got some money at stake for hammers this year
whether or not match truck's gonna be running that's uh that's gonna be something we'll have to see
um do you say money in stakes money in stakes money in stakes uh so two of my favorite things
what if we go for a longer period of time uh there's a lot of work to be missed uh at that point
and i think uh it really for me it's 100 gonna depend on the job so yeah you know i'm four i'm
i want you better when you're unemployed me too me too um i'm yeah i got the time
i'm starting my fourth week in my new job and uh my brain hurts uh every single day uh i didn't
realize uh how how much i i was gonna have to learn and it's it's taking a lot um but i'm the
great people i'm very very fortunate that it's super cool people and uh i'm digging it so far um
as we talked about jose is not here jose had to work so bummer jose and then matt showed up late
you had a long drive yeah i had to go to the big office today i had uh my review
how your niece they're okay i mean i i'm used to it now so i had brought some nice pad padding
and i made sure that you still have that click in your jaw are you good um it's on the other side
of my jaw now this year have you seen that i answered i sent it to you i sent it to you
i've seen it a million times yeah yeah they hurt my jaw right exactly it was like bj's or whatever
oh no i'll take you for the next year would you give them cheese or blowjobs and everybody was all
cheese and they guys saw blowjobs they hurt my jaw
that's so funny uh on the back end of a great interview we're gonna roll right in the 12 year
old humor but again we're talking about someone that you're talking about yeah under in back door
and dirty sanchez and since this is a dirty sanchez oh my god dude i'm telling you i want
to the upper decker upper decker dude we're gonna be we're gonna do the upper decker come to the
upper decker come sponsored by the trail chasers uh welcome to trail chaser corner uh highlighting
uh the upper decker upper decker um we can bring lights and have a laser show and oh man
then the latest show is me and matt with our laser pointer it's doing exactly star wars
lightsaber fights uh i could see that i could absolutely see that um because because you have
yes i was yeah you've already been to the that's what we do first one yeah uh hey matt watch out
there's like a beehive over there and i'm fucking shooting them yeah they want a party let's party
you want to get nuts let's get nuts so we have to we have to uh offline we have to have a
conversation about our schedule and uh when to get out to the desert uh and take dav up on his uh
lake bed invitation did you guys ask dav if he knew any uh transmission specialists no
he probably does know transmission specialists but they're not gonna put a fucking oem transmission
in a 2018 pro 4x but here has a 4l80 in it you want you want yeah i was just saying well maybe
they just take the chassis off of my truck and just put the cab on something else you know that's
fine he's gonna be like i don't have to drive i'm not driving it every day anymore he's gonna be like
you can have one of these transmissions they're all more expensive than your car they're all worth
more than your car thanks dav Cole that could also sell it and just uh you know whatever
find something um i did i did either of you guys pay attention to the uh chat room because i don't
know there's a lot of kissy faces and stuff in there i don't know what's i'm not sure what's
going on in there but um looks like there's quite a bit of chats uh i think that um well we have
we have some stuff we got to try to get done um in the next couple weeks
and uh casey you've got an event coming up uh this week a week from today a week from today
and it's uh i've been another one two weeks from today yeah and then another one a week after that
so casey's got two events to get ready for and uh we got one i've had uh numerous fanny
fantasy football uh drafts yeah yeah i just had my draft last night yeah thanks for the
invite homes just worried about getting dominated i guess yeah yeah that's fine monnie's gonna kill
you guys anyhow yeah i know she will yeah that's my sister's like a savant when it comes to uh
fantasy football she's like rain rain chick yeah just fantasy people that's it just nothing else
she's like kelly bundy like you started uh planning other or putting other information
in her head the other stuff other valuable stuff gets uh replaced hey honey what's for dinner did
you know that erie rogers is going for that right 1997 brett farve threw for uh 3200 yards
uh the what else what else is going on with us right now um has uh hasn't the part for
nicole's truck come in yet i think it's due in tomorrow that was in the chat room oh that was
in the chat room yeah um that's that's most of the sad faces oh that's where the sad faces are
yeah nicole's got a sad face she's driving around her gmc terrain i had i had lunch with her it's a
pt cruiser her gmc pt cruiser uh i got i got a new addition to blue thunder that i'm gonna have
to release here soon yeah i'm not ready to yeah no you you know about it i talked about it the
did we the thing i oh yes yes we did we did we need to get i need to get that interview from you to
uh air put a little bit more thunder uh nicole's back back into blue thunder yes a little bit uh
more lightning and thunder nicole's saying that she hates her her gmc pt cruiser i just wanted
to be noted that she was living life in a in a gmc pt cruiser when i met her just just living life
just i i thought we could lift it adventuring i'm gonna go adventuring and i went that's
bullshit go get a truck and she did and now look now now we're talking about nicole's group is going
off-roading this week she wheels we talk about going eventually going in the last in the last
year since she got that truck she's been off-roading more time it's been two years it's
kind of been two years uh yeah yeah it has uh she's probably been off-roading more than all
four of us combined in the last two years i don't know um so that makes me happy uh the what else
anything there's uh i feel like there's some events or something coming up but i didn't
off road expose coming up yes off road expose coming up in october uh definitely want to be
there for that seam is coming up seam is coming up um i'm still trying to figure that out we need
to we need to figure that out because if that's a time a time off thing for yeah for for for me
it's going to be a time off thing and uh again i'm i'm i also work but you know the sooner i
turn in for that yeah but what i'm saying is i'm only four weeks into my job so being gone for a
week is uh i'm trying to ever stopped you before um you're right it hasn't i've done it before um
what you got to do is you got to go in there and go look everybody all right this is what i do i
go to uh sima every year and this is it's not changing this just see how that goes just start
throwing yeah so so this is what's happening um somehow also if you could like this is how it's
going to help me out with my job uh sima or uh this i'm going to learn a lot of things about
distribution of things things you know i don't know exactly what you're doing in your job
that's what you got to do you got to figure that out none of those things are relevant to my job
you know what i'm saying i do i do and then two months off of that you need a week off
i know i know i know it's just work christmas just make a work christmas it was uh here you go
subsidize yeah subsidize your time over the holidays it was a little bit different when
you work for an off-road company or like i'm going to an off-road event you know
mm so uh well people are wearing shoes or you're gonna see me uh
take a look i'm gonna take a lot of pictures of people in their shoes i want to see how
our 200-dollar knee-high women's boots do in the desert look i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm in the streets
and i'm gonna do some research straight up i'm gonna be one of the biggest events
you know people are going to be at mm-hmm everybody wears shoes you have to wear shoes
yep throw that in there make sure they know that it's you know Matt just i think you got it i think
that's the that's the route i'm gonna go just like that i came up with that dude look at that everybody
wears shoes uh dumbass so uh i don't know about shoes man i don't know i mean i wear them yeah
but i don't you know uh i'm just trying to be helpful there's a hundred people in the chat room
going what is he talking about shoes oh you haven't you i don't know i don't know if anybody knows
what i what i do um what do you do i don't think i know what you do i'm trying to get you to go
to sema based on shoes like what do you do because you work for a shoe distributor like
i don't know you actually carry the tps report no i don't actually carry the report
uh mark says i'm the vp of new boot goofing
i like it i'm gonna have my business card check that or can i steal it i'm changing my business
cards tomorrow uh new boot i like it uh that's our chat room uh well look i um i think we're good
for the the conversation i'm super excited that we got the chance to talk to dave and and uh hear
a little bit more of the backstory about him before the hammers and uh i appreciate everybody
in the chat room that's been hanging out with us tonight and uh and participating so you guys uh
you guys make it fun with that uh i think we're good kasey anything before we go no i think that's
matt no jose no
i'm gonna have to cut that out now we're gonna get cancelled thank you kasey that's not more
like carlos yes that was carlos that was absolutely carlos well uh from carlos and the rest of us
thanks for watching have a good night adios
we would like to thank outdoor by four magazine for their continued support please do us a favor
and go to outdoorx4.com and check out their content hey thank you so much for listening
to this episode we appreciate it you can find more episodes at trailchacers.net you can follow
us on youtube instagram tiktok we are the trail chasers on most of those social platforms
and we are on irate4by4.com you can go down to the watch listen and discuss section and
listen to all of our episodes and interact with us please go check it out and tell us what you
think thank you so much thank you to everyone that participates and listens to this show every week
on tuesday nights we have a bunch of people in the chat room that are there making fun of us and
we love it we love having you guys there thank you to everybody that comes on the trail runs with
us we really appreciate it thank you to all of our past and current patreons and everybody that
supports us uh on the trail chaser support team at irate4by4.com we really appreciate all of your
support and it keeps us going thank you to ryan terigno for all of the music on the show uh he's
got a new album coming out uh you can find that at ryanterigno.com that's r-y-a-n-t-e-r-r-i-g-n-o
dot com check it out give them some support we appreciate it

Ep 284: Team Ashmore Taff

Ep 283: Nick Psomas - Peak Suspension

Ep 282: Jill Ciminillo

Ep 281: McRey MX

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Outdoor by Four Magazine.
The team in Outdoor by Four puts together a uniquely engaging publication for responsible
vehicle-based adventure travel.
With family-friendly content that resonates with all types of adventures, whether it's a
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Go over to Outdoorby4.com to subscribe to the magazine either in the print or digital
version and catch their 100% original and unbiased content.
Today on the show, we talked to Kelly and Paige with McCray Motorcross.
We talk about their meteoric rise and the women's motorcross, a parallel world and
what helped their, what helped guide their success.
Guess what?
It wasn't a modeling contract with any one of us.
We tried really hard.
We tried really hard to be part of that dream to know of it.
No.
A smart choice on their part.
Oh, no.
100%.
You think I can keep up with them on the trails?
Absolutely not.
I don't think any of us can keep up with them.
They'll be fair.
Oh, they're fair.
Yeah, she fairs.
They're none of us keep up with them on trails.
But I think that there's a lot of video content if they were to take you out on a trail ride.
Yeah, they're like, what?
Wait, this guy.
This is what not to do.
With the p既 ejet into the trail.
Yeah, that's what they're doing.
It's your dad making annoying.
Everybody.
Listen again.
Travers.
Travers dance.
Some juggle Getting a little wet.
Which side of the tree?
This side of the tree.
It stand on the 2nd part of the tree.
..
Hey everybody, it is 6.30, we are live on YouTube Tuesday night.
As we usually are in all Tuesday nights.
We just started this whole stream off just crying about the, I got to make caucus.
We already started off with that show.
Matt told the abridged version of the, I got to make caucus story to the, to the ladies.
And I, I feel like it resonated.
It's every time.
Yeah.
It's one of those stories like it really doesn't matter who the audience is.
It pretty much just works everywhere in there and you, and you laugh and you have a good
time.
And you have a good time.
And you have a good time.
This is the level of class that you get from our show.
And the ladies are aware of that.
Kelly and Paige from a, make Ray motor cross are joining us tonight.
How are you doing in I ladies?
Well, I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm sorry.
You're doing great.
Yeah.
So that guy that had to make caucus, he's still, he's still alive and well as far as
I mean, we need to get him on the show to tell his side of this story.
Also, he has a nickname is just this never been said before.
He has a nickname butters, because I, he has a nickname butters.
I play baseball with him for, for a few years and his name butters because he used to wear
a white t-shirt, but it always had like yellow stains, so it got him better.
Oh, a cheat.
I got brown stains, yellow stains.
Yes.
That's a train wreck.
I was not there for they got to make caucus.
That's just a, I heard that story.
It's just a qualify.
But I can, I can't confirm.
He was butters for a reason.
So let's go back to October of 2021.
I think we were at Off Road Expo when it was at the Ontario Convention Center and we were
outside and the McCray ladies were a couple rose behind us in their booth and we were
walking around doing our thing with the microphones and I feel like we spent a half an hour
extra guys's booth just telling stories and laughing and having a good time with you guys.
And ever since then, so that's almost three years now, we've been non-creepily watching
you in the background explode.
I had to clarify, because every time I say I'm watching you on the background or following
you on a LinkedIn or it's not creepy, you're making it creepier by saying it's totally
platonic non-cure the way.
Thank you for your concern for our wellbeing.
Yes.
We've been following you guys and you guys have been doing an amazing job of just blowing up and
getting your brand out there and using all of the different social media platforms and all
of the opportunities to do things.
And I want to start by having a little bit of a background conversation about what got
you started like, you know, back going back like a recap of where we were before.
And then kind of talk about what you guys have done so far because I think that in watching
you guys do this and Kelly, you'd made the comment earlier about getting your face beat
in trying to build a small business.
You guys also seem to be having a lot of fun and doing it together.
I'm sure you want to strangle your sister on a regular basis.
Yeah.
Each of you probably probably want to look, I don't even, I don't, I don't have to spend nearly
as much time with these three as you guys spend together and like, I'm like, you know,
we got to cut this to show over.
It's like it's done early because I don't want to talk to many more.
So let's go back.
Win did.
So I know and if I was good at my job, I would find out what episode that was that, but it
was right around October of 2020.
Wait one.
I'm sorry, 21.
You guys had been writing and doing stuff and and outdoorsy stuff.
Tell me about like that background and how you ended up with the idea from a gray.
Yeah.
Um, so we've grown up just doing literally all the things.
Um, I think we first started dirt biking when I was 10 and you were seven.
Um, came on from school one day and there were two dirt bikes in our garage and our
dad was like, you're going to learn how to ride dirt bikes and does your dad want to
hang out in my house?
Is your dad, is your dad looking to decide that you didn't want to fit on the
brother.
You can have them.
You can borrow him for the weekend.
We'll get them to you.
Help like you over for boys, boys nights on the weekends.
Yeah.
Again, I'm just looking for a dirt bike.
I'm going to put it for the one circumstance.
So me getting a dirt bike.
That's what I'm down and I can confirm that he's willing to do just about anything
for a dirt bike.
Um, yeah.
So, and then, yeah, shortly after that, this semi-track pulled up in front of our house and
we were like, what is this dirt biking sport?
And it literally dropped off a crate and inside the crate was a go-car of sorts with a full
roll cage.
Um, and dad built that and we had some fun rolling that into barb wire fences.
Um, flipping it over some, uh, some hills in Gorman.
Um, yeah, you know, fishing is colored more Kelly's.
Still like love ocean fishing and lake fishing.
And basically just doing, I think all a lot of the non-traditional sports, um, and
traditional sports as well.
But fast forward kind of through our, our, our developmental years.
Hey, and um, it was 2020, right?
Yeah, because we're in the middle of COVID.
We're living together.
Um, my jersey ripped.
And so I went to shop for a new one.
Like I literally just wanted the same one.
Couldn't find it anywhere.
And I started getting really frustrated because I then realized no jersey on the market matched
my pants.
And I couldn't find the jersey that I had that matched my pants.
So not only did I now have to buy a new jersey, but if I wanted to look cute and not like a
freak, like I was going to have to buy new pants too.
And so.
Wow.
And you just try it.
But last time you saw me right.
What I was right here.
So I'm going to say we have to unpack that because because it was new fit.
It's a real thing.
I was like, oh, these are cool pants.
Little match my jersey.
Yeah.
Yeah, but that was my point is that there's, I would say the majority of people are like,
I'm going to get a pants and a jersey pants and jersey that matched.
And Matt was like, I got some camel pants and I know.
New Orleans Saints jersey.
That's my resting gear.
Exactly.
That's how I roll.
Go to you guys.
Go to our, go to our YouTube page and go all the way to the back.
And one of the first videos is a video of Matt and I writing in Glamis.
And you'll see Matt in super Matt in action in the jersey, just bombing through the
Doons.
It's one of our favorite videos of all times.
But we're definitely going to go with that.
Yeah, but Matt Matt is not concerned about whether there was.
There was a time where it was like, yeah, no, I like matching.
Like if I can get that that was early on, like, oh, like I scored some Thor gear or whatever.
And it matched my pants and my jersey.
And then it sucks because maybe I outgrew the pants first or maybe outgrew the jersey first.
Like you get those combos and they never like you never outgrown both the same time.
It's like, well, I guess I need to new pants.
So then, well, I'll just write in these shorts.
I'm not going to crash like whatever.
So, you know, you don't have writing pants.
You just write in some shorts.
Maybe it's just some, uh, cork, cork noise.
It doesn't matter.
Something you don't care about.
And then you have that jersey.
And the next thing, you know, you grow that jersey.
What am I going to do?
Get another combo of, uh, combo outfit.
I got this.
I can't.
I can't.
Yes.
I got this old Sanctuary.
And so I started writing that.
Hold that.
You're not our target market man.
I also don't even know we've known that since the 100% already knew smart.
Smart, smart marketing guys don't don't pander to him.
No, but I would wear your jer, like I think your jerseys are cool.
Oh, they're super cool.
Whatever.
I don't know.
I want to know who's a, uh, do you wear shorts?
Because you know you're not going to crash or did you go get a full out of it?
I have a 12 fin.
Uh, all right.
I can't.
I want to keep Matt right at your bike with a jersey with a butterfly.
Well, so let's go back to that.
I want to call out the fact that in October of 2020,
we offered to be models for McCray motorcross, right?
And do the crop tops.
It's going to cost you more than things.
And we never ever got a call.
Well, I'm saying.
I never is.
I've, I've been rejected a lot in my life.
I mean, look at me.
That hurt.
That's.
Because you're selling.
You're selling exceeds what our marketing budget.
Oh, my.
Oh, can I.
Good.
Can I also say you followed them?
My, my trailer.
Yes.
Oh, I don't know if you saw kids experience modeling.
Casey does something.
Yeah.
Dase.
I know.
I don't think we can pay you guys what your words.
We're working with.
Thank you.
Wow.
That was a really good deflection.
I was going to say, I'm going to say kudos to you for that.
It's going to cost you more money now because technically I'm fatter.
You're going to need to get more material first.
I have some extra material.
So that's what the snaps are for.
We'll open them up.
And then we'll just show more of it.
Yeah.
Oh, there you go.
Like a gown.
When you're in the hospital.
Just leave it back.
Take the picture from the front.
That's.
I don't know where the other way.
If you want some, uh, behind, behind shots.
So.
So I want to work.
I'm a professional.
I don't know what will.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's the attention.
Yes.
Well, there's a demographic there.
We just got a, you got to figure out.
Do they write dirt bikes?
I don't know.
Um, the, so it's 2020.
You can't find a matching jersey.
And you're like, oh, my goodness.
This is the worst.
And so what happens then?
Um, you know, started researching, searching.
What else is out there for women's gear?
And just notice that there's literally nothing.
Um, and what is out there is either pink or teal.
And it, it just, it looks like an afterthought of what.
Like the men were all sitting on the table,
designing the new gear for men.
And then they were like, Oh, shoot.
The women.
Well, make it small for the pink.
Yeah.
I feel like they took a boy's jersey and made it pink.
Like, like, they took a little boy's jersey and just,
because my, my white same thing.
She's got a couple jerseys from when she was writing and stuff.
And that's, they're basically the same design.
Same cut as, uh, as, like, a little boy's jersey just.
It was teal and black.
Yeah.
And we had been talking about it for years.
Like, as you write, because we always had, like,
he had me down or, like, shopping in the boy's section.
And it was just like, it never, even if we liked the colors.
Like, we finally found one.
It never fit right either.
They'd be super long or like, they wouldn't really cut to your curves or anything.
There's not, there's just nothing that was really made for us.
And, um, I was gonna say something after that.
The only thing we can find that's cut to our curves is a beach ball.
That's it.
That's, that's, that's the only curvature.
We've got it.
Yeah.
And I think the other thing too, like, we noticed that so many,
and I understand why, but so many jerseys are just covered in logos.
Like, that's a, so logos all over.
And I, I get why.
And I, I understand the marketing behind that,
especially on the men's side.
And, you know, so many.
I think, obviously, it's a male dominated sport.
So many younger boys want to grow up to be in supercross.
But for us, that's not our goal.
Like, that's on our dream.
That's not our goal.
And not to say, like, it's not cool.
But we're just like, what about something for the everyday woman
who wants to, like, look feminine and look cute while they're out there writing?
And, but doesn't, I don't need 18 logos.
Like, I'm not gonna pretend to be sponsored.
I'm no one's sponsored.
You know, I just want to look cute.
That's what I was gonna say.
It was like, because we, like, we grew up writing and went off.
But like, page said, we grew up doing all these other hobbies.
Like, dirt biking was not like our sport.
It was another hobby we did that we enjoyed.
And there was, like, a season for all the things we did.
And none of the gears seem to really, like, adapt to that type of lifestyle.
Like, everything is very research-driven.
And that can be really intimidating, especially when you're trying to enter a sport.
And you're like, wow, why don't want to look like I know what I'm doing.
Because I don't.
And then I want to, like, false advertising.
And I just, we were like, where, where can we set the bar?
We're like, build the gap for women where it's,
you're providing gear that's, like, that looks approachable.
Like, that's cute.
That fits me and that looks like what I'm, what I want to be in the sport.
And, like, honoring where your adverse is, like, trying to fit into this mold
that really only fits, like a certain sector at the industry.
And I feel like there's this whole, like, we feel there's this whole other side of just, like,
the hobbyists that are out there because they like to do it.
And just want to, yeah, again, look good or feel good and whatnot.
And the women who don't even, like, we meet so many women who say,
I'm always wanted to derpike, but it just feel like it's not for me or it's, I'm scared or it's intimidating.
I don't know how to start or to go.
And so we just realized, like, I mean, obviously all of this whole explanation is, like,
developed over the past few years.
Because when we first, design, like, came up with the idea.
It was, like, pretty selfish with just, like, like, what do you want to look cute?
What's the dream jersey I want to, what's the dream jersey I want to wear?
And it literally within 30 minutes we had our, our name, our slogan.
And I think a couple of days we had, like, 18 jersey designs.
Like, we had color pencils, our living room was just, like, covered in sketches of different jersey designs.
Yeah.
And I think within the first, like, two weeks, we hired a brand developer,
a graphic designer, just start working on our logos.
And I can't believe, I, I was like, can't believe we sent it that far because it, like,
feels really surreal that we just, like, really sent it.
But, like, but, like, if you're really, we're both kind of hobby, you're more so hobby.
And it's like, we're both pretty impulsive.
And so the fact that we both just, like, you know what, why don't we just start to go?
What?
What?
And then it's, well, it's like, it's spending like thousands of dollars, like, developing this company and we're, like,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, wait.
So, it's so quickly, like, once you, and we were, like, into it, obviously.
So, like, that was a part of it.
But, like, she was working, like, a full-time, like, big-time job.
I was applying to graduate school.
Like, we were not, like, a, me and we got to find our life's purpose.
Like, we thought we had life's purpose.
Like, it seems like a fun thing.
And we could, like, do this.
And it would be good.
It snowball effect almost three years in no action.
I've never went to graduate school.
Well, I've told you, you know, some of our parents.
Yeah.
Some of the best ideas are, are just,
it's a thought and then a strike of lightning.
And then you end up here.
Like, that's a lot of that is, you know, I don't think there's a right way to do it.
You know, you know, especially we've talked to so many people that there's the one,
one side of the spectrum that says, if you want it, just sell everything and do it.
And then the other spectrum that says, take your time, develop it, you know, do it.
Whatever works for you guys, man.
And you guys are obviously making it, you're, you're obviously progressing in a way
that is made it enjoyable for you, because like I've said,
it any of the stuff and you're content that you watch, you guys are still having a good
time.
And, and you're, you're continuing to put out more and more and more products.
And it looks like, you know, if you go to MCRE, A, A, Y, MX, McRate, MX.
If you go, did I, it's still wrong?
Yes.
No, it.
MCRE, Y, MX.
You said, I'm, I'm not smart.
You guys know that.
So, but my point, if you go to McRate, MX, there's like multiple categories now with
streetwear and graphics and all that stuff.
And you're, the design aesthetic from your jerseys has made their way over to
t-shirts and hats and all that stuff to wear.
It's more than just dirt by gear.
You guys are starting to build a lifestyle brand.
Yeah.
And I think that's, you know, what we've realized, because, you know,
we were both kind of like going on our own paths.
And it's starting this.
We realized that this is the, the marriage of both of our path.
Like both of us and our passions and everything that we love and
realizing that we can also help a community of women who
don't have someone to look up to or, you know,
a reason to get into it.
Not, and not just motocross like any extreme sports specifically,
like anything, any sport that's male dominated where you feel like,
I don't, that's like, I don't think I can get into that.
Like I don't see a lot of women doing it.
And yeah, I feel like through that journey we realize
where like this is our path.
Like this is our calling.
This is our passion.
Like this is.
And that's the reason that we've kept going.
You know, through the through the years because it's,
yeah, I mean, we joke that.
Some days it feels like we're just completely mangled.
Because it's definitely not always easy,
but it definitely makes it easy to want to do when we're,
we're doing something that we love and that we're
caution about and we see the impact that it's having on the
industry and on other women.
And I think even a bigger sector for us that we haven't
necessarily.
We haven't fully focused on yet, but that it's coming
down the pipeline as youth.
And really speaking to younger girls that they can
absolutely ride a dirt bike.
They don't have to be.
They don't have to dream of going to Loretta.
If they don't want, if they do, totally cool.
But if they don't want to, that's okay too.
Yeah.
And creating a whole line for young girls to feel like
they belong in the sport.
And thinking about this, Matt, Matt's going to
walk.
Can I turn off Matt's microphone from here?
I don't know if it's working.
Did you say something?
Let's are moving.
But the, I feel like there's another crossover for you guys in the
form of mountain biking or cycling or there's a lot of,
I've, I've noticed there's a lot of women in the, in the
mountain biking world just like there are in the
motorcross world.
And it's a lot of the same aesthetics.
And it's a lot of the same male dominated.
And it's a lot of the same needs and niche that that
probably could be served by a whole, like a whole
another category for the stuff that you guys are making.
I mean, not that someone couldn't just buy your off
road jersey and wear it, you know, dirt biking.
But I'm just saying it's like, I feel like you guys are
touching on something in a very small pool of
women in motorcross.
And it's got so much more growth opportunities.
You know, how are you guys managing that?
How are you guys, how are you guys working through the
process of building a business from scratch?
And then the day-to-day operations of keeping it going.
It's great question.
We don't know.
We're talking on the part of your thing about like getting
into like BMX and cycling and whatnot.
We've actually had quite a few women DMS who are like into
BMX and want to be sponsored and we are.
We have a vision like even when we when we first started
it's pretty wild how much our dream has cultivated
from fulfilling a selfish need to like.
We see how much that.
What we're doing now translates not only into other
sports, but into everyday life.
Like I think about we talk about us all the time like
when you conquer something on a dirt bike.
And you feel so empowered.
Even if it's something small, you did a new trail.
That was a little tricky.
You're like, I feel good.
And then you go into your job.
And someone offers a new project.
You know what I am going to take that project on.
And I feel like we're so much about that.
Like just get out there and say yes to things that you like
we hope to like have that sort of movement with women.
And I think that that does start so much.
Like there is so much empowerment within
extreme sports, which is why we love it so much.
And eventually we would love to move into like BMX.
And we talked about ocean fishing and wakeboarding and like all
these other sports where there aren't a ton of options.
At least we feel that are like maybe match our styles or our fit.
And hopefully like that translates not only other sports,
but in everyday lives just so like women are really like
ringing the heck out of life and like getting every bit of it out of it.
But we don't want to move.
And that sense it is funny because like there are certain things
where you just got full scent.
And you know like we're just we're going to do it.
But we continue to move around and that's just a great
thing and it's pretty much the best thing to do.
And that is kind of the fastest and most of the people
for the best, but there's other times where we do have to take a step back and
be like, okay, we after really work hard on the motocross right now
now that's like where we saw the need, what we love, what we're
loving to do and then when we have the capacity to give another
sport, the attention it deserves.
And like me don't be a MX.
So at that point if we moved into it, we would want someone
on our team, that would be able to offer real insight into
into that.
Thank you so much, Robert.
Why am I here?
Like I'm just going to sit back and page.
Thank you for not writing regular bicycles because
there's a band.
And number two, that's growth, right?
You have to get out of your comfort zone.
If you're in your comfort zone where you're going to grow,
you have to stretch out, you have to get uncomfortable
to learn new skills or experience new things.
And yeah, kudos to you guys.
I hope you do get into the bicycle or
tricycle, whatever he's doing.
I don't know.
Because you're in a cycle.
You're in a cycle.
I want to one wheel, super bad.
But I know I would write it once.
And then my life insurance would have to pay for
the rest.
That's okay.
Best yourself up.
100%.
But obviously that does translate over.
I mean, I don't know how many goobers I see on baseline,
you know, over by my house,
you know, just writing their bikes down the road.
Why are these goobers?
Have you seen the guys writing down their road?
Like you're probably goobers.
You're not talking about like mountain bike.
You're talking about the people who are
because they can't get up on the street.
It's a roadbikers.
It's the same guys to me.
I don't care.
There's a special place in hell for roadbikers.
You know what?
I would love to see them try and pedal that shit over a
dune or something like good job guys.
You guys are great effort.
You know?
That's like hey, nice and XB.
You know what?
I did that in Camo shorts over here.
That's right.
Don't you guys know about like the flow you get with some real cargo
shorts?
You know, you get tactical man shorts.
Tactical dead shorts.
You get the lot of variation.
Look, there's a lot of positives there.
I'm not going to get into that.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
No, I think it's.
That's why you're supposed to come on.
No.
Easy to get caught up in like all the things that you wanted to.
And I feel like this is kind of tying back both Cody and Matt.
Your questions.
Like there are so many things that we want to do.
And we see so much opportunity for new ideas and new products.
But we also want you just need money to do those things.
You know, being a small business, have to be really careful with how we use our funds.
But also really making sure that our brand is established and that we're not growing quicker than what we can keep up with.
And that we're not going to find ourselves in a place where our brand deflates in five years.
Like we, we have accepted that a slower growth model and more organic growth model.
And that's why you see us in like all of the YouTube videos and TikToks and all social media.
Like we sprinkle in our friends and our supporters here and there because obviously like we love to see the support and that's freaking awesome.
But we really want people to get to know us and why are why.
And that does take a little bit longer than just sending a bunch of jerseys to influencers and buying followers and whatnot.
But if we do that then are we really accomplishing what we want to do because like yes selling is great and making money is great.
And we need to do that to grow and to be a sustainable business.
But that's not what like that's not our why that's not why we're doing this.
And so yeah, you know it's like the the day to day like how do we decide to keep like what do we do to keep going and like how do we make decisions every day?
It's just what's like right now.
No, no, no, no, no is our focus and really just making sure that we have a robust offering of adult jerseys for women.
So right now we obviously have our four and they have their matching socks and we're coming out with four more jerseys that are completely different styles than what we have.
So hopefully through that we will be able to touch on even more women's tastes and style preferences and then also our pants, which have been like two years in the making.
So those are those are you know they're rounding third they're coming home like we want to get those on the market and really have the time and the energy and give them the highlight real that they deserve.
Yeah, yeah, and users these two so it's like I feel like we have so much like moto stuff we still want to do before we start thinking about like.
Be a met I mean yeah any work really yeah anything on like the brand establishment like there's still so much we like we want because anyone can I think when you think about it like.
So many manufacturers can make a woman's jersey or what like can make this and like I mean not our design is obviously but you know.
Yeah, obviously. So we want people to I think like kind of going back to like our childhood and like the I mean sometimes we want to kill each other but really like we are.
I do like best friends and like what we have with our family and like what we have with each other and like page picks me up on my absolute worst days in a way that like no one else can and like it's about sharing that with our customers and like.
Through our brand like making them feel that way like they can rely on the gray the same way we rely on each other and on our family like feel like they're a part of that and why we and I feel like we still have to like.
It's really hard to like put yourself out there in content and like be authentic and do all that I think we stop so much growth to do there to in addition to the product and like making sure those are equally.
As good so then when we do go off into other things and like big leaps people like I know the I know that brand like I trust that brand and I'm going to follow them when they move on from that.
You you say something about putting yourself out there and being authentic and that's one thing about the two of you that going back to 21 when we first met you like you guys are who you are you're very much authentic you're very much you're not afraid to be yourselves and.
You know you put the good things out there and sometimes the bad things out there and you work yourself through it and I commend you guys for that because you're not you're not trying to be a brand image that you think will sell.
You're being McCray MX exactly who you are what it is and that will sell because people will connect with it.
I honestly think that watching the two of you do what you do together and in the community is what will make the brand stronger as opposed to like just a super well polished 30 second elevator pitch and you know.
fancy strategies you know I mean all of all of those things are necessary for growth and business development but it it without the authenticity of the two of you it just becomes another brand.
That's really scary because that means like if it's something that you're not polishing and making up like if people reject that then you can go back to the drawing board and try again but like if people reject us.
It's like really hard so that's like kind of that I think the underlying year.
That sometimes comes with them so I like honestly we're talking about like gosh I got to give my hats off to like neither of us were very big in the social media prior to this and like we give her hats off to any content creators and people like influencers that are putting themselves out there and like honestly takes a lot of courage.
I thought myself like posting something to be like no no no no no no no.
But I have so many so many moments where we like film something and then like those are like hours filming something we're like.
I was trapped and we're like we're like you start fighting we always.
We always.
We play it because like our schedules are so different so we like have to plan time during the week to film real and take talks.
Every single time without fail that we could time on the calendar to film reals or take talks we fight.
We don't we don't we fight we don't we don't we don't we don't film and we just walk away and we're like.
Yeah yeah but but I honestly think that.
Any time a content creator or a brand or whatever puts themselves out there authentically.
They will have an authentic connection with someone.
Now whether that's a hundred people or a hundred million people don't know but if you just put yourself out there genuinely you will find a genuine audience and then you have to work within the parameters of what that audience looks like.
Absolutely for this industry too like I hate to say it but there's up until very recently and even I would argue to this day there's two places that women can be and you can either be a sex symbol and you can be.
Writing a dirt bike in your bikini or you can be a total like bro man like boys one of the boys and like there's not really space for women to be anywhere other than those two things and so.
For us I feel like we are in the middle of those two things like we we will not be posting content and our bikinis on on a dirt bike like if we're at the lake and it's natural and organic that you know whatever but still we're not like.
It's not natural style sex with our jerseys it's like that doesn't that's not the type of community we want to create not that we're like shaming or hating anyone who does.
Because the sex jersey combo planner could probably catcher a pretty good pretty good.
I was like the combo like I've McDonald's and I was going to say that you have a little bit better than we do because like the women can be the sex symbol with the bikini on the motorcycle or the bro like all I can be is the bro like no one wants to see me in a bikini on a motorcycle.
I said the trick symbol option.
I was never an option dude never an option.
But there is still my peak Saint Jersey video.
Yes, but that's I think that's I think that's a very interesting assessment from women actively involved in the sport that.
I find that that niche for them in the middle doesn't exist right I mean as you say those things like you can be one or the other.
I understand it I can comprehend it it makes sense to me I see the two images that you're trying to convey and then when you bring it to that middle point of.
Still look good in the way you want to look but also still participate as a relevant participant in the sport.
That makes I see what you're saying I understand the the position that you're trying to find there and I think like.
Being being authentic in that space sorry Matt.
Being authentic in that space allows other women who also feel the same way to show up and be themselves and to like giving them permission because we'll we're silly we're goofy we'll do dumb stuff like.
I dropped a dirt.
In the middle of the month or a hundred like off the trailer and it was just like like like like like on.
Everyone rushed over I was like don't touch me like.
For us just to allow ourselves like you know what not everyone's going to like it not everyone's going to agree with it but us showing up as ourselves and just being goofy and silly and funny and.
Sometimes and sometimes being angry and upset and like working through all those things like it makes us real and we're not on a pedestal and that I think that allows other women.
You know not that they need the permission but I think as a society we do sometimes looks to others for that permission to be ourselves and I.
I think we're slowly like that's what we're working towards is like and meeting other women at shows who do come up to our booth and are like.
I've never seen anything like this like oh my god assured I can actually wear like something that's actually cute something that doesn't show.
My nipples like all these things.
Like that's just like normal.
Women's close.
Is that was that a consideration for you may.
When you went to shop for your mayor.
That was where he was.
You've won.
I was going to throw you should make a man shirt that shows that is just designed with nipples.
I'm just going to be like wait so my not going to get a nipple shirt or.
It doesn't run anymore.
I'll tell you.
I'm not sure to never share.
I can't help it.
It doesn't matter.
Man, are you cold?
It's 100.
It's.
You must be freezing.
Are you three years of the mandible.
We're going to make a white t-shirt.
It just has two cold nipples on it.
And what else.
I'm not tattoo like.
No, it's got to be.
It's got to be one of those embroidered images.
And it's got to have butter.
It's got to have butter stains.
Yeah, butter stains.
I'm sorry.
Come on.
Oh my goodness.
I feel like there's a whole another next image.
Yeah.
So I was just going to say.
I don't know if you heard that.
They were trying not to be on a pedestal.
There was a.
I was waiting for someone.
The word pedestal was spoken.
I was waiting for someone to not wanting to be on it.
So yeah.
I just want to make sure you heard that.
And number two.
I'll put it over a Cody tries.
Yep.
Yep.
And inside joke.
And then.
So you girls ride like.
I want to where.
Where do you like to ride?
What are the, you know, I don't know.
Thank you.
Thank you for participating Jose.
And what do you ride?
Where and what do you ride?
Um, well, what do you ride?
Right now.
I don't ride because my top end blue on top of a mountain at like.
12,000 elevation.
But or I don't know.
Well, but that still puts you better than Matt.
Because Matt doesn't ride because he hasn't turned on his motorcycle in four and a half years.
Whatever.
You don't have to talk about that.
So up until actually both of our top ends blue at the literal same time.
Um, but we both ride to the conda.
Seraph 250 X's.
But I think I will be moving to the Husky.
Yeah.
So I think that's going to be my next bike.
My, my nephew has a slightly used 2001.
Yamaha TTR 125 for sale.
125 L.
Oh, 125.
Jose.
Electric start.
Oh, oh.
It's from the market.
If anyone's interested.
What market?
Facebook.
I don't know.
I've never, never, never, never.
Exactly.
Um, thought we are, I do you want to answer where we ride.
I mean, I feel like we do a lot of riding.
I mean, we, we stay pretty local like when we can.
And when you say, when you say local, where are you guys based out of?
For based out of 1000 Oaks California.
So then California.
Um, we do go to Gorman and Calciti a lot just because they're, you know, easy to get to.
And recently we've kind of moved towards writing and bridge crust a lot more, which is probably one of our favorites.
Bots to ride.
Just really great writing over there.
Um, we recently go writing in Bishop, which was just awesome and just beautiful.
So go to our Instagram.
There's a picture of my bike.
Um, about what in a half in deep mud.
Even more.
Um, my entire front tire is in mud.
But the scenery behind it.
A lot of green grass is pine trees.
Bright blue skies snowing mountains.
Just that was after my bike stopped working.
And then we got it to bump start.
And then I got it stuck in the mud.
And then my dad came up and was like, what the fuck?
I was like, I don't.
I was like, I was like, I don't know, but I thought I could go through it.
Maybe it's like, it's not going to get there.
Yeah, I was testing.
I was testing the gear to make sure that it was good.
It was good.
It was good.
That is, you guys are being silly.
But that is something that, I mean, clearly you guys design these jerseys and get out there and get after it.
And like, you know, they work because you're doing it.
Yeah, we put them through the ringer.
I'm like, man, if we can get there.
I mean, we're like, and that's what we're like, we're pretty good writers.
We like to say we're intermediate who can do advanced things.
That's how we describe our writing.
Like, we're not these crazy shredders.
How would you, uh, how would you, uh, how would you write with them?
So I'm just smoked.
I'm, um, I get nervous.
Just spicy.
Right.
Who says the beginner they can't do beginner things.
Yeah, that's what they're saying.
I'll say, because you haven't had the right teachers.
Come out.
Yeah.
I love to see that.
100%.
You're crazy jerseys.
Someone told me the moment you buy a motor, a dirt bike.
We're going to go writing.
And that person hasn't been writing once.
Nope.
What's that?
That's right.
You know, that's true.
And that was Matt.
Yeah.
All right.

And then at that whole time, he was like, trust me.

If you get a bite and I start writing,
Cody, you'll get a bite.
Yeah.
None of that tapping.
I'm not that TTR 125.
Sorry.
I really, really slowly.
I rode that TTR.
I think I told you this story case.
I rode that TTR from slash X all the way back to Dale Evans,
because there was an accident in the group.
And I had to write it.
And it was, it was pretty much like,
Peeley Herman style an apple on a toothpick.
The whole way.
All right.
All right.
All right.

Peeley Herman.
Peeley Herman.
So we had just like the dad gets into like the kids go card.
Yeah.
Right at that home down the street.
That's exactly what it looked like.
Oh, but he's around like a hundred percent.
Pegged as hard as I could.
Yeah.

The rest rocks just like constantly bought it.
I had it.

And I couldn't find them.
Get up with the Tyco quad that was out in front of me.
Everybody's laughing and pointing at him.
Yeah.
Which they do anyway.
I'll just say, if I can finish of the 25 miles in a race on a
freaking hit bike, then you could you could do that.
Yeah.
We just did our first race out the bill well 100 and not just I mean a few months.
I'm going to be a very impressed fight by you.
Kelly.
Kelly.
Broker.
What you're flush lovers.
I like tipped in the first lap.
And I just happened to land on a rock.
And so I bent my clutch lever.
And so I couldn't pull my clutch in.
I didn't have any tools.
I was just like crap.
Some sitting there.
But hand guard into your.
Oh yeah.
And they're done.
And then comes up and we're both like hammering a rock up.
She like was on an adventure bike.
She's like, I don't care.
I'm here for fun.
So we like jam it up.
I finally get going again.
And then on my.
So I go through that lap.
Second lap.
My freaking fuel line busts.
It was like old and just busted.
So then my dad had to totally back.
And he's like, you're done.
Kid, like you're not finishing there.
So I was like, all I wanted to do was finish this race.
I don't even literally the entire time leading up to the race.
Kelly's like, just as long as we finish.
Kind of be fun.
I was like, yeah, as long as I finish and first.
And you're like, Kelly's like, I just want to finish.
I don't want to get hurt.
He just a little more competitive.
Yeah.
It's nothing.
Oh, it's all I want.
So we get back to the campsite on our friend.
Let us borrow his like little house.
I can pit like, not looking at it.
And I was like, do you think I could finish on that?
My dad's been not going to finish on that.
I was like, I, I will finish on this if they let me.
So I go up to the race guy on it.
I was like, can I finish on this?
He's like, I don't care what you do.
Yeah.
I was like, did they feel that up?
I freaking was like, monkey biking the whole time.
Just that's crazy.
That's crazy.
That time, of course, was rotted.
Like, even I, like, I was hitting things on my 250 that I was just like,
bottoming out like, you're the team.
The first lap and everything was like this by the third lap.
They were like, this and Kelly's just hit them on the fifth.
And I like it.
And my dad was trying to catch up to me and make sure I was okay.
And you think good right?
And he's like, yeah, I have your toilet record.
And then he finished.
Yeah.
That is cool.
And where, where was that at?
They do that, like, just outside of Ridge Crest in.
Bangalore.
Yeah.
Bangalore.
I'm trying to think of the name of the act.
Dirt diggers.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There we go.
That is awesome.
Like, you guys going to do any more racing.
Once you get your bike fixed.
Like, I would do that again.
Like, I don't have any interest in doing like track races.
That's, although we finally did do track.
I really, oh, I really liked it.
We did up the over and out woman's motocamp.
And it was really fun.
And that's where we got to see a Vicki Golden.
And she's just unbelievable.
Oh, my god.
Watching her on the track.
I was like, like, just amazing.
Yeah.
It's pretty fun.
I don't know if I ever like the avid racers.
I think it's just hopping.
Like, I didn't know well again.
Yeah.
Like, it was fun.
Oh, man.
I pulled up.
And I literally was just like stuck on the bike like this.
And my friend's dad came over and he was like,
you're done.
You can go to the bike now.
And I'm like, I can't.
Like, I'm also like in that position.
He's like, pull like prize my fingers off and like lift me out the bike.
And I'm just like, on the ground, like,
like, let's stir like my entire hand.
And I get through to my leg.
My lips were so swollen.
They doubled in size.
Like, like, people, like, got deep injections that work.
I was like, no.
It just filled as a sun.
Yeah.
So it was, it was fun.
But it was definitely, um, we like to stop and like have a PB&J.
I don't like it.
You know, nothing better than a PB&J.
Yeah.
Um, the, the growth, like we've talked about earlier,
the growth of the brand.
Like you guys have really done a great job of building up your,
your reputation in the space and your, your recognition.
And where do you see, where do you see the brand going.
Next and how are you going to get it there?
Like, what's the, is there more events to go to?
Is there more collaborations?
You talked earlier about more products?
But like, just in general, what's, what's on the,
the immediate horizon for, for Macrey?
Yeah.
So immediate horizon.
Like I said, we have our pants coming very, very soon.
So we're excited to be able to market a full kit.
Um, and we just got to wear our pants for a photo shoot that we did a couple of weeks ago.
And it was the first time that we rode in our like official,
like these are the pants that we will be selling.
We both got to ride in them and wear them.
And it was, uh, we like, not to turn around more.
Like I honestly was like really scared about our pants.
We're, you know, I have a worry.
Yeah.
They're really expensive.
And they've been taking two years to make.
And it's just been one thing after the next.
I'm like, are these pants even good enough for, like, after all this?
Like, are they even worth it?
And then we both rode in them.
And I, the photographer, he was like, these pants are really cool.
Like, who made these?
And we're like, we did.
Uh, that's why you're here.

You're kidding.
Two pants.
Well, you two, there's some of my pants.
No, no, no.
Well, we were there for something else.
And we just happened to like be able to sneak the pants in.
So that's, but like us riding around.
And then we were.
Yeah, that's what they're like.
I was going to go down.
You got our secure.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
No, but like, it just, yeah, we were so excited by how the pants, like,
how they fit, how they felt.
Like, it was, I was like, use of the most combi writing pants I've ever worn.
Um, so we're really excited about that.
We're working.
Um, our youth jerseys are getting printed are in the process of getting printed.
Um, so we will have four youth jerseys to start with and two of them are matching to our
adult jerseys.
So they will be like, mommy and me jerseys.
Uh, and then we will have jerseys for four year old and four year olds and up basically,
um, any age.
And then, yeah, small.
Yeah.
Maybe size.
Um, and then like I said, we're designing for where the process of designing four more
adult jerseys right now as well.
So that's kind of from a product standpoint.
That's what is in our immediate horizon.
Um, event wise.
We've kind of got the standard slew of events.
The sand sports super show off for a next bow.
Uh, day in the dirt types up for the the next coming months.
We did.
We took a little bit of a break from events.
They're.
To be honest, like, there's really expensive to go to.
Yeah.
Um, it's just the two of us, which.
I mean, we don't have to spend as much money on like her employees getting drunk
and like eating and stuff.
It's just us.
Oh, you're lucky.
Are you guys hiring?
Yeah.
What are you guys doing?
Um, we can only offer pd and j's and like.
Oh, you're stealing my language right there.
I heard beer.
I heard beer.
No, they're saying they don't have to buy beer from place.
That's.
Yeah.
You're from boys, but.
Um, yeah.
We just hook up.
We both people.
She's.
I would like to rescind his.
Sorry.
Resume.
Um, but yeah, we just especially like end of last year in beginning of this year.
We found ourselves.
You know, we're just trying that we were trying to go to as many events as possible.
Get our name out there.
Um, we've met so many awesome people at events.
But it adds up.
And when when you don't have the sales, always to like support the journey to get there.
Um, it takes away from other things that we can do.
And so we've made the decision earlier this year to kind of focus on our core events that are a little bit easier to get to that we know, you know, we have a history of doing really well.
And kind of just put a pause on some of the other events that might be a little bit more for.
Pure like networking not as much.
And just like shifting those efforts from the events, which have been like super awesome for us.
I think like we were kind of really shouldn't we have done so many in the star.
I don't know, but I think it was like that we are a lot of personality.
So I feel like events were a great way for us to get our name out there.
Um, but we kind of we decided like sat down and like, okay, this year.
What does this look like for us and just shifting those efforts towards like keeping the events that we know well that we do well at.
And the ones that we were thinking about just pulling back and putting that towards like building our online presence.
And putting more effort towards just again, like building that authenticity and more of that brand awareness and things of that sort.
So one thing we've really tried to focus on the past few months is doing a lot of like what we call our beginner series.
So a lot of how to.
Um, vlogs.
We've kind of been slacking on the YouTube.
How to the beginner YouTube stuff we need.
I know it is hard.
And then we filmed the whole how to hook up a trailer video.
It was beautiful.
We had two camera angles and then my phone got stolen.
We lost all the footage and it was really sad.
But, um, yeah, just trying to do a lot more like how to stuff and a lot of beginner stuff.
And we've seen a lot of success online coming from that content.
And so we want to.
But keep doing more of that.
I've been speaking to the people who.
I don't know because it's stuff that I guess we thought we're like us at second nature like we.
We were just like, oh yeah, we let up the trailer like we go do our thing and you know,
we've had a lot of women say like, Oh, well, I don't even know how to do that.
So I can't go ride on my own and we're like, Oh, well, then let's start.
Like, I guess taking for granted what we learned so long ago.
Yeah.
Part of our lifestyle and it seemed so natural and realizing like, Oh, a lot of people don't.
We were very lucky to grow up with a dad who just taught us all those things.
And it wasn't like a didn't make a big deal about it.
It was just you're going to if you want to do it, you're going to learn how to do it on your own.
Yeah.
And so sorry to cut you off page, but I think there's a lot to impact there.
Like whether it be off-roading or golfing or motorcross or water sports.
If you don't in your instance, you had a father and a family that was like, this is what we do.
And it's just to your point.
It's just second nature.
But there's a lot of people out there that want to learn how to off-road or they see a video.
And they're like, That's cool.
They don't have anybody in their life that's done it.
They've never raised to be campers on off-roaders.
And there's always this, I don't know what to do.
Do I need to spend $60,000 on a truck?
Do I have to buy a rooftop 10 like all of those things?
And that's one thing that I think has benefited the outdoor off-road lifestyle that motorcross
is content creators like you that are going, Hey, let me help introduce you to this.
And we've seen it in our own groups where people that are new to it.
They had a, they had an inclination to go off-roading.
And then they get the opportunity to come on a run and find a group of people that are willing to help them
and show them and guide them and now that they're flourishing in this sport.
And they're doing those things.
And I think that's a great use of social media content and platforms to explain your lifestyle
in a way that is approachable and resonates with the new person.
And there's always so much intimidation.
No matter what you're doing, there's always so much intimidation about just whether it be being worried about
f***ing it up or, you know, being a doork or whatever.
There's, there's, if people find the inspiration through a social media channel or a friend or a family member to go out and do stuff, that's great.
I love that.
And I think also coming from a woman's perspective for, you know, so many of the voices in the industry are male.
And even if they want, we've found that men have been extremely supportive of us, like, bringing us in the industry and whatnot.
And like, there aren't, like, men to tort, like men giving to forils and whatnot.
But there is something that's just a little more company where you're kind of like, this girl gets me.
Like this, this feels like if she can do it, like if you can see it, you can be at type of thing.
And I think that we're like shooting for that too and a lot of what we do.
And yeah, like to piggyback off that stuff, the point that I was going to make like.
Even like, like Kelly said, men have been incredibly supportive of us, like, of our presence in the industry and our business, which is so freaking awesome.
But there is like a certain lingo.
I feel like that gets used to explain a lot of things.
And especially people who have been in the industry for a while.
And if you don't, if you're not in the industry, then you really have no idea, like, what people are talking about.
And I feel like a lot of times even how to videos use very, like, high level.
Yeah, like, they're like, put the X737 and what they're like, they're like, they're like, do this.
And then your exhaust is going to my thoughts, like, you're like, what's the break?
It's like a cool, and this song that you put them together.
Yeah, it's kind of like, we just like, in being ourselves, like, because we're not super mechanical.
Like, if you're not trying to pretend, like, we know what we're talking about.
When it comes to, like, we know the basic, like, we've learned the basics over the years.
But like, just being real with it.
Like, okay, see this, this is your break.
You're right.
That is.
And like, just being.
And like, when we were filming the, how to look up a trailer video.
Like, I forgot the words to, like, the official words to every.
I'm like, okay, the ball and the tongs, like over, drop it down, crank this thing.
And like, just being real with it in an, and explaining it in a way that's relatable,
especially to, like, and not even want to say it, especially to women.
Because that's like, there could, I'm, there could be men watching it.
Or guys watching it being like, oh, that's amazing.
That's amazing.
But I do think that's a, to your, to your point.
And I'm not, you know, it's, it's tough to, to try to relate in a way without sounding like a patronizing dick.
But, um, try.
I do think that there's something to be said about representation to your point.
And in seeing someone do something that physically looks and feels like you do versus watching.
If I see, if I see a Duane the Rock Johnson doing pull-ups, like, well, this is how you do a pull-up.
Well, yeah, that's how you do a pull-up.
I can't do a pull-up because I don't look like that.
But the point, the point, the point, the point, the point, the point.
But I just say like, I just, this is an example, but not that she's like, like,
Biggie Golden phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal and like a shrewd,
very incredible human being and absolutely shreds.
But like, her explaining something isn't as relatable to me because I don't write like that.
Yeah.
And my goal isn't necessarily to write like that.
And so just, even if I go, it was my shrewd.
It's not going to happen.
Yeah.
And that's, I think that's what I'm getting to is like, for forever.
Just because you don't know the terminology doesn't mean you don't know how to do it.
Exactly.
Do it correctly.
Matt and I did air conditioning for a lot of years.
We didn't know what half that stuff was told.
I still ordered half.
How is that?
You know, you know, the thing I'm talking about the thing where it's called,
Yeah.
It's a rookie master for 30 years.
I don't even know.
Yeah.
I put the Dingo Hopper in the wrong Koodle.
Koodle.
Oh, man.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
You learned everything.
But I do understand what you're saying about the ability to do stuff and have that representation in a way that resonates with people that may be outside of the core group of individuals that participate in a sport or want to hook up a trailer or want to do anything like that.
I think that's and I think that's that's what makes the stuff that you guys are creating so much more approachable is because you're if you do forget what the word is for a specific thing you don't
Ah, cut and we're going to have to start all over again.
No, it's the Dingo Hopper.
You know, look at it.
It's the thing that looks like this.
You get it.
You don't need it.
It does.

I think that what I'm talking about don't be a dick.
Yeah.
100%.
100%.
And I am glad to hear that that you you have found allies and supports in the industry in a male dominated industry and I think for for the most part.
I think at least at least in the off road over land space.
I'm not as familiar with the motor cross space, but I would say for the most part the people in the off road and over land space are welcoming to newcomers are very welcoming to people.
I mean, to people that want to try something that want to take their until you had a tundra out on the Mojave trail for the first time they've never even aired down or put it in four wheel drive.
Absolutely man.
Come on.
Let me let me take you under my wing and show you how to do it.
Like I really feel like from the outside looking in, it would be easy to say, wow, that's an intimidating group that I probably can't penetrate.
But once you find yourself once you get the courage to do it for the most part, there's going to be people there that will help.
People always like we yeah, I feel like the the off road community gets such a bad wrap, but it's like people will stop like there's been so many times where we've been trail riding and one of us falls and like the rest of the group doesn't know and just keeps going and someone else will ride by and stop and be like, hey, are you good or you okay?
Like let me let me get your bike off you and.
Nobody ever stops for me.
And I assume it's what we, but we should take a picture first.
We go.
It's the same jersey like just let that go.
It's more like there's no hope.
That guy's outfit doesn't match.
We can just do him here to die.
The guy's got to learn somehow and stay off the trail.
Yeah, and I think like, you know, again, just going back to if you're.
Cool and respectful and you're just like a down to earth human being.
People are going to be welcoming of that and if what you're doing is genuine people want to see you succeed and like speaking to this industry specifically and if you're it's you know it's like I feel like it's usually the people.
Who shouldn't be talking, who shouldn't be running their mouths are the ones who are running their mouths and keep it down with it.
That's how it is.
You know, I think across as you know, it's across the board, but yeah, I mean, we definitely.
I think like I don't know, a little nervous and just didn't know what to expect, but it's just caught it's just been a constant.
Like open arms.
How much.
Yeah, I'm much of my choice.
Yeah, but.
Yeah.
At some point at some point.
You're going to establish or you probably already have established yourselves where people are nervous around you because you've our.
You because you've already made that big an impact.
Just something.
I know.
Yeah.
They're themselves that way.
Jose was telling me is very new.
We were all we were all worked up.
You're like, I don't want.
I would love to ride with them, but I'm very scared.
I'm intimidated.
What?
You guys have a Slack channel on the side.
I don't.
Wow.
That's a channel.
That's coming straight out of the office right there page.
It's not work.
It's not work time right now.
What's the Slack channel?
It's like the DM.
It's the professional.
Yeah.
I was so happy.
It's already been here.
Oh, Jose.
Jose is recently been spending a lot of time in DMs, right?
I mean, that's like your new.
Is that your new that's your new favorite place?
Your new happy place.
It's not like talking about it.
But it's like the DMs he's Carlos.
Yeah.
And happy.
Oh.
The DMs is like, tron.
He's a whole, he's a whole other person.
We're big fans of shoot your job.
This is the whole episode.
We use the whole thing on the show.
You are going by another name that called Catfish.
You mean you suck?
I don't know.
No, that's my middle name.
Well, ladies, I got to say, like, I'm, I'm so glad that we got you guys on the show
to have this conversation.
I'm so glad that that you guys, you know, for the last three years have continued to push forward with the things you're trying to accomplish and you're receiving what I think from the outside looking in is a lot of support and it's resonating with people and you guys are continuing to build your brand and build your reputation.
And I think the idea that you're now expanding that into even more products and more opportunities is exciting.
And I, I got to say, man, I'm super, I'm super impressed with you guys and I'm super happy for where you guys are at knowing how hard it is to get there.
Well, appreciate that.
Yeah, I know.
I mean, it's, it's not going to lie like I think March of this year.
We thought we were just going to close the doors and like call it like we gave it our best shot.
Just it is hard.
And when, you know, it's like you keep getting nose and things keep going wrong.
And like we, I think by March of this year, not like not like a woe was me or like pity party or anything, but it was like we went to five shows in a row where we just lost thousands of dollars.
Our graphic designer goes to us like our printer messed up five different runs of printing that cost us thousands of dollars that and then we had to go find a new printer like our pants got delayed for two year.
There's just so many things that kept happening are the mid 400 thing happened.
We're all like stuff got stolen and it just like now looking back.
We got a lot like we can laugh about it.
And like to your point, we always have fun.
Like no matter what we do, we, we always have fun with each other and with people around us.
And I think that's the, the perk of starting a company and industry that you love so much and like really like doing something that you're passionate about is that you'll have fun.
Have fun even when you're stranded in Brim.
Well, I've learned five hours, but like all that being said, you know, we have each other and when one of us is down usually the other person is is there to pick them up or if we're both down like there was it's after that we both didn't really talk about it and we're just both feeling like really disconnected and out of it.
And finally, I think one day we both just like broke down and we're like, oh, you feel like we're gonna be okay.
We just like, you have those, like all of those things are happening and you're just like, we listen to the podcast how I built this and we're like, this just can't be it like there.
And when, and I feel like you listen to so many stories of companies starting where they kind of have that moment like it's rare, but it's just as seamless.
Yeah, and it was a lot, it was a lot for just the two of us to take and we kind of had like a check in.
And then it was relying on the community that like you don't see that you're building it until those moments happen where you see how many people have reached out to us being like my daughters are excited right there.
Are you writing dirt bikes and now they won't they're going to get into it and like women being like this postment everything to me and like and you had to like rely on that and being like we cannot stop like we cannot give up on this because of everyone else like for each other and then like for them like there is a them down and before for like a year or two was us and then like now there is a them and it's like we have to push like this is the moment we push through and that we could reach the tipping point.
And we have to do it for other like this is bigger than us now and this is bigger than even just the product even though again like that's part of it like this is this is for the women out there they got to go be badass ladies and like do cool shit and like again just like take life by the horns and do whatever it is that means something to them.
I love that.
I absolutely I absolutely I could cry right now because they're making they're making motorcycle jerseys for my little girl.
And every time I talk about my little girl like cry.
You guys so you guys are inspirational and awesome and we're so glad that it's going well I'm a glad you didn't call it quits a couple months ago.
I feel like there's so much more on the horizon for you guys.
If you guys have not already, please go follow them.
MC RE Y underscore MX on Instagram.
Same thing, Mike Ray motorcross on Facebook and then you can go check out their gear and a bunch of stuff at their website which is mickraymx.com.
And there's a ton of not only like like we said not just jerseys but lifestyle stuff and you do have some unisex lifestyle stuff for the dudes that want to wear hats and shirts and stuff and hoodies.
That have some cool designs and you can support the ladies by going there and doing that stuff.
I'm digging the pink butterfly shirt because I think it would be a crop top on me.
And that's what we were trying to get from day one.
But ladies, is there anything else you want to you want to tell us before we let you have the rest of your night back or anything you want to announce.
But you know, because we we're super happy that you came on the show.
Happy to be here.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks for having us.
Let us tell our story.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks for the last.
Any time ladies will talk to you later.
We would like to thank outdoor by form magazine for their continued support.
Please do us a favor and go over to outdoorx4.com and check out their content.
Use the code Trail Chasers to get a discount on your subscription.
We promise you're going to love it.
Happy landing cruiser day.
Happy land cruiser day Jose.
Tell us about the new land cruiser.
I got revealed today.
I saw that.
20 p.m.
What was awkward time, right?
Off awkward time.
It's almost like they coordinated it with.
On the East Coast or something.
No, it's hard time.
It's almost like they coordinated it with our show.
I mean, but whatever.
Um, I did see that it had a four cylinder two.
That's hard.
And that's hard.
I said hybrid power train, that the uh to come was going to have a T, okay.
T, T Pro.
That same strange.
It wouldn't even be like a turbo six.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think anyone called it that there was going to have a four cylinder.
Because it's a pretty big fucking SUV.
You know.
It's it's super cool looking.
I fucking did it.
I think it's one of the cooler versions of a new SUV.
Um, I think Sean Holman coined it the best when he said it's like, it's the, it's the,
it's the current 80 series.
So imagine my truck in the 23.
Yeah.
Yeah.
100% I drew that it's, it's got that same feel.
But it's got very much like a, um, it's like, you know, the aesthetic of vehicles changes
over time where like back in the 80s and 90s everything was rounded.
Yeah.
Well, it's a Porsche 911 and you could see where, where came from.
Even though it's yes.
Yes.
50 years in the making.
I feel like better than that.
What's what was that?
What Lexus just released.
They like the GX.

Yeah.





























But yeah.
I mean, it's pretty badass.
Does it come with a JBL speaker?
Bluetooth option.
Bluetooth.
JBL Bluetooth optional.
But it's, it's not the handful of alternators starters.
Yeah.
It's already, you know, multi pieces with the, with the 65,000 dollar price tag.
You're part of the, uh, parts replacement program.
I mean, surprisingly, it starts in the low 50s base model.
I mean, that's like standard though.
Yeah.
But considering, you know, the last nine cruiser started at 85,000.
Uh, that's pretty badass.
Like more people, more people can get into this.
Lang cruiser than the previous one.
That's only like 10 G's more than you could get an 80 series built up.
I don't know.
But they're in a fucking weird spot now because Toyota is because they have.
Uh, that's a coil, right?
That's technically like.
Yeah.
But that's a coil is a hundred thousand dollars.
Luxury SUV.
There's like four people that are going to buy.
I know, but then so then I have the GX, which is like 75,000.
Now they have this thing, which is, uh, you know,
say top of that 65K.
So what is the four on a sit in now?
Because it's coming out next year.
It'll still land in that 55 to 60 mark.
But it's very similar to this.
Why would you?
It's you're like cannibalizing.
But I think there's people that are like, like,
Lang cruiser dudes.
Yeah.
They're not going to buy a four.
No.
If you've already got the hat and the Indiana Jones vest,
I'm you're not downsizing.
I think you did a discount.
Like if you've already earned your Indiana Jones,
I'm almost going to discount for that way.
Maybe five years.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Four years.
Uh, but this, you know, if you buy early enough,
they'll give you two years.
I'll find that in the Indiana Jones outfit.
Well, depending on how many patches you have stuck to the ceiling,
like that's there's a read there's a reading program.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's 20 years.
So I get the full outfit.
Yeah.
I'm super.
I'm super.
Well, if I pull out fit.
I'm super stoked about it.
I, yeah.
I think it's three years into my 10 year loan.
I get the outfit.
I mean, if there's a way I could afford it,
I would definitely trade in my frontier and buy this.
Yeah.
I think this is this is going to be an awesome rig.
And I don't even know what the specs are.
Just looking at it and knowing what the land cruiser legacy is.

It's probably going to be amazing.
There's a big asterisk next to this one.
Because this one's not like the real land cruisers that the world gets.
The kids of the junior one.
Like the product.
Oh, here we go.
I'm just saying there's like,
This one's a 65 miles an hour.
It's a good highway speed.
Slime can too.
It just takes a while to get there.
By the time you get to the next exit,
you're like, shit.
I just got momentum.
No, that's how I know, like UFOs don't exist.
Because fucking Toyota would have that technology.
I think retrofitting those old busted land cruisers by now.
Just to get them road worthy on the highway, you know?
But yeah, I think it's a strong move by Toyota to put this out and make it somewhat affordable.
Right?
Especially since a Jeep is going to a Jeep Rubicon's in the cost.
You 60 grand.
Yeah.
A Land Rover defender is going to cost you 75 grand.
100%.
All the above right.
They're capitalizing on the Bronco.
Yeah, I was just going to say,
I was just going to say that's to me.
It looks like that's direct competitor.
Exactly.
They're they're they're capitalizing on the legacy of the Land Cruiser and going after the high end Bronco market.
That's to me.
That's to offer some of the same stuff that you could get with the Bronco.
What's that?
But does it offer some of the same stuff you can get with the Bronco?
No, the big foot package with like the stickers.
No, I don't, I don't know case, but I think it has a center in weird locker.
Yeah, I think regardless of what the mechanical offerings are,
the Toyota SUV purist has had to go with the 200 series,
which is more of a luxury vehicle.
Yeah, yeah.
And convince themselves it's a it's a off rotor,
which it's not to say it's not a capable off rotor,
but it's designated as a as a more luxury vehicle or the four runner.
How rich do you have to be to like four wheel that?
You know what I'm saying?
Not any less rich and willing a built up jeep.
Yeah, yeah.
If you bought a use, I'm just saying no, but you're whatever you're spending out the door.
I guess that's everything, right?
You know Bronco, everything at this job.
Yeah, Bronco, whatever you're spending.
I need to get a Rubicon.
Yes.
Yes.
How quickly is there after market support for this?
To this one, it's already.
It's hard work.
So again, you're up 80 90 K.
Yeah, but I would get, but based model and just put bigger tires.
Yes, that was just going to say with with this vehicle,
you probably don't need to do anything after market to it for a long time.
No, dude, you just will look for this.
Do you think about where he went in that land cruiser with on 31 inch tires?
That's not, I'm not talking about where people go.
It's just what they do.
Like they, yeah, for sure.
They put 37's on shit, shouldn't have 37's or whatever.
Yeah, people are going to stuff 37's.
But you know, you're, you know, you're, it shouldn't.
It's still under warranty and they're still willing to put like 37's on something
that's going to nullify that warranty or put it into question.
And people are going to do it.
That's again.
And I said it multiple times.
That's the point is like, people are going to fucking do it.
I said it multiple times.
I almost wish I would have just left my anchors alone.
Like when I bought it, like just the way it was.
Because it's like,
That's how I feel about my front tier wish.
You've left it alone for several months.
You've left it sitting in that driveway.
Yeah, you've left it.
Exactly.
It's true.
It's got cobwebs and shit on.
All right.
Jesus.
I watched the cobwebs on.
But this one, I would,
I would definitely buy the base model one and just put all trains on it.
And that would be it.
Yeah.
And I, I think that would be more than enough for the order.
Oh, long time.
Yeah.
Bullshit.
I co-bullshit.
I just really like the styling.
I think of any of the things that have been, you know,
teased or released recently.
The styling of this is really, really nice.
Yeah, I mean, it just looks like a real off-road.
It looks like a, it's purpose built.
That's one of the day to day series from,
I don't give a shit opinion or, you know, point of view.
It does look nice.
That is a nice looking vehicle.
I wouldn't touch it.
I would, I would buy that.
Well, hold on.
I would own that.
I would own that.
And then I'd leave it the way it is.
And then just, all right, I do some minor wheeling in it.
But I think it's that nice.
You know, I, I don't know about,
uh, beating the shit out of it or whatever.
But it, it is a nice looking truck.
Hmm.
Yeah.
I mean.
But we don't beat the shit out of our rigs though.
I'd be like, you know, you're all the same.
We don't beat the shit out of your rigs.
Matt has currently blown up his rig.
He's not.
No, he hasn't.
But.
Um, is there anybody in the chat room that's going to, uh,
going to buy one?
I could see.
Yeah.

That's the first person I thought of.
Yeah.
Now he said he didn't keep his.
Four hundred.
Yeah.

It was still go by the, uh, the Land Cruiser.
Um, yeah, I, I think it's, uh,
I think it's going to be a lot.
And Perry, I think you're right.
We'll be a significant amount of dealer markup.
Just like there is on everything else right now.
Like legal.
Like that's fucking bullshit, right?
You would think you could drive to Tennessee or something.

Open market.

You can buy it from online.

The fact that you have to do that.
Like, no, I agree.
But the, you know, going back to the, the four,
I've talked about how much I want that the new forward,
the new Ranger.
And I read an article that says, yep.
Don't expect to spend less than a thousand bucks a month for the new
Ranger at least for the first year.
Like, that's just, that's just even if I was in a place
to where I felt like I could afford that.
Yes.
I would not, I would not be able to convince myself to do it.
I, yeah, exactly.
I would.
1200 bucks or something for a car payment every Monday.
Yeah.
It's just, my buddy just got a brand new power wagon.
His payments are $1,200 a month.
Man, for how many years?
We're doing eight.
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's so much money to me.
I was to make the tanner, something like that.
That's so much money.
Like, that's weight.
That's so much.
Yeah, it is.
So if, I don't, as much as I want a Ranger Raptor,
I will probably have to wait till it hits car max on the use.
And even then, and even then.
No, 100% if you got to be another level of wealthy
or stupid to buy a brand new vehicle.
This is on the days.
Let's all get a house together.
And just the compound.
Yeah.
Just a big compound.
And then we can just buy all the cars we want.
Okay.
Yeah.
Speaking of buying cars, we have to address a question from Tyler.
So Tyler.
No.
Tyler, a horse trainer.
Oh.
I don't think he's in the chat room anymore.
He sent me a message and said, OK, Cody, I'm looking into a newer vehicle.
My RAM 1500 decided it wouldn't want to play anymore.
It doesn't want to play anymore.
I have a hauling truck already.
I don't need two trucks.
I'm thinking an outback as a daily adventure rig.
Would it be OK on the normal group runs that y'all do?
And so I said, I went through a whole thing like, OK,
what is normal?
Because Mojave Trail is normal, but so is big bear.
So is Johnson Valley?
I would say no.
That's what I told him.
No.
Because it's going to be left wanting more.
You're going to miss 25% of our trips.
I would say more than that.
You think so?
Joshua Tree Johnson Valley.
Even some a big bear.
I would say Johnson Valley.
Like what?
Again, I know you guys had hammers or whatever.
Did some crazy stuff this last time.
But prior to that, I would say get a hit.
I'm going to be Hillcrimes.
We've done a Johnson Valley.
The sand.
So I did a Johnson Valley.
Get a real four by four.
Four will drive.
Well, I kind of, I kind of ratcheted up and said,
like a Broncos sport would be a step up.
And then woo.
And yeah, no, I don't know about that.
I don't think so either.
It wasn't from an outback.
Yeah, from an outback.
A Broncos sport is a step up.
And then into the Cherokee or Grand Cherokee.
And then you could just go full runner,
which is a very granigated slide in there.
I kind of avoided the renegade.
Frontiers always the answer.
Just get up here.
Yeah, you'd be right.
Bang through your buck.
Frontiers always.
But he's helping.
He's saying that he wants a daily rig that's somewhat of adventure rig.
He said the Midwest.
He's in the right.
Nothing in the Midwest that I thought he's four.
Four runner.
That's it.
The outback doesn't get that good at gas mileage.
No.
No, it doesn't.
Four runner.
Just get a forerow.
He's trying to get his wife on the floor.
I bet you the outback gets the same gas mileage as the frontiers.
Stop.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
And he said we were going to, I told him we'd try to talk about it tonight.
And he said he was going to try to stay awake for it.
So he'll get a runner.
Just buy a forerun.
Um, can we?
Even if it's just SR5, 4 by 4.
Yeah, no.
You're paying money for that.
It's 50 grand.
Not he's not buying any.
If you bought it.
If you bought a couple years old.
Uh, 437 38.
Yeah.

But you're going to spend.
You're going to spend more than what equivalent.
You're going to spend more than that.
Now back.
Yeah.

Wilderness is like 40.
Yeah.

Dude.
I'm still saying frontier like his way.
Yeah, but.
But he's already got a truck.
This is going to be a family vehicle slash adventure vehicle.
So I think he's looking at the full runner or use GX.
Like your brother.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I'll be honest with you.
I think the.
Depending on size.
The renegade is still like an negade.
Yeah.
What what what what did I not do when the renegade.
The renegade.
Tyler pilot rock road.

That was pretty gnarly.
And the renegade was right there.
You got up over that one.
Oh, that was crazy.
It was dumb.
I shouldn't have done it.
You should not have done it.
Timmy doesn't listen to the show anymore.
So I can admit this now.
Yes.
But they was stupid.
I should have done it.
It was come down.
And you got to use your slider as a pivot.
Yes.
That's exactly what it was.
Exactly.
But yeah, you know, you're right.
Renegade was right there.
Like it got back into some pretty hairy stuff.
And it has all those different modes.
Like, you know, gear ratios or whatever to help you through stuff.
Yeah.
Greatest power.
But the wheel.
The wheelbase is really short.
And it gets you around a lot of stuff.
And for a community.
A family, a community vehicle that goes on an adventure.
The only thing he would have to do is do that puck lift and put some 30
Empires.
Certainly helped.
You know, I depend on what he wants to do with it.
Yeah.

I can't speak to the longevity of it because, you know, somebody
wrecked it.
But I'll tell you.
I thinking back.
That was a lot of fun.
It's, it's that conversation where can I get this little thing like
Around these places or whatever.
In the sand.
It was great.
Yes.
It was, it was a lot of fun in the sand.
It really depends on what he wants to do with it.
Eventually.
And you could pick those up.
I would, I would assume pretty.
I was just going to say pretty reasonable.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I still say S R 5 400 4 by 4.
Yeah, I think it depends on the size that you're looking for.
First of all, like, you know, what it is this for just for you as a
Commuter or as this is like a family vehicle.
Because I would say that might be the one limiting factor to the
Renegade is that it was kind of small.
Yeah.
There's not a lot of space in it.
Yeah.
But you could pick up.
That was the positive to upgrading.
Yeah.
The cheating room in an outback is not.
But that's similar to what we could get.
Yeah.
I would say the Renegade and the Outbook outback are same platform.
But the Renegades better off food performance.
Yeah.
Outback has more storage in the back.
A 2018 Jeep Renegade Trail Hawk with 29,000 miles is only 23 grand.
Yeah.
Car max.

Like that.
Like that trail that trail Hawk for for 23 grand all day long.
Yeah, for sure.
Um,
30 less than 30,000 miles.
Yeah.
Did somebody re uh fix up money?
Yeah.
That sounds exactly like your car.
Except for 2015.
He's same mileage.
So a 2016 400 SR5.
So two years older with 125,000 miles.
Or $5,000.
$5,000.
27.
It's still 4,000.
It's got it's got 100,000 more miles.
It's two years older.
And it's still 4 grand more than the Renegade.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it will.
But it will.
But it will.
I've had this.
Yes.
I've had it.
You throw away at 100,000 miles.
Um, yeah.
Do you?
I mean, I don't.
It's assumed.
Um.
It's assumed.
Yeah.
I don't know if he's trying to buy a brand new one or use one.
Yeah.
I don't know.
But looking trying to find a.
Comparable year and mileage one.
Um.
Yeah.
Here do a 2018.
Oh, that's the TRDR for.
How much is that?
It's a 2018 TRDR for with 80k on it.
36,000.
Ha ha ha.
Okay.
We're 36 or whatever.
Five brands ago when I bought.
No, when I bought my 2018 friend,
I'm like, 30.
Six.
That's crazy.
I bought my trip for 24.
That's 6,000 more than I bought my trip for 2018.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I should get deal on the current gen Tacoma.
Because everyone's trying to get rid of them for.
Yeah.
But I know I just want another truck.
Yeah.
No, I.
There's no deal on current Tacoma's dude.
Everybody wants to change these more than they can.
Yeah.
The deal on the Tacoma's bend over and take it.
Like that's.
There's a big deal.
There's a big deal.
There's a Toyota.
Yeah.
That's that's why like.
And that I brought up like the the Jeep Cherokee,
which is roomier than the Renegade and probably just as capable.
The Grand Cherokee.
I loved our Grand Cherokee.
I really.
If our Grand Cherokee was a four wheel drive vehicle,
I probably would not have traded in.
I would have kept it and let her buy something.
WK2 is.
Yes.
Very capable.
Very capable.
And you can probably pick them up for pretty cheap now.

I don't know, man.
Or even just a base model.
Jeep Wrangler.
No.
No.
You.
You can.
You can probably find a decent.
JK Rubicon for decent amount.
30 grand.
Yeah.
But not Rubicon.
A J.
J.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Rain seems to have some opinions on it.
Where's the mouse?
We've got cranky look.
I know.
SO a.
try to find.
EV.
That's how I look at the end of the show too.
Tahired and yet
But still at 42,000 for a 2022.
But I don't like that model as much as the older one.
21, 2021 is 40,000.
That's the special 80th anniversary.
There's a ton of them.
Okay, here we go.
We're getting down to the 20, a 2021 Cherokee Limited is 37.
The under 40K, there's a $37,000 tray of hawk.
That's probably the route I would go.
Is the Grand Cherokee WK2, which is like 2014 to 2020, 2019, something like that.
And it's a very comfortable vehicle that will absolutely get you out on an adventure.
No.
What?
Is he going to the mall?
Is he starbucksing it up?
Yeah, you know.
I don't know.
Well, I mean, I, I 100, Casey.
What's your adventure, you know?
I was just going to say, I would, I would 100.
If I was given the option of a Subaru Outback or a Grand Cherokee.
I would take the Grand Cherokee all day.
I would too.
It depends on if I plan on feeling it.
If I don't plan on really, I would take the outfit.
No, I'm talking, I'm talking about it vent, like he, he specifically said he wanted to go on an adventure.
Here's a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk with 57,000 miles on it for 32,000.
Damn, I'm going to want that car.
Um, Casey quit walking around in front of the air conditioning.
The, uh, stop breathing.
But, I mean, that's, that's my, oh, I didn't think about the RAV 4.
No, so $40,000.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You wouldn't, you wouldn't put the RAV 4 on that list.
Yeah.
I would, but it's way too expensive.
Wow, we don't know.
There was no, there was no dollar value given in the parameters of the conversation.
If there's no dollar value for it.
Yeah, I would, I would agree.
It's the most Swiss army knife.
Swiss army knife, daily driver.
The only, the only, the only knock on the forerunner is the interior comfort and amenities.
Yeah.
But, uh, it's a Spartan vehicle.
It's going to work forever.
Yeah.
But, if you're from Athens, maybe not.
No, especially the current one, like the current.
Jen, the fifth.
Yeah.
The, um, it's, uh, due to its own breakable.
I mean, shy beats the fuck out of it.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And it's over.
I, I would choose a, right now if I had to choose a forerunner over to come up.
I would, too.

100%.

Um, the, the, at Overland Expo, who's a and I wrote in that.
Oh, yeah.
It's forerunner.
It's a current gen.
Oh, but I mean, it's Brits this year model.
It's correct.
It's correct.
But it was the TRD offer.
It's the current one.
It was super nice inside.
Yeah.
Like, dude, that was super nice inside.
It was comfortable.
Like, we're, that guy was getting after in those ruts.
But, but the, the base model, the SR5, they're very,
Yeah.
Real, real, real baseline.
Yeah.
If I, if I could, I would probably get a GX for 70.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, he's get that V8.
Hmm.
Hmm.
But even Betty White saying the 400 is more comfortable than his to coma.
Oh, 100%.
Well, wait, wait, yeah.
100%.
Well, the hard board box with skateboard wheels is more comfortable.
I think it's a coma.
It has cool rear sprung.
Yeah.
We got us of that.
Not just that.
This 80 position in the whole.
Yes.
Yes.
The, the, I can't think of any vehicle I've been in.
It's less comfortable.
I used to drive breadbox trucks for work.
And I would rather drive that than it's a coma when it comes to interior comfort.
No, but yeah, horse trainer.
If you can, if you, I don't know what, uh, horse trainer 10.
Not nine.
Horse trainer.
If you can.
Listen to me.

Listen to me.
Four under.
That's what you need.

That's a good cause.
If, if that's within the price range,
you can, if you can afford one of those.
Get one of those.
Yeah.
That's because you, to your point, Swiss army knife of,
you know, if, if you want something to do everything.
If you don't have a new outback, you can probably find a used for it
over the same price.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Um, what's the, uh,
What's the like the crash rating on the new outback?
I mean, a super is a safe vehicle.
But I mean, like a lot.
Is it?
And well, no, they crash.
I don't know.
Uh, whatever.
What is that in, uh, American Eagle?
Like, will you quit hitting the table, guys?
I just shifted my blade.
You've been hitting the table all night.
I have not.
I just, that was the computer that you put next to my foot.
It's like something you've seen in Vegas.
Quit hitting the table.
I'm trying to change my leg down.
Um, the, uh, yeah.
That, that, that's the thing.
Yeah, and that's, I, I, I, I, Tyler, I hope that helped.
I, I'm building an outback right now and the amount of money he's putting into it.
You could've bought a 400.
Go, go, do what he, yeah.
He could've just got a four runner and then like that.
That, that's it.
And a couple of ditch lights and then he'd've been like,
level.
I hope he doesn't listen to this and he's like,
God damn it.
Oh, I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a super cool outback.
There were really, we're putting a ton of shit on it, but it's like,
Yeah, bro, you know, they made four runners.
We're all this money into it.
It's still not as capable as, you know,
Exactly.
A stock for a stock for a.
A stock for a runner.
Yeah.
Um, but I, I do, I do think Matt's point about the Renegade is also valid.
The, very capable.
It was not as capable as a four runner, but like,
it could definitely get after it when you need to.
It's also, uh, much cheaper.
Yeah, it's on half the price.

Yeah.
Um,
Um,
Okay.
Uh, Casey, pure four by four.
Talk to me.
What's, what's your plan?
What's, uh, what's bear rally going to do this weekend?
Uh, we have a booth up there, pure, pure four by four.
They starts.
Technically, it starts on Thursday.
Thursday is open to vendors in VIP guests.
Um, they're doing free tacos in beer Thursday night for,
uh, vendors and guests VIP guests.
They actually show itself like the vendor road, all that stuff.
As well as runs, raffles, all that stuff starts Friday.
I think gates open at nine a.m.
That, uh, up at, uh, Hulking Valley Ranch.
And they're, they're trying to, they're, they're, they're doing something a little bit different than what they've previously done.
Um,
They're trying to bring like, making like a whole festival more than just an off road show.
So they have, like, a crap ton of, uh, live performances, like, uh,
it's, it's going to be like kind of reggae heavy, as far as a live performances go, like that kind of vibe.
Uh, contact, hi, bro.
Sounds like you don't have to buy.
I didn't have to buy it.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Sounds like if I showed up on Thursday for the free beer in tacos, my runs with.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It meant, uh, tonight.
I'm doing, is they're doing, uh, a couple of silent discos, which were,
really curious about, because we read up on them, and it's where headphones are having.
Yeah, you have a DJ, you know, on the ones and choose, and then everybody just wears headphones,
and it's like logged into a Bluetooth speaker or whatever.
And so everyone's just dancing and there's, there's no sound.
Oh, you got to get video of that.
Oh, yeah, so we're, we're pretty, we're very curious about how that, that works.
So, um, yeah, it sounds like it's going to be a humuggish show.
It's going to be big, dude.
It's going to be a humuggish.
And I think this is the biggest, this is probably going to be the biggest one that they've had.
Uh, at least in SoCal, because I know they do it, they do it in NorCal as well.
Um, but I think this is going to be the biggest one yet so far and so, and so cal.
This is the ones a year, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I, I think camping is sold out.
There's no more VIP passes, no more camping passes, but I think you can still get in on a day pass,
which is like 40 bucks on their website pure 4x4.com or whatever.
So, I'm going to go Friday for a couple hours in the morning.
Can't, yeah, not this week.
Yeah, I'm going to play it. I can do that.
I got a couple more, I got two weeks to be able to ask shit.
I got a week and a half.
Yeah, you better live that shit up, dude.
No more naps.
Do you hear that?
That's the top.
That's the clock.
That's the clock ticking away on you.
Clock ticking away on my Cody's happy time.
Cody's good time.
Happy time.
Daytime nap.
Bike riding.
Yeah, adventures.
Daytime nap.
Yeah, so I'm going to Friday for a couple hours and then we are not going to do a show next week,
because I'll be on vacation.
I'll be, you know, after all these months of unemployment, I really need a break.
I need to take some time off and sit by the pool with Nappa.
And so that's what we're going to do.
There's something else coming up though.
That's like two weeks after this week,
and I'll have to be sure about our event is the tailgates and tacos.
Maybe you've seen it floating around.
Yeah.
That sounds like a really small event.
But I think it was going to be really cool event.
Where's that at?
Up here, Big Bear.
Up at like a log and eat a lodge.
Okay.
Yeah.
And it's, uh, it's which we can choose.
I think I want to, I want to say it's like on the 19th or something like that.
There's potential.
There's potential to have a booth.
If there was only a way for us to check.
Um.
Just I share, well, it's probably not there, but.
No, I'm not finding it.
If you search tailgates and tacos and Big Bear, it's not there.
If you went to Instagram and looked up like Big Bear vacations or maybe a low pressure crew.
Something like that.
They would probably have a post about it.
Okay. Well, we will figure that out when that's going to be and see about going up there.
Uh, because we definitely want to get to more of those events.
Um.
The, but you guys, so you guys will have a booth there at pure butt 4 by 4 for the whole thing.
So low pressure crew tailgates and tacos Saturday August 19th.
Uh, pool party raffles vendors.
A.M. parking 9 a.m. the pool opens 10 a.m.
It's going to be at Lakeview driving Big Bear California.
Uh, oh, there's the bear valley over there.
I'm going to go on there.
Check that out.
Uh huh.
So you guys will be there.
We don't necessarily have a booth for donating for stuff to the raffle.
But we'll have a present there.
Okay.
Um, so we might be, we might be going up there for that to hang out with with KC for the day.
Um,
All right. Well, I mean, if you guys are going to be at, uh,
uh, pure 4 by 4 this weekend, uh, hit up KC and Cory at the bear valley booth.
Um, KC was going to do some recording, uh, but Jose didn't bring the recording machine.
So now I have to figure that out.
It's probably just as good on my iPhone.
Yeah.
You can just use your phone.
Yes.

But that's what I was planning on doing.
Um, yeah.
Uh, so we'll, uh, we'll let you guys know how that goes.
And, um, and then KC will talk about it two weeks from now.
Cause we're not going to do a show next week.
I got to let next week's guests know that we need to cancel.
And, um, go from there.
But, uh, thank you very much to the McCray girls for hanging out with us.
Thank you to Tyler for the topic of what kind of SUV his wife should,
or he should get somebody should get.
And thank you to everybody in the chat room that we're hanging out with us.
We appreciate it.
You guys are always fun.
Um, spoiler alert.
It's not an outback.
Just probably wouldn't be my choice, but, um,
I don't know the disc circumstances.
All right, everybody.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
You guys have a good night.
We'll talk to you next week.
We would like to thank outdoor by four magazine for their continued support.
Please do us a favor and go to outdoorxfor.com and check out their content.
Hey.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
We appreciate it.
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We really appreciate it.
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Ep 280: Midland Radio

Welcome to the Trail Tracer's podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Outdoor by Four Magazine, the team in Outdoor by Four puts together
an uniquely engaging publication for responsible vehicle-based adventure travel.
With family-friendly content that resonates with all types of adventures whether you're in a
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magazine either in print or digital to catch all of their 100% original and unbiased content.
Today on the show we talked to Kaylee and Olivia with Midland USA. They come on the show
to tell us all about the cool radios that Midland offers. How Midland got started and how
the stock antenna is more than enough antenna for any any realistic person.
Yeah, but but when you can get that 6 dB antenna, I mean, who's gonna want the stock one?
Can you clean your'! People?
I'm talking
I'm saying sir, I'm telling you now
You have to keep your picture and be after each other
You have to keep your picture and be after each other
You have to keep your picture
Hey everybody, it is a 630 on a Tuesday night we are live on YouTube as we normally are at 630 on Tuesday nights
We are joined by Kaylee and Olivia from Midland Radio in various parts of the country
How are you guys doing tonight?
Good, good, good. Thank you guys for joining and for the cool swag that you see that I'm wearing
There's some shirts floating around here too and we'll talk about the Midland products quite a bit
But start off Olivia, where are you at?
I'm in Waco, Texas, trying not to melt
I was just going to say is it like a billion degrees there right now?
Nope, I think it's still like 99 degrees and it's 839 at night so it's pretty hot
It's that hot here, so it was 102 today at my house, but there was little to no humidity
So yeah, you guys deal with the humidity and the heat
Second oven. Yeah, Kaylee, where are you?
I mean Kansas City, Missouri. What's Kansas City, Missouri? Midland is headquartered out of
Yeah, all right, what's Kansas City like right now?
It's actually supposed to be 102 tomorrow, so
It's getting up there. We still can't compete with Olivia though
It is insanity. He's way of a sweep in the nation. Yes, it is insanity. It's hot everywhere, which is
It's a bummer for some of the outdoor stuff that we like to do, but we just stay in the cars with air
That's why Jose is going to sell the land cruiser because the air conditioning doesn't work very well
We can't go I told you he can't go wheeling
Yeah, if the air conditioning doesn't work, we're not going wheeling at all
And we're definitely not getting out to hike anywhere
So Midland radio for for everybody that
That I would assume is familiar is Midland radios known for their their communications and
The products that make it a possible for everybody to communicate not only
On the trail, but in all different kinds of capacities with from everything from the
Handheld radios to in vehicle mounted radios to base stations and stuff Midland has a
Huge line of products around all that stuff. We'll get into some of those products here in just a minute
Especially the ones that are relevant to us as off-roaders, but I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about how you ended up in the world of
Radio communications like that's
Is that one of those things like when you were 12 someone was like what are you gonna do when you grow up and you're like you know
What there's this radio there's these CB radios. I'm really into and and I'm gonna end up at a company like how does that how do you guys get there?
Who wants I don't know who wants to start, but how do you guys end up at Midland?
Kaylee Kaylee was done. Yeah, I'll go first. I actually went to
Mizzou and then I worked as a TV news reporter for
Six or seven years so when I left the business I moved back to KC and I found Midland
Yeah, and so I've been there for about two years now. Wow, do you
Do you bring any of your news reporter skills to the YouTube channel?
Occasionally
That's funny, so
What is Mizzou for people that grew up in California?
Oh, that's the University of Missouri
So forget that everyone isn't from KC. It's yeah, but it knows what Mizzou is. I would that. I would think so only because of college football, but
I think it is. It is. It's a major school
Did you did you what did you go to school for was it journalism or PR or what?
Yeah, my degrees actually in broadcast journalism. Yeah, so I went for journalism
And then did that for a couple years. Yeah, and there's there's a decent amount of crossover between news and what I do now. Yeah, I could imagine. Yeah
We went to the
spare bedroom school of broadcast journalism and that's how we ended up with a podcast. That's it's not
That's that's how we figured it out
That's why it's not good
Olivia, how did you end up here doing what you're doing?
Yeah, so I was actually one of a marketing major, but I actually wanted to go in a sports marketing
To a university in Nebraska Omaha and swim there
So I really wanted to get into sports, but it's hard to get into
So I took like a sales job working for Mary out out of college and then hated it
ended up taking a marketing job. That was a skim job selling door to door cable
And found me then so
Wow, that's
Quite the career. I'll have to let my wife is in
My wife is director of marketing for several hotels including some Mary-outs and
She with the opposite she was like in tires and automotive and stuff and ended up in hotels and loves hotels
Really yeah, but it's it's very
It's very interesting how you know looking at both of you and and you know our personal paths
Like your career path starts in one direction and you think it's going to be something and then you end up someplace completely different
I mean, I think that's at my age. That's the that's the story of my life
A small world because my mom actually had a
Summer job at Midland back in like the 70s she used to refer bish CDs
Like a summer job when she was in college. How funny
That is so funny that that so was she was she in Kansas City where Midland's at?
Yep, so that's where I'm originally from we made them move down here about two years ago
Because it wasn't hot enough in Kansas City. You need to you need more of a challenge
You need not only did you need the heat, but sometimes flooding just in case
Yeah
More heat and more flooding
Well, so officially what is your title, Kaylee?
I'm a peer and content specialist. Okay, PR and content specialist okay Olivia
I'm the social media content coordinator. Okay, so I'm assuming the two of you work together a lot and
Collaborate on content such as talking to a couple yay who's in the spare bedroom on a microphone on a Tuesday night
Because because somebody convinced you to do it
But thank you guys for being here. This is this is really cool
Overall like just if if there was someone randomly that had never heard of Midland what would you guys say is like the 30 second pitch for
The Midland products and and what you guys bring to to the market
Okay, I think that's nice
Yeah, she'll let me do this like
Midland has you know better round for decades obviously known for CB the first CB manufacturer in the United States
But over the last couple of years have just continued to be a leader and you know two way radio
Technology and weather radio and emergency radio technology so that's really evolved as CB has become more and more obsolete
In GMRS and FRS radio have kind of you know come to the forefront
So not only do we make those two way radio communication devices for a lot of you know
Off-routers and other outdoor adventures, but also
We're number one leaders leading seller and know a weather radios as well
And I'm sorry because yeah, I always tell people that come in nowadays to the shop asking for a CB radio that it's like buying a VCR
Yeah, let's see exactly what it is
Unless you're in this you and your 12 buddies are all buying the same CB radio. You're not gonna be on the top of the bumper
So staticky well, it's and it's funny though like okay, I'm old and I had CB radio
So like that was the thing, you know back in the
90s is we we put CB radios and every one of our trucks did on the first trail run you were like hey, make sure you have CB radio
I probably did
And
And it was you know at it was the technology of the time right, but when you when you compare the
Clarity and range of a CB radio to the products that you get from Midland and just GMRS and FRS in general
It's it's the KC's point. It's like going back to VCR movies. It's just it's painful
It's horrible. Yes, CB only has a max power of four watts and GMRS is up to 50 so even given that there's just a huge power
Diversity disparity yeah and and speaking of power disparity and watt to wattage
For the last several years we have been we've been functioning on the $30 bowfang radios right and and I think originally when it was
Two or three of us on the trail that we're never more than 15 feet apart. Okay, it got the job done right, but
We've been on several trail runs where there's 30 people 20 people spread out over the course right out
Yeah, and it's like the guy in front which is me relays it to whoever has the next radio
They can then relay it to the next radio and it became I remember on one trip
They got to a point where we had no idea where the group was they got separated from us and we ended up just like
Parking and waiting for an hour trying to find people because everybody got split up and and that was our trail run
Yeah, and that was that was that was ours that was don't tell anybody that that case we were trying to keep that keep that
Secret allegedly allegedly, but but it's interesting that I did not know that Midland was the first
Manufacturer of radios in the in the in the country it's interesting that they
Had the foresight to continue pushing the technology forward and following the the you know moving forward with like the GMRS and FRS
um and
So we keep saying GMRS and FRS and I and I have to I'm on a Midland site and I'm looking at a blog post that probably one of you guys wrote
But it talks about the different stuff
Talks about the difference between FRS family radio service
And GMRS which is general mobile radio service so the the Midland radios
Do they work on both FRS and GMRS?
So I'll leave you the whole okay
The whole run down FRS and GMRS operate on the same frequency the only difference is
FRS is anything to watch and under so once it becomes anything above two watts
That's when it becomes GMRS radio and that goes up to 50 watts
So GMRS and FRS because they're on the same frequency you can communicate and they're compatible with one another
Okay long as long as you're on
If you're on the same micromobiles
Our micromobiles because those are five watts up to 50 watts
Those are you know GMRS but a lot of our hand tells our FRS because they're two watts and under
But you can use your hand held with your micromobiles
Got it see that makes sense that makes a lot of sense
The the the product range
If you if you go if you guys go to the Midland radios site it's Midland USA dot com and you can find their products
You've got two way radios business radios the micromobiles the Noah weather radio stations like what
What is kind of the
I guess they're all probably bread and butter for you at this point, but but like let's talk about let's talk about each one of them individually the two way radios themselves
What's the what's like a normal use case for that you guys are seeing with those ex talkers?
Well specifically for off-roading and overlanding a lot of that is you know people who don't have radios
So friends will pass out a pair to lend to them or also you have you know getting out of your vehicle to spot or help with a recovery
Outside the vehicle just really helps with that coordination with that person that's already in the vehicle
So you can you know communicate easily with one another. Yeah, that's what case we're talking about was the having the mobile station
The the micromobiles built I mean amounted in the truck is fantastic
But then having one of the hand-held's to be able to jump out and walk someone through an obstacle or or communicate
That's I think that's a great scenario right there a great setup
The a lot a lot of times we use them when we're when we're doing events as well
We used to bring our radios. Yeah, just so we can go out and mobile record and be able to still communicate back to
Because and you know
A lot of us a lot of us
Don't
Matt's not here to give me crap about my cell phone service, but
You know cell phones don't work in the desert like in Southern California there's there's a limited spots where you get
Enough signal to make it a worthwhile communication and it's it's not real time and it's not
Broadband meaning you can't speak to more than one person at a time unless you do a conference call it it just that the
The ability to communicate in real time to multiple people at once while on a trail
I think is critical to the not only the safety of the group, but the ability to have fun
I mean it when when people start getting lost and no one knows what's going on and this guy's going the wrong direction
It gets super frustrating
The the biz talk radios just as a touch that looks like a lot of commercial communication for
I would say like security services and
Construction sites and all that stuff
Is there that much of a difference between the
the like the
Talks and some of the business radios
Yeah, some people use FRS license free
Talkers for their businesses, but the difference with that is that business radios
You actually purchase your own frequency so that you don't have any of that interference
You know with other businesses nearby or a lot of times people businesses will pick up construction
Workers and different projects, so it's you purchase your own frequency so it's a little bit different that way
Okay, I have a frequency purchasing story
So years ago like a hundred years ago because I'm so old
I did lost prevention and I was I was working at a merchants and we had radios
Just regular radios that we would use and for whatever reason
The McDonald's around the corner was on the same radio frequency
As our radios and we would get into the drive through and as someone in front of us was ordering
We would jump on the radio and place multiple orders for multiple big mags in large day it cooks before the person in front of us
It was it was horrible. I'm a horrible person
But that's why you need your own frequency
Yeah, one of the things out the Midland the Midland the Midland site you guys have the products, but I like how you have
Activities like you have things broken down by activities and you can go to the off-road section and see all of the products
They're relevant to
Off-road and overlanding and and the things that that we can use in in the
In the community which is you guys are huge in the community. I mean you guys you guys are always it events
You guys are always participating in things you guys work with multiple podcasts influencers influencers
YouTubers like I I feel like and I know that comes down to the two of you right a hundred percent because
CEO
Bob Midland over there. He doesn't know it's he just he wants to look at the numbers
You tell me what's going on and and and you guys are are constantly involved in that was that was that something that you guys
Like kind of initiated yourself what's the what's the background to that involvement in the community?
So I started at Midland about four years ago and I was just hired for social media
Just posting scheduling maintaining that and we had about 50 influencers at the time that our director marketing was handling
And from there I grew it so now we have about 350 influencers
We work with probably about 50 different brands and our influencers are ranging from farmers to off-roaders
Preppers
Business so we look pretty wide range so we've grown that definitely over the years
I love how she just throws preppers into that
Look, I'm not disparaging the preppers
I'm not disparaging the preppers trust me
In the venn diagram of all everything there's some overlaps. I was that's why I was good to say
We always talked about the venn diagram of like off-roaders and overlanders and and mountain bikers and
Preppers is in there preppers is there's a there's some corner of that and one in the same dude. Yeah. Yeah
2020 was a big year for preppers
Especially in Texas where they couldn't keep the electricity on
If you guys started selling like jarred meat
By Midland media radio get a five gallon bucket in slot just in case
It's a whole promo they're gonna do you get one of those five gallon slot buckets
So how how was that how was that working out with your with your
involvement with the influencers and I mean again from from an outsider's perspective
It feels like you guys are such a presence in the community because you are you are always there
Yeah, so I mean I personally work with all of 350 plus influencers
So it's a lot of just hands on building relationships
But the influencer programs really grown and it's one of the big reasons why our seals have grown and the
You know on social media has grown because everyone's posting about us. Yeah, what in it's
And in terms of content we rely so much on them for our user generated content because we're such a small company
So they're really
Crucial to all of our content that we put out around launches or promotions and whatnot
But then it's all organic content as well. So yeah, well that and that's kind of where I was gonna go with that is that that
It's not like you're
It's not like you're I'm gonna get we're never gonna get sponsored by bang energy so I'm not gonna want to show that out there
It's not like you're bang energy and you're just like someone standing there holding a bang energy, right?
You guys are you guys are selling a product that we are using that we are physically
Putting to use every time we go on the trail that every one of these influencers that it's like it changes their ability to communicate and and
And do what they need to do in the trail so I could totally see that organic content
Being more relevant and more impactful because it's so true. It's so like it's it's real if that makes sense
I was gonna say there's also been a shift to in GMRS like the way people view it
Because at first I think it was really big and just the race radio industry and that's all people knew it for
But because him was like
He was getting a lot of popularity in the last couple years, but then people don't want to get their licenses and I think they got
You know like framed off because of the
It can get pretty complex you like I from what I hear like damn radio
But then when these gms GMRS radios or the past couple years like their capability that you can get on repeaters now for GMRS and you can even send like data packets now over GMRS and stuff
And it's pretty crazy what you can do now. I told you when we were in Johnson going
Oh, I was just going to say with ham you have to take a text to get your license where it's with GMRS
It's no test you just apply it coverage your whole family for ten years and it's three five dollars. So
It's a lot more accessible than ham radio licenses are
the the GMRS radios
Joke was in Big Bear when we were in Johnson Valley for king of the hammers. Yeah, and he was able to bounce off of repeater and get me on the on the the radio
It's crazy. Yeah, that's how that's how I mean he's way smarter than I am. I won't be afraid of it
But I'm just saying there's a lot of capability there. In case you know I want to do some testing with the
With the radios because we've got
Two antenna we've got the the standard antenna length that came with the
575 a little short guy a little guy a little ghost antenna
The what you know that's a short like fat one. It's a little
This is a stop and yeah
Yeah, it's it's short and skinny. I think we have it's about it's about average size and like yeah, yeah
The and then the 275 came with the short fat stubby one
Yeah, and then we also have the six db long one
So spring antenna yes, so yeah, I would be the difference between the stock one and that
That about 32 inches
I mean I'm sorry like a range wise
With the you're stock antenna really isn't going to give you any extra signal output where as
You know your ghost antenna may you know double or triple that signal signal output and then your
60 b whip antenna will you know
Depending on you know where you're at and what your obstructions in line of side are okay
Yeah, that's the one of the things that case and I didn't get the chance to play with when we got the radios installed
We were kind of like messing around with the the different antennas and we want to we want to get to a point
We're out in the somewhere and see how far we can get with the little antennas and then swap them out to the big antennas and go a little bit further
Just to kind of get a real world view of what that looks like here here at the house
There's you know a thousand houses between me in the freeway in case he was on the freeway
You can communicate across the valley though. I like driving valley. Yeah, easy
And we're actually getting ready to launch tomorrow a new line of four jammers antennas
The ride the range line but really what's important to note with your antenna and
You know the decibel that you're choosing is that not necessarily the highest gain
Is it going to necessarily give you the most dust distance because you want a lower
Descible lower gain for you know environments like a city or mountains in whatnot
Whereas those higher db's those are going to be better for open planes freeways highways that type of environment
So is that is that because those antennas are changing the the length the the distance of the wavelength
And that makes it easier to cut through some of those obstructions
So like a lower db cast a taller signal while a higher db cast a wider signal
God, so that's why those higher db's are better for open planes and the lower db's are better for you know mountains or cities in whatnot
Okay, look at look out. Oh my I came out right dude. Look at look at look at look at the learnings
What's happening right now? There's so many learnings like if we were good at what we did
We would have learned all this before we got on the radio on the phone with you guys
But we just figured you guys would tell us so I did it's yeah, we're we're fun if we learn together
It's real world we're just pretending you know what journalism's like we're pretending to not know so that you could tell us that's what
Is a really good act
It's like when you take a test as a as a class, you know, yeah, just so we should get on those past just to make sure we all understand what the what's going on
If in the in the MXT lines like that so the the micromobiles it looks like you know you've got everything from the
275 up and you've got a bunch of different
versions of that which one would you say is the most popular in the off-road community right now
I would say the 275 or the five 75 for
Starter is usually a two 75 because that's the 15 watts and because it can you know
Just be plugged into you know your cigarette lighter, so it's an easy install like less than
five minutes to get that up and running
Or the 575 because that has the 50 watts of power which is the max allowed by law
Because of that that's become one of our most popular radios
But those are both popular because they have the fully integrated control microphones so all of the
buttons are right there in your hand and you can hide the radio head unit away
So a lot of people like that to save up their database
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the we'll talk a little bit about this weekend. So KC installed the MXT 500 in his truck
He's got the 24 14 Nissan Frontier and right underneath this the the dashboard and everything in the center console was a perfect cubby
That fit that 575 exactly where it was like made for the radio propped up at the right angle
So we got his installed and then I like that
It's not all on the on the hand held or whatever on the
Now whatever microphone microphone microphone that where I have
Yeah, microphone I like that. It's you know a unit in itself
You know, yeah
Very very very clean install very clean that's one thing I noticed about the the the install we did this weekend on the two radios is that
In the box came everything I needed to do the job
And the hardest part is routing. Yeah, the hardest part we had was trying to find a hole
That's the problem here from everyone. That's the one thing on that in the in the forward
Behind the back seat we found a rubber grommet between the cab and the bed of the truck and so we pulled that grommet out and it was just
The every bit of
Area necessary to get the antenna radio the antenna connector through
Just enough like Jose and I were hanging upside down using needle nose to get it through there
But we got it and then it came out super clean and easy
But the like the microphone just is a cat five connection our cat six connection the
Power is already set up with a plug and then you guys provide the plug already with the with the the whip on it the
antenna wires there with the connectors and the whole thing like other than
Finding a way to route the wires which is just it's going to be different for everybody on every vehicle application
You guys did a good job of making sure
We had everything we needed to get the job done like it's not it's not one of those things
We're like you get a box that's got a radio in it and it's two empty terminals and you got to find wire and it's you know
The the kit itself it's complete. I mean that was that was one thing I noticed and the other piece I noticed is that
Again, I'm going back to my olden days when I had CB radios the the quality of the microphones and the thickness of the wire
In comparison to some of those
CB radios that were like Fisher price plastic like
It was it was like the size of your hands, but it was the light as like you know a feather if
Was like why is it so big Jose and I were looking at it like wow look at this look at the size of the the
Even the cable like the insulation wrapped around the cable compared to the telephone wire and
Fisher price handheld that I that I was used to in the past
Is that that quality? I'm going to assume that you guys aren't working in the quality department, too
but I got to believe that that
Those features and that quality comes from years of feedback from users in this space
To get there. I mean how how have you guys been involved in some of that user feedback and communication process?
Honestly, we've used our influencers a lot for product testing
So even like products that haven't been released yet
We send them out to a few product testers some of our influencers and they provide that feedback for us
Yeah, I could see a lot
Yeah, and then a lot of it's actually just being at those events and interacting with the customers and talking to them about
You know, they're paying points with communication and learning about the obstacles that they're facing
Yeah, because in our vehicles even especially if you're in an open top like in our inner
I'm old and lazy so the windows are up in the air conditioning's on all the time
But still there's a lot of dirt and dust and rattling around and banging and you know dropping the microphone at your feed and like I
I feel like I could do all of those things to this mic and it would still work
Yep, they're very durable
the
the so that the
75 designation on the models
I have found is
Designates the the remote mount base unit correct
So what we're talking about if you if you look at the the MXT 500 that's the radio itself with the display and the buttons and all of that stuff on it
And you have to mount that in a place where you can reach it physically reach it to change the channel and the volume everything and then the microphone's just nothing but a click microphone
the
275 75 75 the base unit is
I probably should have measured it, but I would in all the compactness. It's like a Sony walk man. Thank you Jose
It's like a Sony walk man and there's a lot of people listening to show right now
They know exactly what I'm talking about
You're my guys and you're also my guy the same guys that were like I remember my CB radio not a walk man
Not a walk man, just a disc man. It's a Sony disc man. That's right
But and it comes with the the mounting base and everything and like the I found that it's got the little tabs
You pull the tabs you can slide it out screw the thing on slide it back in so it's it's a you know
Inch and a half two inches tall and like maybe six by six square and you can mount that anywhere in the vehicle and
And it doesn't need to be seen because all of the controls are inside the microphone and
What what I ended it doing was mounting the base unit behind the back seat of the truck
Because that's where we had the antenna going out and I was able to run power to it and everything and
The you know the microphone cable is even though it's coil you could probably stretch it pretty far
I didn't want to stretch it from behind the back seat
I just got a cat six cable and a coupling and I was able to run that cat six under the foreboard into
Under the front seat and so I just plugged the microphone into the into there so
You don't you don't even know I have a radio most of the time until I plug that thing in and then there's an external speaker mounted under a seat
They will talk about at another time the
The but it's it it provides for those that don't have a lot of space in their
Dash area it provides an opportunity to mount that thing someplace where it doesn't need to be seen
Is that like that's not I mean it's probably it's new to me
But when did you guys start building those units that had that remote mount capability?
I think the the
MXGs came out probably about five or six years ago the two we started with the 275
With the my all the stuff on the mic and then the 50 watt just came out probably about a year and a half ago
Okay, I guess a year Kaylee about that about that
It's so good so again and I'm sorry to keep
Belabering this but it's it's all I have to relate it to going back to CB's like to get us a powerful CB
That was the size of a file cabinet it was like in order to get a CB that worked really well
It was huge it had to be giant right these are still didn't work. Yeah, it's still didn't work these are 50 watts in a tiny little footprint
What one of the plus sides for me is I don't have to charge it
There's just yeah, that's yeah, I was like yeah, it's got charge. Yeah, then we halfway through the trail
I'm like hey man, just use hand signals because I already
Well, I took there's that story. So we were in Parker Arizona and I had a bunch of people great trip
We're there's this trail that I had mapped out and we'd never been on it
We didn't pre-run anything and so there's I got to a point where I got on the radio and I said to everybody hey
Stay there. I'm gonna go scout this out. I'll let you know and I ended up on the side of a cliff and I
Like literally to the point where I was like this is horrible. I can't I got to back up
I look in my mirror everybody's behind me because my radio had died and nobody heard me say
Stay there. They all just followed me up
So now there was ten of us on this cliff and we had to figure out how to get all the way through to the other side without dying and
It was like that that moment of all man this radio just let me down so bad
So what so you you you talked a little bit about the upcoming and product release on the range whips tell me more about that
Yes, so we have a set of four different heavy duty bull bar antennas that will be launching tomorrow and they range
Anywhere from three db's to seven point five db's so they're really
Austie inspired if you look at some of the over landing antennas that they've had
so those come out tomorrow
They're they're very durable and and they look pretty badass too
Yeah, so the first place they could get him would be obviously on middle and USA dot com like
Like purchase tomorrow
Yep, yeah, at 10 a.m. Central time
So you've got the the grand vista which is 7.5 db the highland tall
6.5 the highland to 3 db and the canyon edge at 3 db they look
I see what you're saying Aussie style they look more
They look more like those fiberglass
Fire sticks b and 10 is then the wire ones. Yeah, I like that I like that look a lot and I'm assuming they're they're
Directly placements for the existing ones with the same fitting to to screw them on to the base
So mounting is going to be a little bit different with those so they are compatible with our roll bar mirror mounting in 10 a bracket
However mostly you're going to want to put them on your bull bar so they they're mounted on like a half inch hole. Okay, okay
I see what you're saying. Yeah, that makes sense
I know and there's several options for value pack so the one the four and the five all come and value pack
So you can get like a spring base for those two that help kind of with that heavy duty durable
aspect but then
Yeah
The four and the five are interchangeable as well so you can swap those out. Okay
That's very cool the
The just had a curiosity what's the R&D on those kinds of things like like how long have you guys been talking about this product before and got released
Since before I started
Maybe there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline. Yeah, yeah, what would ever what is a rhyme with
Nobody's look there's nobody paying attention no one's listening to this show no one's watching this you could tell us
It'll just be it'll just be a virtual us and press let's edit it out
So so these new these new right the range antennas are coming out neck to to
Would you say tomorrow tomorrow
the
Do you have a timeline on what the next product releases and what that'll look like
August
Coming August okay, all right something will be coming in August
A very cool more accessories in August that's very cool
Um
Yes, the Midland Fanny pack with a radio built it it's gonna have it's gonna have it's gonna have retractable ear buds that go into the
Fanny pack for trail communication when you're traveling
Man, I think we just patting some case here. I think we just came up
the the Fanny calm 2000
the
The
Aren't again R and D and
Product growth of Midland is very impressive because you guys are continuing to push
the envelope of what's out there
Is there any is there any and you may not be able to answer this but there's there any like
long-term plans for the products that are
Something you guys have been working on for a long time that you can you can tell us about like you know
goals of the organization or they they want to put a Midland radio on the moon like any any pine the pine the sky stuff like that
No comment
You guys are really good at keeping secrets, man. They're very harsh. Very harsh. Very hush hush
What what events are coming up you guys are probably
Tired of traveling from all the expos and stuff, but what do you guys have coming up next on the counter?
We will actually be at Oberlin, Expo Mountain West. We'll be at great smoking mountain Jeep invasion
And then also Oberlin, Expo East as well
So you guys have a busy schedule
We do
When
Are you guys come out to the west coast any time this year October is usually
Off road expos you I mean uh yeah off road expos usually October you guys coming out to California for that
Where is that one uh
Pomona Pomona
Oh, so we have yeah, are we have a Brandon baster Mike Fizzle he drives the white rubicon
Yeah, I meant Mike at Oberlin Expo West he's super cool guy
Yep, he will be at that event for us. Okay, very cool
Yeah, so again going back to your ambassador program, you know people like Mike that are
Not only using it in his tour business and his training and all that stuff, but is super knowledgeable
I remember we Olivia and Jason and I sat with Mike for I don't know 20 minutes half hour and I was kind of off to the side
Having a conversation with Mike and and I probably learned more about radios in that 20 minutes than then I you know
I thought I didn't need to know but you know someone like someone like Mike that's uh and the ambassadors that you guys have in your stable
That are are knowledgeable in the product. I think also helps propel the brand further
For sure um the
If someone if someone as an influencer was listening to this show and they wanted to see what they could do to help propel the brand
What would you suggest they do
Like be come up mid the influencer yeah
They can reach out through Instagram at mid the new essay dot com. So I'm an angel over Instagram
And all of our social media so they'll get a director's response for me and all of them know
No, we're okay now. Yeah, we're good. We're good
The trail tasted guys said no not you
um
Do you I got it when I got to imagine or you get a lot of those how much how much of your life is consumed by
Direct messages on Instagram
You need a
It's always when we launch a new product then my actual email just I'll get like 15 emails from all these people who haven't talked to in two years and they're like hey
And you're like new email who this
So so you're responsible for curating all these cool images on the on the Instagram page
Yep, and that majority of it is
somewhere event photos but the majority is all just
User-generated content so photos from my influencers
Okay, I see there's one here
Guy in a motorcycle Jose and he's got a radio in his pack and I think that's a great idea
Except for you that radio would be smashed. Yeah, because it's I would have fallen on it luckily
They're very rugged
Tape it to your cheek because it's gonna be destroyed
Jose falls on the motorcycle a lot is what happens Jose Jose's not good at riding motorcycles
The
The brand itself like I again. I mean when did you when do you guys say that the brand started?
I
That's almost as old as me
So the the brand has like this really robust history in communications and
Helping people not only enjoy the outdoors, but like we talked about emergency vehicles and those kinds of things
Where did that start like I don't know the the history what's the the basic
History of Midland and how it how it came to be?
The
There's just been a lot of history with it. I know our minority owner and president has been involved kind of since the get-go
And that was kind of around you know the start of the CV radio so really starting with that manufacturing and then you know kind of just continuing to
Be part of innovation within the two-way radio technology
But yeah, that's that's it
But I mean again, I go back to the conversation about how like it just started as two-way radios and then CB radios and like you guys are now at the forefront of
Communication technologies and constantly bringing out new products that you won't tell us about for some reason
I don't know why like I said no one's no one's paying attention
But the the Midland products so we we are going to be raffling off
Contest we got to win it a wait for this to happen, but we're gonna be we've got one of the midland emergency crank radios
AMFM and weather alerts and
And a couple of some ex talks
That we're going to be doing a contest for and then later in August will be doing another contest for something else
That we'll talk about when the time is right for that
And and continue and and I go back to to our experience with communications and how
We talked about earlier, you know on the trail with a bunch of people not being able to communicate effectively has impacted our ability to
Have a good time and make sure everybody safe and get where they got to go and and it's one of those things you don't
You may not realize how critical it is until it just doesn't work for you and then I think that's where
The you know Midland comes in to help bridge that gap from the starters that are like yeah
This is all I need to oh, man this I'm in trouble now. We get this thing doesn't work. I need to do something better
And I really think that you guys have done a good job of creating a
A broad spectrum of products to appeal to
Multiple different people for multiple different applications
Um, is there so people should go to the the Midland USA on
Instagram and on Facebook and
The website is
MidlandUSA.com
Yeah, you guys did a good job of grabbing all those properties really good job whoever did that
We're also on treads now
Oh, really
Okay, I
We did not what is that
Like a new Twitter for Instagram. Yeah, it's Instagram's Twitter and which Twitter is now x. It's not Twitter anymore
They're red. Okay, sorry. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, Twitter is now
The okay, sorry
How much of how much of your life Olivia is like trying to understand how many different apps you need to be on at any given time
too much
This there's those uh like
Much to keep up with yeah, there there really is I remember there is for a while there was like hootsuite
What you could connect everything to one app and just post on one app and then it would post everything
I tried to do that with if this then that the if to app and that didn't work
It's just a it's a
I don't even know what your full-time job is like, but I think you need two more people to help is what I'm saying
You know what I'm saying
With all the social media platforms coming out like I found out last week that treads was a thing and they're like you need to get it
One thing to post and you're like, but I don't want to
There's there's the we have trail tasters accounts and all kinds of stuff and like no one's touched it in six years
We just have the username parked
I went looked at that
What's that tumblr? I haven't looked at them to my tumblr. Oh wow in in like seven years
But that's that's the new to whom they're
You guys you guys are super active in the community and coming up with a bunch of events super active on social
We really appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you guys not only tonight, but to continue working with you on some other things and
Like I said, we'll talk a little bit more later about the installations we did on the radios this weekend
Specifically kind of like that how we configured it all, but the the takeaway for me was that the the products are built really well
Like I said earlier the kits are very complete and I am very very excited to
Be able to deny making a U-turn from much farther away
Then I used to be able to see the thing is before they were so close when I made a U-turn they knew it now
I could be so far out in front of them. I can make U-turns all day long and they wouldn't be able to tell
Never know except they'll see you going the other direction
All right, Kasey you're ruining my logic here
No, I didn't know I did
Well, ladies look I yeah, I know I know it's late where you guys are at and I really appreciate you guys joining us tonight and sharing all the knowledge about
Midland and then a bunch of the other stuff that that you guys are talking about and again
I don't think this is they're gonna be the last time we talk or work together and I do appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you guys
So um, do you guys have anything else before we let you guys go?
They do for the antennas
It's in a launch row at 10 a.m. Central time 10 a.m. Central time which is like I don't know Tuesday on Pacific time what time when what is that
2 a.m. Pacific
I think it's like nine o'clock nine o'clock nine o'clock
So it's a clock eight o'clock
That's what I said it's like nine o'clock somewhere around eight nine o'clock or whatever
Pacific type so tomorrow
Tomorrow some time tomorrow some time tomorrow. There's a launch
Alliance or you would do yes
If you're in Australia, you can buy it today. That's what I'm saying like it's I don't know how time works
We're not good at this math
But thank you guys so much for joining us tonight and we are looking forward to spending some time with you
You can the in the future and you guys have a great night
Thank you
We would like to thank outdoor by form magazine for their continued support. Please do us a favor and go over to outdoorx4.com and check out their content
Use the code trail chasers to get a discount on your subscription. We promise you're gonna love it
So that's the second time I was kicked out of the women's prison
As if these guys haven't never done this again
I never done this before KC starts KC starts going right into the second segment without waiting for us to be ready to record
So we're recording
Thank you to the ladies for joining us tonight and again giving us all that knowledge
So KC Jose and I did work on some installs this weekend when you want to talk about that a little bit
Jose hung out for a while and then he had something else to go do. I did so he he bailed
for good reason
Understandably so
Work meeting and work meeting and work out that meeting
So like we said KC so so KC has the
Midland 575
I'm sorry 500 I have the 575
Matt and Jose each have the 275 the Matt and Jose have not installed there's yet that'll be if you should future
It's gonna be a simple install for me because I'm just gonna plug it right into the
Yeah, yeah, yeah for you guys. It's and I have that
You do have a mounted somewhere. It has to be mounted a little bit
Yeah, but I have that little cubby by my shifter. Oh, yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
That's gonna be a super super install easy install for you. The hardest one. I think the hardest part for me is finding where to put the antenna
But I mean it if it's if it's a a temporary mount you and because that the antenna comes with a magnetic base
No, you could literally go like start skiing hud style. Yeah, throw it up on the
You remember starts I think I can lift my truck with that
Yes, you could literally start skiing hud that antenna and then just run the cable in the door, right? It's just it
You know
The yet so KC's 575 is the full size unit
500 is the full size unit with the display and everything on it and like we said earlier and mounted
Directly in the cubby hole and front of the shifter on his front here. Yep, and
And the reason I like having to actual unit that I have to you know do all the adjustments on the unit
I feel like driving around you know holding on to that microphone. I'm just gonna like bump it like crazy
Make changes whatever. Yeah, I set that unit down there and then the only thing I have to do is talk on the mic
You know, I wonder if he or my personal use case out. Yeah, I'll have to look at the
um
I have the box for mine here. I'm gonna have to look to see if it I wonder if you have a
Keypad lock bro. There's a keypad lock on the keypad
So yeah, so I you can lock out the microphone keypad. So you're assuming A I would find it
I would I would not do it
Three
So
KC's we we mounted the unit right there on the center console
Where did you did you you just ran power right to the battery right right through the firewall into the battery and then
The antenna he mounted the antenna at the
Base like the far back of the hood right in front of the windshield you were just saying
Like we're at ditch light would be yeah, so you try what I want to mount my antenna
So KC was just saying that he was gonna move it though. Why oh
Okay, so with the little small antenna, it's fine, but after talking to the ladies like I I think we should I should be running that large antenna
And when I put the large antenna on because of the slope of the hood
It just looks it yeah, I just
Oh, you had that you had 49 year old syndrome. It's like it's nuts. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, it's not
It looks walking and for like my OCD. I was like not I would have to go. I would want to mount it on like a pot
Like a light mount like you know where your dislike mount. Yeah, yeah 10 on that you probably
Really well because it would be like it would be nice and parallel or straight or whatever perpendicular
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna move it and put the big antenna on okay, but it'll be super easy because it's like
It's just a magnet and it's have to I can actually it's already the antenna's already into the engine bay technically
Yeah, I just have to drop it down and then like run it back over to where I want to do it
Probably on the kind of like the back of the cab or something like that
But the uh I've never gotten complaints on my antenna size no saying
You know no one's real happy with mine including myself
The uh my self periodically just like turning it on
Yeah, I'm turning it on. I did that so
Talk to me so
My radio is the 575 so that's the the remote mounted base unit and
And the so the speaker is on that base unit so like in a Tacoma you could mount that unit under the
Under the front seat if you wanted to and then you still have all the functionality on the microphone
And then you'd still be able to hear the speaker from the front of the base unit
So but I ended up mounting the base unit on the back wall of the cab behind the back seat we fold to the seat forward
Screwed the bracket on there mounted it that was
Sentryly located it gave us the opportunity to go through that there grommet
We talked about and put the antenna on top of the cab and then
ran the power from there to my
Switch pod so I can turn the see the the radio on I
Was gonna say CB I can turn the radio on from my switch panel and then as soon as I hit the button the radio's on and ready to go
In case yeah, I was doing the same thing. I was driving around
Yesterday and Monday and today somebody talked to me. Well, I just you know what it was is I because I have
The little antenna on there that the base antenna on there
Just driving around town like this morning taking pressy to school
I just turned on and hit the weather station just to just kind of get a feel of how it sounded while I was driving with you know with cab noise and
And what what the signal like at the signal dropped out or whatever even with that little antenna
I had signal that I never didn't have signal you know I could I could get that weather station the entire time
I'm very curious to see what kind of range we're gonna get with those those 60B antennas
We're gonna test them out
Not because we can but next we can
Okay, yeah, that's what are the desert
Pure 4 by 4 yeah
That's right we got to talk about that
United talk about that tomorrow figure what we're gonna do um the
One on a second the since Tammy's not here tonight. We got the door open
And so that pressy can come in and out and now the dog Cooper has decided that
That's decided that's uh enough reason for him to come in and look at me and say I want some food
For dinner
That's Cooper's voice if you don't know
Yeah, dude. I'll feed you later
So the
antennas I think the because with mine being mounted on the top of the cab
All right, we talked a little bit about like making sure it's it's on a
Good like you don't want to it you're gonna get a better reception from or better signal having it mounted on a good
Solid metal surface then if you were to mount it on top of a fiberglass
So I feel good about the mounting location. It's as high up as it can get with that solid foundation below it
We did get you know brackets for like roll bar brackets whatever and I thought about mounting it off the
Side on the bed rack but it's with that cause
Interference I don't I don't know that I don't know if it would the signal it would inter interfere with with the signal my concern was branches and stuff
That like so if it's on the cab
You know that's as that's as far in as protected as it can get
Whereas like if it was off the side like at one point you had an antenna off the side of the the land cruiser in the back
like
That to me is an opportunity to get clipped a bunch of times it was yeah
It did
Since it's not there anymore
So that yeah, I like the idea and they make it really easy with those magnetic bases you just drop it on there you're done
The whole kit is like it's pretty brainless
Do other than like routing like where you're where you're gonna put things and routing things?
Yeah, that's the hardest part of this the whole thing
Wire really only fits into one spot. Yeah, these two wires clearly go into those wires like I was really surprised that we got two of those installed in
In less than a day yours yours took three hours mine took 30 minutes. Yeah, you're still you're so super quick
The and most of my time was Jose and I what if we put it here?
What if we put it because we really we really wanted to like explore the different options with the remote like yours
You could you it had to be mounted someplace where you could reach it with with mine with the remote mount knowing that I could extend the
Microphone cable with a standard cat six
We were like all over what if it's under the seat behind the seat or what you know
What if we put it on the cat on the on the
Yeah, let's put it in the bag
It was but it was really an opportunity to kind of explore all of the different
mounting possibilities of that unit and I mean
I think for
If you've got a vehicle with limited space or you want to you want to make it so
Like if someone got in my truck right now
They'd have no idea I've already went that truck right because the unit is not it's hidden you can't see it you can disconnect the microphone put it in the center console
The it's it's it's it's got all kinds of
You know features and locations and what have you
the
The
The options are endless essentially
So what
What do you think what do you think what are you gonna do with that antenna case you just route it and put it back on top of the cab?
Yeah, so
On on the front here you have like the top part of the cab and then it's kind of a 45
Before it reaches the vertical we're like the back window is
So if they can maybe on that 40 45 so it'll be up higher, but it'll also be kind of angled backwards
To where won't be too high so won't be so susceptible to branches and stuff and it also will be like um
Not as
Out in the open a little more sleek or whatever like kind of that just my OCD kind of kicking in like
That that a channel was angled and I was like yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be staring at that the whole time and just crashing
Jason from out over a four cent as a picture of his
antenna on his
Tacoma and it's it's basically what you had talked about Casey which was
The antenna on a date on like a ditch like bracket. There's those
Or someone was talking about somebody was someone's on it basically it's one of those it's a bracket and they make they make these
It's got to be your antenna. It's gonna be yeah, they
They make those brackets that fit underneath the hood like what you know and and sit between the hinge
So you could absolutely do that you could put it either on the side or the back they wouldn't think with the
With the antenna right there in front of you is it does it does it not bother you like staring at it the whole time
The little the little small one is fine
But that that big one's gonna gonna fuck okay. Yeah, I would think so
I mean they're gonna put it on the cab or it's gonna get mounted on the rack that I'm building
What about those big dog ones are coming out with tomorrow? Yeah, I like I like those. I like that style a lot like it if
You got to get a like a
Overland AF bumper bro. No, because I could I could go back to what we talked about and
off the front of my my bed rack
I could put a I could I know someone that can weld a tab onto that and then I could just mount it right in front of the
rooftop tent
Through bolt it through that way and use run it right in the same antenna
Same table. Yeah, cable. I think that might be one of those ghost antennas
The all that the little stubby ones yeah, yeah, well their average size
their thicker than usual
At least that's what I've heard
Yeah, I'm I think this is one of those things that we have been talking about for a very very very long time and
Done like four trips since the first time we said and every trip
The Jason said he doesn't pay attention to it anymore. I'm not sure if he's the talking about the antenna or
I don't pay attention to the media see I love this show anymore. My biggest thing like I said my my biggest thing is that
I don't have to charge it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the biggest thing now. It's like you know what I mean is like
No matter what I have communication you know, I'm gonna
Struggle when I you know, I still have the handheld to get out just spot people you know whatever things like that, but
Yeah, but I I think those go. I don't have to think about charging my radio. Yes. I think this
Remember when when I'd go back to when I had nine of those
Those radios I would literally go out into the front the front room where the bar is and plug in power strips and line them all up before a trip
Like leading up to a trip. That's how it'd be on my counter. I'd have like all the little things that need to be charging and the radios
Like make sure the radio is hard. Yeah
Ever since I put the extended batteries on those. Yes. Yeah, they take forever to charge
So it's just gonna be nice to just be able to turn the radio on and go. Yeah, absolutely the
I'm sorry from the added power. Yes, you know. Yeah, that that that's the part that I like I don't
I can't really
I can I can conceptualize the fact that we were working on
Point is five watts the the both a yeah
That to go from that to a 50 watt unit 10 times more like I can't even I can't even fath
Casey night in the driveway next to each other. We'll just did a hate does the radio work and
Obviously that's not gonna tell us what the range is like but what it what it what I did notice
Is the clarity in the in the voice
No more clear crystal clear like none of that wait. What did you say it was like I heard exactly what he said?
I'm I'm interested to see how that if that clarity deteriorates at all
By space by distance. I don't know by obstruction. Yeah, I could see that
I think it's gonna take a lot of distance and a lot of obstruction to make it
Like to the same clarity as it as a buffet. Yeah. I'm just not happy distance to whatever
I'm just that a radio is rough to par for when all the other people that we invite like
That was always so funny like we're on the trail trying to really information and everybody that came on the trip
That wasn't us is like I'll take everything for you
Well, the thing is that if you look on the on their website, too, it's like so you can get the bowfaying for
as low as 20 bucks
Right like the the base one whatever
Mm-hmm. On Amazon
For a hundred dollars you can get two of those ex-talkers. Yeah
Yeah, which is if I was smart enough I would have just done that from the from the get-go
Yes, avoided a ton of different problems. Yeah
Yeah, that's in your licenses. They're cheap. That's a good point. That's a really good point
People spend a lot of money on other stupid things likes, you know like and then oh shoot
I need a radio any order one for 20 bucks. Yeah, but
Just like everyone else should have thought of communications before a lot of other different things like life bars before lockers, right?
Yeah, but but in all honesty
That's sort of thing right. It's like I got to get me these ditch lights before I can even talk to anybody, you know
In all honesty coming from old school CB radios. I really felt like
Oh, this is more than enough. This is you know, they were way better than CB radios
But it's it's not until they let you down that you're like wait a minute. This is this is more critical than I really gave it
Ready for if you're thinking about buying a CB radio message
I will say you one of the CB radios that I have and then you can buy do there's two people on the chat that were trying to give there's a way
Yeah
CB message me I will send you one and then say your money and you can buy some ex-totters. That's so funny
Um
Yeah, I
Nice CBs too. I'll send all set them right now. No, these two have like the cream of the crop one
I can't even give them away
The yeah, yeah, I'm super excited about this this upgrade this step-up that we got with the with Midland radios
Um, it is it is absolutely about time and
Thank you guys to thanks to Midland for for helping us get here and thanks to Casey knows a for helping with the install on
On my truck and then Jose, you're just you're gonna might be pretty straightforward. I think
I mean, it's gonna mean that cubby. I think the hardest part is gonna be the antenna. Yeah. Yeah
Well, I'm sure we'll get it done between now and the next trip
the
Casey
time yeah, yeah, but I also so I gave case I don't you weren't standing there, but I also gave him two
Amber pod lights if you didn't want to go full chase light back there you just do two amber pods
Okay, so he's got options. I got options. He won't do any of it, but he's got options
I'm not mad. I'm gonna do it. Okay
Yeah
The Casey pure four by four. I saw a
I saw a post from pure four by four that Bear Valley overland is going to be participating. You want to talk about that?
Yeah, it's it you know, I swear to God that
Six months ago we had six months until the show and then I blinked and it's it's two weeks away
um
So pure four by four. I had hockham belly ranch up here at Big Bear August third to the sixth
Bear Valley overland has a booth there so we will be there
Probably gonna go set up like Thursday after noon
This we we tried to participate last year, but we didn't get it we just didn't get involved click enough
It's gonna be a huge mungus of that they have a handful of like DJs and light performers
Food vendors all the major off-roader overland vendors
Games seminars classes
You're on site camping that place is I don't know if you ever been there. How's that? Have you?
Where? Welcome tolly ranch. Oh, no, no, no, no. I know Cody's been there and seen it
The place is awesome. They have that big
Like center there where they where they do everything that they do raffle and and entertainers and she like that
I'm I'm really looking forward to it. It's gonna be a humongous show
Looking forward to being like the only Nissan frontier there. Yeah
So I would say it's probably so cows
One and only like overland
Show you know like we don't get a pacific or we don't get a overland expo out here
This is probably that's a closest you're gonna get a side from off-road expo. Yeah, yeah, and they and they've tried to uh this year
They're really going after like making it more of a
Festival than just an off-road show like like so they added a ton of performers DJs like live bands and singers and things like that and so
I'm really excited about it. We're looking forward to it. It's gonna be a huge show. It's gonna be a lot of fun 10. That's nice weekend
It's yeah, not just coming weekend. So we from this Friday based you know and it's funny
I had I had some communication with them early on in the year and I feel the same way case. Yeah, I feel like
It was it was like yeah, yeah, we didn't we didn't talk about that and you brought it up once before and then you were like hey dude
We're going to pure four by four and I'm like whoa, what is that?
Say oh, it's it's you know, it's it's like hockey for me. I want to watch hockey
But every time I think about hockey, I'm like oh, it's easy. It's okay. It's like
Did someone say hockey we should go to a hockey game. Oh, this is the last hockey game
It's I think this is gonna be one of the biggest ones they've had yet because they're they're shifting more towards
Well, they're because they're pushing for it
To be bigger and and I guess if we try to get a booth last year we were just too late
Thursday they have for VIP guests and vendors like
Open taco taco bar and beer
And then everything pretty much starts for regular ticket holders Friday morning. Okay
There are new trail runs and all kinds of stuff
Okay, yeah, well, we'll definitely we'll definitely keep up to date on that and talk about it
As it gets closer and then I'm sure you'll do a full recap if we are not able to be there
I'm looking at the calendar. I'm I'm leaving that that's Sunday so I might be able to pull off Friday
Where you going? We're going on a family vacation of north
Since since I'm unemployed and press these at a school
We're gonna go we're gonna go on vacation
So yeah, I make sense. Yeah, well, yeah, that's what you do when you know another job and yes, and you're bored
And your wife works for a hotel company
And they happen to have a hotel
You know we're gonna go see by the pool
So that's our plan
Well, cool. I Casey I I'm interested to see what you do with that antenna and I was a I'm interested to see where you
Where and how you get yours installed
I have a whole gigantic west of
I just made the list today like okay, what do I need to do to get ready to visit the event and I went fuck
I need to ask them they can push it back a week
How much yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't be ready by the guys can you
You still got to build me that tailgate before the event
All right, well, thanks to thanks to Midden for joining us tonight for Kaley and Olivia
Thanks to Midland huge things to Midland not just for coming on the show
Just in general
Everything else thanks to our in studio guests that's been with us for most of the show if you have
Not been watching on YouTube you've missed some socket socket socket socket
Action and some acting and some other things that have been happening behind me here all night long well someone's being unsupervised
and then
We we will keep you guys informed as we get closer to that pure 4 by 4 and as we have more
Stuff to communicate about Midland and and the things they have going on there. So all right guys anything else before we cut it
No, I'll take that take that as a note. All right everybody. Thank you. Thank you for hanging out with us in the chat room again
you guys are always
keeping us on our toes
and then
Jason says go on vacation without a job try that in a small town
All right guys thanks for joining us in the chat room in pressy says good night
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Thank you to everyone that participates and listens to this show every week on Tuesday nights
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Episode 279: Brian from Solid Wood Worx

Ep 278: Brent Beery from DOD OUtdoors

Welcome to the today in Tesla pot. I'm sorry the trail chasers podcast. I don't even want to move forward from that
I swear
This episode is brought to you by out or an outdoor by four magazine the team and outdoor by four puts together
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weekly gauging you need uniquely engaging publication for responsible vehicle based adventure travel with family friendly content that resonates with
All types of adventures except Tesla drivers whether in a four by four vehicle on two wheels or traveling by foot
But not by Tesla go over to
www.outdoorbyfour.com to subscribe to them either the print or digital magazine and catch all of their 100% original and unbiased content
Today on the show we talked to Brent Berry with DoD outdoors
He tells us about some of the amazing places he's lived and some of the kick-ass jobs
He's had in the past then of course we get into DoD outdoors and some of their camping gear and
The camping culture that they're trying to establish here in the United States
Pretty really actually really interesting stuff
Then we get into this past weekends Cape Toyota event
You know with some of the usual shenanigans and we talk about some of the amazing raffle prizes that we kicked out
Good times and then lastly we talked about Casey threatening some dude with four feet of freedom
I'm not sure how to interpret that
You'll have to you have to hear the whole story to to figure it out, but it wasn't one of my prouder moments
Is it a number of like four?
I don't I don't four feet. I don't know. I don't know exactly what
I don't know whose feet
Are you ready?
Hey everybody, it is 633 on a Tuesday night. We are live on YouTube as we usually are on Tuesday nights
And tonight has been kind of weird and my computer has crashed and hopefully that doesn't happen during this episode because tonight
We are joined by Brent Berry from DoD outdoors. How are you doing? And I man?
Great great great to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining. Thank you for joining
I forgot to ask earlier. Where are you at in the world? I am in Seattle. Okay, so on the west coast
You're it's the all-star game. Oh, is that where the wall right now?
That's right. Probably like the fifth inning right now. Hmm. I don't know Matt's watching it out as
I ought his phone across the across the table here as we're just
I'm paying attention, you know, what's happening bullpucky
Watch but it's like watching the
Pro Bowl. Yeah, like nobody cares. Oh, it's better than that hard. It's better than the Pro Bowl
You're supposed to tackle people and they don't know no
Seattle this time of year. Does it stay late till like nine o'clock at night in Seattle?
Yeah, so two weeks ago two three skis summer solstice. It was it was light until like 10 30
In dark now at 9 30 maybe yeah, I I remember I remember last year when I was up there at this time
I was like, how do you go to sleep? It's nine o'clock at night and it's still sunny out
Are you originally from Seattle? I am from Maryland. Okay. That's a that's a long way away
Well, so I finished I finished college 21 years old and I went directly onto a plane to China and stayed there for 20 some years
Whoa
Yeah, and then covid hit and they kicked out all of us foreigners
So, um, you know, my wife kind of threw it through a dart at the map and she chose Seattle
So here we are. Wow, but it works out great because that's you know, that's the center of the outdoor industry
Yeah, yeah, you were in a great place to be great space
Uh, the 20 years you spent in china. Was that in the outdoor industry?
The last five of it was okay
Before that I was in the rock and roll industry
What?
Hi, there's so many things to unpack here a cover story. Yeah
Yeah, that definitely south jane bond is right the state department
What uh, what did you do in the rock and roll industry?
So, uh, there's this company called pv electronics. Okay, you heard of them
I don't think so. Oh, yeah, okay, bro. Really?
pv used to be
Yeah, pv p-e-a-v-e-1. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes
Okay, so I ran pv asia for seven years. Oh, dude
Um, yeah, and you know p the thing about pv is we're way off topic here
But the thing about pv is that people know pv because they were eddie van halen's guitar
Yes, so they're known as a rock and roll company, but pv's real business is
um digital audio matrix sound systems for like stadiums and airports, so
Like any airport in the u.s in many airports in the world when you hear please go to gate
17 for your flight to dallas. That's a pv system. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, and like and like every every nfl
Stadium every mba stadium. It's they're running on pv systems
So people know pv as a rock and roll company because that's where they see the brand
But that's that's a sliver of the business the real business is those big
complex, you know
Big infrastructure sound systems. That is super interesting. We are way
Down a path. I didn't expect to go when we started this car. See this is this is why we don't script
Anything and we don't we don't like provide questions because uh, I love seeing where these things go
so so
You you get out of college you go to china you spend 20 years there during that during that time
Man, there was probably solid change. I was just gonna say like
socially politically and industrially china
That was the boom that last those last 20 years was the expansion, right?
Yeah, yeah big time
Um from from zero to 100 it was like the only thing I missed that friends of mine who got there a few years before me
Is the mouthsuit?
If I had gotten there in like I got there in 97 when if I got in there in 93
They would have been still wearing mouthsuits and that would have been a real china. Wow
By the time I got there they ditched the mouthsuits
But everything else was the same man. Just you know almost no cars on the road all bikes
and no freeways
No high-speed trains just a couple of airports
It just it hadn't happened yet and then over the next 20 years is when it happened. It was wild
It was wild to watch it was wild to be a part of so
I I think there's a whole another campfire talk about that's that 20 years of your life because I bet that is super interesting
Um, so so covid hits 2020
You guys get booted out
You you choose seattle your wife chooses seattle. Literally. Was it a dartboard or was there like reasoning behind seattle?
uh, okay, so my wife is chinese
and
In the chinese mindset the us only has one coast
Oh, yeah, you know when chinese come to the states in my mind in my mindset
There's only one coast once you I say it all the time once you get on the other side of the rocky is nothing matters
Yeah, so so in the chinese mindset, you know all all chinese emigrate most chinese emigrate to the west coast
So when they call home about the state, it's all about the west coast
So she said, you know, you can have
Any one of three cities la sand fran or seattle called portland four cities
Okay, any one of the west big west coast cities I could have and we ended in seattle. Okay. Wow
so and
So I I would normally say the transition from maryland to seattle
What's that like but like by that point you'd probably spent as much of your life in china as you did
Yeah, in maryland. So it wasn't that's insanity. That's so it was my whole adult life really
Yeah, I mean I was 21 when I left and I was 40 something when I got back
It was my my adult life was spent in in china in asia
Did you did you come home for any specific any significant amount of time during that 20 year period?
so
Yeah, I'll give you a very quick overview
After three years
I the cup I was working for a danish company and they said would you like to transfer to headquarters in kopenhagen?
I was like hell. Yes. Yes, I would
And I thought I thought okay three years in china. I've seen it. I've done it
I'm out of here, you know see you guys and I went to kopenhagen for a year
But very quickly after arriving at kopenhagen. I realized, you know, the people are awesome
The beer is awesome. The city is fantastic, but it's sleepy
Danish people have already achieved in life what they want to achieve
Even at 25 years old like they're they're they're they're all set. They're all content
You don't meet a lot of people with this like crazy crazy drive and and and you know the
Business life is established political life social life. It's all established there in china
It was like it was like hanging on to a rocket ship from the outside. It was just crazy
And I missed that like that exciting that excitement, you know that yes vibrant
life so
Spending a year in kopenhagen and then I I I quit and I went back. Wow
Okay, um and then after 10 years in china
10 years totals that's three in china one in kopenhagen and then six more in china
I again thought I was done
um, so I left I went to grad school. I did an MBA in england and um
I thought I was done. I was gonna I was gonna stay in england and be a banker or something boring like that
I don't I don't know what my real plan was but I was done with china and then the global financial crisis hit
The world fell apart and the only place that I was employable was back in china where I had all that experience
Uh, so I ended up back in china again
And uh stayed another 10 years that time and that ran me into kovat. Wow. What are the ads you're going back to china?
Um, okay, I'll tell you the difference now. Um, we had kids. Oh, yeah in 2019. Yeah, and
and china
China is it is a very nice place to live actually
It's quite comfortable and it's safe and there are a lot of good things about it
But china has air quality problems and they have food safety problems
And they also lack green spaces and those are three things that I think are really important for my growing kids
So i'm i'm quite happy to be back here actually and even if kovat hadn't hit I would say we probably would be back here
Yeah, yeah, that's plus. There's good beer in seattle, right? Yeah
There's like there's a lot of there's a lot of uh sasquatch hunting coffee and rungs music
Yeah coffee flannel rungs music and sasquatch
Who do you don't know what's up there? I mean
so let's uh speaking of sasquatch hunting so somehow you go from uh
electronic sound systems in china
To now you're at uh dod outdoors
Expl... how did that transition take place? I mean, I gotta assume kovat happens you you
Did you come out to seattle basically with no plan or was this already part of the plan and walked me through the last
Wait, we have to we have to go back to 2016. Okay
I had done seven years at pv
And I felt like I accomplished what I was going to accomplish and I wanted to change the pace
so I
Left the corporate world, you know, which was
A comfortable existence man, I mean it's
Like expats expats for foreigners living in asia right? Yes
Who aren't like intending to immigrant immigrant, but just they're living there to work
They have what are called expat packages
So
The company pays your house. It pays your car. It pays your groceries. It pays all your utilities
It pays everything and you get a nice salary on top of that which you can barely spend because the company
Yes, I had a I had to overdo the point
I had a buddy whose wife whose wife was in china for one of those specific reasons same thing
It was like he told me about the packages and what was going on and I was like
Do you need a second husband? I whatever, you know, I'll go what as a nanny whatever you need
Yeah, so it does sound like it was a great opportunity. I had a driver. I had a maid, you know, I had a fabulous
High-rise penthouse apartment in the middle of shenzhen. Yeah. So anyway, but I wait hold on. Hold on. I could see matt's face
He's already looking at china on a map trying to figure out how to get there
Why are you talking a lot of that is over now? Um, the the the benefit the need of
Foreigners to help run businesses in china is largely past. Yeah, they've all they much harder
They've they've grown and evolved into a place where they're starting to build on their own
They don't need they send a generation of kids to harbour business school, you know
So those when those guys come back and they grew up in china that know chinese culture
They speak perfect english and of course perfect chinese then what do they need me for, you know?
Yeah, so yeah, so anyway in 2016 I I left pv
And I cast around for what to do and not I didn't choose this it showed it
It was chance a friend of mine was like, man, there is this
awesome
Space right in the middle of town
It was it was a car showroom and it has these real high ceilings big windows
It has surrounded by gardens and it's a giant footprint
somebody's just
Find something to do with that space and I called up the landlord and it was like free. It was so cheap
The real estate in china is wildly expensive. It was a it was a crazy good deal
So I took the lease not really knowing what to do and then looking around
I decided that what goes well in large footprint is outdoor gear because no one else in town
Who was doing outdoor gear could display a tent. They were all in these little shoebox
You know one space retail spaces and I put up
I put up a showroom full of tents and then we put in a cafe and we put in furniture in the tents
And our our sales point was like don't come in and look at the tents come in and hang out in the tents
Yeah, we're gonna feed you and we're gonna give you coffees and we're gonna give you beers
Stay in there and really get the experience
Don't just look at it. You know or or even look at a picture of it like they were doing in the other shops
And it was successful. It worked
It worked so that was 2016 and that that
That business ended up spreading all over china. We replicated that model in 12 cities something like that
What what does the outdoor industry look like in china? I was just gonna ask I got you know
Because when I think china, I think manufacturing. I think hustle bustle cities. I don't is there open spaces. Yeah
Okay, so the first thing about think to remember about china is that they have a middle class of 300 million people
Which is population united states, right? So it's don't don't think that it's all, you know factory workers and farmers
There's a there's a very sizable middle class who actually have hobbies have
excellent disposable income and
Are interested in in, you know, the more comfortable and funner parts of life. So, um
Yeah, but the biggest challenge is is green space out open space
Uh, the eastern seaboard of china
Um, everything that touches the you know, everything down that coast is so populated and so
Industrialized or or or so heavily farmed that there is
Almost nowhere to camp
But if you go inland 200 300 miles you hit
These this kind of range of mountains and there you actually have green spaces where you can you can get up and do some
You know outdoor stuff and I was lucky. I was living in this town called hong joe that was right up against those mountains
So from my door I could be in the city and in 15 minutes in a car. I was up in green spaces
Oh, that sounds super cool. That sounds very cool. So 2016 you you start this
Is that is the is do d still running in china today?
Yeah, so that I that was nothing to do with do d. Oh do d
Was then and is now distributed by a good friend of mine. Oh, okay
My
our
Shop sold do d as a as a
Dealer, you know, but we were not their distributor. We barely knew them. It's just my friend. My friend had the relationship. Got it. Got it. Okay
We
Our first big partner was pendleton woollen mills. Do you guys know them?
Pendleton the flannel company pendleton. Yes. Yes
Huh, and okay. So how does that tie into the outdoor business? That's something I kind of jumped over when you asked about what
What does the outdoor business look like in china?
Asians and this is this come the starts in japan, but it's true in korea
China taiwan most of that sort of northern half of east asia the way they camp is they do not backpack. They always car camp
They don't quite overland because they don't have the forestry service roads. They don't have the public spaces
but
They have their land rover defender, you know, or they're like Mercedes g wagon or whatever and
they get a big
Excuse me comfortable tent and a bunch of furniture and they go out someplace beautiful
There's not the big open spaces. They can't drive and camp drive and camp but they find someplace beautiful
They set up camp for a week. They hang out with their friends and family
They talk they chat they drink they cook fabulous meals and they just
Enjoy nature, you know, which is a big contrast to the way we do it
You know, it seems like we're always moving through nature. You're hiking and camping backpacking and getting back or you're overlanding and camping
They go they pick a beautiful spot and they stay for a week. Yeah
That that's very so interesting like
When you say furniture, what do you what do you mean by that?
I mean that you don't eat on your knees. You bring a folding table a camp table
That
That you unfold and set up and you actually eat off a table and when you cook
You cook on cast iron or copper, you know
Um, as opposed to us we we cook on our tailgate and eat on a paper plate
Yeah, you know out of out of like a out of a tiny aluminum pot, right?
Yeah, you know, I mean maybe you guys do it better, but a lot of americans when they're camping they're doing like instant noodles
Yeah, yeah, my dinner pouch meals. Yeah, okay. Jose is the pouch meal guy
Yeah, well, let's not when when japanese go out they go out with like meat skewers and fresh vegetables, you know
And they really cook because because because they're not busy moving from spot to spot the way we do
Then they have all dated to just hang out chat cook eat drink
That's very cool
Go ahead. I'll just say it's it's interesting
listening to to you tell the story of how
um
As a culture they experience the outdoors
And the the similarities in contrast with you know, we'll say what the west coasters do
It's super interesting to me to to to understand those differences in in cultural
Um experiences some of it based on the fact that they don't have vast open land
And they don't have the infrastructure and they don't have those things
But they're still driven to go out and experience the outdoors in the whatever capacity they can
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's and even maybe even more so than we are because um, they're there's their cities are so
Um big if you're in if you're in the center of shanghai if you want to see a natural landscape, it's a
two-hour drive
Like you can't just pop out to the local forest what you can in seattle. Well, it's like that in LA in LA
It's like that, but if you're sitting in traffic for two hours, you've only moved sure 30 miles
But but in LA there are still parks. They're still drifting observatory. They're still there's still places
You can go to get said landscape
I'm just
Yeah, no, I get I give you no, it's not that it's certainly not that bad. Yeah. I mean
Uh, would you consider sitter the high desert? I guess like uh, I got away from the city
It's all I guess so yeah
So 2016 you start the outdoor business that flourishes
Then you move out to seattle here
Well, so so the just quickly the the brands we were carrying in china were all western brands coming into china
Oh, so pendleton woollen mills was the first
We became sorry. We became a distributor not just a retailer
Okay
And the first brand that we became distributor of was pendleton woollen mills and and that reflects the type of camping chinese do because
chinese aren't looking for a tiny little technical back of
Um sleeping bag that gets this small, you know and goes down to negative 20 and whatever because they don't camp like that
They don't care about the size or the weight because they're going in a car
So they take wool blankets and pendleton makes the best wool blankets and they take feather pillows
You know and they take nice like comfortable stuff when they go out because they're car camping
So we did pendleton. Do you know spring bartends?
No
Spring bartends. It's a salt lake city company. It's an old
um
Boy scout tent from like the 60s. Oh, and then um
couple years ago these young guys kind of
Join the company and and reintroduce it to the world and it's it's now like wildly trendy tent
It's like um, you know how designers sneakers. They have drops. They'll be like
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes on sale and they're out like that
You know 200 pairs are gone spring bar has to do that because their tents are so hot
They'll do like a drop on wednesday and the servers will crash because some no kidding
I gotta get one now. We we drop an episode every week. We don't crash any servers ever
Except for ours. Yeah, except for now my browser. Yeah
um
So
Wow, that's super interesting like just just the it's almost as if
The asian culture is like they they intend to go outdoor set up a base camp and stay there
And then pack up everything and then leave. Mm-hmm. Whereas compared to here
It's like we're trying to experience different areas of like the outdoor like
Like, okay, how much can we pack in in one weekend? Exactly
Yeah, sure if you if you do some section of the bdr
You know, your whole point is to move through the countryside and see all those different things
But in china, you can't do that because there is no bdr. There are there are no forestry service roads
you have to
There are pockets of beauty
They're not strung together like the cascade mountains from canada to california. So
So you pick your spot and then you stay there
But what you do with your time there is you go on day hikes you go on, you know
photo shooting bird watching fly fishing
From that base camp. Yeah
okay, all right, so we're still we're still getting up to
Do d we haven't gotten there yet. So what happens? Yes. So what happens after that?
We ended up with 12 12 it's always changing but 12 or 15 brands that we were the distributor of
for
China and some of those brands for all of asia and the company's called great outdoors great is spelled with the number eight g r8
Okay, uh, only because that's the url that was available when we were naming the company
so, um
Covid hits and I had to leave now great outdoors still runs, you know, I spend two hours on the phone every day or in
video conferences like this
Managing the business in china, but I've got great managers in china and they take care of things largely
um, but I was back in the states and
I've been we've been friends with do d eventually we became good friends with do d in china because a lot of our products
Partnered well together if you're having a do d tent you want to pendleton blanket, you know
So so we were doing a lot of cross promotion. We knew each other well
And we always said, you know, wouldn't it be nice to someday find some way to work together?
Well, when I landed back here and looked around I thought man, you know, the states is missing do d
So called them up and they went for it and we launched them here
12 months ago was june last year. So 13 months ago now. Wow
wow
and I I love the idea of
bringing a different
mindset
From from that chinese culture
To the outdoor life the outdoor stuff that we're experiencing
Because I you know I
I'm a firm believer that and we've talked about it on the show like
We always say run what you're wrong like whatever vehicle you have whatever tent you happen to have wherever you can get away
Whatever, you know, there's no one way to do this, right?
So I love the idea of exposing the the states the the us to a different type of
camping
That's that's influenced by that culture and then now you're bringing the gear that's being used to help facilitate that type of camping, right?
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I think that
For those people who are interested in adopting a new way to camp we provide a new way to camp to experience the great outdoors
Yeah, looking at looking at the
website earlier
The and we'll kind of go through the the list of products, but
Like the I noticed the shelters the the structure the shelters. It's not a
Pull this tab and 14 poles pop out automatically to create as this small bubble for you to live in
It's a shelter. It's like a it's like a we're going to open up this shelter
it's going to be here for four to five days and we're going to fold out some tables and a
a
Handful of beanbags like like to where you could just like
I don't even want to set a set up camp. You're like a mini home
in the size of some of these shelters is that
I mean the intent behind some yeah
Yeah, well, I mean it sounds like based on the earlier conversation like that's the intent is like this is base camp for
the next 10 days
Yes, if you're hunting if you're fishing if you're you know on a photo shoot or whatever it's a base camp, but it I mean the
The Japanese design of our products is in genius and they've been very successful at making these huge structures go up fast and easy
So so it's not like you know
I have friends who do winter hunting trips in Alaska and they set up insulated wall tents
What takes like three hours four hours to get 10 up. So you set it up once you stay for two weeks, right?
It's not like that. You know the big tents
the simpler ones go up in
The size of the tent does not impact the time it takes to set it up actually. Oh interesting
Yeah, so we had big tents that go up in five minutes
I always tell the story we were caught in a rainstorm
and um
there were six or eight of us on a
Way back up a mountain outside of Moab and we pulled up to camp just as it started raining
It's not supposed to rain there, right? Just as it starts raining we pull up to camp
But I had this tent which is six meters by six meters up in five minutes
Because it's it's literally it's four stakes and five poles
Five minutes and up and we were in out of the rain. It was no big deal
Um the tent that you probably saw on the website that one it takes about 20 minutes to set up
But that tent is really functional. I love to talk about it
It has so many cool features to it the way you use it. Is that the kamaboko super tent?
That is the kamaboko super tent. Yeah, this this thing
I mean even the picture on the website
You can see people hanging out in lawn chairs and and like like it's it's a total mobile base station for
For how much like how many people could comfortably fit in that thing?
okay, so there
Um
The way you use it is you have with the reason it's called a super tent is because not because it's like super late
Superman, but it's a super structure
you have the broader tent
and then what you do inside of the tent is
um adaptable depending on how you want to use it
so
Think about a dome tent you go into camp. What do you use your dome tent for you sleep there?
Yeah, you know you crawl in there when it's time to sleep and when you wake up you crawl out
If you're modest you might change clothes there. Maybe you still your gear. That's all a dome tent is really good for
But but these tents you can use them all day long
So for example during the day, there's no floor in the tent
people are
Question that like how how can you have a tent with no floor?
But if you have a floor in your tent, you can't walk in and out with your boots on it's too dirty
Yeah, right. Yeah, if you have a floor in your tent
You don't want to use a lot of furniture inside the tent because the chair legs will wear holes in the floor
And I think that that's because most people think tent and now they lay a sleeping bag on it
And therefore I must have a floor if you have a cot or a sleeping structure or a hammock or something and you're you're off the ground
I don't you don't need a floor
Well inside of that super tent hangs only when you need it a sleeping chamber that you can zip yourself into
And that has a floor
But during the day you don't hang it because it only takes two minutes to put it up
You wait till you're ready from bed and put it up
Because you want to use that space during the day as a place to hang out to have meals to cook
Yeah, and it's got multiple multiple entry points. It looks like you can come in and out from the sides from the ends
All walls did all walls zip out
You have the choice of nothing a bug a mesh or a rainproof
Dude, that that's my biggest concern is
How qual what are the zippers like because I am notorious for going through tents because the zippers are trash
If you need someone to be a quality tester to see it's me
If bears if bears if if bears can break your zipper just call fly mad up. He'll go
And get angry that's because we get our our tents from walmart. Yes
Or big flies. Yeah. Yeah, the stuff the stuff's all overbuilt. You know, it's meant to last
Top quality full of proof zippers. Yeah, and so you've got if you guys go to do the outdoors.com
And and there's a ton of different categories, but right now we're talking about the the shelters
Like I like the kamaboko
Super tent the the middle one and then there's a small there's a medium
And then there's these hexa tarp and it's suku tarps
which
so the
Recently over the last year
We have found
The value in awnings in in shade essentially, you know
Prior to a year ago, none of us had awnings. Nobody cared. It was like whatever. It's hot outside
We did a trip where it was 120 and the minute one of those awnings went out
Like jose was the most popular person on the trail. It was like
That awesome
And i'm looking at these hexa tarps and the the downside of the awning is it's attached to your vehicle, right?
The the hexa tarp and the suku tarp how easy is it to get to deploy those and get those up and running because that's like an instant awning
Um, you know, they go up in five minutes, but honestly most of our tents go up in five minutes
So it's not like they go up a lot faster because most of our tents are
Six to eight stakes and two poles or four poles and that and those tarps are
Six stakes and two poles. So got it. So it's not a lot faster
But speaking of the sun, I just I just got back from um overland expo northwest. Oh, did you?
Yeah, I just got back sunday night. Wow
well and that
that sun in bend is
Ferocious, it's punishable. I was there last year
And and me being a dumb southern california kid born and raised, right? I was like, oh, it's oregon
It's green and trees, right? All right, but the there's no smog to block the sun's rays
I'm not even Jose
I didn't I like the first day
Because I was there for four days the first day like halfway through the day
I was like
I need to put some sunscreen on and then after that I coated myself with sunscreen because it felt like the sun was more intense
In bend than it is here. Even though it's hotter here if that makes sense
Yeah, it was it was only 90 degrees, but the sun was so strong. Yeah
I mean it's unbearable. Did you did do D. O. D. Have a display or were you just visiting? Yeah, so
We I would I would argue that we may have been the most popular display at the show because
Of the way D. O. D. Works because we're all about comfortable camping
So I had that kamaboko tent that great big tent set up
I had all the awnings deployed off the sides of it. So we had a huge shaded area
And 90 degrees in the shade is actually not that bad when you have no humidity
It's only when you're out in the sun and then because we come camp camp comfortably
We had our anchor solar panel set up with anchor batteries running fans
And we were just we were just chilling in there. We had you know tables and chairs set up
We had an anchor anchor just came out with this um
Powered refrigerator 36 hour battery, but I was running it off a solar panel. So it lasted all weekend
And so we had a big cooler full of cold drinks
And people were like staggering under the sun at midday and our our tent became our setup became like the place to be
It was just it was just a congregation central
It was always full of people because people were coming in because it looked so comfortable
That's either very I could I could see it man
Just looking at this tent looking at the awnings looking at the just that the shelter page on the dod website
All super functional all even the even the itchy one pole tent, which is just looks like a
TP or yeah, just looks like a like a imagine a teepee
Like they all look like high quality
simple
Structures am I am I off? I mean there is there something there that
I mean, I don't know
What's what would be the best way for you to explain that to someone that hasn't physically seen it?
Oh
Man, um
Where to begin the the functionality of a tent if you want it to be more than just a place to sleep at night
It has to be easy to move in and out of
So these great big doors. Yes, you can't get down and crawl
You can't you can't have to go up a ladder like rooftop tents are great
But you need a ladder to get into them. So how much time you spending in there? You just call up there go to bed
If a tent is easy to move in and out of then people will move in and out of it and they'll spend time there
You have to be able to stand up in the tent because what are you going to do go in there and just you know
Neal crawl around so you need a tent that's big enough to stand up in
And then the tent needs to have space to actually hang out and feel comfortable
You don't want to feel claustrophobic and cramped
So these tents they're made to be great big doors big footprints tall ceilings that you can actually spend time in them
And that means that during the day it's a sun tent or if it's raining
It's a rain tent or if it's buggy. It's a bug tent, but when you're in there, you're not suffering for it
It's not like you crawled into a dome tent and zipped yourself into a little coffin. You're in a big room
So funny you say that we've told this story before but one year at mojave. I took a
four per like a
$30 amazon four person tent and I had an 18 inch thick air mattress that I blew up in there
So by the time by the time the air mattress was blown up there was like
I don't know 24 inches from the top of the air mattress to the top of the tent and my wife and daughter and I would literally unzip it
and
Rifle crawl into it and roll over
To sleep it was miserable
It was so bad that I just deflated the tent that the air mattress had folded the tent in and threw it in the back of the
Truck and it's probably it has been thrown away since so
Um, but you're right like that's one thing I notice about your your tents is that it's not just a single zip like
You know 18 inch wide door. It's a the whole panel opens up if you want it to
Um, the mushroom tent tell me about that one because I think that one looks super like
More of what you would expect I don't say expect but like yes more traditional. Yes
Okay, so the mushroom tent is not part of this family and it's not part of this
Camping philosophy not part of the concept. Okay
But it's such a cool tent
And it it is it attracts so much attention that we decided to carry it anyway
The truth about dod is they have found that dod is one of the biggest camping brands in asia. They're
Established in 1997. They're a huge company. They have
Thousands of products. They've got 20 different chairs. They've got 40 different tents
They've got seven different cuts, you know, wow when we launched there's no way we could do it
Also, we we went down through the through the broader offering and we said for the launch
We're going to narrow this down and so we picked three tents the kamaboko the kinoko and the mushroom tent. I'm sorry
And the one whole tent. Yeah
So the mushroom tent doesn't really fit into the broader concept of this comfortable camping idea
But it was such a cool tent that we wanted to carry it anyway
That thing is really for
That is the perfect music festival weekend. That is the perfect Coachella. Okay
Um, it you know, it only sleeps three people, but it's it's like it's like a yurt
It's like a mini yurt. Mm-hmm. So you have the dome roof
But the walls are straight and that means when you get in you can sit down
All the way back against the wall and you can sit six eight people hanging out in there
Chatting whatever getting out of the sun getting out of the rain. Um, it's just it's a place to be social
It's a really nice tent for that now. I would never take that on a
Trip up into the mountains. For example, you know, it really is music festivals kids in the backyard that kind of stuff
Got it got it. Okay. So so moving on from shelters
I mean you guys if you go to again, if you guys go to uh, dodoutdoors.com
There's camp furniture shelters sleeping stuff camp kitchen stuff carry stuff fire stuff accessories
I mean, you've got a whole a whole host of
Categories that you're selling stuff in talk to me about some of the camp furniture stuff
Because you've got some real interesting
There's the good luck table and the multi kitchen table like some super interesting things that I don't think I've ever seen
That I'd you know look super functional
okay, so
our
Number one bestseller and this is true in the states and also in asia. In fact, this product is the it's our camp chair
It's called the sugoi chair sugoi in japanese means awesome
So the sugoi chair. Uh, it's the number one selling camp chair on amazon japan of all camp chairs. Wow
It's it's a wildly popular product. But so about it
cotton canvas seat
Which until you sit in it, you don't really
Think about I didn't really think about seating material that much
But synthetic seating material does not breathe the way cotton does
And if it catches a spark from your campfire, you don't get those
You know frustrating little holes melted in it just smolders there doesn't doesn't burn at all
But the cool thing about the chair is that the length of the legs is adjustable
Mm-hmm. That's I'm looking at make the chair
You can make the chair sit lower or higher
But you can also make the front legs long so the chair reclines
Where you can make the front legs shorten the back legs long so the chair sits up
And that you know the kind of pitch I know I sound pitchy when I do this, but I just spent three days at
Saying the same thing over in the mode
Yeah, but um, you know that you go camping with
One camp chair and it sits high it sits low it sits straight up or it reclines and but whatever it does
That's what it does
It's a low recline chair and that's perfect if you want to be low on recline
But when it comes time to eat then what right?
Yeah, well then you're doing like I was saying earlier
You've got your paper plate and your lead back like this trying to shovel it in your mouth
But when with this chair when you want to sit like that you can when you want to stargaze when the end of the night
You want to side the fire you want to kick back you can do that
But when it's time to eat and you want to set up to the table you can adjust the legs and then you're sitting up straight and you can eat
That chair it's an example of sort of innovation that dod is chasing in in um
outdoor gear camping gear
Because it solves that problem that I never I didn't
Didn't even know it was a problem, you know
But it solves that issue that when you're in camp you can now sit in
As high or as low and as forward or as back as you want you can be comfortable all the time
One chair that's yeah, because I think so going but there's a
I bought some chairs on amazon
For our family trip. I bought three of them one for me one for my wife one for my daughter
My wife and my daughter hate them. They absolutely because they're very low. They're very lean back. They're very like, you know
I gave it to as a heavier guy. They seem very dangerous to me. I gave one to jose. He hates it. So
Um if if that's the only chair you got you kind of have to just sit there and listen to your wife complain about it
But I like the idea of having the versatility of the comfort first and then the versatility to do different things with your chair
Because I don't most chairs aren't like that
Yeah, that's right
And then I I think that there's a broader issue that americans
For some reason tend to go camping with backpacking equipment
You know what I mean by that expand no
Yeah, so
When you are backpacking you care about size and weight
You care that the
Tent or the chair or whatever is not going to let you down. It has to be high quality
But it does not have to be super comfortable like the the primary factor you're choosing for is size and weight
You want a camp chair that packs up the size of a water bottle?
That it is not as as comfortable as it could be
Is secondary it's just great that you've got a chair and a chair and camp that you can actually carry
A mountain that would be the exact description of those chairs. I was just telling you about they they they fold into a little
A little bag this big but when it came time to actually so they're small and they fit in the truck
But but it came down to actually sit they were shit. They didn't do shit for you. They were they were horrible
So I see what you're saying
Yeah, so but but when we car camp or when we're overlanding we don't have those same restrictions
It doesn't matter that the chair weighs five pounds instead of 15 ounces
Right and our chairs generally do the products. They're heavier, but they do still pack
tight so like that
that um
Kamaboko tent the massive one that thing packs up like a like a gym bag
You know, it's not huge and that's sagoy chair packs flat
So there's always some space between your gear where you can slide in that flat pack chair
So it is heavier than you would ever use for backpacking, but but at the same time it packs up tight
So you can always fit it somewhere in your rig when you're overland
That makes sense them. Yeah, I'm looking at you don't sacrifice
If you go to the the the website you can look at there's a the show is the little bag that it's in and that's not what I would have expected
Yeah
um
And then so again going back to like some of the different things that seem innovative that I've never seen
You've got the ichi one pole tent which is like a circular tent that has multiple
Sizes you can change it for you know varying sizes. You've got the good luck table. You there's a there's a lot of stuff here that's like
I'm looking at it and it
The fact that you had given us the the description of what camping meant in in that culture
This makes sense now this this absolutely like a table that has some drawers underneath it in storage and and fold
Like it's going to be there for a week and like that makes perfect sense to what you're
What you're describing in that culture and these things look really really cool
But it doesn't have to be there for a week. No real deciding factor is not like
There are there are types of camp that are such a pain to set up that you would only do it
If you're going to be there for a week, that's not this gear. This gear goes right up. Yeah
The the limiting factor for our gear is weight
You would never put any of this stuff on your back. Got it. Okay. It's just it's just too heavy
But it packs small so if you're overlanding you can absolutely use this stuff yet
Everything here, you know, it's it's it's heavier than camping gear than backpacking gear
But it it packs small and it sets up fast. Yeah, so you can create a camp like you see in those pictures in
Half an hour. Yeah, so that all the gear. Yeah, I don't backpack
At all. I don't I don't like walking to my truck, you know, my car at every day
Like so when we go camping or whatever
Overlanding or, you know, we essentially it's I'm concerned with space
You know, I want to be able to fit, you know and weight isn't as there is a concern
But not like oh, you know, this this uh, if it's five pounds as opposed to two doesn't matter to me at all, you know
But the comfort level level definitely seems
Intriguing to me because again, I agree with you as far as chairs are concerned
Yeah, we do spend a lot of time in the camp, you know around the campfire
Trying to relax after four wheeling maybe all day, you know
And if I can get a more comfortable chair
And it just cost me a couple of pounds or something. Yeah, that's absolutely
Something I'm I'm into
within as far as a larger tent
It is like how fast how fast can I put it up and how quickly can I put it down and
The size of the bag that it packs into like, you know
I don't want to have to like fold it up like they did when I first pulled it out
It's got to have some, you know room to to get back in there because
You know that that's another frustrating thing at the end of a long day
Or you've been camping for a couple of days and you're trying to get the stupid tent back in the bag
You know, I hate that
Um, and then I don't want to digress but I want to say I love that we're live streaming kasey feeding his son
Yeah a hundred percent. That's again. That's what we do
The couple weeks ago my wife
Is dad is dad life bad life. Yeah
Couple weeks ago my wife was traveling and I I had to go pick up my daughter and take her to a dance class and stuff
I rolled in halfway through the show eating my McDonald's
All the guys were finishing up the interview. That's what we do
Um, but to expand on what matt was saying about the the comfort level and stuff like I again
I look at the good luck table and the multi kitchen table
My current kitchen camp setup thing is a tailgate
and like two totes and
I these but but that was something remember we tried a product for somebody and it was uh
It was like a camping table and it was a pile of crap. Yeah, no, that's not that's not yeah
No, no, no, obviously that's what I'm saying, but I think that might have deterred our
Thought to oh, it'd be nice to have a table. Well because this thing was so crappy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man
Forget that what I like about like going I keep going back to the good luck table
So it full it packs down super light super small
Folds open and then it's got storage underneath it
So you get to camp and all of the things that you're like, okay
I'm gonna need this for the day for the next two days just goes in that storage. It's easily accessible as opposed to
Jumping in the back of the truck every time to drag it out of a tote because it's bit
That's the only place you have to put it because the only table I have is a four-foot wide folding table with no storage underneath it
like
That to me which is you know, it seems innovative to me
But to the to the the culture overseas. It's like, oh, yeah, you can't go camping without one of these
I tell you my favorite thing about that good luck table
It seems so small that it would be easy just to forget about it when you're designing the product
But those storage compartments have rigid floors
So when you set something down in there, it doesn't topple over
Really?
And to me like I use that for food prep the legs on that are adjustable
So you can make it hip height and it's great for food prep
So I have all my spices all my stuff down in those yeah
Compartments and they don't just tumble around they actually stand up and stay where I wanted to stay
Yeah, I on the the the next one down on the on the website is that uh the multi kitchen table
And there's a video of this lady. She's great. It's just it's packed. It's this big and then she just unhooks it
Stands it up and now you've got three shelves
Just looks like an old school briefcase. Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden boom accordions out. Yeah
And I and I think about like when when we go do our thing
It's like I have I have literally I have a one of those rolling toolboxes
That's my kitchen gear and I have to go
Like three layers deep to get a pan
And then put those things back to get my spices and then go back three layers deep to get the tongs like
And you're in your setup. It's like just pop it up set it all up. You're done. You're good for the next two days
Yep, yep organize your stuff and everything everything works better in camp. So interesting so
You would use that as like a dresser
Yes, and then unpack your bag like all your different outfits
You probably have your shoes different different for different shoes different shoes for each day down at the bottom
What they're saying is I pack a lot of stuff. No, he's been known to change different outfits the same multiple outfits
Like what are you doing when you're cares what you look like when you're this Johnson valley when you're this stylish dude
It just doesn't happen automatically. You wear the same colors. Everything's black or gray
So moving on moving on to a different gray outfit
Moving on to the sleeping the sleeping situations. Tell me about these cots. You've got a
A classic cot and a cool cot and a sleeping mat
okay, so
The point my point about sleeping is that for me it determines how much I enjoy the trip
I mean amongst other things. Yeah, but getting a bad night's sleep will ruin 100% the best trip. Yeah
And so we make a four inch thick
self-inflating pad when you get into camp you open it up you flip the valve to inflate and it goes
And it inflates itself what I think that's wild tech. Yeah
Um, it takes it takes an hour for it to inflate, right?
So what's the first thing you do when you get into camp you where you get where you want to be you pop open those valves
And you just let it go and then that gets it up to 70% firmness
For some people they like it softer so they leave it at that but then the pillow
is the pump so you attach the pillow to the valve and
You you know when I think about pumping up an air mattress, that's like an arduous task
Yeah, that's like a half an hour commitment
But this thing because itself inflates if you let it go for an hour
To get it from 70 to 90% is like five pumps. So you take that pillow you just smash it five times
I roll it actually
Oh, and five pumps and the thing's up to 90% and you can you know bounce a quarter off that it's just
It feels like to me it feels like memory foam
Oh interesting and it's man like i'm 230
When I lay down on that thing, I don't touch the ground
That is
That you know in an air mattress when I lay down my wife kind of like shoots up to the roof, right?
She trampolines up, but it doesn't do that at all when someone lays down beside you don't even feel it
It's not that kind of a mattress interesting
And it packs up small, you know you roll it up tight and and we have these compression straps with it
Really pack it down doesn't take up a lot of space
But you get you get that bed I use that bed at home for guests when we have too many guests
We overflow the guest bedroom. I throw that thing down on the floor. Nobody complains. It's great. That is super cool and
um
The cots the least the cool cot and uh, yeah the classic cot
I like that they're like especially the cool cot like pretty low to the ground. It's not like high and wobbly
It's very low to the ground and and it looks
It looks like it's
stable and supportive
Without having a lot of rigid poles down the middle. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, that's right. There's no poles. There's just
Poles on either side and then we use tension to hold them apart
The legs are under tension pulling the two poles apart to give you a firm a firm bed
Hmm
So I don't have like poles a jab at me in the ribs in the middle of the night
Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, I have a seven-year-old that jabs me in the ribs when when ten when Tammy's traveling
Did you get her her own chance get her the mushroom wait?
Well, I'm talking about at home when Tammy's traveling
She sleeps in the bed with me and I swear last night the totally off topic. Sorry, but I swear last night
I woke up like this
She had somehow jammed her knee in my ribs and then dragged it down across my spine
Thread to throw her across the other side of the bed
I paid her to do that. I bet you do or 20 bucks
20 bucks
So these these what's the I'm sure I could find the dimensions, but like how big are they they look
Oh, I'm going to say they're six and a half feet long by two and a half feet wide. They're
Cotsized, okay, you don't have to worry Cody. You don't have to worry. You're you'll fit in them. Yeah, no
Well, I was I was thinking like, you know, so, you know, you know, I
You have to ask no, um
To be honest with you, I was thinking about the swag tent that you have and how we've talked about
Putting putting a swag tent on top of the cot like this
and how
Comfortable that would be in this setup, especially the way these the classic cot and the cool cot are set up
because it doesn't have
the typical
partitions of poles, right
Um
See what else there's also you've also got a um camp kitchen stuff in here. I mean
Moving on. I I got one more product in sleeping that I love, okay
It's the wagaya sleeping bag. It's a quad bag. It's a four person wide bag
What? Oh wow
Yeah, it's a big bag
So so here's my background story on that bag
It was summer. It was hot
It was calling for hot weather for the whole trip
So we went up with really light gear and my my boys were
18 months old at this point
And when we went to bed, it was hot. It was 85 in camp at 10 p.m
And the boys were sleeping separately from us with very light blankets on
And I woke up at 3 in the morning
And it was sub 40 degrees in the tent
And I was like I was on the verge of hypothermia. I could barely like get myself together. No, and it
freaked me out because I knew the boys were not
Warm. Yeah, so I burst out of bed. I'm trying to warm myself. I scoop them up
I'm like rubbing them, you know, trying to they were fine. They're totally fine. Yeah
But but it scared me to death and ever since then
um, I just had this
Um a little bit of anxiety about the boys when they were young sleeping separately from us in camp because you you don't know if
If he's going to like crawl out of his bag sleeping bag or what he's going to do
So I loved having that loggia bag because now I can get the boys in the bag with me
I always know where they are. They shuffle out of the bag. I can grab a leg and yank them back down in there. Yeah
But the cool thing about the bag, I don't call it a sleeping bag or a sleep system
Which is a little pretentious
But the reason I call it that is because it's a quad bag
But you can unzip the two halves and you get two queen size quilts
Oh, okay
Okay, each of those quilts zip back together into a double bag
So it's one quad bag or two queen size quilts or two double bag
Yeah, I I love that because I mean similar, you know, when we would go camping with
With presley, it was always like, all right. Who's sleeping bag is she gonna be in yours or mine?
You know when she was when she was younger for similar reasons like, okay
I want to someone needs to know when she's you know, because I could just see her getting up and walking out in the middle of nowhere
Um, yeah, what is it uh rated to because I'm trying to look it's not it's a it's a summer bag
Oh, it's a summer bag. Okay. I got it. 50 degrees something like that. It's not meant for foul weather
um
But but once you get four people in that bag
Like it's toasty. It is
It can be very warm especially especially if you picked the right four people
I'm just saying there's four of us on the show
Yeah, I tell you about it. We get emails from polyamory people. Yo bug
This is just what we've been looking for. That's hilarious. Yeah, we're running in the same circles. Yeah
I think I think there's a product test in the future of
The four the four of us taking soap. He's in the what guy you bag
uh
so uh
Going on to the camp kitchen. You've got uh the cooking king which looks like an amazing thing some more table stuff a
A fire pit like what is the let's talk about the fire pit
So tell me about that because I mean that looks
Uh, like is like a propane
No, no, it's wood burning. Oh check that out. Yeah, as soon as I opened it up. Yeah, that's a very cool
Ooh, I like your your uh your uh diagrammatic
Yeah video on there that shows it coming apart and so that's a wood burning
mini
Like like a mini fireplace smokeless. Uh, yeah, is that a smokeless?
Exactly. Do you guys know about you down with uh secondary combustion?
Uh, I'm not a smart person. Can you tell me what it is? Secondary combustion is I had two burritos
That's secondary combustion as far as I'm concerned
Or primary when when a fire burns it sucks in air from the bottom
Okay, and as that air moves up through the column of fire all the oxygen gets used up
So by the time you get to the top of the fire, it's not getting full combustion because there's not any oxygen there
And that's why you get smoke and ash
Okay, like that that's those are the byproducts of incomplete combustion
So
Someone worked out and you see it in solo stoves and you see it in this in this stove of ours
That if you run fresh air up the outside of your firebox and shoot it back in at the top of the fire then you
Fully combust all of that fuel and it doesn't come out as smoke and ash. It just comes out as light and heat
Huh
So when you burn that thing
You can burn that thing for six hours. You get like two tablespoons of ash. It's unbelievable
No, because it's it's so complete and the the benefit of that is that you don't spend a lot of time in camp gathering firewood
I mean a bundle of sticks burns all night. Oh, wow
You can't conceive until you use the secondary combustion stoves
You can't conceive of how much of the fuel is being wasted because of this incomplete combustion
When you really can't burn at all you get so much more out of it
So it's a tiny little firebox and you just feed twigs into it and it just burns that makes total sense
and i'm super impressed because it it
Looking at it. You would go. Okay. That's a cool
individual camp, uh, you know a firebox or whatever, but
I mean, I could see what you're saying like
The technology behind it making it more efficient
Because that's I mean, let's face it. That's you know, the campfire is where we all congregate and
Yeah, um, there's that there's a meme that says, uh, do you have any, uh,
Do you have any special skills?
And it's the guy that moves his chair around the campsite and everywhere he goes
The the smoke follows like that's how I feel every campfire, right? So that eliminates my special skill
um
Yeah, there's a lot of there's a real strong leave no trace ethic in
Japanese camping. Okay. They have such pristine forest there that you don't just throw up a campfire ring and start burning. Yeah, we need more than that
That's what we are only carrying one of them here
But they have a whole duty has a whole line of um, they're flat pack. They're all flat pack
They're they're the side they look like a
They look like a mid-size envelope when they're packed up. Wow perfectly flat just thin
Well, you know, and that's something that's similar what it looks like and that you know
Cody kind of mentioned it looks like a little firebox a little propane
Firebox and that's something that we see more common, but
That you know, they don't pack up tight and small like that. Plus you got to bring a tank
Yeah, you know to to fuel it so and and the typically the uh,
like you're seeing now the uh
The fire pits that are like the four pieces of two foot by three foot metal that kind of
Clipped together, right? Those are those are big and clunky and they don't have the secondary combustion technology
That's just a ring from you know keeping drunk people from stumbling into the fire. What is that really doing?
You know, yeah, this is actually like an efficient system
And I'd be interested to see how you know how much heat and light it radiates compared to
Like those little propane things, you know
Probably uh, well that very similar or maybe and this is unlimited though
Like as long as you have twigs and sticks, you know, whereas the propane is very finite
Well, that's something else we're used to bringing is bundles of wood that we
You know, it's like
We we typically it seems like we go camping and it drops down to the 20s at night and we're burning those
logs like and and still standing like right on the edge of the fire trying to maintain warmth, but
Yeah, uh, this would still be really again. I just like to see I wonder how effective they are at like
Radiating heat. It seems like light is not a problem. No, no
Yeah, I mean
I feel like
Like I'd mentioned earlier. I feel like what you're doing is um
Broadening the perspective with these tools and this gear broadening the perspective of what a camp site can be
um
Versus to your point earlier
super small and light
Clip together things that just get the job done as opposed to
to
a more comfort focus and
Even that looking at every one of the things that we talked about in in that list of things on products
You've you mentioned on every single one of them about how how tightly they pack down, right?
And so if if we're going back to your analogy earlier about using backpack equipment for overlanding
If if they're packing down
Compact enough
That's all that really meant the weight isn't really an issue. It's always for me. It's always space, right?
So you guys have
DoD has the innovation to figure out how to get it small make a very small footprint in the truck
So if i'm if i'm if i'm looking at the option of a backpacking tool and a doD tool and
size-wise
They're comparable
And the only difference is this one's a little bit heavier, but it gives me way more comfort like
That skews my my perception now of what a proper camping tool looks like does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah
What what all kinds of camping gear should be, you know, there's this you know the concept of type one and type two fun
I think i've heard it but tell me anyways
Type one fun is fun while you're doing it going to the movies eating popcorn
You know that that's fun to do type two fun is is a drag while you're doing it
But you look back on with pleasure because it was such a great experience
Even though in the moment it was not nice
And and I think that a lot of people
In all kinds of camping are type two funding, you know, they're like well camping is where you go out and suffer
You know, you're supposed to be cold. You're supposed to be on a hard rocky ground. You're supposed to eat crappy food
You know, yeah, and and I'm and the point of view and if you want to do that
You know go for it to eat crappy food to get a bad night's sleep eat cold. What it's fine, you know, but my
The the concept the dood is trying to get across this you don't have to do that
We can make gear that you can put up fast and fit in any rig
Any any car camping situation where you will get a good night's sleep
You will sit on a comfortable chair. You will have everything you need to make a great meal
You know, you don't have to suffer. You it could camping can be type one fun
All our trips are definitely type two. Yeah, we're always
Type one type two from steven rinella
I don't know if you know
He compared it to like type one was like a roller coaster. I really close. There's a blast, but how mean
Can you look back at a time that you wrote a roller coaster?
where
Type two like he said was
It it totally sucked the whole time that you look back. He said remember how much that sucked that was so much fun
I think a lot of our trips are more type three fun or it's pretty shitty when you're doing it and when we get back
We hated it anybody like what are we?
We regret it the whole time
I think from this conversation
The number the number one thing I think about or things that were discussed is one
Do we I think I do use like a lot of
Hiking camping type stuff. It's like why am I as soon as he said it? I knew I was like, yeah
Like I use those I'm picturing all the stuff in my
Yeah, the chair number one and like the cooking gear, you know where it just folds up really tight
And it's like why why I I have a truck. I could have
nicer stuff than that
You know a truck and you don't have anything in it, but a cooler and a tote full of toilet paper
That's all you bring with you but bring that the cooler the cool is full of here grill thing
But but but I think to your point Matt. Yeah as as he was explaining it
I was thinking about the gear in the garage in my in my cupboard like oh, yeah, that's a that's backpacking
That's backpacking and what's crazy is when you go to amazon and you search for camping
Stove can't be whatever it's always that stuff. It's always the
aluminum pole snapped together
I don't want to say flimsy, but like
Backpacking where it's it's more about being light than efficient
Amazon likes that stuff because amazon gives free delivery
True that's true
Right, I think about like I had that grill. It was like a tailgate grill. It was kind of awkward
But again, I could have like learned how to pack it better
But that's that's how I cooked my like whether it was carne asada burgers dogs, whatever
And I it was a grill. It was like, you know, I could have cooked steak
I could have cooked whatever and for whatever reason I was like, you know what this is
I've been you know, I lived in an apartment, you know back in that that's what I got it for or for tailgating
But then so I got rid of it. It was like, oh, I'm getting I'm moving on
I bought a Coleman stove and I bought camping crap and it was like I hate all this
I hate cooking food on this Coleman thing
Uh, you know, now I went and bought another grill because I missed having that ability, you know, and again, it was like
Uh, why did I do that? You know, why did I because I needed camping?
Cooking stuff like I that's what I thought, you know, I'm getting a Coleman camping stove set, you know
Look at me and yeah, no that was dumb. Yeah, that was definitely dumb. Um anybody looking to buy a Coleman stove
Go ahead and reach out
um
so, so what's what's
Going back to certainly back to dod and kind of the the the 12 months that you guys have been in business since you launched
here in the states
Like what has been your assessment of the feedback you've gotten
From this new we'll call it a new style or a different style of of camp
Camp site gear
If I can
If I don't get the chance to deliver the message
Nothing goes
Nobody's buying that massive tent because what's their experience of massive tents. Think about this. Yeah
Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you exactly we have the expert right here because my brother here has purchased 16 of those massive tents
Every one of us has gotten dragged into helping him set up the massive tent
And then every one of us has watched him throw it away at the end of the week because it fell apart
But I've learned though. I haven't bought one of those tents in a long time. Yeah six months. Maybe yeah
It's pretty real 10 99 dollars
Walmart special. Yeah last season it's held to put up a season work right a trip one trip trip before
Before we had the the youngest now. It's been me my wife and my son
Three people my wife always picks out the 14 person 10
I
I'm the one that has to set it up. I don't want that tense. It's it's only two 99
Whatever and we get it
We use it three times and then something snaps breaks and then it's in the garbage at the desert far
Yeah, and then I go buy another one. Yep, but I'm done with that
Yeah, yeah, but that's like people's experience with big tents when I show them a big tent
They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen those in campgrounds. I'm not using that. Yeah, they don't you have to get over that hump of
In think about in backpacking gear. There is a full range of low to high quality in the States if you want to spend
$5,000 on a tent someone will oblige you, you know, you can you can find that that but in the States
Camping gear car camping gear is almost universally garbage
And so when people think about I think that's a lot of what drives this that people use back packing gear to
Car camper to overland because they know that's where the good gear is
So we're trying to fill that hole in that segment of the market of the high end camping gear
But the first hurdle is convincing people that there is such a thing that that category exists
If I can get somebody if I can get somebody's attention and walk them like at overland expo this past weekend
if I could grab that guy and walk him into the booth and
No one
I didn't see the benefit of not having a
War in a tent and how that completely changes how you use the tent until I started camping with that tent
And when I say we don't have a floor we do have a floor it's just removable
So during the day you don't put the floor in in the evening when you want to lounge you put in the floor
You pile it up with your pendleton blankets and you lounge and then at night you just
Clip that removal floor out takes two minutes and you clip in your sleeping chamber that takes two minutes
And you convert your tent from in the day a living room in the evening a lounge and at night a sleeping chamber sleeping place
Yeah, I think that's I think you hit it on the head there like someone sees a tent that size
Their immediate reaction is going to be too big too bulky too hard
Too to not too not worth it until until
Like you get the chance to explain it and even looking at your website looking at the picture going back to the
Kamaboko super tent uh size small
um
Even though like it looks to me about you know all the different diagrams and the chambers and the whole thing and how small it packs into
Listening to you describe it. Yeah, because how cool would it be if we set that up for lunch?
Yeah, everyone gets to hang out and under there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I think another situation too coming from like dirt biking and whatever is
Uh, you know having an rv or like a toy hauler or something like that
And then there's like bad weather rolls in and you don't have the opportunity to hang out the campfire
So you get into somebody's trailer, you know, but I mean that's that's a total different world, you know
Then uh, what we're normally
Dealing with but in this instance if if you were the guy that had that big tent and there was some weather and you know, whatever
Hey, guess what? We can still socialize. We can all still hang out over here and everything's you know
The park I don't say the party continues, but you know you still have the opportunity to socialize
Looking at the looking at the diagrams of the kamaboko super tent small again. That's not the biggest one
That's the medium one and that is a level two
thing
Because it's like oh my god
We didn't do a campfire, but then you think back and you're like, dude, remember that time was so windy
We had to go into the trailer and hang out. It was like, oh and then then you remember the stories you were telling at that time
Like oh, that's when I learned you did that one thing, you know, and then whatever one thing
Yes, I you had to have been there. Yeah, and you weren't but am I
Looking at the diagrams. Am I right that the
Will calm chambers
Are dividable there there's a that you can put a curtain between the chambers
To to almost create separate rooms the rig so think of it. It's a tunnel tent and it has ribs. Yeah those ribs aren't
Actually chambers. It's totally open inside. Yes
totally open
But when you're ready to go to sleep, there is a mesh enclosed
Pouch that clips on to those ribs. Okay, got it
Got and then you zip yourself into that pouch and it takes up half the tent
So if you want if you have two groups that want to sleep separately, you can put in two of those sleeping chambers
But they flip on and you only clip them in at the end of the night when you when you want to actually zip yourself in the rest
It only takes two minutes
So it's no big deal to wait until 10 p.m. To do that and the rest of the time you have that big open space
And that's kind of where I was going is that with these tents if you had a group of
You know two couples or three or four people you could just have one tent
It's like every it's it's the air b&b in the middle of the desert
You know what I mean? It's like all together in one tent
Because of because of the size of this thing and the ability to get in and out and the versatility
Yeah, there's another way actually to use these and that is to bring along
If you have eight guys sharing that tent in the medium
You can have eight guys sharing that tent, but you don't want to sleep shoulder to shoulder
You can bring along
little dome tents
And pitch them inside now if you're going to do a dome tent anyway
Why bother have the big tent because you can leave off the fly
And you don't get that condensation. You don't get that sticky tent sleep. You get you get a breathing, you know fresh air tent
Experience with eight guys having their own little
Private sleeping chambers under that superstructure. That's super cool
Yeah, you've uh, you've made me rethink the way uh, the way our campground is going to be set up
um
Especially with things like this hexatarp and sign me up for one of those eight guy camping trips
Eight guy camping trips. Yes. Well, well only if we bring two of the wagyu only if we bring two of the wagyu sleeping bags
so
Four there's a four pack on either end of the tent
Do you have a means to ventilate these tents because it sounds like
Oh my god
A few days
No, you're good. You are a few days of kodi's frito pie. There's like, uh, I'm sorry chili cheese fritos
Not frito pie not frito pie. Yeah, um, so so
12 months sounds like p&w was was a huge success for you guys
Um, and you clearly have more products available to you from dod
Do you have you laid out what that roadmap looks like for the next six to twelve months?
And and is there anything laid out that you would like to share?
um
Not as such um
Because I don't want to distract from what we're doing right now
I don't want anybody to wait to buy some tent that's coming at some in this, you know in determined point in the future
Yeah, um, but but ultimately I think that about half of dod's thousands of products are suitable for the north american market
Okay
Some of them are very specific to japanese camping. Um, I got one for you
They make
a collapsible
steel foot bath
It's a it's a steel water tank that you fill with water and on one end of it
You make a wood fire inside of a little stove
And it heats the water and you could take it into camp and have a foot bath. No kidding
Look when you said foot bath initially, I was like, I don't need any of that
But then when you talked about like he didn't eat it. I feel like there's my brow. Okay
I didn't know I needed that
To the u.s. Because people's wives are gonna. No, no, no wives
I'm talking about the next eight man camping trip with the two kombu go
What guy you sleeping back? There's gonna be pedigures at a pedicure stations at either end
Using the dod foot bath. I'm ticklish
But I tell you where I really want that foot bath is on the deck of the apreski bar at the bottom of the
Scheme out. Yeah, you know
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I could totally see that because your feet are all frozen and sore from eating booze frozen. It's exactly. Um, so so
Clearly the goal is let's focus on what you're doing now
Keep getting the word out and then
Expand on additional products as they as they fit for the market and as you find a need for them. Is that right?
Yeah, exactly
and uh, you guys are
Long long term are you guys going to go to any other shows since p&w seem to be such a big success for you
so
I didn't want to just blast it out and sign up for everything without having tested one
So in the meantime, loveland is sold out and I missed arizona
But uh adventure band, you guys know those shows. Oh, yeah, we're gonna be at one in big bear
Okay, yes, I'll I plan to be there too. I hope it works out. All right
Well, let us let us big bear is casey physically lives 20 feet from where that event is gonna be
Oh, nice. Um, so when that when the time comes if you need help getting down here and getting
40 feet but it's yeah, he lives in the big bear city
So, uh, you know, we'd love to connect with you when you get there because that's
October I think that's a couple months
Um, yep
Is what other things like what are the things does the audience need to know about do d and and kind of what you're
What you guys are trying to accomplish here in the states
Uh for so
This is this is this is a strategy thing that is not that interesting to your consumers
But just um as a little bit of background we spent the first 12 months not going to dealers
We would we only sold direct and we did that for two reasons
We needed to test which products we're going to work in north america
Yep, and we you can't do that
If you're in dealers, you can't like only stock five or something. Yeah, yeah
Say how's it going guys the dealers need support if you're gonna carry the product
They need you they need to have that product in inventory
And also we played the prices a little bit
We weren't sure exactly where the prices would land with the market bear
So we spent 12 months just testing the market seeing how american consumers reacted to the products
Seeing which products we should carry and how we should market them and then narrow down on the products
We have right now in that process. We couldn't have a dealer network
So if you want to buy the product right now, it's do d outdoors.com at your only
Avenue there's a few products on amazon
We are right now in the process of rolling out our dealer network
So sometime in the next three months, I hope we you'll see us on backcountry.com
And you'll start seeing us in the local outdoor gear stores in your area
But it'll be
You know coming up on christmas that you actually see that for now. It's just the website
Okay, if uh because we have a we have a couple people that run outdoor stores that listen to our show
Um, how would they how would they become a dealer?
Yeah, so you can contact us at info at do d outdoors.com. There's also a contact form on the website
And there is a dealer link in the header of the website that if you click there's a little form you can fill out
Okay to apply to be a dealer very cool very cool
Yeah, I could see so going back to what you're you the the concept in 2016 that you rolled out overseas
Like the idea of having a dealer network that's got the space to throw one of these things up in their showroom
For people to come and physically experience. Um, I think that'd be great. That'd be a great way. It would be
It'd be great. I don't I'm not sure it exists
You know the retail stores just don't have that kind of footprint. I tell you what's more important for me
There is a
ecosystem of products that go into this kind of campaign
And that is cast iron cookware
wool blankets
Zart, you know zarkis cases
No, are there the aluminum?
Yeah, the german aluminum case. Oh, yes. They're the german militaries cases. Yeah. Um, that makes me am well
Those products all go together so so what I really need is to build out this this to get a really strong
Dealer network is to get all those products together in the dealers so people can see that whole picture when we did the show
Excuse me at bend last week. I had zarkis on the booth
And I had a petra max petra max are these handmade pressure lanterns. It's old school pressure lanterns, you know, you pump them and they
Oh, no, really? They're awesome. They're brass. They're they're wildly expensive, but they're gorgeous and so I put
Um, I put anchor because I want people to know when you camp you can bring along power the batteries are small
They're heavy, but they're small solar panels packed flat now easy to use
Um, I had do d. I had zarkis and I had petra max all there to kind of
Fill out the picture. This is what comfortable camping looks like
This is how this is how you can do it if you don't want to suffer and it's doable
It's all there the products are there and so it's so interesting
I feel I feel dumb. Well, that's what
Interesting or that's what caught my eye. It was a japanese outdoor like company. Yeah
That's why I was like, well, it's like because they're philosophy on things. It's way different on everything, right?
Like and it's it's it's super simple
It just rolls off the off his tongue like comfortable camping like as a why are you not comfortable camping and I feel dumb
Yeah, because I've never even considered comforts in many of my purchases
I mean, I sleep in literally the bed of my truck
You know what I mean, like I just know how about you know what I'm not even gonna deal with the tent
Yeah, whatever the passenger sleep in my passenger seat of my truck. Yes. That was last time I went camping
That's exactly what I did. I didn't want to deal with that stupid tent screw it. Yeah, but it's just it's
I feel like for us
And maybe this is maybe this is part of the american consumer that the mindset of the american consumer that we need to change
I feel like that over the course of our lifetime of camping and stuff we have purchased
by backpacking gear that ended up failing us and it just became like I'm done with that
Whatever, I'm not gonna bother with that like it doesn't make any sense and
I I can personally say I can't think of anything in my gear set right now
That is a quality premium purchase, right? It was I have bought the cheapest shit
I could buy to get the job done
And and not thought about whether or not it was comfortable. We're going camping next week time to hit it big five
Yeah, yeah stock up. It's all the crap I threw out and I feel that's trip. I feel like a jackass for not ever really
Thinking about it. Does that make sense?
Yeah, and I mean you think about the the amount of money you spend on your rig
You know, it's not like it's not like this is a
pastime engaged in by people who can't afford to have
More quality gear right people are spending 100,000 hundreds of thousands of dollars
Getting their rig set up then not to spend an extra thousand bucks on a tent and get a really good night's sleep
You know, it's just crazy. Yeah 100% you are 100% correct
And I am 100% guilty of not being that guy
Like I you know, I mean you're and you're dumb. You said it earlier. I'm a very dumb
I'm a dumb person and we can go get my wife bring her in here. She'll confirm
Leave her alone
I'll go ahead and confirm
I uh, I'm I'm very I'm very intrigued. You just blew his mind
No, I'm I'm very like I said earlier the idea that you're bringing a different mindset to what we do
Is very intriguing to me like it's very like
How do we blend this this mindset around comfort and efficiency and and what it means to be camping and
Backpacking versus camping gear and I think all of that is very interesting
I really like the way that you have described the products
Obviously, you've used them and you have an understanding of what they are
And I'd be very interested to get to get um, you know, whatever your next event is at
To get people either us or listeners to the booth to see it to physically experience it to be able to kind of like
Oh, now I see what he's talking about like I can imagine it as you're saying it and I'm looking at the pictures on the website
but I feel like
Your product is one of those things that like once you walk into the tent you're like, oh
Okay, make sense perfect sense. You know what I mean?
Yeah, so if anybody who who's you know, just watch our instagram account
We always post when we're doing an event. So you'll you'll find out if they're going to be close to you
Okay, and in the meantime if anybody wants to uh, uh,
Check out the products. They can find them on instagram
um, or you can go to the dod outdoors.com and
Um, order order these cool tents somebody on our trip order one. Oh, or we need to order one. We need a four person sleeping bag
I'm just saying it
um, the uh
let's do it
I'm gonna see you guys
I don't know that I could be I don't know that I could sleep with you guys four four person bag and some chili fritos
Yes, chili cheese fritos. Um, and we'll see who last longer
We'll call it the why guy you challenge
Um
Look we I I really appreciate you jumping on the call with us tonight. This has been a super cool conversation and I
Like I said earlier. I think your background just getting to this point is a whole another podcast by itself
um, but I I think that your
Your experiences your varied experiences and varied cultures and all that really lends itself to the way that you
Uh, uh communicate these products
Versus someone that's that's never experienced it and is just trying to distribute something overseas or whatever
It's a very I think it's a very different
A different feeling coming from you because you've experienced not only the culture
But the product and and all of it and you're kind of trying to expose us to a new mindset. So I appreciate that
Mm-hmm. Yeah
Well, I appreciate the chance to come on and actually talk about it
Spread the word well any any time and and if you are doing events down here in california, let us know
we'd love to help out and and logistically get you where you need to be and
You know help set up that tent so we can experience it and
And and check it out and uh in the meantime everybody, please go to do the outdoors.com and check out their products
And Brent sir, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you. Have a good night
Yeah, thanks for having me guys
We would like to thank outdoor by form magazine for their continued support
Please do us a favor and go over to outdoorx4.com and check out their content
Use the code trail chasers to get a discount on your subscription. We promise you're gonna love it
All right, thank you for to uh Brent for joining us. That was a great conversation again
Very interesting the different perspectives right compared to what we and and making me think
differently
I've been thinking twice about my life multiple times a day our third fun
Yes, the third fun
So two we're gonna talk about the cape toyota event that we were at this weekend, but I want to start with two other things
Show some of the dog swag
So we
We since kasey's not here. He doesn't get any of this so too bad for you kasey, but we all
We all got some hats and shirts and koozies from all dogs off-road
They're new designs shirts. They came out really really good sweet. Uh, and you guys know we love all dogs. Uh, we're very uh
Nissan heavy and we're on the verge of being a
3 quarter Nissan podcast
Yeah, it's gonna be pretty soon gonna be a three out of four Nissan only. Yeah, no toyota
There's gonna be no toyotas. We'll talk about that too. Um
Right now i'm a proud toyota owner
Because my truck's at the shop getting fixed from when I ran into the back of that Subaru outback
Uh, and I got the hosie's land cruiser here is my spare vehicle is my uh my ride for the week
Um, so thank you to the guys at all dogs off-road for that. Uh, we dig their stuff. Go check them out
They do really good work. Um, and they're fun to hang out with we got to hang out with them at sima good times
Yeah, very good. Was that one of those level two situation?
Level four, uh, I I do look back and from what I remember. I had a great time
Dude, I was hurting by that time dude. I was like
That's that's the level two part like
I remember the hurting I was hurting. I'm like, well, I got I got two options and
Obviously we're not going back to the room yet. So I just gotta just go deeper. Yeah. Oh, no, you gotta reach down and find another level
And I was just talking about that because one of the guys at work
Uh went to vegas this past weekend for like some mma convention or something like that
And I think he was staying at the sahara and I'm like, oh my god
We uh, when we were at sima last year
We were at this club or bar at the sahara
And we just walked into the back like private area like we owned the place and then just took it over
And they just started serving us and I thought I think that's how we just do things from on out
And it was all dogs. It was con media. It was us. It was um, I feel like there was two other groups there
That that hung out with we all just kind of congregated together
I think it was like we all kind of looked at each other like, uh, well con media is here
So that's probably that's normal for them to just do that
And then and then like all dogs was looking at us or like oh these fools just go in and they're a big dog
And you know, like we'll just hang up with it. You know, we're all just like, yeah, this is how we do it and
We we did it. It was great
That's awesome. Um
Next thing that a very cool, uh event that you'll be hearing more about
Is we got
a bunch of midland swag from midland radios
Uh, which includes
Uh, bam some radios kasey doesn't get one because he's not here
Uh, no kasey's so kasey's is uh, kasey's part of the cool kids now
All of kasey's swag and stuff is sitting here. We'll get it to him next time. Uh, so
We're working with midland to do some testing on
some of their micro mobile products. So we've got a we've got a
Mxt 575 and mxt 500 and two of the mxt
T2 75s. So we're going to do an install party here in the next couple weeks
We're going to get these installed in the vehicles
Kind of walk through how that gets set up and by say when I say we are going to get these installed
I will film kasey doing the work
Hey, but it's about time we've we've been running those bofangs. Yes. Yes, and it's it's and
We could barely even talk on the train. Yes
We're actually going to be able to communicate from one end to the other 100% 100% agree
And this message is for nicole in the chat room. This is for you only if you logged on to youtube you can see this
That's what I say to nicole
We're gonna have to go to matt's house because the truck ain't coming here
So so no nicole
We're not going to raffle off matt's because he doesn't have a truck to put it in anymore
But we could have been the tesla before I put in it before I raffle it off
But we will be raffling off at least one set of the midland handheld
X talkers
And the midland emergency crank radio with a mfm transceiver. So we've also got
We'll talk about that in just a minute, but yes
Um, so we are going to put together some a plan to do some giveaways and raffles
We've got we've got at least one set of these to give away
um
And it has to include like reviews on itunes because we haven't gotten a review on itunes in a year
We you're right. You're right. We haven't and that's a good word and voicemails
Um, well, we've we gave out the right phone number. No, he had creative voicemail contest
Which is why we're not announcing the raffle right now because we don't have an idea of what we're gonna do yet
But I do a calendar. We're gonna
Do
Oh, man, you got to go back to 2018 you got to go back to the end of 28 christmas of 2018 to learn about why that is such
a bad idea
We need to actually do a calendar
You don't need to go that far back to know
We don't so thank you to midland for supporting us and giving us the opportunity to work with you guys to do some
some
product stuff
Midland's doing a really good job of working with other members of the community
We're gonna try to connect with those people and get them on the show as well
Can we connect to them with our radios already on the radio? Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
I don't know exactly what we can do
What can we do?
um
Okay, not a lot apparently it's about stuff
So hot in here lots
um
Okay, so
the
This weekend this weekend was the grand opening of cave adventure down in long beach, california
We have been real quick. You built out that store
Yeah, you did a good job sir. Thank you. I couldn't believe it. I'm like kody did this yet
Yeah, yeah, they're every every measure twice for sure on a lot of everything in that store every single
It cost a hundred thousand dollars to build that
I gave him that uh that typical uh construction. I'd have done it different
Yeah, casey walked in and said uh looks like it's a little off right here. Thanks dad. Thanks dad the store turned out great, dude
The little lights are twinkling
Um, yeah that I am really really happy with the way that turned out
That that space it's it's a perfect size because it it's uh small enough to so where you can see every product that the main product said
Ironman offers, right?
And it's big enough to where yeah, you can uh, you can see them functionally how they work too
Yeah, and that that space so I went I went down there early on and that's that space was just
They literally had a couple tables there that no one was sitting at and some like random
Wheel displays or something right just and it's and it's easy dudes
And I was like, what are you guys doing with that space? And I'm like, I don't know it's been like that for years
and so we took
We took a a a space in the dealership that was literally useless
And turned it into a retail location
Um, and everything in that store everything in that space
It was either my design might well it was all my design and my actual construction and I had help doing it
Uh, casey, uh, I don't know if you noticed that uh, brian ferguson
Made a comment on the post. He was like, I remember the guys that built that because
Our buddy brian was the fabricator that created the
Took the the prototype for the outpost and turned it into a production
Um, so he and and his guys helped us get the the kiosk installed and then
That my helper and I built out all of the other stuff around the store
Um, super seems to me like there was every single product iron man offered pretty much dude
Yeah, so so when I would we're going back to my employed days
When I would design these stores
Uh, it was very much a matter of looking at the footprint of the store and what that space looked like and then understanding
How much space I needed for each category of product whether it be bumpers or skid plates or lights or whatever
And then figuring out how how to make the store
Uh, change those those panel sizes to make the store be able to display enough product
to be a good representation of everything in the catalog and um,
Again, all of the stores that got built out and including that one. I'm very proud of I'm very proud of what what was accomplished there
Um, you know the the future of it is what the future of it is, but uh, and I'm not part of it anymore
um
the the cave adventure store
Was so the grand opening was this weekend
They did a really good job of getting it ready to go
I worked with them over the course of the last four weeks to do a lot of social media promotion
We had several meetings about organization and what's what needed to be done
And those guys knocked it out of the park. They did
They did a great job of the events that we've been involved in they were they were very dialed in they knew exactly what was happening
They had all they had a ton of vendors
Um, and we've talked about this a little bit
We did three raffles on sunday between eight and we did one at nine one at ten and one eleven thirty
Each of those raffles
Was as good as the final raffle at any other event. We've been at like that's we had
A hundred t-shirts. We had hats. We had swag from method from die-cast talk from corva from heart leather company from
Uh cornerstone outdoors from magnus in every vendor there
Came yeah, they came fully prepared gun to blazin
Gave away a set of method wheels gave away method wheels gave away two iron man awnings gave away iron man traction boards
Uh, uh, like six hundred dollar, uh dash cam. Oh, yeah dash cam
Uh, uh, seven hundred dollars off of magnus and supercharger
Two different hundred and fifty dollar disc discounts on wedz wheels. Um, no joke
Every like when we when they kept bringing so joji the guy that kind of uh, the guy's in charge of the iron man store
They're at cabe his kids were there helping and they kept coming back with their wagon and more stuff
And at one point casey and I were like we got to start separating this stuff
What are we going to do with it?
And we just started making piles for each one of the raffles and any one of those raffles would have been like
That's a sweet raffle at the end of the day. But yeah, all of them were were really really really good
um, cbi gave us swag swag cbi
um
I just thought of another one too that that I didn't mention that's uh,
Shit it slipped my mind. We'll figure it out. But if you go look at um front runner front runner
There you go front runner had a giant
My kitchen set like
There were so many things Jose
We're looking at the we're all the four of us are looking at the and nicole was there nicole was a rock star
She if nicole wasn't there none of this would have happened
But they kept bringing stuff over to the table the raffle table and all four of us were like would anybody know
This one got damaged in shipping
There was there were so many things that I was like I want that
Um, but we did return someone won. I'll buy it off you. Yeah, exactly. Uh, nicole handled all the registration
um, so she was uh, she like in she was a rock star as always
and uh, the uh, the way we did it was you scan the qr code and you registered to to be in the raffle
All that worked out except there was some feedback that the qr the the page on the registration wasn't mobile friendly and
It was a it was a google form. I don't know how to fix that. So I'll work on that for the next time but
um
raffles went really well
The uh event went well. They had coffee and donuts there
Uh, I feel like we had a lot of listeners show up
Uh, we had uh, uh, mark kori gary
Sergio
I feel like I'm missing a couple other ones. We had listeners. Andre was there. Andre was there
Blue yoda was there milk to coma milk tea coma bernie
um
There was a lot of people there that
We have interacted with throughout the course of our time on the show that we were just like, you know
Right into hanging out. It's like yeah hanging out with him and kody's like you live around here, right?
No, we drove down from upland like oh
Because it's like there's no way you're like coming down here just uh hanging out or whatever
Well, they I think they were doing something else too, but either way. I was like, you know
What are you doing? I had to be here
um
We uh, uh, hosé on on saturday when hosé was here and we washed the the land cruiser and my wife's car and my truck
He was like, yeah, I'm gonna go get a for sale sign
Sunday it was the blank piece of paper with a mark. I'm sharper on it sharpie marker on it
Like there was no traction. Yeah nothing says i'm serious about selling this vehicle like a blank piece of paper with a sharpie
We tried to raffle
We kept threatening to raffle off his land cruiser
I don't even think he put a phone number on it. It was just it was just for sale the price and my number
Yeah, and it was like who's who's sale s a i l
Yeah
I was saying are you saying that was my opportunity to get your phone number? Yes
That was the one the one shot one in all the photos
Greater writing the uh, so hosé got some uh interest on the land cruiser if you are a listener that is interested in the land cruiser
It's hosé at trail chasers dot net, but a k a the monolith the monolith
A lot of people are gonna disown me
Once that thing I know I know um
Even the owner of k of kabe toyota was sitting there and he's like
Who's who's this? What's going on with it? And we so I spent you buy the forerunner
I spent uh, we try to spend it a different bunch of ways like yeah
I'll sell you this awning for 20 grand and then it comes with the land cruiser you get the land cruiser
um
the uh
the the other thing was
By the end of the day saturday when I was like, okay, I got to get everything set up and ready to go
Like I grabbed the equipment and I Sunday morning. I I felt like man. I feel like
I'm missing something. I feel like
We're not prepared
technology-wise
And it ended up
It it just went well because we've we've we've done it so many times that we've bought different things and now we have like
One box that plugs into one speaker and now it works instead of the think about the first times we did these many systems
Trying to integrate before it was two different wireless boxes plus the wired in boxes plus the mixing board now
It's like nope. We're we we have the right things that just plug in
Um, jose's fun box. We didn't promote it as much as we should have but it still got some
Nicole kept blocking it. That's right. Jose was protect. I mean, Nicole was protecting the fun box
I think I think she feels bad about the abuse you take jose and she's trying to take her in someone went shoulder deep in that thing
Yes, they did. Well, it was it was pretty much empty
So you you had to go deep in order to get to the prizes, you know way down below, you know
Which were majority beach balls beach balls and iron man stickers. Um, we launched the ivy lander sweater
Uh, that was my absolute favorite part of the weekend
Was the ivy lander sweater and if you don't know what we're talking about go to instagram
People are still coming borderline creepy the way you kept going. What's the sweater, but no
No, no ivy was that creepy. I wasn't creepy at all. It was fun. She liked it. It was fun for you
She was cowering down on the ground as you were standing
Yeah, as you were standing above her with a microphone and just kept shot over and over
She liked it. It was good for her
Uh, the uh, you love it. You love it. Uh, go to go to instagram and uh, you can see what i'm talking about for yourself
Yeah, if I if I was creepy tell me because uh, i'll apologize to ivy. I was having fun not me
I said borderline
Okay, uh it takeaways. Jose. What was your takeaway from sunday?
um
Like you said the setup and tear down went
Really smoothly because we got it down now
But just the event the event itself was really well ran because like everyone dude
It was like packed as soon as it was over like that parking lot was empty like
And yeah, everything was going smooth throughout the day. Um, there's a lot of foot traffic and then you store
Uh, no, it was good. I like I liked it map
So i'm gonna harken back to the first time we were at cave toyota like four years ago
And we were there just because we could get some content and walk around the place because
We heard about it, you know or whatever and so I think uh
Jose and I walked over to the gas station to get something something to drink or whatever
And I was talking about that like dude the last time I was walking right there
We were talking to phil convissor, you know about is I think he had his colorado or something at the time
We had the boys and and uh presley with us. That's right
And I was like, you know, we didn't even know we'd have our own jerseys four years from then, you know
Like and look at us now
Look at us now
Uh, we were setting up, you know a tent and we're we're emceeing the event
It we've we've kind of we've come a long way since uh, the last time we were out there, you know
We're we're participating in we're participants. We're not just there like oh, you know, we're just a couple of dudes
We got look we got microphones, you know
Um, so that that was what I took away from it and then yes, of course it was very
Um, it was very successful. I thought you know as far as our our
Uh, how we interacted with the the crowd there, you know, we do what we do, you know, hijinks and stuff
And we didn't I probably could have done a more mobile stuff, you know
With like the sandwiches they were giving away and some donuts, you know missed opportunities
But uh other than that it was it was a lot of fun hanging out with you guys
and uh
You know being being uh being with the the people
Casey what were your thoughts
Yeah, I think it was a blast. I think uh
I think that size show
Like that's our wheelhouse
Right like at first I was like really only uh like four hours or whatever the show was supposed to go like that's
That's not could be enough time. It's gonna run late or whatever, but I think it was like the perfect
length uh like and like the perfect size too because it it allows
so much more like
Personal like connections like we're able to talk to people more than like just swarms
You know, you know, there was like swarms and then gaps and whatever
Everybody had to walk by our booth at some point everybody
And like the big shows are fun like off-road expose of blasts if we can have a booth, you know, that's
You know a whole different story
But like that that's our wheelhouse and I think we have the most fun there and I think we do the best job at
Some smaller ones like that and I think everything went went great
It is fun like uh when we kind of heck old like cool dudes like yeah, bro
You're not gonna be cool. You're not too cool to sign up for this raffle. Yeah. Yeah
That's what I was gonna say is like we um, is he talking to me if we see think I'm cool. We that's right. I am talking
Yeah, and we're over here at one point fun box get your hands in there
At one point I was commenting on some guys vans and then like I mean like we're really good at the
off-the-cuff interaction with people and um
To kasey's point like that that size of event where everybody had to walk by our booth at some point gave us the chance to kind of
mess with people or or interact with people in some way
And uh, it went really well
I feel like we had a lot of interaction and a lot of interest uh from people that like didn't know who we were
And then wanted to learn more apparently I'm a heart to miss because I was standing right in front of kody
And he's like, hey, we're gonna be taking pictures
Yeah, we're so safe and you were wearing your jersey. Yes
You were a giant orange mountain on your chest. I just couldn't see it. It's like I've been standing here the whole time. Yes
Um
Speaking of which I need to get those pictures from you. Yeah, I know uh, but but I was really
pleased with the uh
The number of people that were there
The interaction from the people that were there
Everybody seemed to be having a good time. The fact that the raffles were great
There were people that got there a and stayed until 1130 because we were like, this is what the raffles are
Like there were there were people that stayed there the entire time
um
The the team at cave is always awesome to work with uh, joji brad
Uh, those guys are great. Uh, mike the service manager
Uh, and john the owner super cool people
Um, if you're a if you're a toyota fan and and you're looking for uh, a toyota company that a toyota dealer
They'll take care of you go down there because they they will do
Um, they're one of the few that they have in-house people doing suspension lifts and outfitting
Well, they wheel themselves. Yeah, that's what I was getting at is not only do they do that
Then they go and put on what they call their cave adventure runs and they just
Go back to three four weeks ago when we interviewed brad hart from there
They put on these runs where they take customers out in their vehicles
Um for 1200 mile trips, right? So these people are this this this organization is living and breathing it
They're you know, they're not just trying to sell a product. They're they're part of the community
And it shows with the way the event went. So I was super happy with it. Um
um
Yeah, I loved it. We need to do more. I want to do more of these events
We're gonna be at that as we mentioned earlier
We're gonna be at the adventure van expo in big bear in october. That's the plan for that one
I think between now and and the end of the year
I want to find a couple more events that we can be at and you know
May taking a truck up to the uh van. Well, if it yeah, no, I can get the tesla there
No problem
That's a hulkin valley ranch. I'm assuming
Uh, no, it was downtown in the village. Yeah, it's in the village. Yeah, it was downtown
Then I'll be able to plug it in and everything look at that
It's in that go ahead and plug it parking lot plug in bro. Oh speaking of plugging in
Plug into my receptacle
Speaking of plugging in and I'm not plugging in anywhere near your receptacle
Uh on july 3rd, we went. I might know I I need I need to plug into a receptacle. I'm not offering my receptacle
On july 3rd
On july 3rd on on july 3rd
No, I plugged in
Wait, it's gotta be your bull. It's gotta be your receptacle
On july 3rd you guys at the fourth time on july 3rd
myself kc zen one of his buddies and susan went wheeling up in big bear and um, I drove up the mountain
Everything was fine. Totally great
I got to to big bear boulevard at pine knot like two blocks from bear valley overland
And the and the truck just died
And I don't mean like stalled sounds familiar just died completely died transmission time
So that's exactly what happened. I was all what the shit
But the thing was like no lights
No clicking no the key didn't do anything. I couldn't put it. I couldn't take it out of gear
nothing
Shit, so I popped the hood and this guy pulls up and he's like hey, do you need to jump and I'm like
I don't think it's the battery. It's not just a dead bat because it's not clicking. It's nothing
No clicky I thought I thought like a main fuse blue or something like so I opened up the fuse box
And I'm I'm like, okay, there's there's nothing visibly bad there
I'm like touching to see if there's anything super hot and then I just happened to grab the uh
check for
Yeah, but temperatures just touching things. Yeah, dude. I was there was a dude. It's july
It's july 3rd on big bear boulevard. There were four billion people of them
120 of them I had just passed on the 330 and they're gonna be pissed off when they get up there and I'm blocking the road
So I or he figured that out. He called me. I'm on the way to the shop. Yeah. Hey, come get me a toe
I'm like come get me. I'm dead. I'm in the boulevard. Hurry up
Yeah, and then as as he's as I hang up with him. I'm thinking to myself
I can't even turn the key and get it out of gear for him. He would like literally have to drag me
To the side of the road
And so while I was looking at fusing stuff
I grabbed the battery the negative battery cable and all the accessories like there's the there's one post
Like that that post was loose and as soon as I touched it it went click click
Son of a bitch and I tighten it by hand real quick boom started right up got myself out of the boulevard
Got to kasey's shop. You know they have pills for that and I don't you have a switch panel
I do have a switch panel. Then why are there any accessories other than one going to your battery?
There's more than one switch
thing
It's just to the ground. It's it's the I need to I need to run a separate ground
Terminal and have everything off of that one terminal
Because at the switch panel, they there's not a common ground at that switch panel relay pack
Because it's a cheaper. It was an amazon version
um, but anyways, I was
super bummed
at
the truck dying and was like
It's gonna be time to get a bronco or something and then it started to stick with the problem
You're gonna stay with the problem on top of the bike. You just got
What's going on? What are you doing, dude? Did you you were from the state department? Wait, wait. Yeah, wait a minute
I know what this is
You won the lotto you won the fucking lotto and you're just not telling anybody. They're gonna be signs
I won't say anything, but there will be signs. No, I
I know
But on that note though like that trip
so we went and did the uh, the squeeze
And then what we call vomit canyon. I don't know if anyone's that's actually the the first trail that hose ever did with us
Yeah, that route we did was the
Basically with the route that we did was the 28 september 2018 trip that we've yeah, but that's not even that bad
For it to be called no no no only that have but the squeeze was far more technical than what I remember it being
And it was super fun. Yeah
Yeah, that area was very fun
And it's called vomit canyon because we took a no, I know but it's like
It's it's really not that bad. It's not
No, there's like one technical spot on that trail, but the squeeze portion of it before we got to vomit canyon
was um
A lot more technical spots and it was like super fun
Yeah, it was a fun fun little day trip and um, um,
Then we headed back I headed back kind of I did the squeeze back in the day in the renegade
You did you did
Which which thinking about thinking back to that. I mean, there's some pretty big boulders and drop-offs to be able to handle that in the renegade
No problem
No problem for me
Um, so yeah, I mean, I hope everybody had a a safe fourth of july. We obviously didn't record last week because of uh fourth of july
Um, how was your fourth of july?
You went down, uh, you you hung out with the fancy people. Oh, that's right. Um, we went
I'm surprised you made it back
You know being like in that environment like oh, I feel like maybe it was drawing you
To no, I wanted to get the f out. I wanted to get the f
Because I was I was laying money. I was talking to money like
They may not no I like it down there and we uh hoity-toities
we
We left a half hour too late
um, because
See, maybe we should say it's already 8 30, but this sounds like something I could dig into just
I do not understand the need
To let off fireworks. I don't I don't understand freedom bro freedom bro. Uh, kasey, kasey hold
Kasey, hold up your hand
But that wasn't from a firework though. No, no, no, no, no the thumb is
Kasey, oh, kasey blew off his thumb
Yeah, you can't really see it anymore the scars. So kasey blew literally
Like imagine imagine your thumb is a hot dog and you sliced that hawk dog with a knife and then opened up the hot dog
To see the bone in the middle of it. That's what kasey did with it
In your face that was in the firework. That was a flare gun
Okay, you had told us it was an m80 suck it
Regardless
Dad thinks I broke my ankle playing over the line
I was on the skateboard. It was two days before all star games all star practice started. Oh
So yeah, so so I told dad I was playing over the line
smart
point point being like just I'm not into it and uh, uh
My my not into it nist was proven
Uh, and I should have been we should have been gone. Um, just people do stupid
Speaking in vagaries and there's like something to say just just but it's like
I'm right about fireworks because some shit happened. I'm not gonna tell you about it. It's it's half hour
And you give a time frame. We know the location. We just don't know what the fuck happened in the location
Yeah, what is this 20 questions on and the location isn't a tank
I'm gonna eat trump flags. Did you see in all trump flags?
Really on 4th of july in that town?
In that town, please. No, no, I had to be like fully in golf
so this is like this is the the border of
Huntington and uh, I don't hence the exactly 30 miles in both directions
Point point. No, it was 30. It was very
Back in the residential area and and just just people lighting fireworks and someone tossed a firework at my at my feet
Because they thought it would be funny
And it was just it was unnecessary and you know, there it is
That's when you you pull out the roman candles and go. What's up hounds and then start launching roman candles at the guys
Unnecessary, so it's it's called, uh, like a nuclear deterrent. That's why I always make sure you have
fancy highly explosive
Things
Yeah, yeah, just in case
Exactly. Oh, oh, was that an m80 and then just you know, come at him with the real was that person that did that? Was he sober?
No, uh, yeah. Oh, oh man. So now it's personal
At least you could say if he was drunk, it's like at least buster at you. Yeah. Yeah
um, so yeah, we we uh, we just we
Were there for a barbecue and then got out of got out of town and got back home and just laid low
Just watched watched a movie and hung out here. How about you guys? What'd you do?
Uh, what did I do for july? I don't think I did anything
Okay, uh, I sat in the pool all day and I drank which was amazing. It was a good time
It was the first time on the pool really, uh for the summer that it was nice and hot
So I was very thankful to have the pool
And then uh, oh, yeah, the sea was busted in my apartment
All right, thanks hosie and then
And then uh, the a few days prior we dude, I don't know why we spent almost $500 on fireworks
But these are the safe insane ones, you know
How much is a sensors for your truck? Exactly dude, exactly
You know what hosie? I I
Invited you. I know that's that event. I
uninvite you
Time travel. I'll figure it out to fucking uninvite you with your lip
But anyhow, so we spent a lot of money on fireworks
And you know, you you get those like variety packs and there's like the little fountain things in them
And then you kind of want some stuff for the kids to like run around with sparklers and stuff and you know
You know aim at each other's eyeballs and stuff, you know
Gotta make it exciting and then we spent like a hundred bucks on this
It was like the size of a a popcorn tin
You know like with a different
Caramel the cheese and the butter 20 inches tall and 18 inches
Diameter, you know, and I'm like, yeah, we gotta like that thing. That's the the coup de gras
You know the the is that at the right, uh coup de gras
I think so. Okay. Crock Crock. Crock. Crock. Crock. Yeah. Thank you. Jose
Yeah, that's gonna be the end of the show and I was telling people at work like oh man
That's how we do it in my neighborhood like everybody down the street and uh the block next uh behind us
There's like no it's six fontana, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It's all fontana
But there's like close to us like six houses that it's just mortars
You know crazy like it's the fontana. Yeah, the the the smiley face ones like it's it's great
It's not just like oh regular shit. I don't know where they're getting this stuff of July. It's not fontana. It's beirut
Yes, and we sell it. We know how to celebrate. We're very patriotic people in fontana. So, uh, and then on our cul-de-sac
It's just like three or four houses. None of us do any of that stuff. It's just regular shit
But it's almost like there's a competition like okay who bought
The the coolest, you know legal stuff and then we just kind of take turns launching
And I had that big giant thing like sitting on the table, you know by the driveway like yeah
You guys got nothing on me this year. Like I look look what's coming
and it fucking sucked
it just
Remember, you know the coolest things were remember piccolo peats. Yes, and then you could squeeze them and then they exploded at the end
You know you'd smash them and lay them down and they'd shoot across the neighborhood
Under a car and then catch it on fire
Yeah, those were fun prepared for this when we were in loftland man. Did you see the fireworks at that place?
No, I know. Yeah, that I think my truck was still working then so
Yeah, I don't know that doesn't make sense. But uh, either way, uh, so we did all that stuff
Um, and luckily I did take the next day off
Which was you know again a brilliant move because I don't feel like doing shit the next day and I didn't
So that that's what we did
It was very festive. Cool. Uh, I did pull out my, uh, you know my fancy speaker that you hated or you know
I did not I did not hate that Karen that Karen hated at mid
Volume that thing was full blast. You know, uh on fourth of july. You're not a responsible user of that of that
Speaker kasey, what'd you guys do?
Uh, we went and did a little bit more wheeling
And then we just hung around the lake
um barbecued
hung out, um
Uh, I almost got into a fight with a guy because they were lighting up off
We were like it next to this dry field
You cannot get into big bear without saying a sign that says yeah
Absolutely no fireworks. Yeah
The student was sitting in like a dry field like in a Honda pilot shooting fireworks out of his sunroof
Hotbox seemed to shit out of his car
And I I just went up there went off on the guy like
Yeah, what the fuck is your problem?
You know, you're gonna burn down the the town of big bear because you got to shoot some fireworks off up here
And that was his argument. He's like this is the fourth of july. You know, it's like I don't give a fuck what day it is
Tell me about burning people's houses down. Yeah, but what about the you know, freedom and
I was like
About to light up another fireworks. Yeah, I'm gonna lose my freedom
Yeah, putting some hurting on you put some freedom four feet up your ass
um
four feet of freedom
That's a pretty good band name right there
four feet of freedom
Up your ass is the first album
Why the four feet?
And is that a linear feet or or like your foot?
You have to figure that out. It's our four feet
Yeah, you gotta listen to the album and then maybe you'll get some insight on whether it's four feet of something
or four actual feet
Each album is one of our foot
Each album covers and be one of our feet
God if we had any musical talent, can you imagine how many different bands we could start?
We could still start bands mouse rat
I have you heard like modern music. You don't have to have talent. Oh, yeah, I generated. Yeah
Well, I hope everybody else had a good holiday and got some time off and did whatever you were did and had a good time
And nobody died and
I appreciate it. We uh, we're gonna appreciate that. I I appreciate it. I appreciate that nobody died
nope
The uh, so I think we're good for the night. I'm uh hitting my wall and uh, I feel like the next conversation's gonna be more than four feet
and um
Can that be the uh episode title four feet of freedom?
No, all right, everybody in the chat room. Thank you for hanging out. We appreciate it
Thank you guys for hanging out every week. Like I said, I hope you had a good holiday and we will talk to you next week
Casey doing dishes back there. What's he's doing? He's doing something
We would like to thank outdoor by four magazine for their continued support
Please do us a favor and go to outdoorx4.com and check out their content
Hey, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We appreciate it
You can find more episodes at trail chasers net. You can follow us on youtube instagram tick tock
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And we are on irate four by four dot com
You can go down to the watch listen and discuss section and listen to all of our episodes and interact with us
Please go check it out and tell us what you think. Thank you so much
Thank you to everyone that participates and listens to this show every week on tuesday nights
We have a bunch of people in the chat room that are there making fun of us and we love it
We love having you guys there. Thank you to everybody that comes on the trail runs with us. We really appreciate it
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On the trail chaser support team at irate four by four dot com. We really appreciate all of your support and it keeps us going
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t e r r i g n o dot com
Check it out. Give him some support. We appreciate it

Ep 277: Fred Wiley from ORBA

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Outdoor by Form Magazine.
The team at Outdoor by 4 puts together a uniquely engaging publication for responsible
vehicle-based adventure travel.
With family-friendly content that resonates with all types of adventures, whether in a 4x4
vehicle on two wheels or traveling by foot.
Go over to www.outdoorx4.com to subscribe to the magazine, either in print or digital,
to catch all of their 100% original and unbiased content.
The episode is also brought to you by CABE Venture located in the CABE Toyota dealership
in Long Beach, California.
CABED Venture is your one-stop shop for all your off-road and overland needs.
From suspension and armor to camping gear, it's all available for you to touch and feel
in their newly built showroom.
The Trail Chaser's team will be there hosting the CABED Venture Grand Opening event on July 9th
from 80m to noon.
Please come out to Long Beach and join us for the festivities.
There's going to be raffles and giveaways and other fun stuff to do.
You can find all the details at TrailChaser's.net.
Today on the show, we talk to Fred Wiley with Orba, the off-road business association.
We talk about all the work that Orba does to keep our trails open and accessible to all
of us off-roaders.
Then we get back to doing what we do best, juvenile humor, that pent-up energy has to
have an outlet.
And tonight it was talking about the caucus caucus that's I swear Fred, you set off something
with our group in the chat room.
Sorry.
And it was a hit.
Unfortunately, like I promised you, they let their pent-up frustration and words fly
as soon as he got off the phone.
It was good.
Hey everybody, it is 6.30 on Tuesday night.
We are live on YouTube as we are every Tuesday night.
This week we are joined by Fred Wiley from Orba, that's the off-road business association.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me.
I really think this is going to be fun.
Yeah, me too.
I appreciate you coming on.
We'll ask you after.
Yeah, we'll get an actual opinion from you later because you might regret this.
But so, Orba off-road business association, you can find them at OrbaBusiness.org
For those of you that aren't familiar, Orba is an organization that's a leader in providing
trail advocacy and all of the things that we do in our off-road overlanding space is supported
by Orba as a whole.
And I'm sure I'm not doing it just this.
Fred, do you want to give us the 30 second background of Orba?
Yeah, the down and dirty is 20 plus years ago, a gentleman by the name of Roy Denter
in the San Diego area decided that it was time that we do a better job of what we're doing
and keeping public land open.
He knew that it's going to take a lot of money.
He wanted to bring in professionals.
And therefore, he went to the corporate side of our industry and said,
hey, we need to do this differently.
And we need to step up and bring in professionals.
That's where my self and our team came from.
It is our job from the corporate side to connect the grassroots to the corporations.
But at the same time, keep all lands open, public private, the dunes.
It pizmo, wherever you think about, that's where we're at.
Yeah, I mean, that's the hot one.
I was going to say you mentioned pizmo and that's constantly in my feed.
And it's a pizmo is one of those places we grew up off-roading.
And I absolutely loved it.
So when you 20 years ago, the organization started,
when did you become part of the organization?
2005, I kept running into Roy at different types of meetings.
VLM for service, safe, parks, all of those kinds of things.
And so I was working in the snowville industry when a recreation
more than anything at the time.
And Roy kept coming over to me and he said,
Fred, you need to come talk to us and see what we can do moving forward.
And I said, look Roy, you're a great guy.
But you're way too far to the right for me, publicly.
And so let's see what we can do later on.
So he called me again.
They should come on down, let's talk.
And this is in San Diego.
It's where Orb is started.
So we went down and come to an agreement of figuring out how to play.
Who could play good cop and who could play bad cop.
But our theory and our work is based on the fact,
if you're not at the table, you're not going to get anything done.
And sometimes table pounders don't get there.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's, I think it's a very good point for people to think about
is like all of the things that we do from an off-road outdoor recreation perspective.
There's a lot of stuff going on around that as far as regulations and rules
and what have you.
And we're out there enjoying it as enthusiasts.
We're not in a lot of cases, especially 20 years ago,
weren't really plugged into what was happening in the background.
And we started seeing closures and restrictions and things like that.
And it wasn't until organizations like this like Orbah got involved
on that side of the equation to be advocates for us out there in the world
that we were able to keep these public lands open and start advocating
for those types of recreational activities.
Coming from the winter sports world.
Are you, so you said you're in Baker's field, right?
I know.
Sounds silly, doesn't that?
I was just going to ask.
That doesn't strike me as like the mecca of winter sports.
So it kind of is to an extent.
So the Southern Sierra Nevada's are at the edge of Baker's field.
And so all of the mountains to the east of us and north of us get good heavy snow.
I think you saw a big bear getting buried this last winter.
So we have a little ranch up there that's been in the family for 75 years.
And so we wanted to go in the winter time.
So we got into snowmobiling to do that.
One thing led to another.
We needed trail access.
We needed a lot of different things.
You know, to be able to do this in the winter time.
So I got into it there.
Work my way over about 10 or 12 years up to the international level.
I negotiated at the time with the Russians and Swedish to bring them in.
At the international level and host at several conferences in North America.
To discuss snowmobiling and advocacy, how we move it forward, all of those aspects.
But to step back a little bit, I've always worked in public relations.
Worked from Mercedes-Benz that back in the 80s as public relations.
General Motors the same way.
Public relations.
Figuring out how to keep people happy.
Keep products moving forward and make sense of everything is my real background.
Okay.
So when I met Roy, I've always done summer things, but in the mountains when you have a ranch.
Summers work time.
It's not play time.
Winners when we would play.
So it worked out that way for me.
I have UTVs now.
Side by side.
The ATVs.
No more dirt bikes.
Don't get a chance to use them because taking care of the ranch and all of those things.
Each of my summer time.
See if I had a ranch in a summertime, I'd build a track in the back.
Just to raise the fence line or something.
Yeah.
Well, here's the deal with my area.
As our former president, Mr. Clinton, came in and created the giant Sequoia National Monument.
We had to fight to keep our private property because people don't live in national monuments.
Oh wow.
So that was part of it at the political world.
We went all the way to the Supreme Court.
We did not win.
But we did manage to keep our private property within the giant Sequoia National Monument.
So you learn through those processes.
Personal battles for what you believe in moving forward.
And you begin to apply that in a lot of different areas.
It ended up planned use for, you know, whether it was Mercedes GM or whoever it was.
Is the groundwork and the training to work with people.
And then moving forward.
If you can't resolve situations, no matter where you're at, you're not doing your job.
Mm-hmm.
That's interesting how the public relations field translates so smoothly into what you're doing now.
From a perspective of the skill sets and things that you learned in that corporate life and how it kind of helps you with what you're doing today.
Yes.
Our efforts and other things, if you remember Johnson Valley issue that we had starting in 2010, we met, worked together, brought together huge groups.
Well, orbit and our team are who laid the structure out for that land.
If you're standing, you're not going to beat the Marine Corps at their game.
If they want something, they're going to get it.
Yeah.
So our concept was we're not going to fight with the Marine Corps.
We're going to bring to the table a concept of what we call share use.
They use it when they need it.
Then they hand it back over to us.
Mm-hmm.
That was a team effort by a lot of people that worked out well.
And now that you mentioned that back in 2010, it was a big issue.
I think it recently popped up a couple years ago with some additional annexations they were looking for.
But for the most part, I feel like that Johnson Valley area has been stable for quite a while.
Would you agree with that?
It is stable.
And we do still every day, not every day, but you know, on a regular business basis, we communicate work with the Marine Corps in Washington, D.C. at the Pentagon and several other places.
Again, when it comes to the world we live in today, you need to bring answers.
You can't just fight.
I think we've learned that with our new congressional leader, Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House.
Kevin has my congressman in our two or three times a year.
Okay.
So we have direct access through those personal relationships.
We build a team.
We build the answer.
We see what will work.
And sometimes it takes a long time to make all that work.
So it is about figuring out how to move things forward and not lose.
Yeah, that's interesting.
And I feel like, you know, going back to 2010 or 20 years ago when you said you started this,
I feel like it's probably been an uphill battle and gotten harder rather than easier over the course of the last 20 years.
Would you agree with that?
Well, there's certain aspects that are harder.
We have to remember that every place we want to recreate, especially in the West, is controlled by the administration, which is the president's office.
Congress makes the rules, but the administration controls those.
Every time you get a change in administration, you get a change in policy.
So you have to understand where the different administrations are going to work and move forward.
What you can do and what you can't do.
We can, we can win with opposition is he, in fact, President Obama is the one who signed the Johnson Valley project in December of 2015.
So Democrat logic.
So what we did is we found a way where they had to buy into it because we presented it in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Where Congress said, you guys need money to keep your military moving.
We want this in that as well.
So you figure out how to leverage the different administrations and people that are there.
And you do it one way today and next week it may be a little bit different.
Yeah, and I'm sure each, each administration and each agenda is different and coming up with a solution for one is going to be different than it was the last time.
It's probably a constant moving target for you and your team.
It is very much so.
The main thing is to to continue with your your relationships at all different levels.
So as everything changes, you still have a place to go and present your where so to speak.
In the in the general landscape of the of your projects right now what is what is the the most critical area that you're working on or worried about right now.
So.
There's several things to be on this presenting a new management plan that is a complete pilot junk.
We will be working on that the for service will will follow suit.
But I have to say this and I don't want to be districts back to anybody, but the you the modern UTV user is not the same as we have typically seen oh HD folks in the fact in the past.
So our goal right now is somehow how is it that we act to make them.
Into the system where.
Kind of some of the old rules are going to prevail whether you like it or not.
But just we still want you to have fun.
So working with Matt Martelli and and the guys that tread lightly.
Yep.
Seema.
Seema sets on our board of directors.
So our biggest project right now is how is it that we figure out this new user group.
And how to bring them into the fold and not restrict, you know, their personal values.
And so and I don't think you're I don't think you're sorry Matt, but I don't think you're offending anybody because this is all stuff we've already said.
Yeah, I was going to say I think we've discussed this a number of times that you know if I can jump to a conclusion work.
We're talking about etiquette right like and use of use of our land and pack it in pack it out and tread lightly and all the things we've talked about this multiple times.
And we go back to we the barrier to entry so low now.
Yes, that you can finance these things for 20 years.

Have $200 payment and then everyone just buys them and they.
They didn't grow up doing this.

They didn't know anyone growing up on this.
So now the trash and all that stuff.
Yeah.
And I think it's very it's very different than when I got and I was 19 when I got my first off road truck.
And it was very much like I don't know what I'm doing.
There's no internet.
There's no Instagram.
So it was go to the store by all the magazines or the internet before the before cell phones before.
Yes.
So so yeah.
Model off road.
Yes.
You had to crank the thing in the front of your CJ seven to get it started before we all just to get around.
Just get to work.
Yeah.
Rhodes.
It's my point.
My point being is like the only information you had was available in magazines and every magazine had some portion dedicated to the packet in packet out tread lightly principles.
And so you kind of picked that up as you were learning.
And then when you went to somebody to you know ask for help or whatever it was an older wheeler that was like, okay, make sure you bring a trash bag and make sure you do these things.
To your point Jose somewhere in the last 10 to 15 years when you TV's became a thing you didn't there was none of that.
It was literally drive it by it at the show room and drive it to jail.
Yeah.
And buy the trailer in the finance at all and then just go on.
Yeah.
And we've had some conversations with Matt about you know the tread lightly is stuff he's been on the show and and right you know there's I feel like there's a way to do this to educate to.
To to your what you said was bring bring them into the fold and still help them find ways to enjoy the the out door offering the same way we do.
Yes.
So the other thing that that we have seen fade over the years is that clubs and associations are not popular anymore there's a lot of online stuff that goes on.
So a lot of the connectivity came from came from club events or club meetings kind of handing down what went on and how you moved forward and educating people that way.
So I don't know that we'll ever go back to where that used to be but but it makes it today's world for me communications is probably the hardest thing.
That's why event shows and events like this are super important.
We need to get the word out that we have we know how to keep this land open but but if you know if all we're doing this turn up dust and trash and making noise.
Places like Moab and Sedona and not we're going to lose them we're already beginning to lose some of it.
Yeah for sure I think I think part of the problem too is that the laws and stuff the trail laws is like they segment that that population of the offro community to the tone thing.
So it's like they don't know any like they don't know any better just they're going to stay within their their own little.
You know area that they're allowed to because they're not not you can just drive around those things up and big.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah but I feel like if they opened up the trail trails to all motorized thing motorized vehicles like even a TVs and.
The other people that already like Jeepers and offer will hold them accountable.
Or or going back to what what Fred was just saying about the clubs like if there were more clubs and organization that were intermixed with you know your your offroader your overlander and your UTV.
There'd be a sharing of ideals and we're so segmented as a society sometimes where the rock crawlers don't want to talk to those overland lame guys and the overlanders aren't you know talking to the.
Yeah and so so all if you get a group of I say group not necessarily an organized group but like a group of individuals that start UTV going out on UTV's together the only thing they know is what they already know.
Yeah and I think if you were to open up access more access for the UTV crowd.
When they start getting on the trails that they weren't they weren't allowed to before and they see other vehicles.
They're going to be held accountable like people are not going to be taking the like you can't just leave our trash here like no yeah.
Right.

I don't know.
Kids 22 though like how how long how long will it take for them to be educated before they destroy the trails.
Well the other side of that too and I think the manufacturers have some blame to take and this is when you present a 200 horsepower turbo model whatever and try to put that on a mountain trail of big bear that doesn't work.
Yeah.
You know that belongs you know an imperial or someplace like that and so they don't educate the customer it's all about here's the horsepower go use it.
And the law requires the user to understand what the rule is.
It's just like a driver's life and you're supposed to know what the law is, period.
So I think there's a work to be done there but I'm going to lead into a little bit different segue within or but we have several different components one of those components is what we call our one voice program.
And that is a linking together of all OHV people around the country we now have 26 states three Canadian provinces Alaska just joined and that is a communication system for you bring your problems to the orbit team on a call.
And we filter through the problem and try to help you get a direction and when it's time we take that to industry and bring their support financially.
Interesting and so when you when you say problem are we talking about trail cleanup are we talking about safety equipment for you TV writers what types of problems are you seeing in that in that form.
It's a little bit different based on our year at so for example New York state because of their insurance rules and laws.
It's just lost its ability to ensure their trail systems so we stepped up and brought in some professional insurance groups from around the country we should have that solved in a couple of weeks.
So what happens is these independent groups have issues it may be it's going to be different depending on where you're at.
We try to break it down regionally have the discussion ended off to our team and I have to say we have the highest trained and educated OHV team in the country we all ride something.
So we have managed on profits we have attorneys the team is professional all levels and then we decide from a team perspective what the alternatives are.
Do we go back and help it in an individual level with an answer there is a simple answer or not and then we take it to industry.
Our board of directors and they provide their corporate knowledge and all of them are all for others as well.
You might imagine Greg had her with four real parts Fred Franklin look down on.
They're all all for others as well so they get the concept they add the value to this and they'll add their dollars is the same time.
And and those that that one voice counsel if you will is that just made up of all of the different board member I mean member organizations or is there a specific subset that's participating in the one voice.
Anybody can join.
Anybody can come in and I can't tell you I mean southern poor will drive has 12 states New York has the largest registration program in the country.
Vermont New Hampshire everything is a little bit different because there's a mix of public and private land trail systems so so we have staff that's from that area.
We have staff from the west upper Midwest is so we understand how to work within those areas to bring answers from our side to help those groups who are struggling to to make it work in their in their areas.
Alaska I don't know if you know too very much about federal grants but Alaska had a series of grants working for them and their OHV world and they got a new governor and he appointed a new guy and he took the grants away.
So we made a few calls and let them know who to talk to and what to say and what's in 40 days they had their grants back.
Wow and you know what that and I think let's let's play let's give people the benefit of the doubt right so if someone news comes into an organization a government organization like that and they they look at this there's a grant there's X amount of dollars of grants going to trail such and such.
Who cares about that like if someone someone's not maybe it's not manipulative or malicious maybe it's just ignorance they don't they've never gone out on a trail they didn't think anybody use those trails anymore.
You know and just knowing who to talk to to say hey wait a minute you took all that money away here's all the good things that we were using it for that you didn't know existed.
And you know kudos you guys to get someone in government to change their mind.
Well exactly and I'll go back to President Obama as much as you may have felt that he was on on our side he told the bureau of.
Reclamation to do an economic impact study on recreation in the United States it's eight hundred and sixty two billion dollars.
It's larger than oil and ag.
Recreation is one of the largest industries in this country when you have the ability to take facts from the federal government to a local governor.
Yeah, especially if those facts include the the real dollars of this is what your state will lose in tourism and commodities and and consumerism if you take this away.
If you for example Johnson Valley if King of the hammers one away that was seventy six million dollars away from the local economy.
Yes, yes that entire that entire valley exists.
For one year the equivalent of a Christmas tree farm they make all of their money in two weeks and then they just coast the rest of the year we got to open up.
Yeah exactly and so and so the out of the goodness of those people is rough the ground is they can be during the event they do a lot for that entire community out there year round.
You got the district thirty seven of AMA guys that hold about thirty events a year out there on weekends they buy gas chips water beer.
Yeah, whatever they need to buy while they're out there recreating so we just what what happens is there are many organizations that are great at dealing as an organization at a local level, but they don't have the professional staff to do what we do.
But we need from them is we need their story and their information because we can't be everywhere I don't know everywhere.
I need your story we have a team that can help figure out what you need but we need to know the facts and the data from your area.
And so let's go let's talk about those professionals a little bit how how how did or but go about identifying what professionals they needed and then getting those people to come on board.
So just like most any industry you kind of bump into people that are doing similar things to what you're doing and you either can work with them or you can't.
And then you sit down and decide you know the team develops a direction but works what makes sense in a comfort level within the team.
And then you those people kind of surface over a working relationship over time.
You don't create a land use consultant in college it doesn't happen.
So so it's experience that they have gained by working for example Alexis Nelson or East Coast person who happens to live in Reno.
And moved out here is tired of the snow and Maine for a month but she managed the largest nonprofit in the Northeast for 13 years.
Okay and and so she did all of the things it takes to manage and it's an offer out nonprofit.
$5 million a year was their budget.
Wow and so I met Alexis and her dad years ago my wife and I had dinner with him at another event and we just stayed on his friends and as both of our lives changed over the 20 years or so.
We saw the talent that each one of us brought to the table and that's how we do it.
So we do that was got Jones one of our attorneys out of Colorado and Texas.
We look at David Hubbard our attorney out of San Diego who is the lead attorney on Oceano.
Okay.
You know you you find the people who like the way you present yourself and work and how you develop information and data and then that's how you build your team.
Got it.
Got it.
You can't you can't run an ad that doesn't work.
How many people are on the or but team right now.
There's seven right now.
Okay.
I feel like you can finally find who's 17 more right.
Well if I had the money.
Yeah it's exactly.
There's a lot of work to be done and so that goes to the other side when you look at partnering with corporations and other businesses.
So Matt called well and I started out because tread lightly was doubling a little for a while.
And then Matt came aboard and we saw I and we we looked at some different projects that we can work on together right now we're targeting Sedona.
But but the theme of tread lightly is a core theme to what we need as a tool to keep public land open.
So that's a tool in the toolbox just like an attorney is a tool in the toolbox.
You put those tools together and those people is the important that's my job.
I put people together to try to make things work.
So you can you can look at development of different things and so that from tread lightly I want to go to FEMA.
The FEMA supports us in a very very big way.
I have lunch or dinner with their president to three times a year.
And there Washington D.C. staff is on our board of directors. I brought their vice president to Bakerfield to meet congressman or car.
They when he became speaker.
Those are the kinds of teamwork people that you need out there.
But it took time to develop it to where they trusted us and we trust them.
It doesn't happen overnight.
And the day come they said Fred.
Tell us what kind of check you need.
Yeah, I was going to say and I would think that not only trust, but over time you and your team develop an understanding of what levers need to be pulled based on what the existing administration is trying to accomplish.
Whether that be money savings or conservation or what have you.
I mean, I feel like someone like you and your team has to be very plugged into what's happening not only environmentally,
but politically at all times to be able to move those chess pieces on the board to have the right outcome.
Yes, so you're exactly right. You have to decide as you said what lever to pull and win.
So we can go back to Johnson Valley and talk about what we had to do there.
A part of bringing the teams together meant we brought everybody together.
There was nobody eliminated.
I think the number was $750,000 worth of product and work that we did for that project.
But we brought in another lobby firm in Washington, D.C. that were retired military.
We knew that we had to understand how the military worked to accomplish our goals.
And they helped us set that standard.
Yeah.
So it wasn't something we knew automatically.
So once again, if it's economics, your military or conservation, you find out who the key people are to help you get those things done.
Yeah.
And I, that's, that's genius.
Like the idea of bringing in ex military to get the behind the curtain understanding of what,
well, if you say this, and sometimes it can be as simple as just the verbage.
Yeah, verbage or the phrasing or the vernacular.
Like if you say this, this is how they're going to receive it.
And you're going to be, they're going to be an opposition immediately.
You know, this is what they mean when they say ex.
And being able to identify who those key players are and how to end getting them involved in your efforts is probably a PR skill set that you've developed over a long time.
Well, it does take a lot of work there.
And you're exactly right when I said, we knew that we couldn't fight the Marine Corps in land.
That was pretty simple, but what tactic is it going to take to, you know, to equal that out.
And that's where we needed to help from other professionals.
Everything that we've done who do at Orba has a business plan and a financial plan.
No matter what project we take on, we have to lay it out and, you know, you're talking to corporate leaders.
The CEOs of these major companies, the being counters, they're attorneys and everything you can think of.
You better be prepared if you're going to get into their wallet.
And that's what we bring to the table, which I think sometimes is a little more difficult for the local clubs and associations.
Is they haven't been able to to create that conversation.
And they may not even know where to start, right?
I mean, just just because someone has a large, I think about the tiered ill soul event down in Okatea Wells by Red Rock, right?
Red Rock full little drive club has been around for a hundred years.
And they, they're probably one of the largest most prolific Jeep clubs in the state.
And they probably have some good connections, but I don't know that they're having dinner with their local congressmen twice a year.
You know what I mean?
There's a limit to their reach in some cases.
And that's where you guys have the ability.
That's this is what you do, right?
And that's where you guys are able to bring additional resources to the table.
Yes.
So again, that connection on the ground.
So the Red Rock forewailers are in Utah.
And the San Diego group is Southern California.
I don't, none of the people that are representing them are, I'm not a constituent to them.
I mean, nothing to them.
But when I say John Green over here lives in your district, their ears perk up.
And I'm here to help him out getting what he needs.
So that's why I say we have to connect the people on the ground to industry to make this work.
And I feel like, unfortunately, as the off-road and overland sports and community grows,
as it has in an exponential rate over the last five years to 10 years,
it, I think, puts that much more strain on your organization.
Is that an accurate assessment?
Well, the strain is an interesting concept to look at.
If we can communicate amongst ourselves and find common interest, it makes my job a lot easier.
So one of the things I fear within the overlanding groups is they don't understand that they're facing the same issues of closure
that the off-road groups are facing.
Those rules are going to affect them.
And so, let's say you leave Florida and you want to overland in Montana.
And you think I'm going to go up here and build a campfire along the stream.
And you get there and you get a big o-ticket.
Well, that's because they're not engaged locally to no one see what's happening.
And if they love that area, they should be engaged in making sure they get to use it the way they want to.
That's where I see the missing link in the overlanding groups.
And the ability to communicate them. They're good people don't get me wrong.
But they think we're all idiots.
Yeah, and I could say maybe they're right.
Hey, well, some cases.
I was going to say I think in each case are in each and each niche of what we do.
Whether it be rock crawlers, off-roaders, overlanders, UTVs, adventure motor, whatever.
There's always a group of idiots in each one of those groups.
And unfortunately, the idiots are the ones that get the most airtime and views in comparison to the people that are doing it correctly and try to advocate for these things.

And that's just the reality of most of our society today is that, you know, the sometimes the worst players get the most airtime.
And but I think doing what you guys are doing and bringing those groups together, at least to the table to have a conversation is how it all starts.
It is. And so honestly, I know that there.
So I live by a theory of recreation is the go down the highway with our equipment and we all need a trailhead.
Some of us are going to be overlanding. Some of us are going to be in a jeep. Some are going to be on a quad.
So so we use that staging area as the point to start and then we design the system where we are together for just a little bit.
And then we go on to area that is conducive to what we want to do.
And we respect what the other people want to do and don't interfere with that, but we don't lose our opportunity.
And I think that's an important point is the respect of what like I am not a UTV guy.
I know plenty of people that are. I respect I've been in UTVs in Pizmo and Glamis if they're super fun.
It's not something that I personally want to do with this time in my life.
And I don't think a person in the UTV inherently doesn't deserve respect.
And whether someone's in a UTV or a bike or a Jeep or whatever, it's their actions in the environment on the trail that will determine whether or not they get respected.
Because I've been in UTV environments where plenty of UTV people have said, hey stop, you know, you're doing this incorrectly clean up your mess.
Let's make sure we don't do this. And that's just indicative of them understanding what we need to do.
I'm not sure exactly what my point is, but just the ability to respect each other for the different types of sports and activities that we do seems to be there.
We just have to remember that just because we had an experience with one guy on a KTM dual sport and he did something stupid and it pissed you off like, you know, Jose, then it doesn't mean that all guys on KTM dual sports or idiots.
I get it. I completely get it. And so that's the issue. I mean, we see it everywhere.
User conflict has been on the table for decades. It's not going to go away. It's how we figure out how we're going to eliminate or reduce it as much as possible.
So there's another theory that I have been working on at the national level is most of the funding for projects on federal and state land is funded through either registration or fuel tax rebates.
Because when you don't fix a highway with the gallon of gas, you've got the tax from that money comes back to a program.
The problem is that there are a lot of users out there that are not registering and they're not accommodating the fuel side of it, but they're drawing from that money.
So that seems somewhat unfair. So my push today is to bring a quality.
And so maybe if you look at the fact that if you vote fish, huh, you have to have a permanent or a license almost for every quarter you go.
Why is it the OHV community looking at it the same way? I think the Lambus is doing it.
Yeah, there are other areas. Why can't we apply that principle everywhere?
Yeah, everybody. I know for like twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four dirt bike model like they're not even issued california, even issuing like green sticker.
Green sticker or licenses to some really a lot of them really.
Yeah, that's a very confusing issue. It's part of the old red sticker program. And so it's going to get itself worked out. There's a bill and in Sacramento now.
And that's actually where that goes. But the red sticker vehicles are race vehicles. They're not compliant with air quality standards.
And so it's been controversial for a long time. Well, this has to see how that shakes out.
KTM doesn't build a green sticker vehicle.
They're all plated.
And it's either plated or they're all plated.
Yeah.
So that's a separate issue. But if you look around the country, if you look at the fact that the new E vehicles that we're seeing every far, the E bikes.
Hot hikers backpackers cross country scares.
They don't pay into this system at all.
Mm-hmm. That doesn't seem fair.
And to your point, there are pizmoglamists, the Oregon sand dunes. There are places that already do that.
There's the event, the same or do you know a national force adventure pass where you can buy the adventure pass.
But I was just trying to look at the link that says when where it is required and where to purchase the pass.
Like, we go up to Big Bear all the time.
And there have been times where I've had the adventure pass on my truck and not.
And I don't know, and, you know, you buy the train station.
I know the audio is probably jacked up on my head post.
But so the California, that's the fact that you used to have to have it like anywhere you go.
Now you only have to have it if you're going to park somewhere that's maintained by the city, county or state.
So like somewhere where you go, you know, staff, bathrooms, fire pits, BBQs, things like that.
But just to park, you used to be, like even to park along the highways, just to hike.
You had to have it. Now that's gone away.
So it's only to use, or if there's snow, if there's snow, then you need to have it to park pretty much anywhere.
At least up here, if you're down the way.
Thanks for that, Indicator.
You're not going to declare the snow park.
I'm going to mute that guy.
Yeah.
Some weirdo.
It was like a ghost.
It was like a weirdo.
It hasn't said anything all night because his phones messed up.
And he can't log in on his computer because he's dumb.
He sounded like a pretty wise ghost to me.
He's not, he's a smart guy, but very knowledgeable.
Yeah, that's for that's my brother who logged in late because his computer was working.
And for some reason, he's wearing underwater headphones that you can barely hear.
I don't know where underwater heads are.
Yeah.
So that's why we couldn't hear him?
Yes.
Good. He had headphones.
I got here on the submarine.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
He's probably underwater.
Sounds like that.
But to your point, I do feel like there is a way to establish a mechanism of microtransactions that would
create an influx of revenue for you guys to do what you need to do.
And so instead of like large-scale taxes or large, you know, just a five-dollar pass every
time you go on the trail or a $15 yearly pass for X, Y, and Z.
You know, I mean, those kinds of small in, I'm going to say, in significant privileges.
Yeah.
That it essentially become donations.
Yeah.
Who's monitoring that?
You know, is that like the, like, local you set it up in the policy?
Does it go into the general fund?
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.
I'm sure there's a back-and-hold back-and process for that thing.
Okay.
I don't have to worry about that.
You don't have to worry about that.
Okay.
That's good.
That's my job.
That's yeah.
I trust Fred.
I don't want you involved.
I'm out.
But yeah.
To your point, I do feel like there's a way to do that and help generate more money.
And I do, no matter what you do, whether it be the form of a pass purchase or a tax.
There's always going to be opposition.
And, and valid points for it against.
But I would suspect that in the off-road and overland community that is aware, educated and aware of what's going on in our, in our world,
that the purchase of a pass to go wheeling for the day or an annual, or an annual license.
An annual license?
Yeah.
You know, you know, you twenty-five dollars to purchase an annual pass for x-wansy.
I don't know that there'd be that much opposition to that in the core off-road and overland community.
So you have to do that in many of the Northeastern states already because they,
for example, there's no off-roading in Connecticut.
But they go everywhere else.
And so there's no way for them to pay into the system without a permit.
So we call it pay to play.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a good point because if we go to Parker Arizona and wheel for a week, we're not, there's nothing we're doing that,
that contributes to the Parker Arizona community, or, or environment.
Talk about it.
I went to that Walmart, like every day while we were probably sped.
How many times, how many episodes have I talked about?
We need to make sure all of our runs now are within five miles of a Walmart.
Correct.
You did, you did prop up the community for a week.
Parker, they were very happy with the money, the dollars that I brought.
Yeah.
But that Walmart put it in the general fund.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's a very good point.
You know, and I'm sure someone like you or on your team would be able to lay out the guidelines and the pros and cons.
And you know, there's obviously cost and ministering and monitoring a program like that and what's the offset there.
But I don't, I don't disagree with the idea of a, of a paid-a-play program like that.
Well, it's going to be a little different in different places.
I mean, Guamath is not going to work, you know, in the middle of Wyoming.
Yeah.
So, so that's, that's the reason why we need to look at a structure and build a plan that will
plan that works in a specific area.
And, and again, I go back to hunting and fishing.
How do you think they controlled their population or fishing?
You get a, a trout tag or you get a butterflies.
Yes.
It's only good in a certain area.
Mm-hmm.
That's how you're able to monitor and control what's going on.
That money stays in those systems.
It doesn't go to general fund.
Mm-hmm.
And so they replenish the fish.
They make sure the herd's healthy.
They do whatever they can.
And so I think we need to look at a system that that may not be exactly like that,
but something similar for the user can see value and participate in what they get.
Mm-hmm.
Or you just charge every UTV owner like 58% tax.
I'm not going to have run every UTV sir.
You guys are going to mess it up.
No, I'm just kidding.
I mean, if you're buying a $30,000 UTV or a $20,000 KPM or whatever it may be,
if you don't want to pay 35 bucks to use it.
Yeah.
Or 10 bucks a day?
Yeah.
I'm wrong.
I'm going to afford it because I spent my $20,000 on my KT.
Yeah.
Well, I was going to make that point like overlanders as a rule are spending $100,000 on stuff
that they strap to the side of their truck.
A $35 annual pass or like you said a $10 weekend pass or whatever.
That's just part of it, right?
And I think that for those enthusiasts, man,
I'm probably going to get some hate mail for this.
But for those enthusiasts that, like I said, are educated and understand it,
it would make the program like that would weed out the people that weren't going to take care of the trail anyways.
Like anybody that's like, I'm not going to pay for that pass
is the same person that was not going to pack out their trash.
Yeah.
Right?
So the good concept.
Yeah.
So I would think it's almost a, like a weed out gatekeeper.
Yes.
It's almost a gatekeeper.
Like if you're not, if you're not going to pay to go do,
if you're not going to pay the $15 fee for your adventure pass for the day,
you're the same person that would leave a fire out there that would leave trash out there that would spin your wheels on the trail,
then you're going to go someplace else anyways.
Right?
And then I think that makes that preserves the trails for the people that are participating in the solution.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hate mail it.
Cody at TrailTacers.net.
Yeah.
Don't put out my email.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
They'll blast me.
Look, look, look, I don't, and I don't end view for having to come up with some of these solutions.
I mean, all of this, the world that we live in today,
requires money to do things.
And you need to get that money from someplace, whether it be people or governments or
where do I get this?
Yes, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't have any of it.
I get my money from my wife because I'm unemployed and she takes care of me.
Can I get money from my wife?
Ooh, that's going to be a tough sell.
Uh, let me throw out another theory.
The federal government is running deficits.
Do you think they should be maintaining trail?
Are keeping the military going?
Ooh.
So if we understand, if we understand that they don't really have the money to do this,
we need to figure out how to make sure we keep doing it.
Yes.
And I'm going to use Yellowstone National Park as an example.
I've been snowing being there since 1985.
It was open.
You paid five bucks to go through.
That's it.
Today, you can't do it without modern equipment,
guides and everything else.
And you have to buy a path not only for the park,
but Idaho and Wyoming that the same time.
So it's $300 just to go right in Yellowstone,
not counting your equipment and your trip.
Wow.
But we're still there.
And we have the choice to go.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and I think, so again, part of what you guys are also doing,
bringing these organizations, these corporate organizations together,
as part of this collective organization,
because their livelihood depends on it too.
If you're a manufacturer of aftermarket parts for the off-road world,
and all of the off-roading goes away, you need to find a new job, right?
So the idea that some of your member organizations that you have
listed on your website here,
they're investing their time and money and resources and capabilities
to further the cause, because, again,
if using full-wheel parts is an example,
if everybody stops off-roading, there's no full-wheel parts.
Right.
What kind of show you know what our motto is?
Hmm.
No trails, no sale.
Yeah.
If off-road, we went away.
What kind of show do we have?
We talk about Marvel movies.
We can speak.
I agree.

I agree.

I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
That's what I mean.
I don't know if it would have a podcast about conspiracy theories.
And Marvel movies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I probably wouldn't walk.

It's fine.
We're not forever.
You'd be right in line with everybody else.
Still, worried about it.
Everyone's in a while this show goes down a random marvell
tangent, and we have a half of the audience
sticks around for it, because they love it, the other half says I'm out.
Yeah, that's funny.
Um, so there's another theory that I built a lot of our business plans around.
And I have an old old NASCAR background.
Okay.
When Riverside was still open and Ontario.
Yep.
I used the structure that a NASCAR team uses as part of the business planning.
Is how do you succeed at racing?
You have to bring the right people together.
You have to have a plan.
You have to have the equipment.
You have to know what you're doing.
And so I've watched NASCAR evolve since five was involved.
And then in the mid 70s, what it is today.
And it's kind of searching today for what's next.
But they're still out drawing on television.
A lot of other sports activities.
Yeah.
It's still one of the largest attended events supporting events every year.
So you kind of think about what is successful in our world.
And you look at those models and try to replicate them.
And that'll go right down to the club level.
Yeah.
And you know what's interesting.
You talk about the club.
You brought this up a little bit earlier too.
And I kind of skipped over it.
But I remember, where are I going to date when I started a wheeling?
That was the thing.
Like there was always a club.
Somewhere in your neighborhood.
And they were big.
Like if you went, if you were a deep guy, you were a member of one of four clubs here.
I think those were gangs.
Yeah.
You grew up in Ontario.
I'm so proud of this.
Yeah.
You got you got jumped in.
You got jumped in.
You got you're trying to.
You did wear a certain color band and soil up your Jeep club.
References there.
No.
I know where you.
My point being, like if you were a deep guy, you were probably a member of one of the four clubs here in the area.
And I don't feel like that's the case anymore.
I feel like those large clubs that had hundreds of members have separated into smaller
Instagram clicks, like ours.
And there's not this big.
So getting the message out, the proper message out from one organization to its hundred members,
it was easier than trying to get the message out to 58 different organizations with ten members each.
I mean, yeah.
Right.
Right.
And so, do you all remember United Warwood Drive?
I'm picturing the whole of my head.
Yeah.
United was the largest Jeep association in the country at one time.
And they got themselves mixed up in a project in telco and lost it.
And what happened is they ended up failing after that.
So our board of directors goes back a long way.
And they said, we cannot let the name of United Warwood Drive go away as a national deep organization.
That is now housed within Orba.
Oh wow.
So we have a connection and we manage United and it's mainly a communication system now.
But that's where we reach to the four world drive world.
We use AMA to reach to the motorcycle, competition motorcycle world.
We use a U.S.A United Stomobile Alliance to reach their 350,000 members.
Really?
I was going to say like 12 members.
No.
I thought you were going to stop at 350.
No.
350,000.
That's amazing.
We don't work directly with those members.
We work with their parent structures.
But still, we have at any given day,
the ability to bring 400, 450,000 people to the table.
Indirectly.
We don't communicate directly.
We communicate through their structures.
That is like to see that number on YouTube.
Yes, for sure.
That might, that's a little bit more than the 12 listeners we have on a weekly basis.
Yeah.
I mean, that is a mate like just that number alone.
The 350,000 snowmobile, I never, I never would have thought of that.
But there's so much of the country that that is the primary form of recreation.
Six months out of the year that we're just not even conscious of.
Yeah.
That is, it's just that much more.
When you, when you try to put together those communities of, if we say like the off-road business,
the people inside your, your bubble, like off-roaders, old writers, rock crawlers, snowmobileers,
adventure bikes, you could even throw hikers and mountain bikers in there too, because they're on the trail system.
I mean, you're now with those just seven different communities.
You're now touching almost everybody in this country at some point.
That is the purpose.
We have to get the mess that we have to communicate.
It's not easy.
We started that program in 2014 in Reno, Nevada.
We invited the 50 top OHV groups from around the country to spend the day in Reno, and they created one voice.
Okay.
And so it was created from the, you know, the managers of the associations,
because they knew they needed to communicate better.
Yeah, and with, with all those different communities, there's got to be a way to,
to customize the message for each one of those communities and get it to where they are, right?
Because, because, uh, overlanders, for example, you get a good Instagram page on overland man.
You can touch just about every overlander in the world, because overlanders love the Instagram, right?
But I don't know that that's the same for snowmobileers or mountain bikers, or you know what I mean?
Every community has its chosen channel of, of, of media, and there's got to be a way to, to focus in on each one of those.
So that's where we look to folks like you and, and, you know, the martellies and the, the Cory sellers and, and the other folks like that,
Matt called well as great at communications.
But the other thing you need to remember, snow is only there for a while.
They park that snowmobile and go get on a quad, a dirt bike, or a UTV.
Do any one of you just do one thing?
Well, Matt doesn't do anything.
Matt wouldn't want to test less, so he officially hasn't done anything.
I have those things.
He's like, I have a dirt bike.
I have a four wheel drive truck.
They're all, but that's my point.
You don't do just one.
Yeah.

Well, let's think about that for a second.
Just, just as an opportunity to bash on Matt, he's got an off road truck that doesn't work.
A dirt bike that doesn't work and a mountain bike that doesn't work because you won't pedal it.
It probably has flat tires too.
So there's, there's my excuse.
So I love, not him now.
Now I have excuses.
They're all valid.

Yeah.
So I love that he doesn't do.
He doesn't not do just one thing.
He doesn't.
He not does everything.
Thank you.
Thank you guys.
Should we, should we, we start a go fund me page plan?
100%.
And then can you also fund somebody to fix those things?
Well, I'm going to say we'll put it in the general fund and the group.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love this general fund.
I got to, I got to, I got to,
Hey, grab out a finagle.

A general fund for me.
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I at the table here.
Right now my wife has access to our general fund.
And there's never generally gone.
It's gone.
And there's never anything in there.
And that's probably why nothing worked.
You're a world.
That's right.
Yes.
That's a,
That's a hundred percent.
Don't let me off.
Yeah.
Fred, there's nothing.
Well, I'm pretty good.
But we have to stop thinking about people as single users,
mm hmm.
You know, you could buy a Tesla.
Somebody said, I heard a Tesla.
Yeah.
I'd go to New York and a Tesla.
No, you're going to go home and get that jeep.
Yeah, by gas.
Yeah.

100%.
And I think that there's, if you look at those communities that we mentioned,
the off road overland rock crawler, snowmobile or mountainbiker, hiker,
like there's a venn diagram where they all come together in the middle.
They all need right outdoor recreation space.
They all need to go outside.
Yes.
They all need funding for these things to be available.
Yeah.
They all need a certain equipment that can be sold by certain companies that matches
everybody's needs.
Like, there's definitely the outdoor space community, even though snowboarders
in there, snowboarders and skiers.
The outdoor recreation community, while they're disparate in their chosen forms of
recreation, have a commonality that they all need to to be able to do what they do.
Exactly.
They got there somehow.
Mm hmm.
In that case, and road with me.
Some see.
Some somehow, I'll get back to it for wheeling my truck.
You know, it's just the general fund.
I'm already googling.
General fund.
General fund.
There you go.

I need to create your own.
Be creative with this.
And then, you know, you think you control the general fund.
I see.
You just figure out how you fill that general fund.
Mm hmm.
And I did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did from a certain person that I live with.
It might be related.
Don't say anything, Cody.
I won't say anything.
All right.
I just get 10% of general fund.
I think I did something earlier about life is about choice.
I feel like we can have Fred on weekly for counseling.
Like we need Fred to come on so we can share the stupid choices we made for the weakening
like guys.
Matt, you have a choice.
Can we talk about those eight now?
Oh, no, Matt.
Those eights made so many bad choices.
That's not even worth getting into.
Yeah.
Okay.
You still have hope.
You still have hope.
Oh, man.
She has had more hope than you.
There's another surprise.
We took on in 2019.
There's an organization called American Trails.
And it's made up of all different kinds of users.
But motorized had not been well represented.
So they asked us to come to Syracuse, New York in 2019.
And sponsor the motorized caucus to American Trails.
Was the largest attended caucus there?
We just did a follow-up in Reno.
Marcher April, I don't remember.
The motorized caucus again was the largest component with over 900 people attending.
This is agency people.
This is users.
This is organizer.
The motorized caucus is the most powerful caucus in recreation.
Because, and I'll tell you why that is.
Because 80% of us are lazy.
And we want to get out into the world.
But we don't want to pedal or run to do it.
Right.
I'm sure.
Men are what you're riding.
You may be peddling.
And I want you to come up.
Yeah.
More than once.
I've had to pedal myself out of a situation.
The opportunity is out there to do a tremendous amount of good work.
The window is very narrow.
We have an administration change possibly in 2024.
We don't know what that looks like yet.
But having the leadership and the air of the leadership now in the house gives us that place to have the conversation.
So my job today is to push that forward.
And I can't.
You're doing one of those.
You're doing something that is like.
It's black box.
It's not seen.
Nobody knows it's happening.
It's happening in the background.
And 90% of us don't even think about it.
12 people know about it.
Yeah.
But my point is it's it's like it's one of those things that you're doing that is extremely critical for us to be able to continue what we're doing.
And I think you and your organization for doing that for us.
You got the deals are all made in the back rooms and in the hallway.
Mm-hmm.
I get the public enough.
I just can't we can't bring everybody in because most people can't be quiet.
Yeah.
I can see that.
Some of us have behavioral issues too.
Like you would want them to be in those situations.
Why not?
Just don't curse words around.
Yeah.
Basically.
You got to have appropriate language skills.
Yeah.
You can't just go profanity.
We don't have that.
We don't have that at all.
You guys have been good.
You guys have been great.
It's been very hard to do.
Yeah.
We're the best.
We're a little bit free.
It's like a lot of students.
As soon as you get off the phone, these guys are going to have a Tourette spell and just lose their
way.
See, all of the words that they've been holding in for the last two hour.
Last hour and a half.
But you got to please your audience for sure.
First time, you know.
The world.
The world.
We're going to be.
We'll let you know.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, you're still on, aren't you?
Yes.
We are 277 episodes in and no one's running out of tune yet.
I mean, that's got to speak for itself.
Just like us.
You know, we're still here.
We're still fighting.
We have certain models for certain place.
We're not giving up my lab.
We're going to keep wheeling and riding in my lab.
One way or the other.
I don't know how to get it all there yet, but we're going to do it.
Well, if there's anything we can do to help.
If there's any way, we can help get the word out or participate in any way.
Please let us know.
Please let our listeners know.
We will, again, we are, we greatly appreciate the work that you guys are doing.
And because we get the benefit of all of those efforts.
And this has been an amazing conversation.
And I really appreciate your time and willingness to share all of this with us.
Before we let you go for the night, where's the best place for people to go?
And what can they do to support your efforts?
So just go to the orbital website.
Take a look at everything.
If you have any questions, there's a way to connect through the website to myself.
And if it's not, if it's something the staff needs to connect with else.
And then, but somebody will get back to you.
And it's, it's about knowledge, what we know, what we can do.
And again, I want to thank all of you for tonight too.
This has been a blast.
I've done several of these and this has been fun.
No.
Thank you.
See, here's, here's the thing.
We're not very smart.
We're not very smart.
So we have to make up for it with comedy.
And even then we're not very good at it.
Is that what this is?
So I told you guys, I've done part of my job for today, right?
100%.
You sold me and all 12 of the listeners.
I haven't been paying attention to the chat room, but I see how they're laughing.
So I know there's been a lively chat room today.
Just put it out there.
They want us to say caucus again.
Because they're, because they're 12 year old boys.
Exactly.
They're very excited about caucus.
They're all chat room.
Junior high.
Which is why they look it up.
This is why they listen to us.
Yes.
Exactly.
They're spelling it correctly though.
Yeah.
They know exactly what it means, but how do Google it?
Well, Fred.
You've got to find a place to tell your story and do your work.
And that's really where our talent is and then figure out what the plan is.
And whatever we can do to help get that plan realized and tell the story and reach out,
please do not hesitate to contact us.
We want to support what you're doing as much as we possibly can.
We'll do.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you so much, Fred.
You have a great night.
We would like to thank Outdoor by Form Magazine for their continued support.
Please do us a favor and go over to OutdoorX4.com and check out their content.
Use the code Trail Chasers to get a discount on your subscription.
We promise you're going to love it.
Hey, don't forget to come out to Cape Toyota on July 9th, 2023 for the key adventure grand opening.
We will be there having some fun on the mics.
Doing what we do.
There's going to be raffles and giveaways and a ton of fun.
You can find out all the details and the homepage of Trail Chasers.net.
Alright, thanks to Fred for that conversation.
He was one of the most educated and well-thought-out articulate person.
People that's been on this show and he will regret.
We're sorry for bringing you to answer.
He definitely lost a peg by being on this show for sure.
He probably had a lot of pegs though.
Yeah.
He's been into pegs.
He's got pegs to lose.
Okay, I got a message from my wife a little bit ago who's traveling.
She said, you guys need to talk about the grimace shake trend on TikTok.
Does anybody know what this is?
I don't know what it is.
No, we don't.
That's what I said.
Why?
There's a grimace shake.
I don't know what the grimace shake is.
And she said,
I don't imagine it's like a fucking shake that's colored.
Look, color is green.
Purple.
Come on.
It's a matter with you.
She's shameful.
Look, a matter with me is that I don't know what color a fucking grimace.
Exactly.
Number one.
I don't know what's worse.
The fact that Casey doesn't know what color grimace is or the fact that we all
know what color grimace is.
So apparently people drink a grimace shake and then show pictures of them
so throwing up all over themselves and laying on the floor.
Oh, that's what that.
Okay, that depends on that picture.
Yeah, I'm looking at it.
I don't know.
I just, I just, I just, I just,
I'll read into there.
Uh, yes, that, is that what we do?
Can we go viral if we do that?
I've been doing that with shamrock shakes for years.
Dude, that's just another Friday night and that's what the show is.
That's a purple, it's a purple, it's a purple shake from McDonald's.
Look, that's what happens.
Is there up in it?
Yeah.
That was mean, yeah, yeah.
It's like, yeah, yeah.
It's, yeah, you're in it.
It's, anytime I, anything dairy.
That's what happens to me.
It's just, but usually both ends.
I didn't know that was popular.
You didn't know, yeah, you didn't know you were a trend setter on TikTok.
I'll take photos.
No, thank you.
Here I am, guys.
Oh, man.
Million views.
That, yeah, we, we need to research it and, and find out.
I don't think so.
I don't think at all.
There's, there's like, there's like, no, it's more of like a dumb trend.
It's like, it's like planking.
Remember that?
Oh, yes.
I do remember that flashmobbs.
Yes.
Now, planking was better.
That was like, some people got hurt doing that.
Oh, that way.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And that was from that perspective.
We like it.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's a three-minder in, uh, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve days.
We'll be at Cape Toyota in Long Beach, launching the new Cape Adventure store.
Uh, the four of us are going to be there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, do they have the four of us are going to be there?
Uh, on the microphone.
Apparently, Jose may have something better to do that day.
What?
What?
The, uh, what is it?
The ninth.
It's been on the, so listeners.
Listeners.
Let me share something with you.
Do they accommodate?
Let's go.
Let's go.
I got a jersey on it.
My shirt.
Where?
I swear to you.
I put shit in email form and text form and on calendar invites.
And none of these guys pay attention.
You did.
You recently did.
You were the only one that accepted the trail run invite for September.
Oh, well, I didn't.
Because I don't know.
I don't know.
In case.
I didn't see it.
I'm pretty sure I did.
Okay.
Uh, yeah.
These guys are the worst.
Can Jose call in to the caveman.
And we put him on a tablet.
Like the episode of the gang theory.
Yeah.
We're just wheels around.
The demolition man.
Uh, are one Toyota.
We're going to be at the Toyota.
Yeah.

Exactly.
The one, the one Toyota guy is not going to be at Cape Toyota.
Is that what I'm hearing?
I'll be there.
Okay.
I also asked earlier.
Do they accommodate Teslas there?
Is there a place?
You should probably meet here and drive with me.
That's.
We're not going to have that bullshit there.
I'm not feeling that dealing with your bullshit.
I'm sorry guys.
Is there a place where I could plug in?
Uh, you can put it by the booth and plug our bridges in for it.
Oh, that's.
Yeah.
That's good point.
Uh, he could.
He could back it up to the story and use one of the Titan packs and keep
in charge of it.
In between those like lones when there's not that many people.
If that happens, we can hop in and play video games.
That's short sound.
We need to have fart sounds when you hit the horn.
No.
No.
All the kids love it.
No.
I'll love it.
That was a hell of it.
The, so yeah, it's from 8 to noon.
I don't know if you guys saw, but there was a really good, very well thought out
and an executed social media commercial that went out for the.
Yeah.
That got, I may have lines that it.
That got some fantastic feedback.
Critical acclaim.
It was really good.
If you haven't seen it go to the Trail Chaser's Reels and see how cool that is.
The, the advertising caucus really liked the work I did.
Cockas.
No.
Cockas.
I'm not cockas.
What are we going to present our caucuses to look like Matt has a.
Matt has a caucus story, but it's spelled differently.
Yes.
It's the funniest story I've ever heard in my life.
It's pretty fucking fun.
We're not going to play it here.
I think we've done it on the show before.
That's a campfire conversation.
The only way you get been talked about.
I know.
But you'd have to go back and find it.
I don't even know when we've talked about it.
If you want that story, you have to be at the campfire to hear it because it's that funny.
And it needs to be going to campfire.
I don't know.
Can I get a ride to the campfire?
I'm going to ride to Cape Toyota.
Can I get rides to campfire now?
Yeah.
Dave Frazier.
So the guy that tells you his card doesn't take gas needs rides.
Yep.
That's, he's, hey, that's how you save his money.
You can just get another people dig in places.
He's saving money.
He's saving money.
I haven't bought gas in a month.
How's that?
How's that for?
I still, you know what I like doing?
Because I still stop by the gas station for like, of course you do.
And I like pulling up to to the gas pump in an electric car.
It's pretty great.
Because then if I break up to the gas pump,
I look around and see if somebody's like,
Mother fuck yes.
If I pulled up to get, if I was sitting there waiting for a gas pump
and a test that was parked there,
I would run right into the back of that thing.
I don't even care.
I would, I would, oh man, I would murderle you.
So keep an eye out for him to black Tesla.
Oh man, I lied to me.
That would be that would be the worstest.
Um, so we see all those postings like,
ooh, Tesla, look at this bullshit.
And it's like a line of tests is waiting for the to plug in somewhere.
I don't know, never do that.
Well, I'm just returning the favor.
Yeah.
I'm talking to Tesla.
He's about to put these on his car.
Yeah.
I would be so angry.
I would be, I would be furious.
Um, so Dave Frazier asked the question that you make sure you mad.
Yeah.

You're completely late lately, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The fuse is getting shorter.
Is there?
Yes.
Like, oh, there's a fuse.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just always lit.
It's like, it's like, it's like, you need your caucuses a lot.
You think your caucuses?
Like, caucuses.
Like, caucuses.
Chakras and caucuses.
The chakra caucus.
Oh, shit.
We are, we are 15 year olds.
That I swear to you.
That's I tell him.
It's like men, men's, it's a humor.
Peaks at like 15, 16, and it never really evolves from there.
It just gets dirtier because you get older and you can say more things.
That's the, the reality.
Um, I don't know what's, what's the difference between the two of us?
No, what's, what's the, uh, I'm looking at our calendar.
I don't, I don't, I don't see anything really going on the weekend of the 22nd.
Um, so maybe, maybe.
Maybe something over a fourth of July we can.
Yeah.
I think it's the day run.
Yeah.
Maybe maybe the first and second.
What do I feel like there's something going on?
Maybe the first and second.
Yeah.
It's America's birthday on the fourth, not on the first.
I was thinking the second or third.
Um, do you, I don't know if I had the day off on the third.
Yeah.
You guys suck it.
I couldn't help it.
Yeah.
I was like, that's fucked up.
But I can't laugh it.
You know, it is fucked up.
But it's also very funny that I'm still unemployed.
Uh, the, uh, so yeah, maybe that weekend.
Um, I know, I know the, that's this weekend.
Holy shit.
That is this weekend.
That's this weekend.
That's the third.
That's what happens.
I mean, fucking a week from now.
Yeah.
Right.
Uh, all right.
Well, we can talk offline and figure out if we're going to do something
a day run, where would, where do you want to go, case?
Um, I don't know.
I was going to do something close to home for me.
Rattle snake Canyon, white mountain, something like that.
Yeah.
Big bear, big bear.
I call it a white mountain.
Um, because yeah.
I don't know.
The, uh, we could potentially do a big bear day run this weekend.
Uh, anybody in the chat room interested in the big bear day run this weekend?
Uh, it goes right or my come out again.
I don't know.
You're going, oh, I would pay to see you ride that bike through, uh, white mountain.
Are those?
Oh, my God.
I, no, you know what, actually, I would not pay for you to do.
No, because he'd be, uh, please don't be a triac.
Yeah.
You'd break something.
Really?
Um, you saw how I'm going to try this.
I'm going to try this.
And I'm going to drag and air back.
He needs one of those inflatable vests that inflates every time you fall down.
Those are one.
Oh, no, you got to just refill them with the little.
The CO2.
Yeah.
But then you got to pack it all back again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Just inflated the.
Yeah.

I'm just driving.
It's inflated.
So Tim, Tim says with Cody, Tim and chat room says with Cody everything is getting shorter.
Jokes on you.
It's always been short.
It doesn't matter.
Just your wrongs are.
Yes, you're absolutely absolutely wrong.
You're wrong.
Uh, so the, I think, I think a big bear, a big bear day run.
This weekend would be fun.
We'll, we'll talk about it offline to see if it makes sense for everybody.
Uh, Jose with his new social schedule.
It's really hard to tell if he's available.
And then Matt doesn't have anything to drive.
So basically case.
What's my new social schedule?
Yes.
Yes.
I'm going to be going on a different.
Uh, what's, so Jose, what's your social schedule been filled up with lately?
No, we're talking about it.
I know.
Or what have you been filling up with?
What are you social caucusing like, caucuses?
Social caucus.
Social caucus.
So stupid.
So stupid.
So, so stupid.
So.
So.
Dave says Monday would be perfect.
If we're chat room caucus voting.
And chat room caucus.
The chat room is no longer the chat room.
It's the, it's the, it's the YouTube caucus from now on.
I just, I just hope and pray that Fred does not have.
I said.
You know, you know, how many, how many interviews we've had.
So here's, here's what I think happened.
This is, this is a total theory.
When we have an interview that's like off the, off the reservation, like,
funny, curse words are second segment is, is fairly melodic.
We got out of our system.
When we have a serious, yes, when we have a serious interview with someone that's, that's,
got it, something to talk about or like professional, professional in some way.
As soon as they're off the phone, the flood gates open.
It's stupidity.
Just pommets out of our mouths.
It's the dumbest.
I hear.
And there's so many times.
There's been times where we've had people on the show where I'm like,
Oh my God.
I feel like that was an amazing interview.
I am so excited.
And then I was like, fuck you bullshit.
Like immediately.
And I'm like, why are we ruining this?
But that's just who we are.
It's, it's, it's absolutely who we are.
Um, so, uh, chatroom caucus possibly this weekend.
I will put some notifications out if that's what we're going to happen.
Um, uh, Big Bear.
And Big Bear probably won't be too bad.
This fucking pack.
It's really packed.
I was just going to say no.
I'll say, whether wise.
Oh, no.
It's probably been amazing weekend.
Yeah.
Mid mid 90s in Fontana.
I believe so.
It's going to be like 70s.
No.
No, it's not.
Big Bear Lake says it's going to be 87 on Saturday, 84 on Sunday and 83 on Monday.
Coming at you.
I was like, pull the other to me.
Yeah.
So it's, it's, uh, it's 77, 72 today, 71, 77 and then Friday.
Boom, it shoots up to 84, 87 on Saturday, 84 again on Sunday, 83 on Monday.
Okay.
Um, it sounds like, uh, it sounds like people are, uh, pushing for Monday.
Are you guys working on Monday?
Dude, like everybody in the office is putting in for Monday to have Monday off.
And so this is like one of those, I want to take Wednesday off.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's going to be a shit show.
Monday is rookie hour.
So I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.
I'm going to go in Monday and there's nobody, nobody's going to be there.
It's going to be that those are the days that you actually go in.
And you get some work done.
You actually get some work done.
And nobody's like pulling you aside.
It's like quiet.
Uh, and then, you know, cut out a little early.
Maybe because the holiday.
Mm-hmm.
And then attention.
Yeah.
And then you take Wednesday off.
So I'm probably going to take that Wednesday off.
Okay.
Doesn't matter.
You're not going to go wheeling on Monday anymore.
I know.
No.
So yeah, maybe maybe my outlet.
I'll let people know through the normal channels if we're going to do it.
Are you available Monday, Jose?
Ah, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't have anything planned this weekend.
Okay.
As of now.
Oh, just the weekend.
We have actually something going on.
Yeah, because his social caucus is also available on the weekend.
Social caucus.
I like it.
I like that.
Because you said you were wrong.
You actually say it wrong.
No.
It makes sense.
You're wrong.
You just got to think about that.
What is it?
I don't know.
I can't imagine social caucus.
I can't.
I think I ran into some social caucus down in LA.
A couple years ago.
I was driving there.
I think about that committee.
It's in 19.
It's like.
It's like social caucus going down downtown.
That's for sure.
The other is stupid.
What else is going on?
Anything.
Any other.
That conversations like that when people at work go, oh, should I
down on the podcast?
Yes.
No.
No.
We were talking about this earlier.
When we tell people like, yeah.
Oh, you're on a podcast.
Yeah, but you shouldn't listen.
We're being like, oh, he's trying to be funny.
No, please don't listen.
I was on a job interview for a position that I'm trying to get.
And the HR lady was like, oh, I saw the you have a podcast.
I haven't listened to it yet.
I said, please don't.
Please.
Please don't.
I really want this job.
I do not need you listening to the podcast and judging me on.
I want to tell people.
I'm on a podcast.
It's a.
There.
Some of the jobs I was applying for.
It was on my resume as part of the.
The creative marketing and producing things.
And then I.
I have like six resumes depending on what I'm applying for.
So on some of the other ones, I take it off, but it's still on my LinkedIn profile.
So it's it's pretty easy to find.
So at the office, you know, you guys know, I have those baseball cards of me.
Like, yeah, yeah.
On a damn.
Don't you can't.
Yeah, and I found.
Yeah, I handed out like five.
They gave me 50.
So like, why do we have one?
Yeah, I don't know.
Why is that not your avatar?
Yeah, well, every social every year.
I'm going to have like a trail changed for sure.
A map.
Yes, a map.
I'd be red.
So in 70 style baseball.
That's right.
Like, it's pretty sweet.
And so one day I just went in.
The day before I think I handed out a bunch of trailchaser stickers to the guys, like,
Hey, there you go.
They put them on their helmet.
It's like it's cool.
And then I just like and idiot like,
Hey, guys, that baseball card's too.
And I signed them like, like, I was, you know, met the hammer.
You know, they've since blown up that baseball card to like, yeah, do you see?
You say yourself, you know what?
It's good.
Because I use it as like a, you know, oh, I see.
Especially in the sheet metal guys.
They just have, you know, I can't even say the things they have on their wall.
Yeah.
I'll go and come.
How come my baseball card moved lower than that?
You know, the picture of that, the McLeod calendar?
Yes.
Or there was an old photo of like somebody like him kind of like a show up
Those are something.
You know, it's like, how come I'm below him now?
Oh, no.
He just said some really funny cool shit.
You know, or whatever.
So there's every time I go in there, like I notice that it's like,
How I'm viewed.
Am I good?
This week with the guys are not judging on how high.
It's like a wall, a rating wall.
So yeah, I'm sure that there's plenty of things on the sheet metal.
Oh my god.
I can't.
I don't even want to say it because it's hilarious.
There's plenty of people.
After afterward, afterward, I'll say it.
I'll say it like some of this stuff.
No.
No.
Okay.
Well, then I mean, we don't we don't really have a lot of other than the the grimacek and the cave adventure thing and caucuses.
We didn't have really much else planned for this evening.
So what about next week?
What about next week?
We're not doing a show.
Yeah, I intentionally didn't schedule an interview for the fourth because of that because of the.
If I won't be right if you want, you can interview me.
Well, I full side chat.
See how that talks chat.
We may caucus chat.
We may.
We may be able to pull something together or do like a best of clips, but I don't know if I have time to do it.
And I'm not being sarcastic.
I've got other things I got going on.
I like the list.
A clips, shoot me the list.
I'll see if I can pull together.
Okay.
I don't think you've sent it to me yet.
I thought I did.
Maybe you did.
I don't know.
That's when he was riding stuff down. He's like, I have it right here.
Yeah, now everything's good.
I have it on my phone right here.
Bro, okay.
I don't do.
I don't even do paper.
Jose, I electric vehicles and digital,
note taking Microsoft one.
So Microsoft, what?
What the hell is that?
What's that?
One note.
One note.

One note.
I was holding off to see if he caught that.
You're like, the actual OS one.
Yeah.
It's a version one.
What was the, what was the Microsoft one that the Microsoft OS that was year in a room?
It was the, the interface was a picture.
The desktop was a picture of like your room, your office.
And like if you wanted to get your documents,
you had to go click on the document.
No, you don't remember that?
Oh, it's like the the biggest failure in operating system history.
Anyways, is that why you don't use Microsoft?
No, that was before my time.
That was even before my time.
I, I, XP was kind of the beginning of my,
my Windows time.
No, I said, we had a Commodore 128 in in high school when I was a kid.
I was going to go back to Atari 26.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I had one of those.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, since we got all of the junior high school humor out of our system in the last 20 minutes.
Uh, I think that we are done for the evening.
Thank you to Fred for joining us.
Again, come out to the Cape Toyota event on July 9th.
And if anybody's interested in going wheeling, you know how to find me.
I'll let you know what's going to happen.
Have a happy fourth.
Have a happy fourth.
Everybody be safe.
Come, come home with all of your digits.
You guys want to see a war zone.
Go to Fontana.

It's already started, actually.

It has.

I feel like over the next couple days here.
It's going to start and it's going to piss me off.
So.
All right.
Thank you.
Just don't love America enough.
Um, I do.
I just don't love America as much.
I just don't.
Well, it's not America's birthday on the 30th.
But you can start celebrating.
Like absolutely.
It's like October fast.
Like they're already starting to August.

Yeah.
Start now.
Yeah.
You know, the things get a whole month.
Why not why not to, you know,
Fourth of July.
Yeah.
Why don't we celebrate America's.
Why don't you celebrate America's birthday.
Apparently I'm going to Huntington to celebrate America's birthday this year.
Oh, my God.
Not my choice.
All right, everybody.
Thank you for joining us in the chat room.
Thank you to Fred and we'll talk to you next week.
We would like to thank outdoor by four magazine for their continued support.
Please do us a favor and go to outdoorxfor.com and check out their content.
Hey, thank you so much for listening to this episode.
We appreciate it.
You can find more episodes at trailchasers.net.
You can follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.
We are the trailchasers on most of those social platforms.
And we are on irateforbyfor.com.
You can go down to the watch, listen, and discuss section and listen to all of our episodes
and interact with us.
Please go check it out and tell us what do you think.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to everyone that participates and listens to this show every week.
On Tuesday nights, we have a bunch of people in the chat room that are there.
They're making fun of us and we love it.
We love having you guys there.
Thank you to everybody that comes on the trail runs with us.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you to all of our past and current patrons and everybody that supports us on the trailchasers
support team at irateforbyfor.com.
We really appreciate all of your support and it keeps us going.
Thank you to Ryan to Rigno for all of the music on the show.
He's got a new album coming out.
You can find that at RyanTurrigno.com.
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Check it out, give them some support.
We appreciate it.

Ep 276: Frank Gonnello (@froncobronco)

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's Podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Outdoor by Form Magazine.
The team and Outdoor by Four puts together a uniquely engaging publication for responsible
vehicle-based adventure travel.
With family-friendly content that resonates with all types of adventures, whether you're
going to four by four vehicles, on two wheels or traveling by foot.
Go over to OutdoorX4.com to subscribe to the magazine, either print or digital, to catch
all of their 100% original and unbiased content.
This episode is also brought to you by Cave Adventure located in the Cave Toyota dealership
in Long Beach, California.
Cave Adventure is your one-stop shop for all your off-road and overland needs.
Suspension, armor, camping gear is all available for you to touch and feel in their newly
built showroom.
The Trail Chaser's team will be hosting the Cave Adventure Grand Opening event on July 9th
from ADM to noon.
Please come out to Long Beach and join us for the festivities.
There's going to be raffles and giveaways and deals and other fun stuff to do.
You can find all the details at TrailChaser's.net.
Today on the show, we talked to Frank Gonello, aka Franco Bronco on the Grand.
First we get into his career as an attorney for PlayStation and of course I take that opportunity
to ask him if my hashtagging ideas and products are legally binding.
I think he said he'd look into it and get back to me.
Then we talk about his awesome Instagram account at Franco Bronco.
If you want some amazing photography, Broncos and just some great scenery, you've got to check
him out.
For some reason, we get into the Renfair and what we'd wear there and what kind of jobs
we'd have back then weird.
Star Trek Thongs.
Yeah, and look, I'm going to have a thought thongs come up.
Frank said that his mom's listening, Mom, please, I apologize, I've front.
You should stop listening when your son gets off the show.
I'm going to tell you that right now, all moms should stop listening, listen to your
at that point.
Thanks Frank.
Love me man.
Hey everybody, it is Tuesday night at 6.30.
We are live on YouTube as we are on Tuesday nights.
This week we are joined in the video chat room by Frank Gonella.
You know Gonello.
You know him as Franco Bronco on Instagram.
How are you doing?
I'm doing excellent.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for joining Jose and I were introduced to Frank at Oberland Expo.
We kind of like bum rushed him with Jason from outdoor by four.
Started having a chat and then somehow convinced him to be on the show.
He told us he was on the Anderson Oberland show and I told him this is much more of
a step down from there so we set expectations so that he's not going to be too disappointed
by the end of this.
Well we hope it's going to be disappointing for everybody involved.
So we talked earlier about year up in Northern California.
That's right.
San Francisco Bay Area.
I'm not up there for probably six or seven years.
Well that's right.
Matt is a being a diehard Dodger fan hates everything San Francisco especially after
you guys kick her ass this week.
I'm still hurt by it.
But you're not originally from the Bay Area, right?
Yeah and I moved out there mostly for career opportunities.
I've been moving around the country but I originally from New Jersey actually I hate to
talk about it but it's a lot of people are furred to as the Jersey Shore so that's actually
where I grew up in many, many summers.
So I didn't watch that show.
Did you pay attention to it at all when it was on?
No I actively made sure I didn't watch it.
Watch the activity.
Well that was going to ask if it was at all an accurate representation of your teenage
years.
That was my autobiography.
Yeah it's an accurate representation of the people that would come down to visit every
summer.
That's the thing.
So a lot of people don't realize that's not really what the Jersey Shore is like.
It's what the people from New York and Northern New Jersey are like when they let loose
on the weekends down in the summer months.
Yeah that's similar to any other tourist location you're like Huntington Beach or some
of these other locations where people go down and have it.
Hammett, all the shenanigans occur that the locals are like, come on man, you're ruining
it for the rest of us.
How long have you been in Narkau?
I'd say about six or seven years.
No one.
I moved out there for just doing some career moves.
I was doing privacy law at PlayStation that's actually what drove me out there.
So I'm a attorney by day and Bronco photographer and adventure on the weekends.
So okay hold on.
We have totally been impacted.
You got, I hope you got time here.
So privacy law at PlayStation.
Is that the, you write the, the user agreement at the front of the, when you first
log in that nobody reads, is that what we're talking about?
It's the second one that nobody reads.
It's the privacy policy that was involved with for that one.
So it's PlayStation, it's that they have something like 90 million users and a ton of
information that the consoles collect about what people are doing, how they're playing
games, how we market to them.
It was a, it was a very interesting job and I was also, I've been a gamer, I whole life
just the video game nerd and really fanboyed out when I got the job to be able to work
on the PlayStation 5 before it came out and being in the know on some of the cool stuff
that was coming out.
I still play games pretty often.
I think we're, you had mentioned something about the charity work that I do and we'll
probably circle back to the video game thing because that has a big part of it.
But yeah, I worked at PlayStation.
It was a fun time and then a few years later, I ended up changing jobs to cruise.
Which is a self-driving car company in San Francisco.
And that's been a lot of fun too, a lot of very different topics.
But I've kind of transitioned from a privacy focus role, the more general product counseling,
the more all expansive kind of view and issue-spotting and as you could probably suspect
robot cars driving the streets of San Francisco with members of the microchristers.
No shortage of legal issues.
I have jobs already for quite a while.
That sounds like a movie.
Yeah.
You know, the robot cars of San Francisco.
So does someone have to go to school for that or is that like a, you can put something on
a resume like I worked at Trader Joe's and now you're a privacy lawyer.
How does that?
What's involved there?
Yeah, a lot of school and a lot of student debt, that's how you can get the job.
Okay.
All right.
They say it'll all work out in the end.
So I'm waiting to see.
So the people in the chat room are already saying that you're going to sue us once
the show drop.
And it's a good thing I'm unemployed.
I have no money.
So how long, when did you graduate from school and how long you've been doing this?
I graduated from law school in 2012 and, you know, it's been a, it's been quite a journey
to be honest, I didn't start off doing the privacy law stuff.
I actually started doing criminal defense law, maybe I'll come in handy for some of you
guys.
I know.
We quit talking to ourselves.
Everybody in the chat room keep his number, keep his number, Casey specifically.
Yeah.
It was a, at, at the time that I graduated law school was actually really, uh, lost, a
law career recession, um, a lot of law jobs, legal jobs were kind of drying up.
The big firms were not, uh, having, like, summer associate position, summer intern type
roles.
And it, it became pretty difficult.
So I needed to get a job or I was getting some kind of legal experience.
And I did a criminal defense stuff through a connection.
I knew how to build websites and the, uh, particular defense firm.
They did a lot of internet marketing.
They're kind of at the forefront of paper, click and SEO optimization.
They needed somebody who could help build websites gather more volume of cases.
And in return, they let me kind of spin out and do a field of law under their umbrella
that I couldn't kind of pursue my own path.
And it was kind of another standing that I wasn't going to be there, you know, forever.
But they let me kind of pursue the technology side, uh, and the privacy worlds, where I started
to get into.
And that's what led to some different moves after that.
So the, uh, first, first one, we have to ask if when we hashtag something, if that's
legally binding, we have a rule here.
But if we come up with a great idea, because we get free interpretation of what
a hashtag, we come up with a great idea.
We go hashtag, I own that idea hashtag, you can't do it hashtag pattern.
Is that legally binding?
Is that intellectual property at that point?
I want to nickel everything.
Also, Frank, I also do the, uh, like quotations of their quotes.
Yeah.
So it's, uh, yes.
They can hear a lot of accidents.
That's, yeah.
That's, that's a big one in the, in the, in the league.
Oh, so you're on her, he didn't mean to steal the car, uh, he, it was an accident.
Uh, so when you, when you, when you, when you started the path in, uh, the, the
law career, did you, did you, did you know what Mitch in law that you wanted to go into
or was that you were just, you knew you wanted to go into law and you were trying to figure
that part out?
Uh, no, it's beyond us, I just knew I wanted to do, uh, nerd shit.
As I was a sweet.
I was a nerd.
I was a geek.
Um, we didn't, you say, was like, it's, like, it's no longer a thing.
That's fair.
I am, and I, yes, I, I, I need to, you know, still work on that, that, that acceptance.
Um, no, you don't, no, you don't, you don't, geeks rule the world dude.
That, like, you're significantly younger, not significantly younger than I am.
Don't get into spreadsheets.
I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you're significantly younger than I am, and there
was a point in time when I was younger that, like, I tried to hide my nerd them and my geek,
my geekosity, and then over time, like, that, when they're with the computers and the
internet and marvel and all the other stuff with the computers, computers and stuff, computers
and stuff, then damn, computer machines, nerds were all the world dude, you, you, you, you
embrace it.
Just, you know, Frank, um, this, uh, Cody's very famous for building a spreadsheet to go play
golf with.
He honestly thought he was gonna, you know what, yes, he insured it, and now I still
saw it.
So here's what I did.
He just played him.
Here's what I did.
I know, I would just, I'm like, in a just and as his shots, he just, I would, I would
do the driving rage, and I hit multiple, like, like, a full bucket of balls with a
specific club, and I went, okay, my average on that club is this, and I put those
averages into a spreadsheet so that I could use, okay, this is how far away I am on average.
I hit my five iron this far.
I'm gonna use the bar metrics.
It didn't work.
I suck just as bad.
I'm still, and then after you got done, you tried to money ball your shot on 25.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't take into account the fact that I shank every fourth
swing.
So that maybe there is something you could sell your spreadsheet story, uh, a la money
ball, but just call it something else.
It's like, you don't know, Steve Buschammy.
So your time in the criminal law side, did you enjoy that or were you like, okay, this
is like, this is a good thing for a while, I need to get out.
It was enjoyable.
In the sense that I got a lot of very interesting stories, uh, you know, the clientele
is a lot different than, uh, the way things are now in the professional world, uh, like
corporate law, in-house, working, you know, with your own company, your own team.
Uh, I did enjoy the fact that I got a lot of opportunity there, uh, you know, in all
seriousness, it was, uh, it was a tough time to find those kinds of jobs.
And I got to go the day that I got sworn in, uh, you know, and received my permission
from the court system to go appear and court and represent people.
That day, I was handed three vanilla folders and was sent off to three different municipal
courts to just go start doing it.
Um, of course, they were the three furthest courts from the office, you know, in the state
of New Jersey because I was the newest guy, but, you know, it's a right of passage and just
something you have to do.
Yeah.
I was still grateful for the opportunity.
I thought I was going to say, I got three envelopes full of money.
We had two things to take care of.
Did you, did you, at any point, did you open up that vanilla folder and go, oh, shit.
I got to defend the like, oh, man, he's guilty.
I know he's guilty.
Yeah.
You did it.
You know you did it.
First off, they're all guilty.
Uh, it's a guy that shows up to his court date and the journey that he's accused
of stealing.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
Honestly, God, I've had maybe in three years of doing it, and I've told his story
before it's the truth in three years.
I think I had maybe one client who actually adamantly told me that he really wasn't
responsible for the thing that he was being charged with.
And that person actually was telling the truth.
He ended up proving it through a camera system that, you know, the business next door to
the nightclub that he was outside of when this incident occurred.
And so in that sense, everyone else never even tried to tell me that he didn't do anything.
You know, there was nothing about the police report.
So I'm not, I'm not saying it like, you know, people who say they're innocent aren't
really.
I'm saying nobody that I help with actually playing it.
So they're like, all right, look, man, how do I get out of this?
I know I did it.
You know, I did it.
Is there any way you can convince them that I didn't do it?
Yeah, I mean, if, you know, I had to have this conversation with my family, my grandma,
in particular, who a